Town Council - Regular Meeting

Um, I'd like to call to order the January 2026 meeting of the Edward Town Council. If you would stand for the pledge maneuver on that.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. you would pause just for a moment um and reflect on those who have been affected by gun violence in the last month whether it's local or national and also um for the fathers of Rob Pick Rob Picket um he is doing poorly but Rob went down to see him in Florida so that's why he's not with us this evening and Katherine Tanner's father who uh passed away this morning so please keep them in your thoughts. Thank you,

Mrs. Walsh. May we have roll call, please? Yes. Mike Reed, present. Shane Briggs, present. Patty Baron, present. Arthur Lee, here. Kurt Baron, here. Robin Picket, absent.

Thank you. Okay, this evening we have um the accountant Michelle Scheme for um the Ed Town of Edgewood LLC which is the Edgewood facility and um she has end of year statistics that she would like to share those with us. Michelle, Madam President, council members, thank you for having me back. As always, I have a packet for you. Let's take a pass.

[snorts]

Okay. So, in your packet there are four documents. The first is the balance sheet. The next one is a profit and loss by class report for the year. And the third sheet is a profit and loss comparative for the year. And the last the last um packet the last sheet in your packet is a profit loss by class for 2024. I'm not going to go over that, but I put that in your packet if you'd like to look at that and compare the 2025 year end report that you have. So I'm going to start with the balance sheet first item in your packet. And I just want to point out our overall cash position at the end of December was $54,581. This is compared to $170,186 at the end of 2024. That is $116,80 reduction. Um, we have some new assets that we added to the books this year. If you will see toward uh the middle bottom of this page, we added a cart path for $65,1935. If you turn the page, we also bought a new mower for $28,453.66. And we installed we've installed some security cameras. The project's not complete for $3,178.52. That project will be completed in January. At toward the bottom of this second page, you'll see note payable town of $197.30. That is remaining note for utilities that the town helped the club pay when they first opened. If you turn the page, we have three long-term liabilities. We have got a note payable to DLL Finance for golf carts. The balance at

the end of this year is $104,72.68. That comprises of a four payment per year amount of $6,141. The next note underneath that to first merchants are the old golf carts. The balance of $88,990. That is an annual payment of $23,000. It's due in March. And this last note is for the town for the $35,000 that they loaned to the club for the cart path. [clears throat and snorts] Does anyone have any questions before I roll to the next report? Okay, let's go to profit and loss by class for the year for 2025. Should be the next report in your packet. So, at the top of this page, you can see we've got golf, pool, and pub. There's very little activity on the pool for the year. Golf has generated $446,36. The restaurant and pub has generated $547,841 for an overall total for the year of $9.95 25037. Cost of goods sold golf we have 113,915. For the club we have 169,730 for a total of 283 64557. Brings us to gross profits. So the golf course has gross profit at 332,390. [clears throat] The club has profited 37811. overall gross profit of $711,64.80. So, I'm not going to go down through each and every one of these expense items unless there's something in particular you might have a question about.

But where I would like to do is just turn the page [clears throat] and I would like to talk about our total expenses. So for golf, our total expenses are 237,443. For the club, it's 426,812. For an overall total expense count of 672,729, which gives us to operating income for golf, it's 94,947. And for the restaurant pub, it's a loss of 48,793. That is an overall net operating income of $38,874. Now the other stuff, the paper stuff, the depreciation and the interest. After depreciation and interest expense, we are going to show a overall net loss of golf of 10,46 and the restaurant of 63731 for a total of 81,1484. [clears throat] There's still some depreciation expense I'm going to be booking. There will be a few tweaks to this before the tax returns prepared. The tax return is due April 15th. It'll be filed by April 15th, but the numbers really aren't going to change. There's just a little bit of cooking I might do. Okay. The next item in your package is a profit and loss year-to- date comparative between 2024 and 2025, not by class. This just kind of gives you a feel for how the club performed over the last 12 months as compared to the previous year. So overall between the two entities, our total gross income for the year was 995250.

This time last year it was 1.127 million. So that's a drop of $132,648. Interestingly enough, if you go down and look at cost of goods sold, our cost of goods sold overall has increased by $6,700. A lot lot of that is attributed to the cost of food and the cost of alcohol. It's just skyrocketed. So our gross profit for 25 is 711,64 as compared to 2024 of 85096. So you can you can look through these and our different expenses. Um one thing I wanted to point out that I thought the team was doing a good job was on insurance. Your insurance cost has pretty much remained steady which is amazing. Most people can agree insurance is painful and almost everyone has felt an increase. Um they have been able to keep that policy almost identical to what we spent in the previous year. Um your legal and professional fees, we've had a drop of $10,000 over the previous year. And if you'll go to the bottom of page two, our depreciation expense and our interest paid, those have jumped. Depreciation has gone up. We're at 105,726 for the year compared to 88,867 from the previous year, primarily due to golf carts. And then our interest paid due to the golf cart loans has jumped from 265979 and 24 to 14,37356 in 2025.

So in 2024 our overall net loss was 47,8.95 and in 2025 our overall net loss was 81,148. 16,000 of that difference is coming from your paper transactions that I just pointed out. So that's all I have. Does anyone have any specific questions about any accounts for me or anything? Michelle, if you were a prospective tenant,

tenant, did you say tenant? A perspective tenant and you're wanting to lease, you know, some or all of the operation. Um, this looks to me like this would give anybody who might be evaluating that type of opportunity pretty much all they need to know about the golf course and about the pub and the restaurants. Any anything that should be added or anything you think somebody might want to look at that's not included with this terms? I

if I were I would be looking at a marketing plan for 2026 to bring my revenue back up. I don't have an answer for that marketing plan, but that's where I would focus my time. I would do more to let people know what Edgewood does, what they're capable of doing. Maybe some more events. That's that's my [cough and clears throat] uh what's the word I want to use? Lack of expertise, skill set in marketing. But that that's where I think that you should focus. I think this team does a really good job trying to maintain costs. Um I think I I sense that um the economy is rough on everyone. The club is not excluded. Revenues went down for both golf and the event center, not just the event center.

Um is that what you're seeing with other clients, other business clients? Oh yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, this has been a tough year for a lot of people. And you mentioned food and alcohol going way up. They've gone up. What's the approximate approximate percent? I I don't have that. I don't have I can get that. I can do that math and send it to you, but I don't have that on me. You could you [clears throat] can almost do it. Yeah, you can almost do it based on these figures. I Yeah. [clears throat] So you this is just an off the cuff question. Sure.

If you don't know the answer on pull with that since we um have spent on advertising and marketing um close to what 18,000 what would be a good figure to look at? See, that's that's that needs to be somebody that that that's their area. Okay. Yeah, you're asking an accountant to ask. Hey, numbers and percentages. So, I don't I can report it, but um I'd have to Google a lot smarter than me. She's smart. Yeah, marketing [clears throat] is not okay. the That's a

You have not a good trend. No, I don't have a trend. I have a concern. That's a lot of That's a lot of loss. That's a lot of loss.

Well, well, keep in mind when we looked at the profit and loss, let's see, the year-to- date comparison between 24 and 25. When you think about the loss, the change overear. So, I'm looking on page two of the year-to- date compare. I'm looking at the $33,253 net change. Very far right bottom second page. Half of that is from depreciation and interest. The other half is from operating. So, it's not as dire as it looks when you think about how we got there. compared to previous year. That's how I look at that.

Yeah. I I look at in layman's terms that we lost and just took $33,000 more this year than we did last year. Correct. That's not a good trend. I understand that. Yeah. But when you talk about loss, you just have to understand what what makes up that loss. Okay. So, can I go back that part? Sure. Back on that same page. Yep. If you look at your net operating income, Mhm. golf had net operating income over the year of 38,874.

Okay. And the club had income of 55,184. Then we bring into play interest and depreciation. Then we have a loss. So if I were a banker banker, if I [laughter] were if I were a banker, I would be looking at this net operating number because they all understand EVA, which means earnings before depreciation and taxes means that's what the 81,000 rep represents. So that's a paper loss, but reality you have income of 38,000 for the club or for golf and 55,000 for the club. Okay?

So just keep that in mind when you think that looks dire. Bankers are going with that net operating. They want to know how you're really operating. They understand appreciation and interest. Now, the good thing is even though we have positive net operating income, you have a paper loss of 81,000 or $81,000. So, you know what that means? You won't pay any tax. I was trying to find the silver lining. Now, we can pay on your account, right? [clears throat] Yes. And that's and but I just there's other questions I have that aren't for here. It's like well feel free to send me an email if you have it's not you. It's more for the leadership and why do we have two golf cart payments and

well decisions made before I got here. I'm sure Patty could answer those. I'm sure. So from an accounting So from an accounting perspective, is there anything on here that concerns you that we that we need to be concerned about? Um I I would have maybe curtailed in some fixed asset expensing maybe on the cart path maybe, you know, did we really need another? [clears throat] Um those are the things because right now we got to get the golf

right now we got to get these golf cart debts off our books. We got to get that pay that that is dragging us down. Um that needs to be first and foremost in our mind. Well, I would just still I would just offer that [clears throat] the old golf carts were in terrible terrible condition and the cart pass represented a real liability particularly on number 14. um could could have caused a serious accident or injury. So Oh, that's good. We really didn't have a choice in that matter.

Yeah. Well, the good news is though is that you know that that cart path would be depreciated. So that's not going it's again it's a paper transactions below the operating line, right? The bank's going to understand that. It augments the value of the overall asset. Absolutely. Absolutely. Anybody else? Thank you. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you for having me. So, be back in March or April? April. After the 15th, yeah. Yes. After the All right. Thank you. Thanks, Michelle. So, Shane, sure.

I understand where you're at. I understand what you're thinking. [clears throat] But it's one of those where you know what do we do, right? And and I get that I we're making decisions and yeah, I wasn't here [clears throat] for the golf carts. I don't I don't know about that. And I know there's you have to spend money up front in order to make money and if we're not appealing to people, they're not going to come spend a price here when they're getting subpar equipment. And I understand that. It's just

maybe spreading that out over two years instead of doing it all one year. But I I just look at those golf cart and that's a huge hit that we take. When I saw the numbers, the first thing that came to my mind was exactly what you said. Why are we paying for $2? Correct. Yeah. You want the answer? Yeah. Why not? Sure. Yeah, I would. I mean,

the answer is okay. The old golf carts were going to be used as collateral to make the loan on the new golf carts less, but we had to purchase those 40 carts. And the total of that was $17,000, which you had to buy those carts so you can turn them in. And we got 120 off the new 120,000 off the new cards. So there's that. So we had a $13,000 profit. Yes. Okay, that makes sense. Yes. However, but that ends us up with two two payments. Yeah. Two different payments. Yeah. So, we had to do one in order for us to be beneficial. So, yes.

So, we bought our leased car so that we could trade it in and buy a new car with our leased car and now we have two car payments. [snorts] I'm I'm breaking it down to layman's terms because that's what it seems like. I'm leasing a car. It's It's okay, but it's dying. So, I want to trade it in. So, I got a loan to trade it in because you don't own it. Because I don't own it. So, I had to buy it cuz I was leasing it. And now I took that car and traded in at at the dealership to get a new truck. That's exactly what happened. And Okay. Okay. So, in 5 years, all that's going to be gone.

I hope we're still here. [laughter] What do you mean we? Well, we as a town because we have a lot of expenses that need infrastructure payments. We're going to get into remember the fact that that is not town money. That [clears throat] is in How many of you believe that that's town money? How many How many people think that the town owns that? So they don't the the the Yeah, but they're not managing it. They are not. You're managing. Well, the LLC is managing it. Yes. Yes. [clears throat] Yes. And then we gave No, I'm gonna get into this because then we gave them a loan to pay for the golf cart path.

Okay. If you want to know the truth about that, I do cuz I voted against it. So technically that golf cart path belongs to the town and it should have been the town replacing it so we didn't have access. Again, I will argue that we are muddying the water. Let's move on because tonight we're this is the first meeting of of the year and we're going to um by tradition we elect a president for the council for the year. So um nominations are open like to nominate our lead. Are there any other nominations? Do you accept that? I should I should say. Yeah. I'd like to nominate Patty Fair.

Okay. Anybody else? You don't want to jump in there? I do not. Okay. No. Okay. So, it's down to Arthur or myself and we need to have a vote. Do we have it? We don't have everybody here. Well, we we have a core.

Yes, we do. Um now the the rule is that if we have a quorum we can proceed with a vote if there's a well of course we have we have five here. So you're not going to have a tie not going to have a tie vote. We have a full council then if there's a tie vote the clerk treasure can break that tie. Uh I think we can proceed with this vote. Uh I think it'd be possible to defer a vote. We have the entire council present. I think that would also be you know one approach [clears throat] that would be a valid approach uh because I'm sure Rob would like to be here uh to vote on the you know new officers but I think that's you know up to

Does anybody want to make a motion that we delay until Robert's here? Also I would make a motion to that effect. So, I think it's important to have the entire council present. Okay, [clears throat] there's a motion. It's been moved. Is there a second?

I can't do it. Oh, I know. Oh, you can't second it. Okay, Mike. Well, the motion dies for lack of a second. Okay. Do we get to I have a motion to delay things? No, [laughter] you can't. [clears throat] This is just for the council. Okay. Okay. So, if you don't want to delay it, is there um a motion to vote for? Yeah, I I I think there's been a motion to nominate nominate

to nominate Bill. I think we'd have to call the motion uh as to Art Leak and then see how that goes. And then we know whether and or call the motion as to Patty Farren. I think you can proceed. I make a I make a motion we do this by ballot vote. By what? Ballot vote. Well, I think that's perfectly fine to proceed that way then. But I think with the motion made, I think we need a second on that. We second it. And by vote, you mean by written ballot? Yes, written out.

Okay. Okay, we don't have any pallets. [laughter] You goty's got a notebook. That's okay. Off the back part of your grab. Grab Randy. He's got a He's got everything. Yes. And uniform. He's going to have

nice boat. Nice. He's always on. I am prepared. You are. I wasn't prepared for this, but but you were. I'm sorry. Was there a second to that motion? Yes. I'll I'll get you. [laughter] I've got more. You don't have to. You won't miss. Okay. Okay. So, if everybody wants to write out, so I think at this point, uh, the council members present would write their choice on their ballot and probably just fold it in half. You want to

push it down my way. I'll be happy to tabulate the And I'm not going to know who votes for who, by the way. So, okay. Is that all five? See? One, two, three, four. I feel like we need music for intermission here. tabulated tabulated the vote and the uh the vote is three art and two Patty. So

congratulations.

Art will be the new president of the town council. You could just take over then. I'll go sit here and listen. Okay. All right. Well, next order of business, um I'm going to defer from the written agenda here for a second. The next order of business is to determine um council assignments for 2026. Is there anyone has any objection to maintaining their their current role?

Okay. All right. Well, council assignments will will stay as is. Um and second are are could we just for the clarity could could we just have a record of who is doing what and that I think make the audience might appreciate that too knowing who's what who's assigned to what responsibility.

Rob Picket serves as park commissioner and he will continue in that capacity for 2026. Kurt Faren serves as building commissioner and by default he also serves uh as a member of the board of BCA. Yes. So nice. Okay.

Patty Faren serves as the water sewer commissioner and our representative at the um at the edge and she [clears throat] will continue in that capacity. Mike Reid serves as the police commissioner. I currently serve as the fire commissioner and Shane serves as the street commissioner. Yes. And again with unless there's objections, everyone will continue to serve in their current capacity. Okay. Thank Thank you. [clears throat]

And I also want to thank Miss Parin um for her years of service as the president of the council. I can't I don't know how many years you've done this. This would be the 26 25 years. 25 years as council president. Um thank you. It's been a pleasure. Okay. Okay. Most of the time. [laughter] [cough]

Okay. Um yes, we do need a president prom. Uh that is a position that we voted on starting last year and so I will open the floor for nominations for president pro tip. [clears throat] I'll not m Mike, do you accept? Uh, I've um I'll nominate um I'd like to nominate Rob Picket and I I spoke to Rob and he said he's interested in in serving in that capacity. Okay.

All right. Is there any other nominations? Going once. Going twice. All right. Uh Rob will uh serve as president promp. Okay, next order of business is the fire department report.

All right. Well, good evening. Um, the month of December, uh, we had 48 EMS calls and of that 48, we had 17 transports. We had 11 fire calls u but no actual fires thankfully. Two of those were carbon monoxide checks. We had one gas odor and four pull fires. Um and then the uh event to speak of is our um our Christmas our Santa parade that we had. Uh that was very well attended. Very um it seems like we had a really good response. Um I hope hope everyone from the town enjoyed that. I know. Um, we had the fire department get a a really big kick out of that and it's great to see all the kids light up when Santa comes through. And who doesn't love the two awesome things, Santa Claus and a fire truck, right? [laughter]

They'll finish our police department. [clears throat] Yes. Yes. Police department. But those were those were our events for for December. Um, we had a a really nice really actually busy record setting year for the Edgewood Fire Department. Um, both for uh we're responding to calls in the town and uh and assisting our our neighbors. For the record, can you introduce yourself? Oh, yes. I'm so sorry. My name is Jordan White. Uh, I'm the captain at Edgewood Fire Department. I I knew who you were, but I wasn't certain that everybody else in here did. [snorts] Sorry about that.

Still learning. Okay. Any questions for Jordan? Okay. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Go Irish. Go Irish. That's right. This if he doesn't go to jail first. [clears throat] Not you. Not you. Not you. Not you. All right. Police department. Oh, inside joke. I'll tell you later. See, Jordan, [clears throat] do I have to? No. No.

Okay. Um, for the month of December, we had 57 calls for service and nine arrest and citations. Um, the pretty typical things. Um, outside of what we reported last month or last at the last meeting was last month, we had the assist with the felony armed robbery who came from the bill over his direction. We helped out. Um we do have one staffing change to mention. Um Daniel Ray has left and has got sworn in today with Anderson Police Department. [clears throat] Um so we're um moving one of our part- timers up. Tyler McKon will be our full-time officer starting tonight when he comes in 25 minutes or so. Does he know? Yeah. [snorts] [laughter]

Um we are just for the year ahead. We're looking at the two drug takeback days in April and October and also the national night out um in August. So, we'll get those days those dates out when we get closer to them. But other than that, that's about all our report. Any questions for Mr. Oman? Thank you, sir. Mr. Ferguson, you're up. [snorts]

Uh good evening. Uh truly the only thing I want to talk about tonight being the lead service line stuff. All the uh uh the uh the letters [clears throat] all went out. Um I got very few calls about poison water, which was fantastic. The water is not poison. That's always a concern with those letters when they go out. Um, in the letter it actually said if you guys any anyone could take a picture of their service line like right below the water meter or coming into the crawl space something like that that would be much appreciative. Um, I mentioned the 40% but this actually works with anybody in the town. So, I know for a fact I've done the water line here at the utility office and all of your homes, but if you guys would send me those pictures, it would be fantastic. Anybody in the town that's watching, send me your pictures. I've got about maybe 20 since those have gone out. I know Wendy's here filling in. She's only maybe fielded two, three calls.

Yeah.

Yeah. very few people are actually participating in this. I'm pretty positive that on the website my email address, the work email address is there. If you email me those pictures, I can put them directly into a file through the zip tility that uh we purchased and and run currently. And I have actual documentation of all this that I'll be able to take to the state with no problem to say these these addresses have been done. Um everything's generally timestamp dated things of that nature. I know Kirk got a hold of me the other day and has done his home and I've asked Patty because you're on the list the 40% list but we can

I know I've talked about the 40% less but it's actually if I get to 40% with anybody's homes [clears throat] we're it's going to be a major help if I get if I get 800 fine I get 800 and that would be fantastic to get everybody's but not everybody's going to do But I have I have one lady that called and uh we went over and identified it and we changed out her water meter at the same time very politely. She was great. We set up the time, went over and got it done. So you want the pictures taken from which vantage point?

I you know where like we know uh at your home is there in the utility closet. So if you just put the meter in the top of the picture and then the picture of the water water line right below it, that would be fantastic. If it's anybody that has theirs insulated, if you could peel the insulation back a little bit so we could actually see the the water pipe, that would be fantastic. Couple of the folks that have taken pictures, they've actually scratched it up a little bit and showed that it's copper or plastic, and that was very kind of those people that did that. But, um, that's really all that I need. [clears throat] But other than that, everything else is going pretty well.

Question. [clears throat] I guess you got to come join me. Okay. Yeah. And identify yourself. I'm Michelle Lewis and I live on 2000. No, no, no. You don't have to give your address. No, no address. Yeah. Don't do that. Okay. Well, we're online, so everybody Okay. Yeah. Well, um, what what what was it you were asking about? What was your conversation about? I didn't miss the first part.

So, one of the things the state wants to do, they want to identify all of the lead service lines and or um I forget the other kind of line. Um, galvanized lines, okay, throughout the system. And part of that has to be done on the property owners side. So, that's what I'm asking. Okay. So inside like my meter is in my laundry room and um so you're asking about when you guys years ago came in and added whatever to it. It's probably been taken care of. They took a they they changed out meters over 10 years ago before you got here. Okay. Um also through a lot of the other town meetings that we've had,

it was time to replace all those meters. So we are slowly doing that. Okay. So eventually I'm going to have to get to everybody's home and change the meters out. Okay. But currently at the moment all I'm asking for is a picture of the water line that's just below where that water meter's at.

I see. Okay. All right. Okay. Second question. Sorry. Um I've lived in my house for um 23 some years and our water bill is always different and we've had two children living in the house sometimes and now they're not living in the house but all kind different toilets things like that. Our bill has always changed, but I have other people that I know that have had that same situation throughout their house and their bill has always been the same regardless of how many loads of laundry they've done or whatever. So, that's it just seems odd. Unplanned.

Some of those others maybe their their meters are stopped. um maybe they're being estimated and the read is not actually clicking through where I can tell if yours is changing that much. Your meter is actually still working quite well. Um like I said, uh on the old meters, the register at the top, it's either good or bad. So, they will they will either continue to read. The old style that you have will actually have a long red needle and then a small little red dial. The little red dial is what is called the leak indicator. And the other one is just the gallon.

Read the gallons. Um, but like I said, if you want to uh do an analysis on your water meter, I have the old ones so that I don't want to pay those small. Well, [laughter] the new ones are quite nice. Um, I've had a few really not. Well, [laughter] no, no, no. The brand new ones that I'm putting in, those are a totally different style than what you have in here. So typically if my bill is the same just about every month, nine times out of 10, it's an estimated reading, isn't it? No, it's not estimated. You

the water bills are maintained at a certain amount of usage. I think it's 3,000 gallons, 4,000 gallons. 4,000 gallons. So if you use less than 4,000 gallons, you're going to be build the minimum bill, which is 10856. 10856 with sewer combined. That's everything. That's everything. That's everything. So I've never paid that. Less than that. No, I've never paid that. If I paid that, I'd be like, you've used more than 4,000 gallons a month then? So then it's based on how much water I've had 153 to 175. Yeah. So you use more than 4,000 gallons. Apparently.

Yeah. So that's why it's different every time. That's where that's where you you're seeing the same bill all the time. You're you're below the minimum amount. No, I'm not seeing the same bill all the time. You're not? No. If somebody is. My daughter washes clothes every day. Oh. how I power washed all my concrete last year. I was like, "Hey, [clears throat] Wendy, I don't have a leak. I'm power washing." Any further questions for Mr. Ferguson? Yes. Any further questions for Mr. Ferguson? All right. Thank you. [clears throat] All right. Member reports. Mr. Reid, I don't have anything to add.

Mr. Briggs? No. Miss Faren, no. Mr. Ferguson took care of it all. Okay, Mr. Faren, no report.

Okay. All right. Um, I do have a report for the fire department. Um, a couple of months ago, uh, Chief, uh, Vandenberg had indicated to us that he, um, was ready to step down or retire, so to speak, as the fire chief for the town of Edgewood. Um, and so in doing some research and doing some and having some conversations uh not only with Mr. Vandenberg but with some of the rank and file at the fire department. [clears throat] Um, I have identified uh Mr. Todd Daniels. Todd, if you would would stand, please. [clears throat] Uh,

M. Yeah, please come up here. Mr. Lee, can you speak up? [clears throat]

Mr. Daniels U or uh will be effective immediately is being appointed as the interim [clears throat] uh chief of fire department for the town of Edgewood. And I use the term interrum at this point because if you'll remember at last month's uh council meeting, the council voted that all new hires in the town would have to go through a background check. And so uh until that background check is is completed, uh Mr. Daniels will be serving as the interim chief. The goal is to eventually um appoint him as the chief. I feel very comfortable with um the selection of Mr. Daniels. Um if you look at his resume and and I'm sure it's some and and we're more than happy to to share that with anybody that might be interested. Um his resume is definitely one that qualifies him to serve in the position of chief. Um, in fact, I have I have worked with four other chiefs in this department, and this is not a knock on any of the other chiefs that we had. The resume that he brings on paper is probably head and shoulder above any other chief that we have had on this department and that's because of the classes, the lure and and everything that he has has gone through. Um, so Mr. Daniels has accepted uh this appointment. Um, I look forward to continuing uh to work with him. Uh, I believe that Mr. Daniels will take the fire department to the next level. Each chief has taken it to a certain level and I think Mr. Daniels is going to take us to the level where we need to be um going down the road because as Chief Vandenberg has consistently told us um in our meetings, fire departments are

changing rapidly here in the state of Indiana, especially volunteer forces. Um and we have to be in a position to be able to change with it. And I'm I'm uh excited about what Mr. Daniels will bring. Mr. Vanderberg. Um, thank you for your years of service. We know that you're not going anywhere. Um, you know, you're not going out to pastor. You you're still going to continue to do work with the Edgewood with the volunteer fire department. Um, but the council will recognize you in a much more formal way in a in a future meeting for all your years of service for what you have done for not just the the fire department, but for the town of Edgewood. Okay. Mr. Daniels, I'll give you a few minutes to the floor. I [snorts] want to first of all I I want to thank the town council. Um and I'm I'm looking forward to this. Um it's it's going to be hard footsteps to follow behind Chief Banford. He's fantastic and I want to continue to build on what what he has gotten started. So that's that's my goal is just to continue to build the Edgewood Volunteer Fire Department. any questions from any members of the council?

Congratulations. Thank you. Okay. Thank you guys. [applause]

Okay, Dale. Dale. Yes. You no longer have an excuse for leaving around the golf. Now, [laughter] as soon as I appointed him, I turned my page off. [laughter] Okay, Mr. Austin, your report.

Uh, nothing really in uh nothing very earth shaking, but I do want to thank Randy uh Aurman for he's the one who's kind of been a weed with the Owood City Court. Uh, and this is it's kind of a pain actually because we're all the way up in O. uh to to attend hearings. Uh the court uh in Elwood, the judge named Kyle Non, he's a longtime Elwood resident, has been very very receptive to ordinance cases. And I got to do some followup because I think the ones we filed have all been resolved. Yep.

And it can be dismissed and I got to prepare some dismissal work with the court. But the the the good development is when we've had an environmental case. Uh we've had a you case involving a registered vehicle. Uh that uh the individuals we dealt with and now we've had one that's in judgment. Uh so there's there's not a pending judgment but a recorded judgment

uh for one defendant. But we've had basically cooperation from defendants. Uh Ry's done a good job working with the court, attending hearings, and so I think this has been a success. We've not had a lot. We hope we don't have a whole bunch, but we do have a a good uh way to proceed when we have an ordinance violation matter here in Edgewood. So Ry's the one who's taken the lead in that. So I think he deserves the council's thanks. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, Mr. Austin? Uh no, sir. Okay. All right. Thank you, Mr. Service.

We'll turn it on. Well, couple of things. Out on the golf course, I met Don and Carl and Chuck out there. They found another structure that was missing the casting.

So, the casting I had in the back of the truck, we put on that structure, left the other one on the other one, ordered another one. Uh Carl went out and put that one on. So, at least we've got all those fixed now, so no fall in them or step in them. Um, now I'm going to be working with Don and Catherine. Got to put the paving program together so we can get that out to bid and get our prices on that. Uh, the one down there by you, Shane, we'll have that for this spring, too. So, for good weather. So, um, other than that, that's about all I have. any Dale. Yes, Dale. Um,

Steve, would there be any way you might have left? Dale, you have to come up. You get to be on camera like everybody else. Is there any way that the asphalt left over, we could pave our parking lot by the fire station? It's all gravel. Every year we have to get a bigger guy in. He has to scoop it up, put more gravel down, and smooth it out. And you're down there now and you walk step out of your car and it's all mud. Yeah. Isn't that all part of the Can we add that into in front of the clerk's office? Is that all that's a drain that's got to be fixed, right? I mean, yeah.

Yeah, we'll be doing asphalt work with that, too. Uh, we can probably do add that in with what we're [clears throat] doing with Shane. I don't think we want to get it into our paving program because then that gets into messing with INDOT. Correct. Our community [clears throat] crossings. So, we don't want to try to include that. But we can we can put that in with It's just different buckets, but I think we can make that. Yeah, I think we can make it happen. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And and that [cough] that that would also help out in the winter time. Um that way you you're able to keep that snow Yeah. You're a lot easier and everything because it is a mess in the winter. Oh, good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's all I have. Anybody has anything else for me?

Are we doing the town hall parking lot anytime soon? Yeah, we [clears throat] we have to go out there and get elevations on it. Okay. So, we'll be doing that drainage. Uh we got to get the same thing over in front of the fire department park tie everything together. But yeah, that'll that'll be a project for the spring. All right. Okay. Thank you. All right. Is there any old business that we need to finish up on? Mark, is there anything that you

No, from my notes from December, uh, we had several things we passed in December. Uh, there wasn't anything that required followup. So, we completed our ordinances. There's no outstanding ordinances that would require a third vote. Okay. All right. Any new business? All right, hearing none. This brings us to questions and comments. Open it up for the floor. Um, if you have any questions or comments, please tell us your name, not your address, but what street you live on.

We don't want any stalkers out there. At the microphone, please. None. Okay. All right. Need approval of the minutes of the month of October. We don't have those. Don't have them. We'll defer till next month. Yes. Okay. Approval of register claims for November and the balance. Do the balance of the December one, too. Okay. I'm make a motion that we approve the register of claims for November. It's been moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. It's been moved and proper second. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed same sign.

All right. Do we need to do the agend? Okay. All right. We didn't. Yeah. Okay. Approval of the register claims for December. Make a motion that we approve them. Okay. It's moved. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Move the property second. All those in favor say I. Those opposed, same sign. Motion pass. All right. I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn. So moved. Is there a second? Second. All right. Those in favor say I. I. All right. Meeting adjourned. So what was John Gunner said? I sincerely move.

Okay. inside.