City Council - Regular Meeting

Turn on my microphone. Want to welcome everybody to tonight's meeting. Sorry, we're a little bit tired. We had a meeting upstairs which we concluded right at the 7 o'clock hour. So, we're going to go ahead and jump into the 7:21 city council meeting. Uh we did have an executive session upstairs. All things will be posted by our attorneys that are necessary for that meeting. Uh regular city council meeting tonight. Meeting called to order. Any announcements? Elliot? No. Proclamations, presentations? Well, there's a first for a while. Uh council committee and staff reports. John, finance committee.

Yes. Finance committee meeting met last Wednesday and uh for we recommended for approval tonight. Item 6B, item seven, item eight, and item nine. And if I may add, if you have an opportunity, I'm going to put a little plug for the Fischer Health Department. The annual report is on their website. Um, I think you all agree that uh the health department, Mark Monica Holtz, and her team has done an exceptional job providing a tremendous value to our taxpayers. the things we do, the things we see in tangible is every restaurant we go to has a sign out there ABC if they're making sure that they're in compliance. But the wonderful thing is she will deliver these services at a tax rate that's lower than if we saw the Hamilton County Health Department. So she's delivering exceptional service at a lower tax rate. So I want to commend her and her team for a great job well done and share the budget finance. Always got to bring that stuff up. We're going to have value lyn. So uh great job by her team.

Thank you John. I'll move on to the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve? So moved. Have a motion by John. Second. Second by Tiffany. All those in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Abstain. I need to abstain. Okay, we got Todd's abstaining. Okay, so that passes. All the rest of we're going to have to do roll call vote. I do have two counselors online, so we're going to move right into the regular agenda. All right, floor is yours.

Lisa Bradford, city controller. The item before you relates to the economic development project agreement for the Grey Eagle Golf Course. Uh at our p previous June city council meeting, you guys approved and had first reading for the bond ordinances for these two portions of the project. There are two bonds before you. one is a golf course piece and then one is the piece for the multifamily the age targeted housing. So that's why you see the two separate bond ordinances but these are per the terms of the project agreement. There's a slight modification from what you saw and that really is to uh allow the proceeds of interest earned to split between the golf course and the developer uh of the multif family as needed. So that's a slight change from the version you saw before, but that was called out and agreed to also by every member of the project team. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. These require public hearing. No. Okay. Any questions by council? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Second. On item number seven is what we're talking about. Yes. Okay. Item number seven, I had a motion to approve by Todd, second by John. We're going to need a roll call vote because I have two people online. Pete Peterson. Yes. John Deluchia. Hi. John Weingart. Hi. Cecilia Cobalt. She's after. She's not here. Okay. Brad Dreamer. Hi. Selena Stler. I Todd Zimmerman. I

Tiffany Ditson. Hi. And Bill Stewart. Motion passes. Thank you. And you went over already item eight, correct? So I'll take a motion on item eight. So moved. Kind of moved by John Deluchia, second by John Weingart. Again, we'll go to a roll call. Pete Peterson. Yes. John Deluchia. Yes. John Weingart. I. Cecilia Cobalt. She's out. Brad Dreamer. Hi. Selena Stler. Hi. Todd Zimmerman. Hi. Tiffany Dickson. Hi. Bill Stewart. Hi.

You also did number nine too, Lisa. Correct. Item does pass. Thank you. You did item nine as well, right? Yes. So, I'll take a motion on item nine. Motion. Motion by Todd. Second by John Weingart. Roll call vote, please. Pete Peterson. Yes. John Deluchia. I. John Weingart. I. Brad Damer. Hi. Selena Stler. Hi. Todd Zimmerman. I Tiffany Dillipsson I and Bill Stewart I Okay, that motion passes with too. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you. Item 10. Uh item 10. That's not you, Lisa. That's

Yeah, you you can we're not going to give you that one. That one's got to go to Megan or she's gonna get mad since that's her title.

Um thank you for the record. Megan Bombgartner, director of community and economic development. Sorry, I can't see everybody's faces. Um, this is the final step in the abatement approval for 12001 exit 5 Parkway. Last month is when we brought before you the declaratory resolution um and the exciting announcement of 111 uh biioharmaceuticals coming in to um speak about uh or announcing that they were planning to relocate to Fisers from California. So, um, for us to finalize their personal property tax abatement and their vacant building tax abatement, we have to, um, complete the confirmatory resolution for the property. Um, and so that is the request for tonight and happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Megan? Seeing none, I'll entertain a motion. Motion to approve. Motion by John, second by Tiffany. Roll call vote, please. Pete Peterson, yes. John Deluchia. Hi, John Weingard. Hi, Brad Damer. Hi, Selena Stoler. Hi, Todd Zimmerman. I Tiffany Ditliffson. I Bill Stewart. Motion passes. Motion carries. All right, moving on to government miscellaneous item number 11. Lindsay,

excuse me. Uh, good evening, council. Lindsay Bennett, uh, corporation council. I'm here on second reading and final reading of the property maintenance code update. Um the only change that's been made from first reading is really adding additional language to sign to make sure if the sign is removed that it is um repaired and repainted um and then added uh some language on who can enforce the board. But other than that, everything is uh the same as first reading. Okay. Thanks, Lindsay. Is there a public hearing on this one, Chris? Okay. No public hearing. I'll entertain a motion. Let's say anybody has any questions. Motion. Motion approved. Motion by Todd, second by John Weingart. Roll call vote, please. Pete Peterson, yes. John Deluchia, yes.

John Weingart, I. Brad Damer, hi. Selena Stler, I. Todd Zimmerman. Hi. Tiffany Ditliffson. Hi. And Bill Stewart. Hi.

Motion carries. Item number 12. Chief Gart for the record. Chief Ed Gart just here uh once again second reading for the parking permits for the couple of areas in the city of Fisers that we need some help with compliancy. We've been in this for over two years. I've stated before in particular Sunless Farms, Sunless Boulevard, Sunless and Heritage Meadows all have issues within their areas. uh and related to three in particular businesses. One being the mosque, one being the Legion, and one being King Judge. We've tried to do all we could. You've heard me on the first three talk about trying to gain compliancy. I think we're at that stage. I've had some community meetings. Um we've sent out notices for people to come here tonight so we can get this thing through the third read and onto the process. All I'm asking here tonight is a vote by the council that allows me to move forward with the permitting process. how the streets are added, when they're added, uh time zones and all that will be debated in the board of public works on a routine basis. That way, we can add and subtract streets as it's needed in the community and not overexhaust ourselves with it. Any questions?

Any questions for Chief? Seeing none, it does require a public hearing. Chris, I see. Uh I'm going to remind the public, anybody wishing to come up and speak, please state your name and address for the record. You'll be given three minutes in which to speak on this topic. I would urge you not to repeat if we can all help it to keep the meeting moving along. At this point, I'll open up the public hearing. Just come on up. If you want to hopefully it'll go well. We'll let you know. All right. Well, Mark Weinbrer, I'm a 30 year plus resident of Fisers. Um,

address fir I'm sorry. Your address, sir. Your address. I'm a uh firsttime city council attendee speaker. What What address do you reside? Oh, I'm sorry. 12458 Turkl Drive. Thank you. I'm sorry. Yep. Just trying to get on the record.

That's all right. Um, first time uh city council speaker, complainer, yada yada yada. Um, big fan of the police. So, uh, don't hold it against me, chief, or what I'm about ready to say, but I believe this is a, uh, the permits are a terrible idea. Growth is important to any owner or leader of any business, and growth is usually a good problem to have. However, the growth of the mosque is unfortunately causing the parking and congested issues. So from a common sense perspective, uh both responsibility and accountability for solutions should really fall to them and them alone, not the residents of Fisers. In other words, if anyone causes a problem should be the one to fix the problem. You know, I break a window, I fix a window. Um they broke parking, they fix parking. And yes, it will have to be up to the government and officials and the police department to hold them accountable. uh not force a parking permit system on us and then hold us accountable to manage it. I think that should be enough to stop this from going forward. It just feels wrong uh because I believe it is wrong. It's not up to me to know what's going on at the mosque so that I can manage the parking of my family and friends who visit my house. It's up to the mosque leadership to know when their members are parking in our neighborhoods. Any solution really should be clear vo and void of any ambiguity. But when there's language that implies the police officers will have discretion on when to enforce it or not, that's ambiguous. Therefore, by definition, it's going to be confusing, inconsistent, and unpredictable. It either has to be enforced all the time or not at all. If it's enforced all the time, then again, the burden of the mosque parking problem solution will be on the residents. You know, I want our hardworking police officers to focus on and be ready for more important issues, not be parking

attendants. There's no way that you can guarantee that one of my guests in the future will never get a $150 fine, which would ultimately be considered my mistake because I did not manage the parking system well enough that day. My guest would be coming to me to pay that fine, and they will not be wrong. So, what would prohibit people who live in the neighborhood who also attend the mosque from distributing parking passes to friends and family who also attend the mosque? So, this permit system may very well add to the problem. So, in principle, you may believe you have a solution beginning with a permit parking, but in practice, I'm also confident that you've already discussed all the problems that can and most likely will arise. So, when multiple residents are having parties with many people coming and going, a permit-only parking system will be unmanageable and quite stressful. So, I've been part of a church that's had to deal with parking issues. And it really was resolved with creativity and communication and and uh I'd be happy to let the chief buy me some coffee or treat me to some horrible cop coffee at the station and I'd be happy to share some ideas.

Thank you. Anyone else? Ask for another speaker. Fred Shield 8488 Premier Trail Heritage Meadows. I can't speak for Sunbless community, but I know in Heritage Meadows with King J Parking, our biggest issue has been the patrons that overflow into their parking onto our streets. This ends up turning into littering, people urinating on shrubs, drunk people yelling at us, getting mad at us if we sprinkle our yard at night and they get water spots on their car. Yes, there's a post about that on the Next Door app. Somebody was mad at us for watering our yard. I think the parking permit is a great idea for our area. Um, we can simply help the police by calling them. Hey, it's a busy night at King Jug. There are five cars on the street blocking my driveway because Will the officers know when people who are parking there are not supposed to be there. I think it's a great idea. I think we should move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Matt Rap 622 Sunless Boulevard here speaking for the American Legion Post 470. We're all for this. Um whatever we can do to help the community, we're all in on it. We hopefully you vote this in. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else?

Yes. Hi there. Uh my name is Dan Maloney. I'm at the 8479 Pioneer Trail in Heritage Meadows. Um, I I understand the concerns about adding extra lay levels or confusing rules and whatnot, but I think the idea of of having recourse u in our specific instance, the issues with King Jug parking, uh the patrons, the overflow, the blocking, the uh continual blocking of traffic, uh the danger that it's also creating uh in the area. Uh I think the idea of at the very least being able to move forward and create sets create standards so that way hey there is clarity there is a way uh for the organizations as well as the community to to coexist and interact. Uh but more importantly uh allowing the community to have some kind of recourse when an organization is refusing flat out to make the make the appropriate adjustments to the community needs. So that's why I think I think it's worthwhile proceeding and moving to the next step so that way hey um because otherwise we're we're just it's all hypothetical at this point in time. So I I I hope it it gets uh it moves forward on to the public works uh in that area so that way we can actually get down into the specifics so that way hey the the true debate can can begin from there. So thank you very much and I appreciate your time.

Thank you. Anyone else? Hello, Sue Anthony Fulmer, 13857 Canopy Lane. Um, we are um with Some Blessed Apartments, which right across from the mosque. Um, we greatly appreciate the efforts that are being made by Chief Gart and his team and by you. Um, we are the problems getting compounded. However, when it's going away from the private residence, the parking is then coming onto our property and then our residents have nowhere to park. So, we are going to be working with with Chief Gap Park to see how we can also get assistance um by working with the moths directly. Um in in general, we're in favor for this. We just know that um in long term, we're going to have a lot more painful Fridays at 2 o'clock. Um, so I hope to continue the conversation with the mosque and chief Gart in this area. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else?

Walked us with Sunbus Farms 8894 Torrance Place and we're we're behind supporting this um move move and we just I would ask to limit the amount of T passes to not unlimited but maybe to 10 to a resident. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Last call. Okay. Seeing none, I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. Any questions by staff or excuse me, any questions for staff from the council?

I have a question. Chief, will um I know we've heard people talk for and against it. Do you when do you think you'll have enough time in that you can just give us an idea if it's working or not? I think it Well, first of all, the coffee is strong at the police department. I I was I was sad he I was sad I was sad he didn't say he wanted to split donuts. So yeah, that's what I thought he was going to talk about. So I think uh I wasn't sure you were listening to every word. Yeah. Uh I you know July 21st I think is the board of works. Correct. When

29th and then probably 60 90day evaluation of things but I think that's going to be moving. So if streets come on and then come off, I think that'll be done in that time frame to come back and and take a glance at what this is and what it does. Again, my goal is compliance, and the goal of uh all of them, including the mosque, has been compliance, too. They've been very good about trying to get public parking, and they've tried to do all they could. We're at this because there's been no other answer, and I think this will get compliance. And Chief, with the vicinity of the um the mosque, um what what is a viable option for the overflow parking? Is it launch fissurers

launch? And it's got room. They just don't go back there. And and a lot of what their problem is is not residents of fisers. It's coming from everywhere because it's just there's not very many of what they offer there. Um down at King Juds, I'm learning tonight there's an issue on the streets. That could be every night for a while to get compliancy, but we'll be able to look at each thing individually. Thank you. Any other questions? I want to make sure I get Bill or Selena. I just want to say that, you know, thank you for your work on this, Chief. I have received a couple of emails this week from residents um especially on um I think it was to

that really don't want this. I mean, they they knew it. Some of them went over to the mosque um

what is it? No, it was Turle I think that sent me some emails and some of them went over to mosque closer to Turple um and looked at and not seeing many cars there this week. What I can tell you is probably 30 or more% of that community is out of the country right now. And you won't see that parking I I would say be a huge problem until about the week school starts and then it'll ramp up for two or three weeks and we'll be back right to where we were. And what I like about the plan that the chief has brought forward is that we can add to we can take away um we can this is a living and we can make it work for the residents that are there.

Okay. Bill thank you Mr. President. Hey I just want to concur what Selena said. Chief Dear, I appreciate your efforts on this issue with respect to my district and that's the King Jud circumstance and Heritage Meadows. Um, it's been a long process and this is just one of the blocks to resolve the many issues that surround King Jud. Um, but I think this is a necessary and a great first step on the parking side of it and you're just going to have to monitor it and see how it goes. And I appreciate everybody's hard work on this. Thank you. Thanks, Bill. John.

Yeah, Chief, just thanks so much for all the hard work. I live in Sunless Farms, obviously, right next door, and just seeing firsthand your sincere effort for at least a year and a half, probably way beyond that, is is nice. And thanks to the colleagues for giving this another month. We had a good Zoom call and and a lot of questions answered. And yeah, I think this is the right step. And thanks for all the efforts to get here and not go here too soon. But I think This is it. Wasn't just me PR involved in this and other officers that helped as well and I'll send those to them as well. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from the rest of it? I'll just make one quickly. I mean, again, we're faced a lot of times, not a lot of times, thank goodness, but uh with with decisions that that are sometimes tough to make, right? I I recognize that there's a problem in these areas. The chief has, the mayor has, the rest of the staff has. You know, I believe this is an imperfect solution to a problem for sure. that's going to take some massaging, but I think if we don't take action, it's not certainly going to get any better. So, Fischers is not known for not taking action to try to improve things. So, I appreciate the efforts by the mayor's office and and Chief Gart's office to try to do something with that. If there's no other comments, I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules and approve on this reading. Second.

Okay. I have a motion and a second to the suspend the rules. Yeah, Council President Peterson, you don't need to suspend the rules. It's a second reading. Second. We don't. You can vote it out. I could go with Zach just on the second reading and we don't need you to do a third even though you've noted it in my sheet. Okay, then we don't need to suspend the rules. So then I will take a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Motion by John Deluchia. Second by Tiffany Dson. Uh roll call vote. Pete Peterson. Yes. John Deluchia. Yes. John Weart. I. Brad Damer. I. Selena Stoler. I. Todd Zimmerman. I. Tiffany Ditliffson. I Bill Stewart. I

motion carries. Good luck, chief. I do need to go back to item number 10. I got wrong legal advice when I asked earlier that we did not need to have a public hearing on the speed on a confirmatory resolution for exit 5 parkway. It's an economic development transaction. So, if there's anybody here who would like to speak on and Megan, remind me. So, before you do that, Council President Peterson, I think the correct thing to do here is since we went over this, we passed it unanimously. that we uh mistakenly didn't hold the public hearing. I'd ask for a member to make a motion to reconsider the item. Let's get that seconded, voted on, get it on the table. We'll redo the item, open up the public hearing, and then we'll take I'll make a motion to reconsider. Second

motion by Todd, second by John Deluchia. Roll call vote to reconsider. Thank you. And I'll take it on in Chris later. Thank you. Pete Peterson, yes. John Deluchia, yes. John Weinger. Hi Brad Reamer. Hi Selena Stler. Hi Todd Zimmerman. Hi Tiffany Ditliffson. I Bill Stewart. All right. Thank you. Now if you want to open the public hearing on the item we can do so. Now we will open up the public hearing. Megan, can you remind everybody what the declaratory economic development resolution is for?

Yes. So this is the confirmatory resolution for establishing an economic revitalization area an ERRA that allows for the abatement to proceed. So we do need to have a public hearing on this. Um my error of not catching that in the documents previously but would request that we have a public hearing um and then consider and remind me who this company is and what they're doing. 111 Bioarma. So they are a California biioharmaceutical compounding pharmacy um group that is relocating from California out to Fisers.

So, another thing that I've read in the paper today, thousands of companies leaving California, we're getting one. So, that's good. Okay, I'm going to go ahead and open it up for a public hearing on this declaratory resolution for economic development agreement. Anyone wishing to come and speak? You have three minutes in which to speak. Seeing none, I'll close the public hearing and I'll take a motion to approve. Motion to approve. Second. Motion by Todd, second by John Wears. Roll call vote, please. Pete Peterson, yes. John Deluchia, yes. John Weingard, hi. Brad Kerr, hi. Selena Stler, hi. Todd Zimmerman, hi. Tiffany Dixon, hi. And Bill Stewart, hi. Okay, thank you.

So, we we have no planning and zoning on there. Uh, any other unfinished or new business? Elliot, Chris. Okay, I'm going to move to community comment. I want to say this here because I know I've got a group that's going to come up we want to talk about that Tiffany has. I'm going to ask you guys to go last. Um because I I hold really true to the threeminut deal which we put in place and I've been really I don't want to give somebody three minutes and let let somebody jump over because we're going to be very consistent about that. So you have state your name and address for the record. Come up and talk about whatever topic you want. You have three minutes in which to speak. Michael, I saw you make a move. You didn't. Good. Okay. Really? I don't get to hear you tonight. Okay.

Good to see you, Mr. Colby. Yeah. Um Jim had contacted me with regard to an issue that's been ongoing and he just wanted to make a presentation. Is there any way for him to get a PowerPoint on there or not? I don't know if there's a way to do that. Tracy Thank you.

Yep. Okay. So, please state your name and address for the record. You have three minutes in which to speak.

Yeah. My name is Dr. James Gyos. I live on 10947 Winjmer Drive South, Indianapolis, Indiana 46256. I'm here to discuss uh an issue in regards to high E.oli count. uh in the stream behind me and all my neighbors house in the city of Wind Jammer. Uh the first notification was uh to the city back in April of 2024. I'm here in regards to the concerns and perceptions that that I have in regards to the timeliness that it's it's taken. So we've been working with the city of Fisers for over a year. Um we we did not know um I I finally contacted the EPA in uh May. EPA reached out to the city of Fisers and the Indian Department of Health has been working with the city of Fischer since um it I my perception is it's been taking so long from the city of Fischer's health department to uh bring in people if necessary the city of uh Fischer surveyor was not even uh thought of until after a year the lack of follow-up. So we met um June 4th on site with the city of Fischer's health department with the Indian department of health. Um they said Indian Department of Health has had some great suggestions. Ground proximity mirror radar smoke testing red die testing. It's been over a month little response has been happen from the city. There seems to be little urgency. The tone uh and the analysis between the Indian department of health and the city of Fisers is different. Um it took a year to realize in the department Indiana Department of Health that the septic systems weren't uh some of them weren't even permitted appropriately. You'd think that been one of the first things that that the Indian department had helpfully looked at. Um and again the fact that the uh the drainage board or the surveyor team was not um immediately contacted. This is from the Indiana this uh citations from the Indiana Department of Health suggesting that they contact the surveyor. This was back on June 4th. This was a year later after this was in uh after it was brought up to the city of Fisers. Uh the city officers respond uh

emails while they seem very uh thorough. They're just vague and they appear to be very dismissive. The tones appear to be hoping for um these are equal. You got one minute.

These are equal eye counts here. Below 235 is unsafe is safe to swim above it is not safe. Again, uh the the sample to the to the right shows that the IDH samples are well above 10 times more than what the city of Fisers has. And the city of Fischers is trying to say, well, you know, I've seen worse. Next steps looking for urgency across all the city here. uh any resources we have, health department, survey, our drainage boards. If if if we could all just be collaborative here, we're proud citizens of the uh of the community, and we want to find resolutions for this equal account, not only me, but my uh the guys community. And again, just some resources that the Indiana Department of Health is suggesting, and it's just been a little bit slow for the uh the city respond. Next step, they've also uh recommended looking at the septic systems uh being past the life expectancy in the neighborhood. room behind us and uh you know that should be explored as well.

Thank you. Yep, you're good. 258. You came in under the wire. So, I'm going to urge you because you and I have had a couple conversations as well. I'm going to urge you to go ahead and forward that out to the council just so you can see your presentation because I like your presentation. I do know I've kind of dug into this along with the mayor and Todd and some others have been looking into it and I certainly understand your frustration, but understand that you've got a lot of eyes on it now. We're trying to get to as quick a resolution as we possibly can. Unfortunately, when we're dealing with multiple governmental organizations which all report to different places, doesn't make it any easier. So, yep. I appreciate it. And you can find all of our email addresses on our website so you can get to everybody. Yep. Thank you. Anyone else wishing to speak public comment? Okay. Yes, sir.

Hi, I'm Matthew Brans, 9446 Ashlake Lane. I'd like to talk about uh Gay Eagle that you that you passed tonight. Um $5,300,000 in loss tax revenue. That is, I believe, what we're losing in tax increment over the next 25 years. Um the city budgets don't go down, they only go up. So, the rest of us pick up that tax burden. Um I hope you watch the public hearings today. this afternoon. Um where um I posed some questions u the jobs report that came out Friday. It's funny the stuff comes out two days before the last day. Um you've been talking to Grey Eagle listening to them four years. When do the rest of the taxpayers get the data they need to formulate an opposition argument? They get it the last week because the city stacks all the public hearings on the very last day. All the politicians, you know, you act like this is a done deal, but there was two public hearings today. Anyway, I I asked about the jobs report. The the the numbers look like nonsense. Never got a clear response. Not only there was any response from the city on that. I also posed a question um has the city studied the demand for golf in Fisers? Do we need four golf courses? We can't survive with just three. And I don't think there was an answer to that one either. I guess this is more about preserving property values in Grey Eagle subdivision. And the only conclusion I guess I can make there is that golf courses and fishers are now too big to fail. And that that just seems ridiculous to me that we can't have a free market of golf courses. Maybe golf the demand for golf is declining. Maybe we only need three.

But I guess not. I guess we now need four. And the city's subsidizing that that fourth golf course because it's too big to fail. So I I don't know. The people in this town, I mean, we all pay property taxes. Um, you know, we don't we don't really have a choice. We have people have mortgages. They have other bills. They have kids to raise, groceries, clothes, everything. And I mean, every dollar spent on property taxes is a dollar you can't spend on something else. Um, and I we pay our property taxes because it's premised on the idea that we're all paying our equal fair share. And if there is a list of property owners who don't pay their fair share, it's because they deserve to be on that list because they're providing something to our city that

15 seconds that we cannot um get via the free market. And I don't think a luxury recreational amenity deserves to be on that list. Not the fourth one of the same thing in our city. Um, it's unfair. Thank you. 5 seconds. It's unfair to go there. I had it down here. It's unfair to everyone. Thank you. I didn't know you were running that tracing. Okay.

Yep. Thank you. Okay. Is there anyone else who wants to come up for public comment? If not, I'm going to let Tiffany's group come on up and talk to us. And I'm going to ask you to try to be succinct so I can try to leave it in the same context if I can.

Fantastic. Um, I'll just take a couple of free minutes. So, um, these young people, they're from Fischer High School. They're the future Black Leaders Club and they, um, are the team that put on our city's Junth celebration last month. They are hardworking group. And what I think is so amazing about this group, President Peterson, Deputy Mayor Hulkrim, is that they this is studentled. This is a studentled group. They work with the arts council. They built relationships. They're connecting with organizations outside of the city to work on the city's behalf. Um they filled a wonderful gap. The city of Indianapolis did not have their Junth parade, so that brought even more people to our celebration. So Jaden is he led the project this year. He's heading off to USC in a couple of weeks um to study. He's he's been a wonderful leader on this project and he's a really good kid. Jade, I will turn it over to you and your group.

So Tracy, I'm gonna ask you to restart that since Tiffany took up most of their time. So and I'm going to try to leave it I'm going to try to leave it to three minutes just so I can be fair to everyone. So Jaden, you please you have the mic. All right. Well, thank you so much, Tiffany. My name is Jaden Rucker. I am the exing president so president's past year. Um I'll let you introduce herself. Um I'm GA Fowler. I'm going to be one of the co-presidents this upcoming school year. Hi, I'm Mauia Regby and I will be the other co-president for this upcoming school year. We have some more members behind us. Um but we are the future black leaders from Fischer High School. And so yes, we did just plan a Junth celebration. Um I'm going to have Maui kind of start us off.

Hi. Yes. So I would wanted to discuss the history of the Juneenth Jubilee. We started in 2020 at the amphitheater and now um moved to 20 in 2023 we moved to working with Connor Prairie and using the big open field. So in 2025 which was this year we used Connor Prairie. Um so just a little bit of context on the event. So we invite a whole bunch of um blackowned vendors um from the community that we've kind of been able to find through kind of networking that we do and also just online. um we kind of invite them to our uh to Connor Prairie to kind of have a area to sell their goods. And then we also have an application process to where other people who are wanting to support the event are also able to apply as vendors. And then we have a vetting process that we go through to make sure that everybody that we do kind of accept aligns with our mission and aligns with um what we think, you know, is going to want to be promoted at our event. Um and so just kind of some of the statistics that I have. I know it's a little bit difficult to um kind of analyze these because we don't have our PowerPoint like we're expecting. Um but we did have people come from around the county and around the surrounding counties. Um so we did have a lot of people from Indianapolis come because there was no celebration. Um as I mentioned the surrounding counties. I also know that we have had in previous years as well um attendees come from neighboring states. So we really are able to get the message out with this event and we do have people that come to this event. we have we very much feel like people appreciate these event um even beyond our community and additionally with the um attendance. So our event goes from 5 to 8:00 p.m. and I have the attendance um for Connor Prairie and around at 5 um we had around a thousand at Connor Prairie and it boosted up um by 6 to around uh 1 uh oh here we go 1.2 um over 1.2,000 um consecutive uh attendees kind of going in and out of the event. And so as you can see or you can't see um but the hours that we had our event were some of

the most um productive hours of Connor Prairie. So they did have the highest numbers of attendees during the hours of our event. Um and so that has continued through our previous years we've where we've put it at Connor Prairie as well. Um and just for overall growth for each year. So I know in 2023 when we started at Connor Prairie we had an attendance of just under 1500. And then when we had the event last year we boosted up to over 2500. And in this year, we've gotten um around 3,000 attendees is what we got this year. And so, we kind of just keep growing. We hope to grow more um as we get more support. And so, I know I'm running out of little time out here, but I'll let um yeah, some ways to support include just posting the event on the city council pages um and promoting them through schools um and other places.

Thank you. First of all, I wish you guys all the best of luck. I think you guys have done a really great job. Appreciate the effort to come here and talk to the council tonight. And again, I wish you all the best of luck. great luck at school. So, thank you all. Thank you. Before I close the public hearing before I close the public hearings or anybody else who wants to make a comment there, community comment before I close the community comments. Going once, going twice. I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing. Uh I don't believe we have any other announcements. So, I'll take a motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn. Motion to adjurnn.journ.