City Council - Regular Meeting

What's going on?

What are you doing? Hi, Ann.

Hey, Lynn. Hey, how about that? It's 6 p.m., everyone. It is 6 p.m. and September 8, 2026, and it is time to call the Franklin City Council meeting to order. Ms. Jones, roll call, please.

Here. Here. Here.

Here.

Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here. Here.

and discernment as they make the decisions they do. Thank you. Keep safe our first responders and military that keep us safe and protected here. We lift up our college students as they're kicking off a new year. Pray you bless them so you're helping to grow in every way and that they'd invest and love their time here so much they want to stay, live here, and make a life here. Pray for just the rest of this evening to go well. It's in your name we pray. Amen. Let's stand together for the pledge. 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. Thank you. You may be seated.

Thank you, Brian. Okay. Is there any announcements, public comment that does not relate to the agenda? Hearing none, we will go on to the consent agenda.

Moved to approve the consent agenda as written.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, we'll go into old business.

Move to read old business by title only.

Second.

We have a motion in the second to read by title only all those in favor by saying aye.

Aye.

Okay. Thank you. Uh, item number one, uh, approval of budgetary ordinance 26 dash Oh eight amending budgetary ordinance number 26, uh, dash Oh five clerk, treasurer Jan Jones.

Yes. Uh, as you just said, this was introduced, uh, last week. And again, it just has all of the compensations that are offered to our employees. with the salary updates that the mayor, uh, imposes for a spending plan for 27.

And we can pass the approve this one tonight.

Okay.

Is there any, is there any public comments on the budgetary ordinance piece hearing none? We will close the public comment section for that, the public hearing. So we're ready for action.

Move to approve budgetary ordinance 2608, amending budgetary ordinance 2605. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. Hearing none. Okay, the other one, the next item that's just public hearing tonight, it's for the budgetary ordinance 26-09, 2027 budget. It will be approved or be up for approval, let's put it that way, September 21st. So I want to explain in the budgetary ordinance you see what we call the spending plan. That is what we've always called as the budget that we work on as the mayor and the city council works on that spending plan. And then once we approve that or get that in place, then Jan, correct me if I'm wrong, then Jan takes that and puts it into the gateway and then that is what we're actually signing off on is the summary of The spending plan, is that correct?

Yes, and the adopted tax levy and rates, which then gets us into our, you know, maximum levy and property tax levy. Yeah, so that is what starts everything.

Right, the spending plan starts that tax levy that you work with in Gateway. Yes, okay. So if there's... I mean, the public ‑‑ there's a public hearing tonight, so we will open it up for a public hearing at this time, and we put ‑‑ we've had that online for about three weeks, I think, so hopefully everybody had a good opportunity to look at our spending plan and then look at the tax rates and stuff that we sign off on, which is created through the spending plan. Is there any questions from the audience, public hearing? Okay, we will close the public hearing. Is there any? Okay, so public hearing has been finished, completed, hopefully to get approved September 21st. Okay, that gets us to new business.

Move to read new business by title only.

Second.

Okay. We have a motion and a second to read new business title only all those in favor. Okay. Item number one, introduction of common council ordinance 26 dash 10, approving the issuance of bonds for the park district project, uh, Baker Tilly, Maxwell Adams.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Uh, my name is Max Adams with the law firm of Barnes and Thornburg serving as bond council to the city for these park projects at Scott park and the family aquatic center. Um, You have before you an ordinance approving the issuance of these bonds and the execution of the lease for these bonds. So to get into project first, like I said, the project is for certain improvements, new construction at Scott Park and the Family Aquatic Center. The approximate estimate for those projects collectively is around $50 million. The city and the RDC, I believe, will be contributing cash on hands of the not to exceed the amount of bonds they were proposing to issue, 39.5 million. These will be issued as lease rental revenue bonds. I'm not sure. The city's done this before, but we're issuing these through a lease structure. Very common in the school context because schools are very capital intensive. They actually have to issue a lot of bonds to service those capital needs. So we're using that structure here and issuing the bonds through what we call a building corporation. The building corporation is members appointed by the mayor, approved by the park board. They will be the actual issuer of the bonds versus in the past, I'm sure the city's issued maybe general obligation bonds that are direct obligations of the city. In this case we'll be using a building corporation, obviously appointed by members of the appointed by the mayor. They'll be the actual issuer of the bonds. The way they pay for the debt service on those bonds is through lease rentals received under the form of lease that is part of this approval before you tonight.

Max, can I stop you? Sure. I've had the luxury of asking you a thousand and two questions.

Thank you very much. No problem.

Can you tell me why in these particular instances, we use a building corporation for park. Types of projects where we don't normally do that in other types of way. Sure. Statutory provisions.

It all goes towards, um, the size of the bonds, um, proposed, uh, you know, maximum amount that we're issuing. Um, as I'm sure you're all familiar, there's a 2% debt limit rule. for municipalities in the state. It's actually two-thirds of 1% or one-third of 2% of the entity's gross A.V. On paper, it's really not a whole lot of debt capacity to service a lot of these larger projects. And so what we do instead of issuing direct general obligation bonds, is we issue what we call lease rental revenue bonds. The reason we do that, not to get into too technical, but the reason we do that is because the Indiana Supreme Court has said that leases, lease rentals, do not constitute debt. The reason they say that is you need a leaseable asset. So in this case, we'll be leasing the project site at Scott Park and the Family Aquatic Center, as well as some other properties during the construction period. Those will be deeded to the building corporation and then leased back to the park district. And that contractual arrangement under the lease is what provides the mechanism for the city slash park district to pay those lease rentals from property taxes. And then the building corporation takes those and pays debt service on the bonds. Hopefully that.

And in some of my research, it may give some additional flexibility and maybe some different pricing ability for the bonds themselves. Is that correct? So can have an economic advantage to the city from my understanding.

Yes. So the project site, obviously releasing that as part of the, you know, what we're, what we're funding with these bonds. We're also, um, we'll also be leasing other city assets, other park assets, um, during the construction period, which I think is about two years, maybe 18 months. Um, the reason why we do that is you can't pay rent under the lease unless there's a leaseable asset. So in other words, we wouldn't be able to start paying those property taxes from the city to the building corporation, unless we had some other asset under the lease to pay rent on. It's a lot of, you know, technical legal, you know, paperwork, but the, so if you see, you know, not just Scott park and the family aquatic center on the, under that lease, that's why we'll just be leasing those other assets for approximately two years while the projects are being built.

Clear as mud, right?

Clear as mud.

So the Franklin Parks Building Corporation will terminate at some point?

Yes. So as you can imagine, you know, it does the majority of its work, almost all of its work, you know, through the date of closing on these bonds and should stay in existence for the term of the lease, which corresponds with the term of the bonds. At that point, free to terminate unless you issue other bonds, you know, using this building corporation.

And then that property is then deeded back to?

Yes, so the interim assets, not the Family Aquatic Center or the Scott Park. The interim assets will be deeded back to the city or RDC or whoever you would like to, the park district, will be deeded back after the construction period, so approximately two years from the issuance. And then Scott Park and the Family Aquatic Center as the actual leaseable asset being paid for with the bonds will stay under that lease for the full term of the lease slash the full term of the bonds.

we did do something like this with our amphitheater as well yeah we just used the rdc as an entity which you would not do in this case so we created this building corporation i had the luxury of having all these questions hashed out when i was incorporating something and creating this new building corporation uh because because of that and that allows us to get the pricing that we need allows us to occupy the property and then get the lease rentals back. It's a lot of lawyerish, but it works to our advantage to do it this way. If that is such a word.

It is now.

It is now. That's right.

So to go through the ordinance in front of you tonight, uh, obviously this is just for introduction. It would be eligible for adoption. Um, I believe on the 21st is the next meeting 21st and a public hearing on the 21st. Uh, so it won't be a required public or more than welcome to hold a public hearing. Uh, there's not a public hearing required at this step. Uh, Jumping ahead a bit, but in terms of next steps for council, so we have introduction tonight eligible for adoption on the 21st, and then the two October meetings will do an additional appropriation for those bond proceeds. There will be a public hearing for that second reading of that additional appropriation ordinance, so whatever the second October meeting is, we'll have introduction, first meeting, public hearing, and final adoption of that ordinance the second October meeting. To get into the resolution for tonight, it does two things. One, it approves the issuance of the bonds, which is the Park District is facilitating the issuance of these bonds. As the fiscal body of the city that created the Park District, Park District needs to get consent from obviously the fiscal body before it can issue those bonds. That's part one of what it does. Part two is it approves the form of the lease that we discussed between the Park District and this building corporation. Uh, that's a separate, uh, required approval under the park district statute. Um, but one to wrap it up into, into a single ordinance for you. Um, talked about the October meetings is eligible for adoption at the next meeting. Happy to answer any questions.

Sorry, Max, I was talking in class.

We were talking about public hearings, and I was looking at the October. You had mentioned something about October, and I didn't see that. So what we'll probably do is the city council will have a public meeting on the 21st. Right. Because we always, something like this, we want to make sure the public is involved.

Not required, but we always like to have one. Yeah. too many public hearings are not a problem.

That's correct. There'll also be public hearings at the park board as well. Just for the public's information. So you've had to, I think, yes. And we'll have, uh, I believe next means on the 17th. So there'll be public hearings through that park meet park board meeting as well.

And I think it was pretty well attended the last parks meeting I was at.

I think so.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Is there any other questions for max while we're here?

Thank you, Max. Thank you.

Thank you.

You might as well just rent a house here in Franklin. Glad to have you.

The other item is also for introduction. budgetary ordinance 26-10 to appropriate funds that we've already received from Bulletproof Vest Partnership Program. Police Chief Kirby Cochran. Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Council. I'm running a little low on voice, so I'll keep it short. I'm just going to be asking to appropriate $2,999.60 as a grant partnership with the VBV. BVP program. How about that? It's something we do every year, and we talked about it earlier this past year. We did purchase nine vests. I'll do my best to give a quick rundown, but typically what happens is these vests are in a five- to six-year rotation, and so depending upon the number of officers that are hired, there's no way for us to replace them all at one time. The previous year, I believe we bought 18 vests. 18 or so vest. No, I take that back. The previous year we bought 35 and then in 26, we'll need to purchase 14 to 18. So we'll, we'll continue to go after those grant funds and try and offset some of the tax dollars.

And this morning we talked about the price of a vest is about 800 bucks.

Yeah. About eight, eight, 28, 40. Okay. Better on the vest. Yep.

Okay. Thank you. Any questions for the chief?

Chief, the old vests, do they go to – where do the old vests go?

Old vests, we normally keep those on hand. We'll shoot those if we need to sight in rifles and do different things. Some of the outer carriers we can still use with those vests. I was explaining that to the mayor earlier. When you're thinking about a vest, there's a couple different options. Most guys you're seeing now are wearing vests – in a carrier over your uniform, instead of a Class A uniform, similar to this. And those require a separate carrier. The vest itself that you're actually thinking about are the ballistic panels beneath the carrier, no matter what that is. That total cost is about 820 to 840.

And that's the plates as well as the device that holds the plates?

Yes. The vest. I did mention this also in the earlier meeting. It's not inclusive in this particular grant, but our SWAT members have a little bit different concept with the vest because they also have some steel side panels, an option for a steel front plate. So they're a little bit more expensive. Right. Thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, sir. Okay, next item, ERA and tax abatement request, Community Development Specialist Dana Motsen.

Yes, good evening. On August the 11th, the Franklin Economic Development Commission heard a request from the Franklin Tech Park LLC and Todd Katz for the development of five acres that is located on the corner of State Road 44 and Forest Drive. They are proposing a flex space facility of 50,000 square feet for that property. The ADC did recommend approval of this project for an ERA designation as well as a five-year tax abatement.

Because this property is not in that economic revitalization area as required by the city, at your last meeting we presented a declaratory resolution to start the process for that. So the first step that I would like to request for tonight is a public hearing and then a confirmatory resolution for the economic development or the economic revitalization area for that parcel and then we can discuss the abatement and the project itself.

Okay, so at this time I'll open it up for a public hearing for the ERA portion. Any questions for Dana or any of us? We will close the public hearing.

Make a motion to approve the 2026-11 ERA confirmatory resolution as presented.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Hearing none, motion carries.

Thank you. So now as far as the project itself, as I said, this is a proposed spec building of 50,000 square feet. It will be a flex space, potentially be multi-tenant. The anticipated investment is $5,600,000, and they are amenable to the 2%. EDC fee. Tonight with us is Mr. David Gilman. He will come up from Brinkland Tech Park and he could give you some more particulars about the project itself, answer any questions that you have. So Mr. Gilman, can you come up, sir?

Thank you, Dana. Members of the Council, my name is David Gilman. My office is at South Ritter Avenue, Suite H, Indianapolis 46219. I do represent Todd Katz, the owner. Todd has acquired a prime piece of property right at the I-65 and State Road 44 intersection. The proposal is to build a modern state-of-the-art flex space. Flex space is a building that allows us to be flexible in the type and size of tenants that the property can accommodate or the building can accommodate. Right now we have it designed to be able to accommodate up to eight tenants. So we are targeting smaller light manufacturing, maybe tool and die, warehouse, life sciences and research and development type users. We think this type of building helps diversify the business activities and employment opportunities here in Franklin. We think it'll provide a modern space that we feel is documented demand, and Franklin is a prime spot to fill that need. And again, our location we hope will create a business-friendly gateway at I-65 and attract additional investment. It's important, the tax abatement, why it's important to our project. As you know, across the board, all material costs have gone up. Fuel has gone up. interest rates have gone up and what this abatement allows us to do is stay competitive with existing buildings that are in the market and it allows us to continue to construct that building with architectural upgrades to attract those higher quality tenants that we think will be here at this location. The owners are immediately ready to get into construction plan review and pre-leasing. Right now our plans are about 90% complete on our site plans. Our architectural plans are 70% complete. So I think with the tax abatement it's gonna accelerate this investment and Mr. Katz has made it known that he will be a long-term owner of this building. So that's another good thing that he's going to keep his presence here in the city and hopefully do more projects. And with that, I'll answer any questions that you may have of me.

Mr. Gilman, if I remember from the report, understandably so, there have not yet been any submissions of any plans to the planning department or none of that project until this is looked at. That is correct. But Mr. Katz is fully aware there's a long process of that necessary. That is correct. Thank you, sir. Yes.

Dana, I think this particular, what they're proposing is something that the city kind of lacks currently. Is that correct?

That is very true. Krista and I regularly get requests, people calling saying, do you have 10,000 square feet? Do you have 15,000, 20,000? We simply don't have it in the city. Every space that we have of that size is definitely taken. It's a common request even around the region when we talk to our counterparts in other counties and other cities. everybody's looking for this smaller space right now so it's just it seemed like especially right after COVID there was this big push everybody wanted those million square footers because everybody needed the logistics because everybody was buying and ordering everything online so that's what it suddenly started building the market not necessarily saturated but it definitely met the need so That was kind of done at the expense of some of these smaller facilities and now we are seeing these developers coming back and going hmm We have a new new opportunity here Mr. Taylor was at the meeting. He heard kind of the more fuller presentation as well some of the options. Mr. Taylor I don't know if you have any comments about that also

uh... with this like space they showed us and they're looking to put loading docks and uh... i think eight different spots so each one could have a loading docks and get a you know a smaller truck a you know something that you need forklift or something along that line so uh... to my knowledge, I don't know there's many of those hidden Franklin with that size. So it's a perfect delta by the interstate. And, um, they originally had asked for the, at a 10 year, we went down to five year and, uh, through the mayor's, uh, office recommendations. So that's what we approved that at that time. Thank you.

Any other questions?

I don't have any mayor.

I don't think this requires a public hearing, but anybody have any questions? We're excited to have them here. Okay. We'll close the public hearing.

So Sean moved to approve resolution 26 dash 12 with the tax abatement for five years with a 2% economic development fee.

Second, we have a motion in a second. All those in favor by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you, Dana.

Thanks Dana.

Okay, next item. This one I don't think takes any action from the council. Jan and I wanted to get it on the schedule. We'll be putting this on the Board of Works schedule. The Board of Works actually approves the holiday schedule, but we wanted you guys to see it if there's any questions before we put it on. the agenda for the Board of Works. So that's information only on the holiday schedule. If you have any questions, look at it later. Get with Jan and I and we'll talk about it. Okay. With that, there isn't any other business. We'll go into council comments. Josh, we'll start with you.

No comments tonight.

I don't have anything. Thank you.

Nothing, Mayor. Thank you. Sean? Nothing tonight, sir. Todd?

Mayor, I don't know if you were down at the first Friday night.

It was hot.

We almost didn't go, but Dee said, let's go support the city. There were people everywhere. It was unbelievable. So kudos to the city and what they're doing.

Thank you, Discover Downtown Franklin that puts those on. They're doing a great job working with the city and everybody working together. Thank you, Todd. Irene?

No, nothing for me. Thank you.

Jennifer?

I just wanted to wish our clerk treasurer a two-day belated, three-day belated birthday. One. One. Well, somewhere in there, in that range.

You don't want to be a day older, do you?

And it's 52, by the way. Oh, oh. I just thought I'd throw that in there for you, Jan. She finally passed me.

Sounds like Ann's your good friend.

She'll have one coming up soon. I didn't put that. Oh, I've already been there. Oh, okay.

You have a last say here, Jan. Do you have anything to add?

All right.

In front of the rest of these ladies, I'm not about to talk about age. Nothing to say.

I just want to thank the city employees and thank our city council who cares and works hard. So thank you. Need a motion to adjourn? So moved.

Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Thank you.