County Council - Regular Meeting

I don't know, but I can't read it. All right. I call the meeting February 11th, 2026 to order. Let's do the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance 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 uh Mr. President. Yes. Go ahead. Could I announce just in case everybody missed it, uh, Purdue won a basketball game. That is They won a basketball game. Is that what you're saying?

Finally. Well, congratulations to Purdue. Indiana's the last undefeated team of both basketball and football. So, all right. Uh, first item on the agenda at 8:30 a.m. is the patrol car purchase court security proposal. If you may approach Sheriff Burkhard. Yes. Good morning. Morning. Morning. To deal with me first off. That's That's unusual. I want to give Mary a solid for getting me on here quickly. Brad, you're our favorite sheriff. Uhhuh. Yeah. Well, that's a great way to put

I have to do early and do a presentation. So, she got me on early, so I do appreciate that. Um so the first item is um the purchase of the uh patrol cars. Um I came in in January, the beginning of January and uh we discussed it and then I was requested to go back to the commissioners to make sure they were okay with um using the bond, the 2026 bond um to cover the cost of those eventually. And then I got so I went and I got a favor federal recommendation to do that. So I'm just here to report that that that they did give that favorable recommendation. So hopefully we can move forward with that.

Yeah. And that money we said in the budget meeting comes from the general fund. So it'll be reimbursed to the G and it is listed right now in the 26th bond. Okay. do my order. Yeah, I guess. Okay, absolutely.

All right. Thank you. Appreciate that. Um secondly, um I just wanted to bring it back up the attention in January came and we discussed I gave a proposal on court security staff additional um with five proposed additional court security staff and and so I just kind of wanted to bring it back up, see where we stand, see if there's been any further thought on that um so I know what to do or how to move forward if any. You wanting that on the 26? I would think budget or you wanted 26

26 at least some. I mean, you know, I proposal was five, but you know, it's whatever the council decides they could do or not do. Um, I'm sure the judges would appreciate it if, you know, I could move forward and, you know, get some more help over there. I know we got a big trial going on right now and I'm pulling people from uh the road and the jail and everything that to have to be over there for this particular trial. So, um, it's been quite daunting for staff staffing to be over there, but this is doesn't happen very often with these big trials. So, it's gone. It's on its second week now. So, yeah, there's I've been over there. There's about 15 to 20 officers. They've they've been well staffed this week. It's it's well staffed. Well, I heard that. Maybe. Yes.

Mad at times. I heard that. Yes. Um, I think I think Greg Geras when we were he was here in January about this told us to wait till they were down done downtown, but it sounds like I think last time last week he said that they're it's going it's going to be okay for us to consider something like this. And I know we've talked and I know that you had a you had a student presentation and I got to learn about, you know, funds that don't exist. The donut fund the kids thought you had. Yeah. How to fund it. But they they came up with two or three. And I I wonder it would two or three be good if we did that immediately versus getting to five immediately. Um and maybe look at more in 2027 or 28.

Absolutely. I mean, I'm obviously, you know, I presented a proposal for five. Um and I think that's what we really need. However, it's going to be up to the council to make that decision on what they can and can't give me. So, um I'll take what you can give me to make things work as best as I can. um and then revisit it, you know, as as needed. But, uh, you know, that's ultimately, I guess, you know, your decision on how how you want to handle that. But, uh, so two three is better than none. And I think the money is going to have to come from the general fund. And that's what I was going to ask, N where the money come from. And it looks like with benefits, it's probably going to be close to 100,000 for, you know, in that neighborhood, 90 to 100, somewhere in that range. If if they get full,

you say you can make it work. Are you telling us that you can if we do that you can have that covered over there at the courts all the time or it still won't be covered?

I don't think it I don't think it'll be covered all the time. I'm it'll be covered all the time but I think it'll be with lesser staff. You know, I have somebody there and we have somebody there anyway and we utilize some we have a full-time um we have some part-time. Um if I can get some more full-time over there, maybe keep my part-time. A lot of it's just going to be some trial and error on seeing how things work. Um, a lot of it's got to do with days off and and you know, we talk about, yeah, we can use three, but you know, I need five, but a lot of those got to do with PTO and days off and sick days and being able to rotate and, you know, so it's not so that I'm going to have I need five over there all the time. It's it's the rotation piece and the days off.

I support the idea of the hiring. I support the idea of it coming from the general fund. And honestly, I support just doing it all at once and be done with it because it's going it's coming regardless. So, and we do have the money to do it right now. So, I agree with Mary. I I'm just really concerned about that. It just takes one episode to man why didn't we go ahead?

Yeah. And and and with that, I mean, that also provides security for here as well. It's not just the courthouse, but I incorporated having somebody here into that in that whole piece. I I I think it's a a you know like 20 years ago we had nobody during graves time there was nobody there and it's a a example of the coarseness of our society that we're paying a price for that in this the judges say that you know in their courts now they have a lot of people acting up not necessarily the person the perpetrator but family, friends, people there that they never had before. So, it's um

I think also the cost

Yeah. the downstream effects of large trials like this of just the staffing across the county with this. I was talking to someone the other day and just I think you know helping morale and just knowing that when there is a big trial that you probably still have to pull some officers but maybe not as many as you do now and that's going to help morale at the department and I think take some of that stress off because I'm sure everyone's stressed with something like this going on and being able to just alleviate that stress and so I I think it's a great idea and sorely needed most likely. Do you have a a number for if you were to hire all five this year? Do you have a a proposed amount that it will take to get to get them hired?

Well, I I give a number and I don't have that piece of paper with me and but what I did what I did not have on that I it was the um 3000 361,000 for all five other one. But I guess I'd propose maybe we do two now and then in the 27 budget think about all of them. Why two and not three? At least go over halfway. I I think my response to that is this is I know they just why not five? Yeah.

A hold on a second that act the they had active shooter I don't know if you guys all know they had active shooter training here and getting to five it's not just about the courthouse. It's about having someone here, having someone helping for the down at the prosecutor's office when they need help. It's more than just the courthouse. Correct. Correct. Yes. Okay. An overall effect of what needs to take place. And

yeah, I I would propose that we go ahead and move forward with five hires and uh complete the process for the security and all the buildings that he's requesting. are is our I think the biggest question is our funding good to do that. That's that's the real question. If the funding is good to do that is that's why I'd look more to Jim because he's on the budget taking it out of the balance. We got we were over in what I didn't put in that was the Well, there was a benefit cost in there. I think you had 83 360. Yeah. I mean, we we have a budget and you know, if we're going to add to it, it just comes out of the balance of the general fund. Yeah.

And the money is in the general fund. We're talking about people's lives here, but we do in a lot of other cases, too. And we've got other things coming up like the mental health stuff. And are we going to crowd out this other things? choice. Was that a motion? Oh, so yes. So, you know, obviously we're we're debating I think between two, three, four, five, somewhere in that range. So, it sound that sounds good. Um, but uh I think we need to come up with a motion and maybe a little compromise. I maybe I I don't know what I don't know. I mean, I know you started with six. You started with six originally. Now you're down to five. I don't I just you know what's

I'll make that be a motion and I'll second it. What's the motion? that we go ahead and appropriate out of general fund. Is it $361,500? Is that the correct amount? This is what you've submitted. And the total number for five on this page is three thou three um 361,233.60. I don't know why that packet in your It's in your It's in here. I didn't see that page. Oh, it's on the back page. I didn't turn the page. Sorry. I my motion is to appropriate $361,233.60 uh for the uh hiring of additional uh safety officers for the different buildings per the sheriff's request

to be hired by what date? As to be hired as soon as as my money's appropriated and he starts looking. Okay, I second. And then the benefits, how is the benefits being paid? Well, they'll be paid through the commissioner's budget that pays the general fund employees. It's all general fund. So, I added a benefit in here at 30% which come out to 83,000. Now, I don't know whether that's correct or not. You know, where it was I know I don't I don't know. Um I that'll get you started. Yeah. Well, you know, here's the thing. We might have to adjust it.

I mean, everybody's acting like we're just now talking about this. We've been talking about this for a very long time. That's about November, December. They came to us, correct? All right. So, I do have a motion and a second on the table. Um, does do you guys do you guys got it down there? Okay. Is there any more discussion? All right. Unless somebody askked for a roll call, we'll just do a vote. All right. All those in favor say I. I. And oppose. Same sign. All right. Motion carries. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I'm sure the court and annex staff is appreciated as well.

So, back to the benefits part of it. I will be paid out of the commissioner's budget. Is there monies there or is that going to short change? I'm sure that they'll probably need to come and ask for an additional appropriation later in the year. Okay. Yeah. Cuz that would kind of technically That mean you're close and and Yeah. I mean, it's kind of technically figured in this, but And you don't know when you're going to get them hired. That'll start to hire five tomorrow. Well, well, he's going to the problem is I think some are going to move from the jail. Yeah. And so, yeah, the idea would be is to take some senior jail staff, move them, but then have to replace them with new staff. And so, that's going to take a minute to make that happen. You don't want brand new all brand new. There's one right now from the jail. That's There's one over there now. So, that would be the idea. So, Okay.

All right. Anything else, Sheriff? That's it for me. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. No problem. Have a nice day. Thanks. All right. 8 8:45 a.m. Team bit ahead, but if Nicole is here. Yes, Nicole. We're going to do the CF1 approval. Floor is yours. Morning, Nicole.

So, I've got one CF1 in front of you. Um, it appears that they pulled a permit last year. Um, I spoke with Cindy, the assessor. She said that at this time there's only going to be land value, not an improvement value. But I'd like to get this signed and approved just in case anything changes. I've had something come across where some a value has changed and had to go back through and the CF1. So I'm just I just have it in front of you. Um they don't show that they have any employees yet. Um but an abatement is based upon an increase of the improvement. So that's why I wanted to get this presented in front of you. Has the building been built yet or

I don't know if it's finished. Oh, it's on. It's in the process. All I know is a permit was pulled last year and as far as I know, it's still in the process, but I don't I'm not 100% not sure. They're not as they're not partially assessing the the building. No, as far as I know, there's only land value right now. Do you know what date the permit was pulled? I do not. Nicole, are are we still assessing a partial assessment? No. No. Okay, good. So, it shouldn't happen, but I always like to cover my bases to make sure that, you know, nothing. So, actually, you're just wanting to approve the fact that they filed this, but there's no building there to attach it to this time. Yes. There's a motion. There's a second. You guys got it.

Who's the second? Uh, Jim Shelby. No problem. All right. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Same sign. Um, all right. Motion carries. Can Jim tell us? Is it public knowledge, Jim, that more no empty buildings left? Uh, I don't know. I know it and you know it. Okay. That's kind of what's pushing this is because everybody's buying up all the buildings. Yeah. Nicole, is that that don't have anybody in them right now? I I hear it said I don't think there's any there's no um million plus buildings, but I haven't heard it said that there are no

pushing this to get get all our ducks in order for these things to happen. last year was submitted and I'm not going to know any numbers until I would like to know more. I would like ask Jim or uh Clark to maybe at their next um ATDC meeting to ask for an update on the amount of uh square footage and or buildings that are vacant and if so how many square feet? I don't know about the square feet but there there our inventory now is zero of buildings of available of any size there might be some within buildings where you have multiple uh people there might be some empty spaces there I I don't know

that' be nice if uh but we have no no buildings right now well there is a spot I think for 80% but I don't think anybody's going to be 80% or so of the uh companies that that uh want to come here uh require a building. They don't they don't build a suit. They they want a building. So, we don't have any anything right now. Yeah. You guys are talking about the what's the HDC discussion for the council? I think that was left over from the not me. It was left over from the That was to see the budget, wasn't it?

Yeah. Because the budget hadn't been They didn't have their meeting to pass their budget to give to us the last time we had the thing. But now HDC has they've given us a budget. They've given us a they passed their budget and everything is everything's moving forward. Well, they had given us a budget, but it didn't really have the employees salaries on it. The second budget did. It did. So now it does. packet right now that Yeah. So, I think we're fine with Oh, I think and maybe also Yeah, it's in our packet

since we're talking HDC and have a minute. Um uh we we are developing a um uh an ongoing conversation between uh council and HDC. the exe HDC has an executive uh committee that meets and uh the next meeting will be uh on the 19th and that's uh Kent and Scott will be there where we are talking about how we can work together uh to do do um economic development things whatever that turns out to be. Part of it is the is the use of the 5% fee, but uh that maybe is a smaller uh idea of what we can do together.

Well, I'm I'm a little bit worried about when the next $10 billion project approaches Hancock County and how quickly we all get to understand what it is. I I really don't want to drive down the road and see a sign on somebody protesting something that's never been you know what I'm saying, right? Because I didn't learn about the data centers until late. Yeah. So, do you want me to tell you what's coming?

Well, there there's a proposal right now because some land has been zoned um and I think we're going to discuss this probably a little bit later, but some of it's been zoned industrial that they're that they're they're looking Yeah. what's going on state. They're looking at um there there's a proposal that's been coming that's came through our planning department for a data center in a place that's already zoned industrial ready to go if they choose to move forward. But we we do want to make sure that that particular site is in the tiff and I don't think that's absolutely true in the tiff. So there are some positive things that we can do together to make sure that when something like that comes along even if it is zoning

in the end though the only only leverage we have on anything is not giving them tax abatement right if they have the zoning and the funding because the zoning is the commissioners has the commissioners addressed the I mean they're the ones that draw the lines for the tiffs so will the have they addressed that parcel to get it in the tiff yet? Yeah. No they haven't addressed it yet. I mean, they haven't voted on. It's in their that might be their next meeting. I looked at the TIFF drawings of and it appears to me that it is in the TIFF, but the question came up in a meeting was as to whether it was these lines are drawn on the blank, but could probably tell you.

I think we saw I saw a map of some spots that we don't know why they were not included before. And I think there's going to be some cleaning up because, you know, we tiff so much at one time because the state said they would take it from us if we didn't. So, I think there's going to be some outlying cleaning up spots. We we hope those were homes because you don't put a home in a tiff, but we can there's residential tiffs in other parts of the state. Yeah. Because it was done in kind of a hurry this last year. Can't collect on it though. Um, but by working together, I think uh we'll we'll all uh come out better.

Yeah. And there is a a a big project coming up that's actually a $20 million project. It's not a company, but it's a um uh infrastructure project on North N uh that uh will be presented in the uh April council meeting uh by Ninstar. Uh we're partnering with Ninstar on it and uh the financing will come up is as to how to do that.

Let me ask a stupid question. Is there if somebody comes in and says, "Okay, we're we're going to put a facility here. We're we're not going to ask for tax abayment. Zoning's already there, but we're going to take all of your electricity." What what power does the does the county have to say, "No, you can't do that." Well, the the um when when they come in and ask for um um Well, now that's a good question. We have to address that. They usually come through the HDC. Let's Scott answer. I could answer, but let's Scott answer.

I think uh that might have implication for the IURC utility regulatory because they have to prove certain things and uh so that and they actually hold hearings. So there's it's almost like a court. It can be almost like a court. So I think that's what you where you'd see go to to try to

we'd have to make a stand there. And what they do is they look at different areas within the county that might be more suitable but not have detrimental effect and they look at those alternatives and render a decision all those facts. Well, that being true, why is it that uh the city of Lebanon is able to um take water from uh Eagle Creek, parts of Hancock County now. They they can do it from Gist and uh whatever that other little reservoir is next to Gist. um that whole um uh area all all of the reservoirs around Indianapolis including Gist and our reservoir

we are hooked in to a system that's being built to take water to Lebanon and there's a watershed um association being formed. I don't know whether to fight it or what but we might want to I don't know yet. They're basically trying to lock up all of Gist, Eagle Creek, and all of them. Yeah. Because Eagle Creek is under a big thing now, too, where they're trying to they're trying to lock up all that water so no one else can get to it.

Um it just it just promotes my theory. We need we need to buy some aquafers. We need to buy parks with with area that has water aquifers, right? Just like Greenfield did when they bought Riley Park when that's why Greenfield is here is because of Riley Park. That's where all their water came from for so we we need to do the same for us for ourselves in the county. Since Hancock County actually does touch Gist Reservoir, would we be put in a loop of notification if there were if they were moving forward with capturing the water supply at Gist to

go to I mean, we will be notified. I think you would have to be. I would think they should know. Yeah. Everybody that touches it. And we do touch Reservoir. Maybe. I I think they're starting to build the pipeline. It's a 50 mile 53 mile pipeline. We have not been going to Lebanon. We have We have 5 minutes till the public hearing. Mr. Sorell, is there anything to clarify that we've discussed up here that might be for that water? Yeah. you know anything if you can come up if you have something to clarify. Well,

I would I'll start with I've not heard anything about that regarding Gist. Um definitely I mean I was watching the news this morning. They were talking about the stuff over at Eagle Creek. Um but we've had several projects potential projects talk about landing in Hancock County and they're talking about tapping into Gist. So, uh, but those have been extremely preliminary. So, do I have any facts? No. Have I had conversations? Yes. But none of them have ever mentioned Gist being involved with the Lebanon stuff.

Since McCordsville is actually the jurisdiction where the land touches Gist, would they be the one they would contact and not the county? I think it's not just McCordsville because, you know, obviously the county lines out in the water. Well, Hamilton and Marian and us are the three,

right? And it's it's it's more Cordsville would definitely get noticed, but probably Hancock County as well. uh because it's really more watershed as opposed to just the city limits or you know that's why the uh the folks that all in in Boone County and Pike Township and they're all a part of this process because it's it's not just where the boundary is but who who gets served by those waters. And of course I you know McCordesville our water is Indianapolis water which comes out of the reservoirs.

Yeah. So, uh, there would have to, again, I've had zero official conversations about that. Uh, we've had discussions, you know, there were there were battery plants, there were Google data center plan, uh, operations, things like that. How you going to serve them? Well, citizens would bring water from Gist. That that has been the discussion, but those none of those discussions are alive anymore. Ran Randy, I got my information from the IBJ article about a month ago where it came from. Yeah,

I did see something on TV about the the ongoing things about Eagle Creek about ti tying all that up and the hearings they were having and all that kind of stuff. That was on the news was next. That was on the That was on the news this morning. Yeah. Whatever happens at Eagle Creek is going to turn around and happen at Gist, I believe, in order for somebody, either one county or somebody to tie up that, you know, that reservoir or, you know, that extra capacity, but that's what they're doing at Eagle Creek. They're the DNR may also have a role in that. Well, my boat is

I would say the DNR may also have a role. Yeah, it is a natural resource. Yeah, it's it's a unprecedented times right now um with the water. So, and Randy, on a different subject, Kent brought this up when they they talked about the CF1. Are there are there any empty warehouses still or are they all filled up?

They're not all full, but there there's been a vast takeown in the last 5 months. Uh, so Hancock County has 4 million square foot buildings. Loth has one. Um, GDI had one, Red Rock had one, Al Nyer has one that's in McCordsville. And then there's a 950 which exit has which sits on the south side of uh the Walmart fulfillment center. In September, Walmart bought the uh GDI

GDI building. In September, Amazon bought the Red Rock building. Uh I found out last Thursday that Loft's building on 350 North is under contract and will close in May. uh the developers under an NDA and uh said he couldn't say who it was, but it was one of the big e-commerce facilities. Uh and I heard also on Friday that Exit's building, the 950 that sits on the south side of Walmart is under contract. Didn't know who it was or what the use would be. And I heard that there are discussions and in fact I'm getting ready to reach out to the guys up in McCordsville that there is interest in discussions about the Nyer building. So are they full? No. But is the activity there? And and and Jim could tell you. So uh HDC's executive committee has a lunch meeting the first Friday of every month. And on our executive committee is Matt Brower. And you may not know Matt, but you certainly he's the current Larry Sigler. He's with he's vice president of construction services for Peterson Company. Larry's retired. Matt's the guy. And Matt was telling us the other day that he said the absorption in Hancock County and really central Indiana in general, but Hancock County in particular has that they've seen in six months what they thought would take three years to have happen. So there's a lot of activity. Um, and in fact, I'm not going to go too far down this rabbit hole, but the developers are wanting town to come back and start doing construction again because the inventory is getting soaked up and there's there's a need. Um,

they've promised $19 trillion coming into the United States in new infrastructure, buildings, and stuff over the next few years. So, guess what? I mean, even if we get a tiny portion of that, it's going to fill us up. I I was thinking about this yesterday and I was thinking about driving down in the world. You didn't watch 26 of the largest companies in the world promised to President Trump uh billions and billions of dollars of new factories and things in in the United States. That was six months ago. And they got to build them somewhere.

I don't I don't want to be simplistic about this. It's not that binary, but in the broad swing of things, there's a difference between the Biden economy and the Trump economy. I I don't like being that oversimplified about it, but the fact is things are hot. They're really hot and it's some of it's what you're talking about. Uh the business climate uh is better.

How many left that aren't been built yet that we've already approved? That's a problem. I don't don't like again I don't want to go too far. Well, because there are some I've got three projects. One is absolutely dead and the other two are hanging by a thread because the economic development agreements had time bombs in them and they've been expiring. And so they were going to get built, but now they're stuck in can they resurrect the economic development agreements or do they need to file new applications for abatement? I had a breakfast meeting about that yesterday. So there's there's uncertainty because they don't know they don't know what the deal is.

We had seven years. Well, that was something that we uh when we put in they decided to put in. You have seven years. No, that's what the that's what you guys put in the uh resolutions for the tax abatement. abatement. But I've got a deal. Oh, absolutely. That the economic development agreement they had to break ground by August 1st of 2025. They were shorter time frames. They were shorter time frames. The HD Yes. And so they're stuck with that. That's a negotiation with the commissioners. That was commission. Correct. Yes. But but it rolls down to the the deal. You know, the the contract has expired.

So that's a question. Is there a political will or desire to resurrect those, extend them, or are they just dead and we start the whole process over again? So, and we that goes to the fact that if there was so GDI, they got tax abatement for either six or seven buildings. I don't remember. It's been a long time, but they've built two. And so, but the economic development agreement has expired. So, you know, the other five don't get built unless that gets figured out.

Yeah, there's uh I can say there's been some EDAs that are in breach because they didn't commence construction on time and then they tried then they say it's well it's market conditions but oh you got to build that into your agreement if you can as much so so Kai 3 failed. Yeah, sounds like a problem. We if it's EDA, it's going there's probably some on the horizon every day where they're gonna expire.

And and there's also an argument to be made that the at least our EDAs as we were working with them are now obsolete. We don't need them. And I understand that and I don't disagree, but I don't have a clear message as to what to tell the developers of where they stand. So it's well, we may do this, we may do that. We're not going to do this. I don't It's Those are vagaries out there, which is starting to slow some things down.

Maybe we can just call them obsolete and go on, you know. So 9:05 a.m. Um I appreciate Randy coming up here talking about helping us with HDC uh discussion. I appreciate Randy for taking time to come up. Um unless there's anything else we're going to go to the public hearing uh additional appropriations. All right. First up is fund 101 County General Sheriff in the amount of $833,280. I open uh the public hearing. Anybody have any comments? wish

$833,280 is about the purchase of new vehicles to be reimbursed from bond. Okay. Gotcha. Appropriation. All right. All right. Not hearing any comments. I close the uh public hearing. I'll take a motion. Motion to approve fund 10001 purchase of new vehicles for $833,280. Excuse me. Is that going to have a caveat that that'll be reimbursed through the 2027 bond? That will be reimbursed through the 26 bond. Is that correct? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll second it. All right. Got a first and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign.

Motion carries. All right. Next up, fund 10001, County General IT Department, $60,000. This is for new media specialist position. Bernie King. I open a public hearing. Anybody have any comments? All right. Not hearing any, I will close the public hearing and take a motion. I'll make a motion to um additionally appropriate fund 101 county general it new media specialist position for $60,000. Second. All right. With a motion and a second. Uh all those in favor say I.

Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. Next fund, fund 1135, cumulative bridge. It's the amount of $700,000. It's a capital items move from fund 1176 MVH. I open it for a public hearing. Anybody have anything questions, comments? All right. I will close the public hearing and take a motion. I move we appropriate fund 1135 for $700,000. Second. All right, I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries.

Next up, fund 259 drug court in the amount of $1,724.95. This is for a vest, firearm, and ammunition for a field officer. I open the public hearing. Not hearing any comments. I will close the public hearing and accept a motion. Make a motion we appropriate fund 259 drug court for $1,724.95. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign.

Motion carries. Next fund is 4041 BHC donations in the amount of $1,000. This is a grant from the Hancock County Bar Association. I open for a public hearing. Not hearing any comments. I close the public hearing. I'll take a motion. I'll make a motion to approve uh fund 4041 behavioral donation of $1,000. Second. All right. Motion in a second. All those in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. All right. Fund 4700 self- insurance liability the amount of $447,424. This is a needs budget set up for 2026. I open uh up the public hearing. Any questions or comments from the council? What is a uh needs budget? Isn't this it was just needed needed a budget set?

Yeah. Yeah. We just have to When the self insurance became a thing, there was not a budget set up for our so we needed to do this. We talked about it. We got the thumbs up. I think Janine here discussing that's the balance that's already in there. It's just over. Yeah, we just have to. Okay. I not hearing any other comments. I will close the public hearing and take a motion. Hey, I'll make a motion for to additionally appropriate fund 4700 self insurance liability. uh additionally appropriate it so we can make a budget for it for 2026. All right, got first and second. The amount was $447,424. All those in favor say I.

I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. Do the next one. All right. Fund 7201 is food and beverage. This is for the 4 A association in the amount of $500,000. I open up for public hearing. comments or questions up here. All right, I'll close the public hearing and take a motion. Make a motion we additionally appropriate fund 7201 food and beverage for $500,000 for the 4 A association. Second. All right, I have a motion and a second for fund 721. That's a reimbursement, too. Yes.

Food and beverage is $500,000. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. All right, we've had the HDC discussion. So, Brent Eaton, attorney and data issues consultant, if you're ready to approach him at all. Also, asleep down there. He's not fall. Nope. Do not say that. He's wide awake. You just have to tuck his right ear. He may not be listening to you. He's not listening to He might be ignoring you, Kent, but he definitely is. Don't be worried, Kent. M. Mr. President to Yes. Could I uh reserve the right to come back on that 500,000? There's another issue there. Okay, we'll come back. It's a Okay, we'll come back later.

Oh, you you can proceed,

Brian. My memory of the procedure here is is we had brought this issue up a few months ago to the council. My recollection is council voted send the commissioners. My recollection is commissioner sent it back to budget committee. At that meeting, we had further discussion at which it was, pardon me, it was decided that everybody wanted to have their two cents in to have an RFQ which satisfied the concerns and would broadly address what we see as issues moving forward. At that time, I said, "Okay, well, Scott, if you would send it to everybody and then we'll come back and if people have suggestions, we can all talk about them. Hopefully, we can agree and send something out." And and so that's where I believe we are. I don't know if there are suggestions from y'all about what we should change or not because no one's talked to me about it, but I'm happy to discuss it.

Um, I think the only only concerns I had reviewing RFQ is it mentioned staff multiple times. I know I think everybody up here is very well well apprised from you that you need more staff in certain areas. We know that you've presented to us many times. you know, when you were talking about $60,000, I think we're thinking about, you know, hey, would it be better to use this to replace the grant? Would it be better to use this money to get another staff member for you uh to start that process? And so, if it's about truly about efficiency, then then we're interested. But if it's about Okay, we need we need more staff. We we know that, Brent. We know we know we're, you know, I' I've came up here what, two years ago, and I argued for more staff for you heavily, and I think I got what, one or two people then. So, so I think we're well aware of that. I think the real question from from us probably and I not speak for everybody, well at least for myself when I've talked to people is is truly about the efficiency and and and that's the concern. Otherwise, I think we'd be probably do it. Um,

I think there was also a discussion as to whether or not these this uh study would include other offices besides the prosecutor's office. I remember that discussion from the last time. Might take the questions out of order.

Is that Yeah. I mean, as to that, the point I tried to make last time I was here was that if you want to know what's going on in the justice system, the center is the prosecutor's office. And so everything that happens from law enforcement through the courts, probation, be correction runs through us. So if you get a really good look at what we're doing, you are going okay, even if the other offices were adverse to it, you're going to find out what they're doing. And I really don't have any reason to think that they would be adverse to it. But even if that was the case, because everything runs through us, you would see what's happening. I mean, it give you a really good window as to what those things are. Um, you know, to go back to your question, Scott, is the countyy's growing. The resources, you know, needed to keep the county growing are are a significant issue that's going to be something we need to be concerned about moving forward. I very much think the county would benefit significantly by taking a measured look at the justice system and what our needs are anticipated to be in the next 5 10 15 years so that we can maybe have a game plan collectively moving forward so we're not doing it peacemeal year by year by year. That's what I'm really seeking. That's what I would like to have happen. And I guess uh through the years I've always been for u departments coming in and saying, "Hey, let's kick the tires in our operation just to kind of stir things up and find out what's going on." And sometimes we find out good things, sometimes we don't. But if we don't kick the tires once in a while, we never find out about stuff. So that's where I come from.

Um, without sounding too too negative, first, um, you use the word everybody an awful lot in even wanting the RFQ. Don't include me in some of that because I'm not. But um what you just spoke might lend more to a five-year strategic plan rather than an efficiency uh consultation. And and then now we also know too since we started this conversation that you're going to be losing some grants that we're going to have to reimburse. We're not going to we're not going to lose a grant. We might Okay. So, the thing you spoke to us last month about

I did and it was a heads up to say that we might know until

but um um yeah I um I appreciate Scott explaining because that that's my position on on the uh situation that we we know that um there is not inefficiencies as much as there is deficiencies in the amount of people that's working there. there's not enough, you know. So, I'm more interested in some type of a setting up some type of a maybe a five-year plan to work work those things out more than it is bringing somebody from the outside in to to just tell us that.

So, but that's like I said before, I'm one vote. I agree with what Kit just said. Um, I I my concern is a company coming in and uh telling you how to run your office. With you being there as long as you've been, I would think you have a handle on how to run. So, what are they going to point out to you that you would have an aha moment and other than employees, which again, we're well aware of the shortage that you you've had. So my I would be interested in what that I I really appreciate the confidence you've gotten me, but I don't know that I've got a monopoly on good ideas,

right? I mean I don't I assume I mean and one of the things that's really I mean I've been reading a lot about it this week um is a significant challenge and actually is one of the reasons why litigation's taking so long over across the way right now is the amount of you know digital media for which our office is responsible has exploded by I don't know a factor of a thousand 100 I don't know a lot in the last five or six years I mean and Scott you practice so you know you see how much you get one traffic stop on a relatively simple case, you're going to have a body cam from the guy, you're going to body cam backup, you probably got a camera in the car, you probably got a camera in the other car, you probably got one in the in the Sally port when they take him to jail, right? And so, you know, 20 years ago, you had one VHS tape, right? Now, you've got, I don't know how many terabytes of stuff. Well, multiply that times, you know, thousand. And then further if you have a significant case and this really is kind of what's causing some of the delays probably got going on is that you know you're really looking at an unfathomable amount of data which is created. Now for the sake of transparency I mean it's very very good because you can see every single thing is happening and so that's great. Um I'm in favor of body cams. I'm in favor of you know transparency and I think it's a very good thing. Wants us to know what's really happening. The the bad part is is that you know the amount of man-h hours it takes to try to manage through that the amount of you know manh hours it takes to try to manage the data get it to the right case send it to the right place is is mindboggling and it's very very easy okay those attorneys over there and you know on their website so well this is you know so much data how could we look through it but I guarantee you and Scott you know this is true if we missed one thing one thing you know that that there would be a significant issue with our ability to proceed with that trial. I mean and it's like that every single time. I mean and so my point is is that

you know the demands of doing those things are significant. Um, I know this is not something exclusive Hancock County, something that's a nationwide issue and I'm always in favor of listening to other ideas, be it with litigation strategy, be it with, you know, charging decisions from law enforcement, be it with how to operate more efficiently in tandem with the courts or be it with ideas on how to manage a prosecutor's office with some of the challenges that we have. And so, I'm forever and always seeking ways to do better. You know, I don't really you whoever has a good idea, I'm willing to listen. I mean, and if I'm deeply concerned about our ability to keep things together for the next 5, 10, 15 years, and if there's experts that are out there that are in this field that their job is to know these things, they may have tips, you know, and suggestions to help us, you know, to plot a five or 10 or 15 year plan so we can be successful as a community. I very much want to have that input. And

can I ask a question? Of course. in in my life when I have like I have too many trucks break down and I've got two mechanics and I need five, I sublet out things. I take another truck to a different shop and things like that.

Is there any companies or any uh outsourcing that you can do with just what you were talking about um analyzing a media? Does all of it have to be inhouse or is there any if if every county in the world is having the same issues? There's no there has been no companies come up and say, "Hey, we can we can do this and take this for more like outsourcing some of it and stuff because you just don't have another person sitting there right now."

Well, there's there's two questions here. I mean the first question is is that you know as always is the case in response to technological changes data etc. No, there are some programs and we're going to be seeking, you know, some funding for some hardware which we believe can help us be more efficient in house to more effectively manage some of those things. There's can help us pour through things and maybe you end so you can instead of watching eight hours you can watch 15 minutes but there's some things that are out there um you know that I've discussed some of my colleagues around the country that has been pretty effective in making that much faster. Um and so that is a request that's you know coming down the pike um from us. In addition though, I'm going to answer the other question. Not really because everything we do is confidential, right? I mean, and so, you know, it's re and you don't know. Okay, today when I wake up, I don't know, do we have 10 cases come in or do we have one, right? And so, you you know, you kind of have to have a capacity to be able to do those things at all times knowing, you know, kind of like, you know, you're not going to be at max capacity every day, but some days you're going to be past max capacity because that's just the way kind of goes. G given the nature and the confidentiality of the information we deal with, it's exceedingly difficult to really do that effectively but forward bits and pieces.

Sounds like to me you understand what your needs are. Now it sounds like you're still needing staffing to to follow through with some of the opinions that you have on what would help your office. Yeah. Additional technology. So, I would prefer spending that money on letting you pick where to put that as someone coming in and telling you what you may already know. But they may tell me things I don't know. Mary, true. I mean, and and I guess that's the thing is is again I I certainly and okay,

I know I don't have a monopoly on good ideas and I'm always seeking good ideas. It's a really challenging time for our profession. Um, this is a few of the things that we're dealing with. I mean, obviously, I've been in front of you before. The recruitment and retention of talent in the legal field is also a challenge. of recruitment and you know retention of you know solid administrative staff is a little bit of a challen there's all of these things I mean and I just want to do whatever I can to try to make things better and you know in addition to that I'm not looking at a window of like next year I really would like to have something and I think that would well serve the community to have something where we look at the justice system with the course etc and say what do we want this to look like in five or 10 or 15 and what are the efficiencies etc that we can create to make that work effectively. I'm concerned if we're going to continue to do it in a yearby-year peace meal fashion, we may end up with a product that 10 years later we think, well, boy, we could have really saved some money if we would have looked at these things different.

I was going You've been I mean, you've been doing this for 12 years. You're going to 16 years. Obviously, you go to a lot of conferences and and learn about a lot. I try. Yeah. Um, if you were in my shoes, Brent, uh, would you would you say, "Okay, the efficiency is more important and better than me getting another staff member right now."

Well, it there is a lot of value in having a good clear idea as to where we're going to go in year two. Right? Things are not getting easier. litigation is not getting easier and and so you know my I understand how you know the budgeting works and we have to do yearby year and you don't know what's going to happen your year and I understand all those variables but boy I think it would really help community corrections probation the courts and our office if we had a pretty clear idea as to what we should expect and what we would collectively need in those windows And frankly, I think it would help you all because then there would not be something wherever you're you're kind of what these people are going to do, what these people are going to do, and you kind of put it together. You know, it wouldn't be perfect, but I think a little bit of a road map there would be very, very val.

Well, as far as the money goes for um efficiencies, we use food and beverage. For people, we use general funds. So, it's two different pockets of of money. And I'm sure you're aware of that. Yeah. But I would be for if there's um an itch to do it to look at the whole justice system. I know there's some um talk of com already of combining like community corrections and probation,

which this study would not do. And if there's an appetite for looking at the whole system, I would be all for that. It might cost more money, I would presume, if you're looking not just at and we did that about 15 years ago. We had a lady come in from Crochisic and um her we went through a you know an offsite it was uh planning thing and and the outcome of that one of the outcomes of that was that we should internally uh continue to look at it. So we did that for a while. But

yeah, you you bring somebody in like a crochick, it's going to cost. Sure. If you thinking about that, if you did though just the prosecutor part, could you then use the same person and do another one say after that since they already have all the data and maybe they can I mean are the judges on board with someone coming in and doing an evaluation on their offices? I doubted him. I mean, if I was a judge, I would have that was that would have been my answer. I've not I've not had that discussion with them. I'll be very transparent. I've not had that discussion with answer your question at at the time that we did that. That was a recommendation, but we didn't want to spend the money. Okay. At that time to we didn't have the money. Well, we're still

Yeah, we're still the RFQ process. So, Scott, you can help me out here, but I mean, we could easily just add on to the RFQ. what's also a quote for the entire judicial system. But then I I think the issue I have as a data person is we still don't know what we talk about the cost. The cost the cost the cost. No one knows the cost. The RFQ would get us the cost. I doubt the RFQ is going to come in for $500. But if it did, by golly, let's do it for $500. We'll find out a lot of information.

Say he mentioned 60. But if the cost comes in at $100,000, I'd probably be like, "E, I don't know." But again, we don't know what the cost is. We're not out anything. The taxpayers aren't out anything just to submit an RFQ. But then we can actually debate the data versus debating is it going to be 20,000 60,000 this or that. I guess I just would like to know what the cost is

and everybody's on board. Well, so so the we've always known that most that not most, but some counties have combined probation and work release and other things like that. And and I if you're talking about efficiencies or things like that, I believe that's where we probably need to know information. I didn't think about the prosecutor's office being something that that wasn't efficient because we're we need more people. If we had too many people, then he would think, well, we need to see if we're efficient and narrow that down. But um but I would be open to thinking if we expanded the scope to but but then you can't just um tell the judges, hey, we're going to do a uh we're going to we're going to come in and do an efficiency uh thing on you. We need to pull the judges in if they're going to be part of the system. Um, and then I I personally have reservations about the the future life of the work release program and how probation feeds into that and how all those drug courts are feed into it. I I have p because our world has changed. When they started the the work release program, we had a different set of people in the world. Now we have a different set and it's and I you know it's it's not the same and we haven't adjusted. Well, maybe we go ahead with this RFQ and get a conversation going with whoever responds to it and ask them about maybe can it be expanded into uh adjacent areas. And as far as the judges go, uh I I can tell you the judges are uh very open to um um talking about about

their system. I had presupposed as long as we have lunch, sir.

I I had presupposed I mean that that it would incorporate conversations with what I'll call the adjacent parts to the prosecutor's office which by virtue of um and and you know a lot of it has to do with trying to have all of the data you know place where you can kind of see all of it and how it all interacts and then you know identify things to make it work better. I just know that if we continue to look at the justice system as a series of individual unconnected parts for 5, 10, 15 years, you are very likely to end up in a place where you're going to wonder how you got there and it's going to be more expensive and less efficient than you're going to want it to be. I can guarantee very few things in life, but I can pretty sure I

But that's not what you're advocating here. you're advocating was taking one small piece, not small but one piece of the justice system and then isolating it and seeing if it's efficient without incorporating the others. That's why I was saying I mean I would be open to incorporating the others into it and seeing if there's benefits. Now, yeah, asking for an RFQ doesn't cost us a lot of money, and and I'm still not saying I'll agree to to pay for that after they've given us a quote, but if we included some of the other things, um I think that's where our real value is going to be. Is this company located here in Indiana? That's that would do it.

That's the RFQ would identify companies. would think it would it has to be from Indiana because they would have to know how the court system and the prosecutor's office works in the state of Indiana. So, I think that's vital that they're a hands-on. Yeah. And when we get the RFQ, if there's four submissions and two are from out of state, then we just ask those two right away. I don't know if you had one in mind.

I don't I mean, um, you know, I I do know that I think those that are offenders, I guess, that are experienced in the criminal justice field are ones where I would have a strong preference for than I would for someone who's I mean, and if somebody's from Ohio, but they've done criminal justice versus somebody that does corporate stuff and is not experienced with the justice system, I would lean to the people in Ohio because they know the subject area. Now, maybe that's not the problem. I don't know. We don't know until we get um but the subject area relatively specific to the justice system is something which I would place very high value on because I think someone who does not do that I would they may have too steep of a hill to climb to give informed information. Well, there are specialists and and uh if we go out with an RFQ, let's let's see who responds and at the last time we did it, Crochisik was one. Well, they're a nationwide company, but they had an office in Indianapolis and uh the lady we worked with was a local person, Maryland County. Sorry.

Um Scott Banky, do what do we need? What kind of motion can we do here just to keep the process moving if that's the desire of the majority of the council? You you would need a motion to proceed with the RFQ get it advertised. Okay. And as I nobody's contacted with any change to the final draft I sent to all of I think otter's office has it too and I don't think Brent had any changes. So that's what we would advertise. It's pretty comprehensive honestly what we and then and then if that motion was done like that then it would still have to come back for final financial approval. Yeah. And actually you know the commissioners would have to approve any agreement.

Okay. Yes. I make a motion that we move forward with the RFQ as presented and once we get the results back from the RFQ that that is presented to us and the commissioners then we work together to decide if we move forward or not. The motion is just to proceed with the RFQ process. Second. Right. Is there any discussion request for a U I'm going to stay skeptical. And I want to make sure Scott that we're the RFQ does not cost us anything. Correct. Besides your time to put it together. Cost of the advertisement. Yeah. No, that there's an advertising fee. Yeah. So very minimal cost.

Yes. Let's do a let's do a roll call then. Okay. Councilman Clark. I got Yes. Kent. No, I don't think it needs to be unanimous vote. I think we still need to about this. Robin. Yes. Yes.

All right. Motion carries. One, two, three. Five to one. I do want to make a quick comment though that um I'm kind of leaning towards I would like to see him get more staff. I don't think we can do both, but we'll see. I may be surprised what comes back, but obviously he's doing a great job. I don't hear uh complaints. And um I know they need more staff. We all know that. And um I I just want to make sure that he has the staff that he needs. And uh like I said, I don't hear complaints. He keeps getting elected over and over. He doesn't have an opponent this time. Yes, but there's a reason he for the first time it's since like 1982, I think, or something.

But there's a there's a reason he doesn't have an opponent. Usually, when you don't have an opponent, they think they can't they don't sign up because they think they can't beat you. And uh you know, I I just want to tell him that, you know, I I feel like he is doing a good job. That's very generous. If you're so interested, I'm sure I can find people. And I don't want you to be short. I don't want you to be short on staff. I know what that's like to try to do everything. You know, I appreciate that. I mean, and and I I really do. That means a lot. But, you know, I think we should always check all of our avenues. That's my look a lot different in 10 years. And I really think we would benefit effectively or we are not going to like where we end up

until 9:45. What if anything do you all need? Um I don't think we need anything unless it just needs to be advertised. You got to work. We don't do the RFQS for we do them for the commissioners and the council members. So most of the departments do them themselves. So I would um we can do bid portal. We can share that information with you. We can that's what help you do that. But we can you can you can give Brent some direction. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we'll have um Sarah reach out with all of those portals for you. Uh, do you guys want to take a break because I know Mary's taking a break. Yeah, sure. All right, let's let's take a recess till 9:45 when we'll resume with uh what's next on the agenda.

Here we go. All right. We reconvene the February 11, 2026 meeting. And next up at 9:45 agenda item, additional appropriation request, John Jacanis and Greg Shamblin. Uh, I'm ready to say no to John Jacanis. Not as good as you. Really? I'm serious. Well, John's not coming up here. He's scared. He's scared to get the No. Something bad. Yeah. You know, it's not good if he's not coming up.

I know. And he doesn't have his tie on. Playing the role of John Joantis today assistant over here. Sorry. He's got backup.

Um I am here uh to request for a approval to advertise for an additional appropriation. Uh this is regarding our battery backup system, our UPS system. Uh we were planning on replacing the batteries within the system in 2027. We are now being advised that we need to get that done sooner than later. Uh so we'd like to get that added uh for this year so we can start that process. Uh we do have uh space in our lit that we can that ourselves. Uh I know there was some discussion before today about potentially the bond for it as well. Uh we're looking at uh $16,549.77 is the total from the quote.

Darn it. 164917. I'm sorry. 164917. Uh 16549 and.77. We're already close. Can Can that come out of your uh geo bond? We're We're going to be tight depending on the window replacement, but we're just Yeah, it's just the additional appropriation. Additional appropriation. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That space in the current lid. Okay. So, and it it's an advertise. Yes. It's a thumbs up because it's additional and then we'd have a public hearing, but if you have any questions, you please ask now instead of because you'll probably forget when we do the next month.

Really? What's this one about? Well, 16,000. All right. Thumbs up. All right. Please advertise. Thank you for coming. Thank you. Thank you. That's fun. Correct. The lit peace app. Correct. Okay. On here. Okay. All right. We're now ready for the Now we're ahead of schedule again. 10 a.m. Additional appropriation request with Gary P. Okay. It sounds like you already did the public hearing for the $700,000 for the bridge. We can skip over that one on here. The third item. Thank you. You know, when you're talking, you're driving our our guy our guy nuts cuz he's like, "You can't pick up your voice."

Oh, I know. He's tracking me right now to the camera. So, my first ask to advertise. I forgot to add these. Deborah found this as a mistake I made last year. I didn't add the the line item for my culverts and small bridge repairs, which is why my 1135 had expended cash. I don't need all of that. We have another

But the first item I'm asking for is to advertise $1 million for this That's a That's a thumbs up also because there's no call. Um I can't believe he said admitted in public he made a mistake. But he gets one a year and he used it early. Oh, you used it early. You get one a year. But he's got one to crow about though, too. He's got a mulan coming in the right direction. All right. So we just need a thumbs up to advertise. Thumbs up to advertise that 1 million.

That's the 1 million. And then you would also need a thumbs up to advertise for 500,000 with 1135492. Correct. Yes. And what's that account? That one is for bridges, one is for pipes. So there's different size structures. So these are the smaller structures. Okay. You need a thumbs up to advertise for that. All right. Please advertise for both of those.

All right. What's next, Mr. Pool? already did the $700,000 earlier. I appreciate you doing that there. I need to reduce uh we were we had a pretty successful grant season. I need to reduce by $2 million the cap line item 1112. I don't know what kind of motion this needs. I just need it reduced because I don't need the full 3 million anymore. I thought that was let economic development we put is let Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry I misspoke but 1112 this number 40418 um I believe it was 3 million in there now reduce it down to one and that's because the state came

we were able to secure we were able to secure additional funds from the state advertisement. Okay, we need a thumbs up to to advertise for the reduction. We have a thumbs up. You're good to go on that. Okay. Or we reduced one. Remove the money. Well, Gary Pool is unique. We all gain. He's conservative. Well, their funds. He gets 10% of that. He did not say that. No, he does not. No, he does not. Public. He does not. Freedom page. I can't make this come out. Lake County. He does not.

Uh we did send a thank you letter to INDOT for the total of 5.5 million. The $2 million will help RDC which I I'm sure that there'll be some questions about that. It's going to change our RDC. We'll talk about that tomorrow how that sits. Uh one of them helped our bridge bridge which is pretty safe. And then this one will help with the And I know there's a couple other projects that were in the lurch until we got that more cash. So that should help with that. So we sent a thank you letter to the state. Let them know we appreciate them sending some of our tax money back. Um, Jack and Sons, I've mentioned that before. We're still, we have an offer out to them. It is sitting, we're working with the city on that. Um, the prosecutor's office, we're closing out the construction there and we're getting ready to finish up the old jail. Just so you know, bringing in the loop on some things. I notified Suzanne at HCSS to contact the city about getting the city to asking the city to participate again for $150,000 for HCSS. At some point this group and the commissioners have to decide about the continuation.

Do you know do you know what the uh estimate is even for 26 for that? Is it still 600,000? I assume it's going to be similar. I don't think she's giving raises. So,

okay. Well, just to rem remind ourselves, uh we set that up in a separate fund this year and we expect the state uh to reimburse us half of it or 300,000. So that leaves 300,000 for us to pay. Uh we hope to split that with the city of Greenfield. Uh Janine and I brought that up with the city of Greenfield. They kind of acted like they'd never heard of it before and they said uh they need to have the uh uh HS HCSS come before the city council to ask for the 150,000. And you were going to set that up, Gary. I think

I was I called Suzanne to contact them. I'm going to wait a month. If she doesn't make that contact, I'm going to force it myself. Okay. Okay. I'm trying to let her do. So, so as of right now, we are on the hook for 300,000. We're trying to get Greenfield to pick up half of it. So, kind of worth saying. Do they know that they did that this year? Pardon me. Do they know that they did that this year with us? Right. They do. They knew.

They just They just don't remember that they were going to do it this year. They used ARP money last year. Um, they have ARP money this year. They didn't know. They didn't act like they been acting that a lot. Yeah. You know, with everything. Yeah. For the locals that might be calling you, I've got two bridges closed. They should be done by summer. The one on four South near be done even sooner than that. We just started on the one on three south by um by Zion. The one I go there every day. The one on three south um you know the carriers it's causing it's starting to sometimes it causes a jam especially at

Yeah. I've talked to my guy out there on scene. I said expand those if we need to. I said give it a week because it's always terrible in the first week of any change of maintenance traffic. But it might need to expand out. Yeah. It's hard to it's hard to get out of the roundabout and then cuz you got people you got to wiggle so soon. When Zion, you know, is in and out of church or school, that's when it happens. Yeah. It's going to be rough. Like remember we had all those troubles with five west and and three. It's just it's going to be somewhat problematic, but I told my guy out there to try to get that as optimized as possible, but I told him to be patient with it. Um I don't like to flail. Um possible disaster funds for the snowstorm look unlikely. Um but we'll we've documented everything and we'll try to get that if we can.

Are we good? I don't know if we're going to have much more storms, but are we good on salt or We are. Some of our peers are not, but we will help out our own people within the county as we can if it comes to that. Um, who who we charge? We up charge up charge.

Do not upcharge. We can't make a profit off the other off the other government units. But you are helping other government units throughout the county. Greenfield's okay and we're okay. The others It's difficult. you get it like every snowstorm I'm sure you get calls if one snowflake hits the ground everybody calls and wants you to salt and plow right then but you can't do that in December every single time or you don't have salt now you have to think long and it's hard because it's easy to make a phone call and just think about now but you guys have to think long term so I appreciate you guys letting me it it it's ration it a little bit very hard to budget salt from year to year when some years you need 90,000 tons and the next year you need 10,000 well I feel like the captain on the wife raft with all the food under my butt Yeah.

And like people are like, "We need some like I'll wait till it's warm." Anyway, we're okay to answer your question. Okay. Um, oh, we did renegotiate some more salt, too. So, hopefully that will help. Um, we're modifying a trail fence on 600 West. The the the fence that went in for the ADA, it blocks kind of a view from some of the public accent access. I don't like how it looks. I've had a couple calls from local 600 what? just south of the fire department on 600 West. It's uh or the Sugar Creek Fire Department. Okay, I know.

And when you when you look north, the southbound traffic kind of goes into a dip. So, we're going to modify that railing a little bit, make that a little more uh visible on the back. Um

so, I'm doing a presentation of road school some of it. So, you guys should know that you're doing a good job. You guys make mistakes like me, like I do, but uh you guys are doing good. Here's our our median income growth, Hancock County from 2020 to now. Those are all our peers below us. Our household income has raised 21.1%. And you can see all our peers below that. Um if you look below, you can also see uh just the overall income growth for the whole nation. Uh we're at about 21% household income growth. The nation's at about 10.5. So, a lot of we were I know we're fiscally we're working as a team. We make plenty of mistakes, but I do think we are having a net positive impact. You guys should feel good about that. Below is our county spending as a share of GDP. So, I just like to make sure like I check my own overhead rates and stuff to make sure I'm efficient. Um, generally counties fall between 2 and 7% of the spending in the county comes from government. We're at 3%. Uh, so we're on the lower half of that. That's good. Obviously, the bigger the county, the easier it gets. Uh John is a good friend of mine in Hendricks County and they're they're doing a great job there. So I got to pick his brain a little bit more to get down to 2% for a county his size is really good. So maybe maybe we can get efficient. The best way to do that is by increasing the GDP. We stay the same and our GDP goes up. But work on that. But anyway, I just thought that might be interesting to some of y'all.

Well, Gary, uh in our discussions with the city of Greenfield also, uh we brought up the fact that um you've made an offer for uh Jackson's. Yes, sir. and just want to make sure we're all understanding that we do have an offer out for uh the trash yard. And of course, the question comes up, what do we do with it uh if we get it? And

just so you know what what would happen if he would agree to the offer that we made, we would allow him one year of paying us a lease of $1 a month. So, we have a lease in place so we can enforce it. And he will not be allowed to bring anything on site. He'll only be allowed to send things out because he has some concerns about his two sons that work there. And we have concerns about all the garbage that's there, recyclable materials that are there. And so those uh it allow him to go outgoing only, but he has a lease. So if he violates it, we can cancel the lease and be done. Environmental concerns contaminated soil.

There are some environmental concerns. Greenfield's working on a brownfield project for it and we are looking for some assurances from the mayor that if we take care of this problem that is not going to be stuck in our eye that they're going to hit us up for a bunch of environmental issues. So before we pull the trigger on that, I'll have to we'll have a sit down with their executive staff to make sure that hey, we're doing you a favor. We're doing the county a favor. Like don't it's not national. We we we don't want to own it long term. Long term we do not but they're unable to they're just unable to do something like this. We are I knew what that meant. How much of a problem is there there environmental type things?

I walk through and I've done a bunch of civil engineering projects as well. Um it's not clean. It's not the worst I've ever seen. It's not like a dry cleaner or something like that where you have some of the more complex bio toxins. So there it's mostly petroleum based uh and they just remove the soil to take care of that. Is that correct? How they address a little bit of oversimplification, but yes. So, we're looking at petroleum contamination. That's not a radio radiological danger. It's not a biological danger. There's worse things. So, there are worse things, but it's not clean either. Is it is it is that was there phase one done there? There is. Right. Which is where they identified the brownfield project. Is that 100year flood plane? Yes.

Flood way. Flood way. I'm sorry. What it would probably best serve is Greenfield is the center of our county and that is in the center of Greenfield and a recycling operation. There's not probably an ideal economic activity. Well, this is a dumb question probably, but why do we want to own it? Why are we buying it? We don't want that economic activity near the center of our largest town, largest population area in the county. We don't have a plan in place for what would happen. It's still county property, right? It would become county property when we would buy it. Oh,

and then if we would sell it to another economic activity, the county would recoup the money. So, don't be I'm not I'm be upfront with this. The county will be out money for a minute because I don't think you're going to get a tax generating entity there. What you're buying is the removal of a large ecological problem in garbage area near one of our trails in Greenfield. It also helps with some of the homeless encampments. There is a side effect. It really slows down the economic development of Greenfield. Greenfield wasn't interested in buying it. They're just not able to move like we are. They're very interested in buying it. They just they're not unable. Yeah, I know they want it.

Yeah. And that's why we want it. Okay. We had some uh insides with Jack. So yeah, we're just helping it. Is it is rational do we don't want a re a scrap operation in the center of our dense population is getting the activity there stopped and then not go on for another 20 years but it's outside of my jurisdiction. I'm already you know everything we're doing is fine but it is a lift. I know the county has wanted it for a very long time. Well the Yeah. We don't want it. We want what's there not to be there.

Yes. Yeah. We we won't stop the business. But they have a they have a large Greenfield has a large redevelopment planned down here. It just doesn't fit with the the citizens of Hancock County don't want to have their concert next to a recycling operation. There's better places for those operations. The economic activity is fine. It's the location of the economic activity we'd like to see somewhere else. And Gary's been willing to invest his time in pursuing it. You guys do pay me, but thank you. Hey Jerry, could could you also give us just a update on where the 200 West uh interchange project uh stands?

INDOT is finishing their contract with the consultant which is H&TB. Uh they are asking me to assist with the project management of the project. I said I'm willing to do so informally. Um there's reasons for that. Mainly as Scott would tell you if I be if I were I'm a professional engineer. If I contribute formally to the project and something's wrong, I would incur liability to the county, it would probably go beyond what the air and emissions uh insurance coverage you have for me. So, informally, I'm willing to participate, but they signed up to do the design and everything. So, there's error with that. I went to late with them. They're going to try they're going to ask us to buy right away earlier. I said there's a cost of capital. So, we're better at buying right away than they are. They've they they realize that um our team just works better at it,

which I'm proud of. We're just faster. So, they were they would love for us to handle some of the rightaway acquisition. I said there's a political cost to that because we have to be the bad guy and acquire the rightway, which you guys find out when they do the trail and stuff is never popular. U and there's also a capital cost. If we're paying money two years earlier of that $20 million, the buying power of that money is greater at that point. So, I'm going to want my council to recoup some of that buying power back so that we're going to reduce that $20 million commitment if they want us to purchase the rideway earlier. Um, so I'll have to come back to you that if that comes, but that's currently where that's at. Their precon meeting should be in the pre-esign meeting should be in the spring and then it should get busy designing and the construction is still set in 2030 2031. Okay, great.

Any questions on that? Thank you. Um, no. So, We have the most dangerous intersection in the United States right now. Probably two deaths in less than Are we going to talk about an in endot intersection? Yes. But we have two county roads that half that intersection is county talking about US 40 and yes that would be it and do not fully jurisdictional intersection. What how does it affect our county roads that feed each side because the people that are dying are coming off our county roads. They're going to build that project regardless of political pressure in about two years. And they're is what I believe

they're changing from my understanding they're their idea of that intersection is U-turn. It'd be a squashed roundabout, J turn, RCI, whatever they're calling it now. Michigan left, whatever you want to call it. Yeah, J turns is what they call. And we don't need to do anything to succeed side. We don't have a say. I think the only problem we might have is that they might you be uh drivers might use a different road more often like five east or they they ran a study on that and it their traffic increased on the ones they did in other counties.

I don't understand why they're still looking at those Michigan lefts or whatever they're called. The one that was in uh was on a Marian H County line. They tore it out. Alisonville 96 in 96. Yeah. That it just wasn't working. So why why are they presuming it was working. They have an accident every other day now. They had two accidents a month before they removed it. So well it's a pain in the butt. I will tell you that it's a complete that changing of that J turn to a roundabout factually was a complete disaster. How did how does a how does a semi on our county road coming north on 600 East make a J turn?

I've been in them because they always they do this throughout the state. They take a right. They have a bulbous area and they they turn there and they go. So they they look at one car from the left and then they look at one from the right. My some of my truck drivers kind of use the J turn now anyway because there's a if they can't turn left, they get impatient and cars back up all the way down the road on six east and they'll take a right, go through the center cut and around. So they do the same thing as what they're doing now if they get really impatient. Again, it's not our dog. We just picked up $5.5 million from INDOT. We pick up around 20 million a year in grants from Indiana. I don't want to step on INDOT on this. No, I They're not They're not doing it half-hazardly. This is not a Christmas project for them.

There's going to have to be turn lanes on our county roads. No, they're not increasing the size of the of the the throats. Yeah,

there might be marginal increases to the curb radiuses possibly. I haven't seen the design. It'll work. People won't die anymore. Now, the downside is that some people if they struggle with they the the common complaint is tractor trailer traffic. If you're in a passenger car, you got no dog in this fight. It'll be fine for you. It'll save you time because you're not going to be waiting for 5 minutes, 10 minutes as a tractor trailer can't get to a left turn. The tractor trailer is going to force me go right and get out of your way. And if you're in a passenger car, you don't have a dog in this fight. If you're a grainhaul or something, you have a slight dog in this fight because now you're going to be forced to make three maneuvers instead of one. But it's new. But roundabouts are new 20 years ago. Uh we should we should let DOT handle this.

All right. We don't want to be involved in any of the stuff going on out there. It's not our it's not our intersection. Yeah. Any other questions? We got it. All right, Gary. Thanks, Gary. We got it. We get it. We get it. All right. Next up on the agenda, 10:15, update abatement application. Mary No was going to lead.

Uh, yes. Uh, myself, Robin, Gary P, and Bill Spalding have uh put together a committee to review and update the abatement application. It has not been updated since 2022. Um, we have been meeting. We've only had one meeting and we're supposed to meet again today after this meeting, but uh, Bill can't be here, so we may wait and all be together next month. But the reason I wanted to county council involved here and Robin can speak to it as well is we want to add a paragraph that talks about when the abatement will expire. And we kind of mentioned it when Randy was sitting here about, oh, we gave them a seven-year run on that abatement and then they'd have to reapply. And I don't need an answer today, but put some put some thoughts together on how the council would like to see that go. Do you want it to be um they have to pull their permit by a certain date? Do you want it has to be started by a certain date? Do they have to have their occupancy by a certain date? we can put all of those requirements in that abatement if we choose to. So, thinking ahead about what would be appropriate for the council to put in there because we've never had anything in the current abatement. We just kind of added it to the resolution. But this way going in, we can we can fill it in and we could even put it as a fill-in-theblank thing if we wanted to and uh address it individually by whoever the company might be. I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not, but that's kind of where we are,

right? Um on what we the council's discussion part of it right now. All we've done is kind of clean up the verbiage that things make it a little clearer and Gary was really wherever Gary went, Gary was really good about reviewing it and making suggestions and we've made those changes already. Yes. And uh we're just looking to move forwards to get this pushed out when we can. So, right now it's seven years is Well, that's kind I thought we did five and then we did seven. So, I wasn't sure what we did. It'd be interesting if Nicole could maybe put together something that shows us who we put those requirements on because not everybody has those requirements. We kind of just started doing it

and then sometimes the EDA has even tighter rules or did I don't know if we'll do EDAs in the future, but yeah. So, we need just think about abatements and think about and I can email everyone a copy of what we've be we've got currently going on and give you time to read it and make suggestions because it it's a council document. Uh, and we're just trying to update it. It's all we're doing, right? Yes. We need to be more specific, write something up so we could look at it. Um uh uh and the EDA uh currently in the system is not really I don't think part of the abatement is it we took it we took that paragraph out yeah of the abatement. Okay.

Cuz it's obsolete, right? Yes. Now, there may be some agreements that we want to make, correct, with a a particular company that we give an abatement to, and we may want to say, oh, and we want you to build a road or something. Yes. And and there is a a part in there that says, are you asking for any special consideration above the abatement? uh which is what they want, but there's not a line in there right now that says and in addition to we will request. So that's something we could put in there, right? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. We want it to be a lot more specific.

Yeah. I'll email everybody what we've got so far and then you guys can play around with it and we'll talk about it again. That's okay. Okay. So I guess have the committee report next month or the month after. Yeah. Okay. Um All right. All right, we're ready to move on to the 10:30 agenda item. 2025 annual report. DD Allander is here. If she can come up,

she's not here. She'll get it later. Yeah, she's not here. Yeah. Key's excused. She has excused absence. social. Oh,

who's our appointee to this? It's now It's no longer me. It's now Robin Louderder. It's you again. It's okay. Yeah, it's me again. You just can't get away from it. I can't. I love it. She loves all the voice. I do love it. He loves it. She told me it takes her longer to get ready than the meeting glass. Huh? I'll let her ride in a truck. She really loves it. You can learn all about it. That's what you call a hard pass. Dee does different things than what you do.

All right, Dee, you can go. You start. So, um I'm Dee Allander and I am with Recycle Hancock County, uh which is otherwise known as the Hancock County Solid Waste District. I rebranded, um about five years ago, um just because there was confusion over what solid waste I handle and I would get every call-in in the world of solid waste that I needed to handle and that's not what I do. So, um I rebranded to recycle Hancock County to kind of help clarify, you know, that my focus is on recycling. So, I'm going to go through my u annual report first, which is in that green booklet. And I compile this report every year. Um, apparently I failed to uh uh present it to you every year. And um there was some uh confusion over the budgets this fall as to what I actually do. So, I thought, well, now's a good time to come explain what I do um when I've just completed my um annual report. so you could kind of see what um things that I do. Um so the first couple pages just talks about the structure um of my district and who are my board of directors. Um they're all elected officials. Um I do have an advisory committee that's u made up of um different businesses and residents in the community. um just brief structure and how you know the history of the solid waste district and how it's evolved over the years. Um we had a really good year this past year. So on page seven it talks about um the education programs that I do and majority of those fall in the spring because Earth Day is April 22nd and all the schools want Earth Day programming. So my month of April is like completely booked with um school programs as well

as some of the other months um as well. So um this last school year um the 2425 school year um I had a record number of programs. Um I had it built up and then COVID hit and it all fell to the wayside. So, I've been working to get back up to where I I was and I surpassed my number of programs um last school year. Um so, that was really good. Um I also do a flower pot project where I supply the schools or the classrooms with a flower pot, dirt, seeds, um that they can do an Earth Day project. If they want to do something on Earth Day, they can plant this flower on Earth Day. And then the goal is is that they can turn it around. hopefully it'll grow and they can t send it home with the kids for Mother's Day. So that's that's the goal of that and that has been gaining in popularity as well. It just is just growing. Um then on um page 10 um is an overview of all the collection events that I do. Um we mainly do two large events every year where we take hazardous waste, electronics, tires, paint, shredding. Um, we also take shoes for changing footprints and we t take expired non-p perishable food items um that we give to the Kenneth Butler soup kitchen. And then we do um a smaller event with just shredding and um electronics and we partner with uh one of the towns. So I rotate between um uh Fortville, McCordesville and New Pal to do that smaller event. And typically what happens is the town will pay for the shredding, we pay for the electronics, and um it's a win-win for everybody. Um and then the past uh couple years, we've also done a tire a free tire collection

event as well. Uh I won a grant through IDM to do some um tire recycling and so we did have a free event the past two years. So last year um my uh participation at my collection events uh surpassed all the other years. So it was a really good year for for collection events. Um then if you go on to the next page, page 11, um I get into the breakdown of all the different items that I take. So um electronic waste, um it kind of looks like my numbers are kind of going down, but I think actually I don't feel like our numbers are going down. I feel like the weight of like televisions is going down. They're becoming a lot lighter than they used to be. You know, those big old CRT televisions were heavy. So, I think the the downfall is just due to the the lightness of the televisions. Um, but I I feel like we're getting just as much now as we did before. Um, hazardous waste. Um, on page 12, that is a huge problem. Um, you can't throw that in the trash. You hope they don't pour it down the drain or dump it out in their yard or field. Um, it's very harmful to the environment. Should it get into our ground system, it could contaminate our water. It's just there's nothing good about it. Um, so that is the primary focus of my job or any solid waste district is to provide proper disposal of hazardous waste uh in your county. And um we do these collection events. We do not have a facility. A lot of other counties have an actual HHW facility where um people can bring things on a regular basis. Maybe it be a Saturday, maybe they're open during the week. you know, every county is different, but we chose to do events um

just to kind of keep our costs down. Um so we have an event um the last Saturday in April, the last Saturday in September, uh we're there from 9 to 1. And if a resident can't make that, then they either have to sit on that hazardous waste until our next event or find somebody that can bring it to our event. Um and it never fails. Usually the Monday after that event, I always get a call from a homeowner that says, "Hey, I'm moving and I have to be out of my house in 30 days. What do I do with this?" Like, "Well, you just missed us." So, um, that is our biggest problem right now. But our hazardous waste collection numbers have grown substantially. Um, in 2025, um, going on over to the next page, um, we had a record year for our tires. I think that was um due to our free event the last two years it jumped up substantially. Um and we're just trying to get those out of people's yards trying to clean up areas. Um we also had a record year for shredding. You know this day and age of identity theft is a is an issue. So we're always trying to get the important documents um disposed of properly. Um and then on page 18, we'll give you a breakdown of um our budget compared to the surrounding Marian County Doughut County budgets. I mean, obviously, a lot of them are have a lot bigger population than we do. Um but, um you'll see the breakdown of our budget versus theirs, our population versus theirs, and then our per capita spending. So how much money we spend per resident on um recycling and disposal with for our budget. So um as you can see we are very low as far as our

spending um and I did a a summary of you know the entire state this fall and you know we're one of the larger counties but we have one of the smallest budgets in the county. So I just want to bring that to your attention. Not that I'm asking for more money. I just want to let you know where we're at. Um, and then the back page is just um my fiveyear strategic plan. Um, the items in red are things that I've already achieved. Um, some of the other things are things that were I had anticipated on doing. Um, maybe for one reason or another. Um, either I'm not able to do those items or I just haven't gotten around to it yet. And then um that other pamphlet, the other pages that I I gave you um I just wanted to mostly do this for my own benefit um but also yours. Um so I've been here for 13 years doing this job. Uh nine years I was contracted through CGS services and the last um four years um I've been contracted uh personally as an independent contractor. And um so I was just curious, you know, what this spreadsheet would look like. So at the top um this is everything that I've able been able to accomplish over the total 13 years. So at the top is all the different recycling that I've carried out throughout our county along with the total um weight of those items or quantity of those items that we've brought in over the years. Um, and this doesn't include our big collection events, you know, the hazardous waste and electronics. That was in my annual report. But this is everything else that I do. And I have on listed on here everybody that I've partnered with to carry out these projects. Most of these um didn't cost us anything. Uh the only thing that uh we had to pay for was um

our newspaper recycling bin. I still have that. We still do newspaper recycling, but I do have to pay to have a waste hauler come in and empty that for us and recycle the materials. And then um the garden pot garden pot recycling um I did have to pay also for the transportation of the the containers um when I had that going. And then um also out to the right tells you how many years I have done that. Some of these we're not doing anymore. Some of them, you know, are still ongoing. But um there's just the number of years we've been doing it. Um I did a few promotions. I've done a lot of different events throughout the county. Um a lot of the festivals in the area. Um I've done a lot of different programs for different organizations. Just a lot of different things going on there. Um down at the bottom of the first page is a listing of the grants that I have been awarded. Um, and then also I have three grants that I'm currently working on. They're in various stages. Some I've already submitted, some I'm waiting to submit, and some I'm just, you know, waiting on the results. Um, the second page is a list of the local partners. Um, so due to my small budget and not not that I'm complaining, but um I have to be very creative on how I carry out um my recycling. So local partners are a huge part of my business. Um I'm always trying to find new partners that we can do um projects with um to get assistance to get things done. So I have a huge list of local partners that I have used at one time or another or am still using at this time. And I compiled this report yesterday and I was reading over it this morning just reviewing everything and I found about 10 more community partners that I hadn't listed. So, I had to reprint my page.

Um, so I'm sure there's probably more on here and I just haven't thought of who they are. Um, the last page is um some of the awards and courses that I've taken over the years, programs that have been offered. Um, I'm always trying to better myself, so I participated in several of the uh Hancock County Community Foundation courses. Um, their leadership Hancock County Civic Circle, the community development. Um, and then I was named the Hancock County Chamber Champion for last year, which was kind of exciting. Um, and then I've got a list of projects that I'm currently working on. Now, this is constantly evolving. Um, I'm always looking at new things. Um, trying to figure out where we can expand on the services that we offer. Um, I am partnering with, um, GBC bank this year for our shredding, for our collection events. they are wanting to pay for shredding. So, it's not going to cost us, it's not going to cost any of our residents anything to um shred their papers for this year. Um I'm working with technology recyclers. Um they are doing our electronics. They want to bring a truck in here on a regular basis and park it somewhere and let residents bring their recycling in on a regular basis rather than waiting for one of our collection events. Um, I did get a phone call last week from Republic Services. They are wanting to partner with us on hazardous waste. Um, I have a meeting with them scheduled next week to figure out what that's going to look like. But, you know, hazardous waste is extremely expensive to dispose of and that's why we only do two events. Um, so I'm really excited about, you know, that opportunity that's coming. Um I'm partnering with the Greenfield Parks Department right now working on getting recycling bins uh for the parks and I already have grants in for that um project. So just kind of waiting on that. And then um one big

item that's really on my mind is uh lithium ion battery safety. Um it's the more I research it, the more scared I get as how dangerous these batteries are. And um so I've been in contact with the schools, you know, trying to warn them, say, "Hey, don't just throw those confiscated vapes in a desk drawer. You need to put them in a bucket with sand to keep them from, you know, catching fire." Um I've been working with the fire departments as well, you know, trying to get information out to residents and to them as well on, you know, just proper handling of those um batteries. Um, and then trying to figure out, you know, how do you dispose properly of these disposable vapes? You know, the electronics recyclers don't want it because, you know, some of them contain liquids. You know, who knows what kind of liquid they're vaping. You know, they don't want those liquids. And then, um, the um, and other people don't want the electronics that are in it. So, it's it's really difficult when you have multiple different components that make up an item. is trying to figure out how to properly, you know, dispose of those things. Um, solar panel recycling is something else I've dealt with and I want to tackle Hancock Regional Hospital on their recycling. Um, prior to COVID, they had all dishes and silverware and the last few times I've been there, it's been styrofoam containers and plastic utensils. So, I've got a lot of work ahead of me. But um I just wanted to let you know some of the things that I've accomplished, some of the things I'm working on, and just kind of giving you an idea of what I do. So, thank you for your time. And just did anybody have any questions?

Yeah. Is there any She's presented her 2025 annual report. Is there any questions for her? I I got a couple uh questions. Um as far as the government goes, is there any um uh idea sought after? I know you said um I'm assuming Shelby County has a full-time hazardous waste disposal site. They do.

Okay. But their residents when they go in there to dump anything. So, um, I would ask the commissioners to entertain like a memoranduming of understanding or something to work with Shelby County that if you got a call from a resident that had hazardous waste and we didn't have a day coming up that they could go to the Shelby County site and either pay to dump uh their material but be allowed to dump material on that site. Uh, I take grease from Greenfield to Shelby County. So, I know that it does it's not sight specific to the county lines. So, we could the the commissioners could work on an agreement with Shelby County. U, they should work with us because the majority of the money they get for their hazards way site comes from Hancock County or a lot of it. Well, um I have approached them about that because I have been trying to figure out a solution for this for 13 years because it is a problem. Um and I have talked to them about it. None of the surrounding counties are interested in partnering with us because it is so expensive. You know, just to give you an idea, um when we have a hazardous waste disposal event, um we charge our residents $5 a car load for whatever chemicals they want to dispose of. We in turn from our hazardous waste provider. Well, this year I just received the bids. So this year it's going to cost us $97 per car that just drives through our event. So I mean it's huge expense and I don't think a homeowner is even going to want to pay $100 to take a few chemicals to Shelby County. So they're not willing to do it. I've contacted our hazardous waste vendors to see if they would take residents when we don't have an event. They want to deal with large quantities. They don't want individual people. So I I am at a loss. I don't know how to resolve that.

So So if they they charge $97 per car and I bring one can of paint and he comes and he's $97 a car and he brings a 100 cans of paint, it's the same price. Yeah. So actually versus if I just gave him my one can, he would be like it would save us 97 bucks. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. Well, partner up and separately new paly just so they're painting the trash. But yes, it addition that's what you get. I got one addition that just crushes me with liquid paint. Oh down there. We've had residents come in with a bag of batteries. Okay.

Um we try I shouldn't say this, but sometimes we do consolidate. You know, if they just have a small bag of batteries, you know, obviously we're not going to send that through. Um, but you know, we subtly we try to convince people to work with their neighbors to bring items, but I don't think our hazardous waste vendor would be very happy if I told everybody to, hey, partner up, you know, because they're wanting the money as well. So, yeah, we we encourage them to work together, but, you know, we can only do what we something we probably need to take a look at some. The other the other thing that the lithium batteries, okay, I've as far as I know, I've never had a fire because of a lithium battery that's that big or a vape or something like that. Okay. Uh but what I have had fires and I have them every year um and quite frequently is batteries out of campers because there are lithium batteries. They're long elegated batteries about this. If you think of a camper that you buy over here at Camping World

Mhm.

and you drive it down the road and you've got it set in your driveway for 10 years or whatever and then you want to the batteries go out that are in there that do the lights and all that kind of it doesn't look like a regular battery. It's it it um it it's long and more like a box. And when they throw those away, which they're not allowed to, but they do anyway. They put them in a trash bag, throw them away, and they get broken cuz they're long. they get broken like this, they they fire like that. So, most of my fires, uh, I would say 10 out of or a hundred out of hundred of the last fires I've had trucks have all been camper batteries. And I don't know if Camper World, which is a big here in our thing. I don't know if they h have any idea that that's happening or if they can educate their people that are buying the campers. when you get rid of a battery

come in there and I and I'm assuming these people are buying batteries from them to replace the batteries they're throwing away but that that's the that's the most dangerous thing that we have right now and I hadn't heard I hadn't been aware of that. So that's yeah that's probably another area I probably need to target.

Yeah, we bring trucks mostly in the spring when everybody's trying to get their campers up again. We bring trucks back to the shop all the time and have to dump trash out, dig through, find that battery and uh because it starts smoking and it causes a fire and but we don't have ash fires anymore. Like we used to have ash fires when I was a kid, but now we don't have ash fires because people aren't burning burning barrels no more, but now we have these camper battery fires. Those are probably let them I Is it possible for someone like like you to um charge people to bring uh stuff to you and collect it? I know like in Warsaw I'll take paint there. There's a company that is in the trash business that they collect and but you pay

you you'd have now Yes. Republic could because they have a permit for their facility. I you'd have to have a permit for people like if if you're not a customer of mine and you want to bring something onto my site, I have to have a permit from the state that says you're allowed to do that. If you're a customer of mine and you want to get rid of a washing machine and I tell you I can't take it at the curb, you can bring it to me. You're I'm just ser providing service to a customer of mine. Uh but I I can't take it from someone that's not a customer of mine because then I would be a transfer station.

And it's the same way with hazardous materials or all the others. Um but now Republic has which I built a transfer station that's permitted by the state. Um yes, they could take materials there and they have taken recycled materials and stuff. I don't know if if the glass program with egg Oh, yeah. That's something I didn't even mention. Yeah, we we still have a glass recycling program. We're partnering with KOF Insulation out of Shelbyville. They want the glass to turn back into insulation. So, that was a great program. They give us um compensation for every ton of glass that we send to them. They they cut me a check. So, yeah, it's it's another great partnership.

Yeah, that that that has an end product. That's tough. It's very tough to get the end product for what we're recycling. And glass has a specific end product. So that was a that was a great great win. You could be on the solid waste. You'd be a great win. But you drive I've always thought that too crazy

because I am so because I am so integrated. I was on it for a while but so I'm so integrated with the bad parts of recycling. I uh I fight recycling every day and I'm not fighting hazardous waste. I'm not fighting recycling food. I'm not fighting recycling pots. and and and the shoe recycling ends up to me anyway. You know, you know, we throw away thousands of shoes that they can't use. Um but I'm not fighting any of that stuff, but um I I have a personal disbelief in the in the plastic recycling because I've seen where it goes and and I have to do I'm I'm a party to that. We have recycling for curbside recycling in Greenfield and I know my plastics go in the ocean, okay? But I can't stop it. And so part of the recycling I don't agree with. Nothing's a perfect world. Recycling isn't a perfect scenario. Um but uh all the other things that she's handling. I don't have a a a time or a life to even work on and hazardous waste and they keep they keep creating more hazardous waste

by listing more and more items. You can't take a TV. You can't take a a computer monitor. You can't take this. You can't take that. You can't take this. You can't take that. So over the last 10 years, all these things have been created, but the government hasn't come in and said, "Okay, you can't do this." But that there's no money. You just have to not do it. You know, it's unfunded mandates. Well, some people had said, "Well, what does she do?" And I think you can see she does a lot. If not, these things would be end up along the side of the road, you know, in the ditches. When I was a kid, you saw mattresses, tires, and there's still some things that Gary has to have an outlet for liquids.

Mhm. for for paint. Uh paint in its liquid form is hazardous. Okay. We have to have outlets. Yes. For for that stuff. And and you know that's a number one in my opinion on the list of anything we'd ever do. Well, I think people have questioned if we need this. We definitely do. It's very important.

And I've been pushing Dee to recycling comes in three things. It's reduce, reuse, and recycle. Okay. I've been pushing Dee that when she's teaching the children stuff how to reduce. Okay. reduction is as big a part as actually uh using what's what's left at the end because if we can reduce uh by but what we what we're having to throw away that's as big a big of of an issue than than actually then trying to find something to do with what we're throwing away that doesn't cause more environmental impact. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you for all you do.

Are you saying today you'll you'll take paint? Uh, no. I don't take paint. He's a customer of me. They put it in there and then then dry it out. Then Mr. Pool from the street department in New Palestine. He calls me, says, "You spread paint down the road today in the subdivision." And then we have to send Yeah, he has to clean it up. I just paint my trash can. That's all right. So, it looks like uh I I do have a request here at maybe we can do at the end of the meeting for a public there's a couple people want to do a public comment um that the auditor gave me. But, uh let's let's go on the action items. Uh number one, budget meeting update.

Um well, uh first uh could I go to the half million dollars of um uh the food?

Yeah. Um, I saw that and um that half a million dollars was originally supposed to be part of the 2025 GEO bond, but it was not paid out of that bond for a lot of reasons, but it wasn't. So that geo bond needs to be uh that we reimburse food and beverage for it will be the 26 g bond. Currently we do not have that half a million in that go bond. We do have 1.75 million for the 4 people uh the a association in that 26 uh go bond. So we need to add that half a million to that 26 uh uh go bond unless we want to reduce what we're giving to the uh 4 people. So that would make uh the in the 26 GO bond it would make it 2.250 million uh for uh the uh uh fairgrounds.

That's a reimbursement. Pardon me. As a reimbursement. Yes. Adding it to the bond to reimburse. Yeah,

it was also that that would mean we would have to take the um uh target value of that go bond from 6 million to 6.5 million. In addition to that, uh, FSG and I was talking to him about whether we could do that or not, and they said, "Yeah, we can go up to about 6.9 million in that go, uh, 26 GO bond." But he, uh, Greg pointed out that we do not have any money in that bond for the cost of the bonds, and that's about $300,000. So that geo bond if we want to cover everything needs to be about 6.8 million instead of six.

Do you do you Let me just throw an alternative out there. Yeah.

Do you want to do that or do you just want to pay for that out of uh our food and be beverage balance? Our food and beverage is growing at a rate of an additional 200,000 a year, additional funds. Um, we have a 1 9 million estimated balance or something. I I I'm just throwing that out there rather than borrowing over the next six years, seven years or whatever that money rather than just paying for it out of out of out of that.

It it just I know we protect food and beverage, but it's it's huge. It's getting bigger and it's continuing to get bigger and I'm a major contributor. Thank you. Out a lot. I I ate out of Grisbies last night and it's expensive and then the Grisbies isn't cheap and but the food the salmon was magnificent. So, but you know what I'm saying? And it's only going to get it's that that that's one taxi because they've doubled the amount of a cheeseburger at McDonald's. You know what I mean? McDonald's is expensive. Go to Culver's and two kids meals is 20 bucks and and that tax is going same time. I think that's a good point.

Yeah, that's true. But that's my that I don't care, you know, if if we want if everybody wants to do it out of the bond or if everybody wants to to take it from that. I it doesn't I think as long as the to me the bond if the bond rate is cheaper than what we're getting from money in our reserves and interest then that makes sense. Otherwise, if it doesn't, then no, it doesn't make sense. No, I I that's why I mentioned it because I didn't I didn't think of all the avenues of it. Mhm. Uh budget meeting.

So So if we want to do we need to um have a motion to increase the I guess the value of of that bond from 6 million to 6.8 million if we want to take that out of the bond. Well, but but the 6.8 8. What you're saying is even if we don't do the 500,000, we got to go to 6.3. Yeah. So, we either got to do 6.3 or 6.8 because of the cost of the bond. Right. Right. All right. Is there a motion on the table or is this something you guys want to think about and vote on next month? It's up to you.

Well, do you want to re someone research the the cost of financing as opposed to the interest that we're going to be I think we recently had the discussion. We did have that discussion. It was it was uh still better to borrow than because our interest rate was higher. I think we the last bond our interest rate was higher than what we got for the um savings, right? Yeah. And just you know it's a capital investment. So that makes sense to do it from a geo bond. Uh what what you're saying uh Kent is entirely true too. I mean we can spend food and beverage money on anything.

I'm fine. I I'll make the motion that we increase the the bond to 6.8 million to pay for the for for the the 500,000 for that and the thousand for the issuance cost of the issuance of the bond. Second. All right. I have a motion and a second. Uh any discussion? I I have a question. Sure. Go ahead. Did we have a resolution for originally 1.5 that might need to be amended in it? The 1.5

the ad money given them the the first amount and then this this additional five half a million was it mentioned in resolution or anything that No. Okay. Nope. Not that I recall. I just wanted to make sure. You can always check on that. Wouldn't hurt. Hard to remember all of this. I don't know about the rest of you, but All right. Is there any any other questions or comments? Good on that. Okay. All right, then. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries.

All right. Uh budget meeting. Uh we did review all of the funds and they all look good. Uh we decided to uh target uh a 2% salary increase uh for 2027 if uh that's a just a target to think about. Finalize that. We didn't finalize it. We just mentioned it, right? There is something to Don't we have to do that today? Yeah. What? Target two 2026 target. That's target balance. Yeah, he was talking about raises. Raises. Oh, we haven't we haven't nailed anything down. We're just discussing.

Oh. Uh we did pass a resolution to reimburse the sheriff, but we've already done that.

Thumbs up uh for public defender attorneys uh for 115,000. Uh we passed uh $72,000 from food and beverage for the Hancock County Boys and Girls Club. uh FSG and the auditor estimates uh that they're we're going to need about another 160,000 in this year uh to complete the uh ARP um funded um uh jail uh recovery program and uh we did thumbs up to take that from jail lit fun 1234 Scott Binky was going to provide a resolution for closing funds and I think that's on the list

for the dormant funds. Yeah, I talked to Dev and Mary about that. We're putting it together. Okay. Can I say something real quick? Sure. about what you talked about with the Boys and Girls Club. I had a board member approach me and thank me for for voting yes to to give the Boys and Girls Club the money they needed for the thing. And he said um that and I and I because I made the the the notion that since I've been here, I've never been asked by the Boys and Girls Club. And he said, "Well, that's not actually true." Because he said, "I asked Bill Bolander when he was president if we could come to to the council and ask for money. Bill told him no. Yeah.

So it never got it never got to us. So that's why it was strange to me that they never came in wanting any money for anything. And that's why cuz Bolander always blocked it till they know. Well, if it was in 2009 or 10 or 11, there was no money then. Yeah. But Oh, and we're setting up a committee now to to do that to handle that. Absolutely. To handle that.

All right. And uh we did uh make a commitment uh to fund in 2027 uh the current recovery staff uh at an estimated cost in 220 uh in 2027 of 316,238 bucks. And uh FSG has been working on where we would work that into the 27 budget. And right now it looks like that may fit into the uh jail jail lit budget, the 1234. Kind of surprised at that, but that's what they're thinking. Um then, uh uh Brent Eaton gave us a heads up that there's going to be a shortfall. uh in um oh some grants for victim advocates.

Yeah. But he just said today that that didn't happen. He didn't know yet. Yeah. He didn't know. He didn't know yet. I think he said that and then he revised it and said, "Well, he didn't know yet." Uh she made a comment uh like known about October, September, October. They'll know. They don't they're not going to lose all of it, but there's a potential to lose some of it. They'll know in September and October.

Yeah. And then uh we made a motion and passed to uh fund the senior services um for $150,000 from the general fund uh to that fund 8916 which is the new senior services fund. And we're hoping that, you know, Greenfield will come along with their 150 and the state will come along with the 300,000 and our expenditure will only be 150,000. What was that fund number again? I have 8916. Okay. Thank you.

Uhhuh. Uh oh. We signed a green field um animal control agreement for 2026. We approved 465,000 from general fund for that which was a increase

increase of what was in there of like 20,000 something like that. Yeah, we did ask FSG to investigate what's going on uh with uh the two townships, Blue River and um Brandy Wine that did not show a budget for I pulled that up and they had reasons in there why they did that and I think they Yes. Okay. And I don't remember what they were now, but were they good? But they were That was helpful, wasn't it? But they were good reasons. I Good reason. Yeah. Could possibly be fixed.

Good. Bernie Harris asked for about $700,000 capital in uh 2027. And we're going to include that in the uh 26 g bond. And it is in there. Thumbs up for the sheriff's uh oh, we did a thumbs up for $5.5 million for the sheriff's uh building from uh lit um jail uh fund 1233. And then Hope House gave us a a presentation. That's all I had. Anybody add to or subtract or comment?

Thanks. Thanks for report Jim. Mhm. Uh next item is anybody is the minutes. Does anybody have any changes to the minutes as presented in our packet? Uh I do. Okay. If

I can get to it here. page uh the uh one two the third page under future mental health investment. Um I think the second uh sentence should read the remaining balance will run out in 11 months. We just talked about that. Uh and we will need about 160,000 to finish 2026. We just did that. And then the next sentence should be I think to uh continue the current programs and we're talking here the regional hospital programs in 2027 will we will need between 800,000 and a million. I think those were two separate things that she talked about not one. Does the auditor have those changes?

Okay. Then if there's no other changes, then I can take a motion to approve the January 14th minutes as presented noting the changes the mental health investment paragraph. I'll second. Right. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. All right. Next is auditor business. And there should be a packet. I mean it should be a papers in your packet and I'll turn that over to our auditor.

So um amendment um this year after our first couple checks out um we had some you are familiar with for the health court allowed him Do we have an

excuse me, David? I'm sorry, lost my Oh, sorry. It's for the uh behavior health. Sorry. Yeah, behavior health court. Sorry. I'll let you guys take it from there. Can you entertain a motion? I'll entertain a motion on that. Yes. Uh make a motion to allow ordinance-2-d salary ordinance change for the behavior. I'll second it.

All right. I have a motion and a second to approve ordinance number 20 26-2D as presented. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. Uh, next on your uh item list.

Okay. So, then we have um 2026-2 E. Sorry, had to go through the ABCs. I just want to make sure I have notes here. And this is another one. This was the one for 911 that you'd already approved. Any questions? The ordinance number it was 2026-2D E is and this is for the this for the public safety dispatch. Yes. Okay. Well, in the essence of speed, I'll make another

um motion to allow ordinance number 2026-2-E 911 center. I'll second. Okay, I'm just so sorry. We had we had a lot of amendments, so I was just wanted to make sure I was going through all my notes. And then the next Okay, hold on. We got a motion in a second. Is there any other discussion on that one? Okay, not hearing any. All those in favor of ordinance 20 26-2E to be approved. Say I. I. All those in favor say I. All those opposed. All opposed. Sorry. Sorry. Okay. And then spreading.

Say it's spreading. And then we've got two 2F. And that is basically if you take a look at a a lot of the information here is basically it's a it's a combination of typos. Everyone was paid correctly, but there was some typos. We had some rates submitted to us that weren't didn't match the right stuff in our payroll system. So there was no budgetary issues, no incorrect pay. It's just the the way that the amendment was written up. So we just have to we want to make make that match with what our payroll and the 144s are. And I'll make Oh, do you have a do you want discussion? Scott, do you want any? I ask. You could you can make

Okay. I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve ordinance 2026-2-f um amending the uh ordinance salary ordinances as listed. Second. All right. I have a motion to second ordinance number 2026-2F. Any discussion? I hear. All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries unanimously. All right. Is that all the auditor business or is there more?

Um I I just want to give you a heads up. It's nothing. I think that I think that we're going to be fine, but um CASA has not received their grant money and we went ahead and processed their payroll so that they they could be paid. But um we may have to find an alternative if that grant money doesn't come in soon. Who was that, Debbie? I'm sorry. It was Casa. Yeah, I need that on your radar. I have nothing else.

All right, hold on a second. Okay. Uh let's see. Next up on the action items, uh board appointments, uh the first one we have here, uh has been presented by Greg Morlock, uh with the Greenfield Economic Development Commission. there uh council was kind enough to appoint Eric Horning as a member and it's a one-year appointment and they're asking if uh we could uh reappoint him for another year I believe. So unless we need to make an appointment here or if somebody else has someone else they'd like to appoint.

It's on the Yeah. on this on the big print out. I don't see Yeah. I don't know if it's on the print out. Here's guys a full print out so that he can have everything. Nobody has any reason not to. I'll make the motion that we leave Eric Horning on the green field commission. Second. All right. I have a motion, a second table to appoint Eric reappoint Eric Horning for one-year appointment to the Greenfield Economic Development Commission. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries.

All right. So, that takes care of that one. And then next up, community correction. You had a community corrections one. We discussed this last time and nobody volunteered. Community corrections is on page two. It's a whole list of people and and we got a and it used to be Tammy Setter grant and now it's a one-year term. Did Key show an interest in it? Key. She I mean this is kind of her Bailey Wick, isn't it? She likes the uh judicial and the

I mean I mean this is this is going to be I think this would be an interesting board to be on because it probably ought to be Scott or Ke the the thing is is remember we're talking about community you've been talking today about community correction how it's going to have to change how we're going to do a study and and so if if if that's going to have to come fruition I think you have to be involved with the board to Are you volunteering say I was volunteering I mean, it's your Bailey Wick, too. You You spend more time in the judicial system. Yeah. See, somebody mentioned me and I said, "I'm just not familiar with all of that. I don't think it should be." I'll nominate Scott. I'll second that nomination. All in favor?

No, wait. You're not the president. So, you maybe this is the time where the president takes control. I'll deepen my voice and it says it says, "Oh, wait, wait. We're going to we're not going to talk about this. I'll move the nominations. I can sneak out in I feel like I'm being I feel like I'm being railroaded now. Clark just said he called for call for the call for the call for the question. Is that for you? All right. All those in uh favor of this uh motion railroad, please please say I. I.

All those opposed, say I. I. Motion carries. All righty. One, two, is there is there any others for We're waiting on a couple signature pages. Sorry. Oh, yeah. They're stuck at me because I'm working. Okay. Yep. I don't believe there's any more when I glanced through it. All right. I I'll tell you, I was at the um library uh last night for the board meeting. We will have one in May that's due. Somebody the our appointment there for the main library county library is due in May, I believe. Mhm. And and uh they'll also be presenting in April. So I believe they'll come then. Okay. So we may do that in April. I just want to let you know. All right.

Um and otherwise if there's no others, we're ready to move on. Uh 2026 target fund balance resolution. I didn't we agree that we were not going to increase it. We were going to leave it like it was. Yeah. I'll move that we accept u the balance target balances uh the way they're written. I'll second it. All right. I have a motion in a second to leave it as is. It sounds like uh do we need a resolution number or anything on that? We we do. It's 2026-2-10.

All right. So, it's resolution 2026-2-10 to leave it as presented uh to us. Any discussion? All those in favor say I. Any oppose? Same sign. Motion carries. Uh next up on action items, resolution of dormant funds. We just discussed that in Jim's budget meeting with Right. We have a bunch of funds that they're not doing. Need to clean it up. Okay. And then we'll all transfer to the We'll all transfer to the general fund. And then madam auditor, you said somebody in the public would like to speak. Yes. I think Brandon. Okay. Please please come forward, Brandon.

I just as you guys were talking earlier, one of the things that came up was EDAS and there were two things that I wanted to bring to your attention. The first was is that for Buck Creek Township, our 3% tax rate, which is going to be our commercial industrial for 2026 is 87 million. The TIFF EDA for Buck Creek Township is 762 million. And so the reason that I bring that up is to indicate that the majority of the 3% tax rate is being captured by the TIFF. The second thing I want to point out is in January 11th of 2025, Christy Deer had an article that covered the brainstorming session that the county commissioners, the council did. Um Gary P was involved in that. And then that Gary Pool indicated that between 2031 and 2039 there's $26 million of un unallocated EDA money. And so to say that the EDAs don't have a value, um I know initially the EDAs were looking as a mechanism to help public safety in getting operational funds. And I know that Bob Cherry was able to get that built in so that TIFF revenues can be used as operational funds. But I think that just saying that EDAs no longer have a value, I would ask you just to take another look at that and make sure that that's truly the case and that there isn't some value that's going to be in not only the current EDAs that are in violation based on what you guys are indicating, but as future developments are coming online. As Mr. was indicating if we are going to be at capacity with the current buildings that are in Buck Creek Township and we're looking at multiple others that are looking to break ground or start building into there, um we're going to see an increase our run volume to the tiff, uh which is just the commercial buildings within our area, um overall is about 20 to 25% of our run volume and we saw an increase of 15% of the that run volume from last year to this year. So, as you guys are looking and and having that consideration, those conversations, I just wanted to kind of bring that to your forethought. Um, I'm coming to the RDC tomorrow to have conversation with them as well. Um, and looking at extending theou that we have with the

RDC. Um, so I'm I'm having all those conversations across the board, but as you're talking EDAs, I think there may still be a value there. I don't have the full insight on it. Um, but we just talk with the commissioners about future EDAs or if they were going to continue with EDA. I have not. It was honestly as you guys were talking about that this morning um that was kind of the first ping on my radar um to think about and as I started digging into some research um with with just quickly found that article and that's why I wanted to kind of bring

So we've already had the EDA issue happen to us once this year. How if you know more about it or if you've looked into it, um I don't know how much control over the EDA monies we have other than other than it being spent or not being spent. It's I think the commissioners control who gets the money, not the council. But now that because that we've already had that issue once this year to collect it. So if even though I may agree yes, you deserve some of the EDA money, it may not the commissioners may not and and and I either have to block them from spending any of it or if they have control what it's spent on. So you just know that in and now we're not in disagreement with commissioners on very many things. So I I can't imagine but they're like I said it's going to decide who gets the dollars. I think

my my whole intent was is it sounded like the conversation was is that the EDAs didn't have a value. Well, some of the EDAs aren't being behind on their payments or not happening because they're Well, the the the conversation was um not that EDAs don't have any value, but that going forward the reason that we created the EDAs, the reason for it has gone away. Therefore, you know, in the future, there appears to be really no reason to have them because the reason for them has disappeared. Okay.

I I understand your what his vision is though for it is that because that money has only two or three things you can do with it. it's easier for him to it it's it's easier for him to understand it would be guaranteed he'd be eligible for it. But if it goes back to the general scenario that that every money can be spent for him, then it's harder for him to conceive that in the future he could get he's guaranteed any funding. Well, and part of the part of what my my point was is going back to that article from

uh January 11th 25. If there's a projected out 26 million of unallocated EA money, right? You know, there's there's monies that are there. So, I don't want that to be right. The agreements that are in place will be followed enforced and there are some, right? The problem is there's some of the developers are not fulfilling their obligations under the agreements. Sure. So, they're in breach and they're expiring. But the general intent was is to, you know, fulfill those agreements that are already in place.

And and I think the if you read the um um whatever it was resolution that that we passed on the EDAS, we said that uh it was for uh county use and for uh public safety andor anything else. So I think EDA money actually can be spent on anything. And it was Gary's suggestion through our abatement meetings that clause that even references EDAs as being that there's not going to be any new ones created. So that's why we removed it from the abatement.

I didn't I I don't have all the perview that you guys do. I just wanted to throw that out there and just make sure that that was my little my little slice of You're doing what you're supposed to. You're supposed to be constantly coming in front of us and saying, "Hey, I'm I got 15% more calls than I did last year. I get and we got to do our new memorandum of understanding for the next few years." So, we need more money. That's what you're supposed to do. You're supposed to come up here and say that. And we're supposed to say, "Yeah, we got to figure out how to keep Oak Creek Township solvent."

Well, I appreciate you bringing up the article. I pulled it up and I don't know if it's directly related but it does mention uh OKRA the office of community and rural affairs in the article and they have a toolkit and I don't but I work on the same floor as them so if we do need to ask any questions let me know and I will walk a couple doors down and I will ask anyone any questions so absolutely thank you appreciate the resource thank you for the time appreciate it no problem welcome oh the the only other thing uh I one of the board appointments I forgot to mention is that uh I Clark and myself have been asked by the commissioners to be on that board for uh the the nonprofits. We'll both accept it. Good. So, just to let you know. Good. Anything else for the good?

I move we adjourn. Second. All those in favor say I. I. We'rejourned.