Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

Watch this. I'd like to uh start the meeting for May 14th. I appreciate everybody coming. It's just us guys, so no sugar coating today. Uh, the first thing on the agenda is approve the minutes from the last meeting. I have any questions? Make the motion that we approve the minutes from April the 9th. Second.

We have a motion in a second. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. The same. Thank you. Minutes are approved. Uh, I don't see Jason yet. I'm not he maybe he's not coming. Okay. Maybe you're just gonna pass through letters. Yeah, those just need to be signed by you. Okay. And then they'll be mailed out and then we'll they'll

you'll have to material change on those. There will be when Lisa Lee finishes adding the additions to the tiff. There'll probably be a change next year, but those should be materially identical to the ones from the previous three years.

Well, let me read this. It's real short um into the record. I mean, it just says the Hanka County Redevelopment Commission is hereby notify you of the following determination that is made concerning its tax allocation area for 2026 taxes payable 2027. the commission is determined that there is no excess assessed value that may be allocated to the overlapping taxing units in the manner prescribed in subdivision one of the act. So, it's just a form form letter that and there's um that that goes to the auditor and then there's the same letter um that goes to um the county council and uh all overlapping taxing units. And there's one, two, three, four, four of the exact same letter that I I have to sign. Um it it won't hurt though to take a motion to allow me to sign these. Um it's a yearly thing. It just says that there's, you know, no overlapping uh or no excess assessed value. So

I move to um have uh president sign uh the allocation letters. Allocation letters. I second it. All right. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. And I will get those signed here. Very good. So, um, Gary, you're you're next on the, uh, hit list.

Uh, after me, there'll be a resolution, which Lisa Leo is having established. It's basically allowing, um, the it doesn't require any money from this organization, but it does establish um, Kent, you've been on the board on this. So, it does establish a mechanism for them to collect rent at Amplify and use it for their operations. Um, so you if you have those were sent out with the packet. I'm not going to read them all to you, but just keep in mind there's no money asked there, but it is going to allow the establishment of a organization to do that. At some point, there'll be a selection of who will be doing that. Um, but that's not right now. This is just setting up the the groundwork to get the operational apparatus in place because the county did not have any intent to do any operations out there, but they have to be able to collect the rent money to do their own operations from it. So,

okay.

So, that's coming. Uh 600 West. We're trying to wrap up the airport will will be doing there's a little bit we had an agreement. Uh they thought the agreement was modified. I wasn't aware of that, but it's okay. We circle back. Eric's a good guy. Uh they're good people out there. So, we'll finish the installation of the landscaping at the airport where their sign is and the airport will be doing the maintenance, not us. The airport will be doing the maintenance of that roundabout is typical. If we allow a sign, they'll they'll handle the maintenance. So, that should be finishing up. You might notice there's some weeds out there on that. Don't panic. The stuff will be in here soon. They're they're good people. And um uh green space will be doing that. That'll be a $50,000 landscaping bill coming at some point. Um the project between 6 and 7 West is staked. U they're they're doing utility work right now, so it'll look quiet, but there's actually quite a bit going on because most of it's under the ground. Um so if any of the public calls and asks you about that, uh there'll probably be utility work in through the summer and then some of the road and dirt work will begin after that. Uh besides that, the rest of the bills are fairly mundane. We next month though we're going to start we're going to have overrun which we anticipated on our fiscal rundown. We'll start paying some RDC bills directly. The bond will nearly be expended and we'll start paying the part we were planning on paying from here. So you'll see some big RDC bills coming up next month and we should receive a distribution next month as well.

So the I'll know settlement numbers on June the 2nd and then I think she said June the 16th was settlement. I'd anticipate to be somewhere north of $5 million. So, right, the um um construction manager told us at the Amplify meeting Tuesday that June 19th is the last it's the day of possession or the last day the construction me is allowed to be on site. Okay. They've not approached me for a final walkthrough yet. I know they're doing a bunch of lower ones and then they'll have me as the the engineer. A lot they said between now and then multiple walkthroughs and stuff like that. Yeah, they're they're trying to get ready for the final.

Right. Harrah. So, that is is all I really have going on. Any questions? I did get a a nice um mailer from the Greenfield Central School System that they're sending to all the residents that go to Greenfield Central Schools uh talking about kindergarten, but the front whole half 3/4ers of front page was a picture of the trade school, introducing the trade school, uh introducing to all the um parents and everybody basically that are eligible to go that the trade school is a thing. I'm like you. I'll I'll breathe a sigh of relief when I see that thing filled up with kids

and adults, right? He um he told us that he has 456 and some in waiting cuz um Excellent cuz we're that was kind of our 400 was our goal and I think he's stretched it to 456 seats or whatever. And uh it's an excellent facility. I can't wait for our citizens to get cranking on it. Oh, also this is pertinent. So, our uh what will be coming up next month be it's budget season, right?

So, we'll be slipping into budget season here. So, I don't know if you can see what's in front of you. The council asked for a capital plan. U there's a couple things on here with RDC by it. Um so, you'll want to keep an eye on on those. These are inside outside inside our plan on our on our larger thing. Um if you see some of the RDC bite, you want to take a look at it. Uh just things like uh daycare, police, fire, north of amplify, some of those things are on far further off into the future.

So take a look at that when you get a chance. But that will be coming up when I start working on that. You're going to see some emails from Sydney or from Si Cindy. Sorry, my beautiful daughter. which is beautiful just like you. Um, and you will see those soon and take a look at them because that's our budget for next year. It'll be clear. It'll be very similar to the plan that we always have. So, if you also go through well, just just go through it when you see it. Don't don't delete the email.

Right. We're we're put we're we're projecting out quite a bit of stuff, which is great. that's what we we should be doing. Um I will say though future projects have a tendency to affect those one way or the other and like if if we don't get any future projects then there may not be a need to create another uh fire station out by the things. Okay. But if but depending on what we get for future projects depends on how fast it comes, what it is, all those kind of things. Right now there's right now we wouldn't go out there and build a daycare center. No, no, I know. You know what I mean,

but I'm trying to predict I'm trying to predict out to 2044. So we owe that to the public. That's when the the funds go through there and we leave GAP in there. But we're trying to at least have a starting point. But you you can't uh negotiate with u legacy vendors if you don't have the ability to do the things they need. They have to have customers. Yeah. We have to make sure there's customers first. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen a lot of cities make that mistake. Build it and they'll come and not quite how it works. You need the

customer. In this case, we have, you know, but we have to prove to them we can do what they what they need if they if they come. So, it's a good setup for us and and as I said, it doesn't cost us anything right now to uh anticipate. So, when you get the email from Cindy, take a look at it closely. All right. Because it has our budget projections one for next year. That's the most important look at it. But always keep your eye on that long-term projection. It makes us more predictable, right? Okay. All right. That's all I have. Are any other questions?

Oh, I do have one question. Yes, sir. Um, we have some paperwork cleanup or something that Lisa Lee is supposed to be handling for the for the 501c3. Yes. At Amplify and it it's going to require a procurement page. Correct. A one page basically one sentence. Actually, it could be I suppose um I don't there was discussion here about hiring someone else to create that procurement page, but are you capable of of creating that? Cuz I mean, why would we hire another person to just say that it's going to be handled by

Lisa? Lisa wanted me to just handle the procurement, which I'm fine with. Um but it depends on who it's not a huge deal. It could be anybody. If you guys want arms length, you can use me. Right. That's what I I don't I It was mentioned to me about Veraritoss and I said, "Why would we bring another person in and that for just It's really not a heavy lift." Okay. It's not a heavy lift. It's going to be an RFQ for who's going to do the operations at Amplify. And there's probably one very competitive vendor for that, which would be the people that are already there. Yeah. So, all right. And I think what you're getting ready to assign here in a minute is going to allow some of that to start happening. Okay. That can't happen until some of these other things are in place.

Okay. Well, I kind of hope she shows up today to clarify some of that. Maybe she's not on the agenda yet. I She's not going to be here. I don't think we needed her for All right. to pay for her services for this is pretty minor to begin with. All right. Thank you.

You know me, I'm cheap. Okay. So, um this resolution that Gary presented to us um approving a the request for proposals to enter enter into an operating agreement um or and publication of RFP and receipt of offers. Um I need to um I'll accept a motion. Um I can read um uh part of it here for the record. Whereas the commission has determined that soliciting an operating agreement may be desirable method for securing the operation of the career center providing a career training education center for the 912 schools of Hancock County higher education and personal development opportunities as well as a community as community gather spaces. So, um um I would

I just need a motion for your Yeah. Yep. I move to uh authorize the president to sign the resolution RDC 2026- resolution RDC 206-5014- I second it. Is that a five? It looks like a five on which 51. It looks like a five. Yeah, it's a date.

It's the date. Oh, that's a that's a hashtag. Okay. I'm lucky. No, I was making sure that that we weren't saying the wrong thing into record. And there's two of them there. There's a there, too. Oh, this is B. And then there's also A and the difference. Um, revise my motion to include both A and B. Yeah, it's for the

commissioners working with Ninstar about a possible project in this proposed area that George is going to go through. And so we've been making a lot of headway over two years. And by the way, Jim Shel's here. And so he's been real involved, too. And so earlier this year, we filed a PP a PER to try and get on the PPL with SRF. Now, let me give you those acronyms. PER is preliminary engineering report. The PPL list is the project priority list that will come out sometime in June. And SRF is the state revolving fund which is part of the IFA which is the Indiana uh finance or IFA Indiana Finance Authority. And so what we're hoping is at some point here, and there's still a tremendous amount of work to do with the state, but we went to them over a year ago, and we said, "What if we put this partnership together between Ninstar and the county?" and we entered into a debt obligation using TIFF revenue with a property tax backup, which it would absolutely have to have. and and they said, "Wow, that's never been done before." Where a county gets together with a cooperative and builds a wastewater treatment plant using TIFF and using a property tax

backup and then having the cooperative basically run it or operate it. and they said it it can be done. We cannot loan the money directly to the cooperative, but we could do it through the regional sewer district. So, that's who we're meeting with later today and they're aware of what we're doing. Okay. So, one clarification for me though, the sewer district is controlled or owned by Ninstar, right? No, I don't believe that's right. the territory is today, but it would be seated to the district who actually controls the

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Because it has to be under the district in order for this to work, right? And the the proposal is it would be in the district's name for the life of the bond payment, right? For the life of the bonds. And then after that, my assumption is it would transfer over. But that's, you know, I I'm the financer, the CPA guy, and the municipal advisor. So that's what we're structuring. George is going to go over the project itself. So, but it is it is going to be secure inside the region for the life of the bond.

Okay. Yeah. It has to be right. Okay. I I'm not a 100% clear in my mind on how sure the controls work for the territories and for the you know what I'm saying and I will applaud the regional sewer district's attorney he's on top of it right so and so so annexation can't affect the annexation can't come in and affect the scenario okay be kind of a lost exercise to annex in an area that's in a tip I Well, I mean, but you understand my concern because then the bond is still has to be paid. All right.

Has to be paid by who we're, you know, the theory at the beginning was tiff and then again backed up by the full faith and credit as you know discussed at the county council,

right? And so, you know, this is a document kind of like uh the total cost uh George, we've got the total cost around guesstimated at this point around 22,500 what we've been running with and then the U estimated debt service schedule would be behind that assuming a 3.5% interest rate which is the interest rate that SRF has at this point in time. It changes quarterly. So what will happen is in June the project priority list will come out. There's a couple things that we did not fully vet through the process like the asset management plan which is kind of kind of interesting because they want us to have an asset management plan when we don't even have an asset and and so we'll work through that. So the the hope is just find out we the flavor of SRF and what they think about the project because they're going to have 350 people probably play. So there there's a lots of competition. So this may actually probably at this point in time on the schedule will actually start up next year. But the the more we get ready, and that's what the county has been trying to do, get its project ready, that then what happens at the SRF, is they sometimes projects fall out, projects come in. It's kind of like the transportation authority in the state of Indiana. You know, they move projects in and out. And so as we move forward and you know Kent the council put a 50% into the peer you know to help Ninstar get that put together through Wesler and so

we'll probably have to then make another contribution on the asset management plan and when they say here's what you're missing SRF and you know we can continue then assuming we get good feedback from all the entities which includes the RDC and the regional sewer district we're meeting with this afternoon which they're aware of it and so the hope is that we can all move keep moving and keep taking steps to what should be a awesome project right

and so that's where I am from the financing so George is going to kind of give you an update on what we're doing right uh with it and go from there. Certainly. Now, does this body understands sorry

as this body understands you can have a great plan, a great vision, a great stat strategy, but if you don't have somebody working on the financing, it's just going to be that those plans are going to lay on a table. So, uh, a little bit about kind of Ninstar Connect. I I hope you are all members of the cooperative, but you may not be. But, uh, we are a 501c12 and not for-p profofit. Um, in most people's minds not for-p profofit, they think tax exempt. Um, we're not tax exempt. In fact, we pay a little over a million dollars a year in property taxes on our buildings and infrastructure to the various authorities having jurisdiction where we have these assets. So, um, voluntary open membership, much like a county body, when you move to Hancock County, you become a citizen of Hancock County. Same thing. When you move into our electric service territory, you become a member. Um, our board of directors is elected from the membership, nominated, voted on, and installed by the membership. Um, transparency. So, we operate on a lot of the same principles as government does. We definitely have a long-standing partnership with the county. Um, going back to the it sounds to to me uh not like not that long ago, but the late 90s, which is quite some time ago, but the dawn of the internet. Uh, the county, the city, and at the time Hancock Telecom, now Ninstar, partnered to install fiber optic cables connecting all the city offices, all the county offices, and all the school systems together under a single hub. And the result of that initial investment, now nearly every resident in Hancock County can have fiber to the home services via Ninstar. Um, from the very dense areas to the not so dense areas in Blue River, Brown, Green Townships. So, kind of the approach that we looked at this, I want to give you a little bit of background on kind of where we've been on 200 West working um kind of that next step of Maxwell and then kind of what's the ultimate destination, how could this be leveraged into subsequent areas that may not have the same uh development potential as State Road 9 and Maxwell.

So, I I'll start on kind of 200 West. Uh the county graciously uh provided funding in the form of ARPA dollars, $6 million on a $9 million project to install a new headworks uh low pressure and gravity mains along 200 West to serve the Amplify campus. Um it included three lift stations at Boulders at Sugar Creek, uh Riley Village, and then what we call our kind of 300 North, 200 West regional lift station. Um only 12 existing residences on 200 West have connected thus far. Um, a lot of the lots on 200 West are probably of close to sufficient size to support an adequate septic system. Not all of them. And I'll get into a few of those uh nuances here in a minute. But, uh, some of the pictures there, that ultra deep hole, uh, those gentlemen I think are about 26 feet to the bottom. And that is right at 200 west on both sides. They did a jack and bore to bring gravity sewer across 200 West there. Uh some of the other pictures um the kind of the nice finish thing is the boulders at Sugar Creek lift station. Bottom left is the uh 300 north 200 west just south of Amplify lift station. Um the directional drilling along 200 west right there by I7 where they shot underneath the interstate with some low pressure mains. So that project just doesn't happen and the development just doesn't happen kind of in isolation. Um there's been substantial other investment in that area. Um that little kind of candy cane shaped subdivision is Riley Village, Fountain Lake Drive. Um had a lot of uh inflow and infiltration on the existing gravity mains there. We spent just a little over $2 million replacing all those mains to we wanted to be making sure we were actually treating wastewater and not groundwater with the new plant and the new system. And then on our 2026 kind of capital projects is the Wildwood subdivision that um I think it was probably maybe developed mainly in the 70s and 80s at the time. Uh rear easements were very

popular on kind of those strip subdivisions. Um so there's overhead electric lines in the backyards. Um we're going to be undergrounding those and just kind of thought, you know what, um we have a trench open or we're going to be directionally drilling. What else can we pull with those electric facilities? So, we're actually going to be installing gravity and low pressure sewer mains with our electric facilities. It's kind of a dig once project and uh it's between Wayne and Melody Drive this year, but if successful and we're going to hopefully keep duplicating that all throughout Wildwood. So, real quick, the it Tom, if you guys don't know, um Ninstar has uh control of the they have a new wastewater treatment plant um in Philadelphia. They have the new or they have the Maxwell treatment plant. Um and um the the the main focus of all that the county has the the $6 million that that the county helped to get 200 West for one reason. We're going to have an interchange there. We have a school there. We're going to have an interchange there. It's got to be sewers there. But some of the main focus for for a lot of this is wastewater uh control of the wastewater. Wildwood sets 10 ft from uh Sugar Creek. Um all those septics leech directly into Sugar Creek. Um and um um so cleaning up the the waste water all over the county is is the long-term focus. Maxwell, same thing. There's no surf system there. There's no septic systems. There's 90% of the houses inside the city of Maxwell dump into a field tile that go into either Sugar Creek or Briney Creek or or wherever. So,

um the focus of this first is to secure the sewer systems so that we can clean up the groundwater that's leeching into our water table and to our to our streams. Um, and then of course be followed up with clean water cuz you don't really want to drill a well. You don't want to be drinking the water in the contaminated areas that we have right now. And and then in the long term after we solve some of these areas that we have infrastructure in, then we have Charlottesville to to work on, which this project can then help uh fund some stuff to to get to Charlottesville. Uh, and then now that there's a wastewater treatment plant in in Philadelphia, hopefully then Spring Lake and some other areas like that, those issues can be also addressed and and solved. Um, I'm familiar with Wildwood. When I was a kid, that system, the septic systems and stuff that were put in there, um, the the area was used by a for a subdivision because it was not good for anything else. It was a low waterbearing swamp area and unfortunately in the early 70s the idea was hey we can't grow crops on this so let's build houses so therefore you have cranberry you have wildwood you have twin oaks in Maxwell you have areas that really shouldn't have had septics put in them but they couldn't use the for anything else so they put houses there and and now here we are 50 years later saying wow that was is not a good idea.

Sorry, I just had to absolutely background on it. I'm I'm extremely familiar of pump septic tanks in Wallwood most of my life until uh you know growing up. So, all right. Thank you.

Yep. Now, I said uh kind of the hold for the wastewater right now, but usually on the kind of the quality development side, unless you can kind of marry that with water at the same time, you're probably not going to see a lot of the commercial development that needs fire protection, sprinkler access, uh regulated pressures basically. So, along uh a couple years ago on 600 West to 200 West, uh we have a new elevated tank water tower out there at Gateway, Hancock Health on the north end, Ninstar on the south end. We wanted to connect that system over towards Amplify. So, we built uh a little over 5 miles of 12 in um along 200 North, across the interstate, continued east on 300 North, and now it runs in front of Riley Village. Um we did a US40 water main project last year connecting the Philadelphia area to our GEM system to unify our current water system at a cost of a little over $2 million. And then we needed additional capacity and we built a Philadelphia water treatment plant at 4 and a.5 million to add 1.44 million gallons a day in in treatment out there. And it it's really the result. So as part of our ARPA agreement, um any new development, Mohawk Trails is kind of the first one in there that we collect an additional $1,500 per lot development fee and give that right to the county. Uh Kent was here for the council meeting and I I gave a check to to Deborah for I think it was about $75,000 representing about the first 45 lots or so out there at Mohawk Trails. But the biggest thing is with so there's 105 lots out there. Um average sales price on those is about 375,000 and that's going to be $40 million AV at buildout on the county side across the street. Boulders a Sugar Creek joiner community there 113 lots. They are exempt in that ARPA agreement from collecting that additional $1,500. It was already kind of in progress, at least the first couple sections when we

signed that agreement. Um, average home there is just about $475,000 and $53 million at basically buildout. So, kind of allin um where there was just 113 or 114 acres of farm field now will be $93 million in assessed value for the county. Yeah. And every new house being built in the area is on sewer now. Yep. there won't be any more gravity fed. Yep. Correct. Or, you know, treatment or um septic fields. And so that's that's the u that's the big benefit.

So kind of where we've been, at least you can kind of see the vision and what's happened shortly over the last couple years of development since that line was installed is kind of that that where have we headed. Um I I personally have a little special affinity for the town of Maxwell. I grew up right at Cranberry Drive in 400 North. I used to ride my bike to mom and pop. So very very familiar with the area. That painting um kind of on that screen there hangs in my office. It was painted by the postmaster um I think in the in the mid 80s and up until a couple years ago when a um a new developer took over where the post office is now and kind of gave it a little bit of a visual faceelift um it looked very much like that since this picture. Um beyond my affinity for Maxwell um at the time Hanok Rural Telephones office was right there on 600 North and it had a Greenfield address. that didn't have a Maxwell address and there was talk of the time of consolidation of post offices um you know and talk Maxwell was maybe a good candidate for closure so our CEO at the time Dan Oconor um he's since passed away he actually changed our billing remit to address to I think it was PO Box 108 Maxwell Indiana to generate an additional you know 20,000 pieces of mail volume to the Maxwell post office because he thought it was important to the community to have a post office in town and not have to drive to Greenfield to pick up their mail. So, kind of the vehicle that uh Greg described was the Hancock County Regional Water and Wastewater District. Um it's um it's been around since 1996. And at the time, I think there was a maybe a a push at the state house that if there was unassigned wastewater service territories within counties that the county had not worked to assign those that they would the state would take over. So, it was really all about local control and preserving district assignment of service territory here in Hancock County and not down at in Indianapolis. So, a little bit of the background. Um,

in July of uh 2016, Ninstar acquired the Maxwell treatment plant and there's an Eden Elementary treatment plant. Um, Dr. Olen at the time says, "I'm in the business of educating students. I'm not in the business of treating their wastewater." So it was a natural fit. Uh shortly after that, county materials probably came much before the the county council and the plan commission and they were wanting to expand their operations. However, it' be very difficult to expand in their current footprint without wastewater. Um just timing wise, we were able to get wastewater on there. They were able to do their expansion and you know, more employees and more jobs are there in that community now. Um they currently serve 29 locations, seven commercial, and we worked with a developer. If you're familiar with the Sapphire Springs subdivision, 700 North, 250 East area, um it was a kind of a stalled development that another developer took over and we worked a deal and split cost on main extension to be able to serve all those homes with wastewater and make that development move forward. And they're beautiful, beautiful homes back in there. So, uh, the county undertook in 2022, uh, TIFF number two along State Road 9 roughly runs between 400 north and about the 9500 block and then probably, um, between half a mile and 8/10 of a mile east and west of State Road 9. So, what can uh what has been done so far as we went into this per there were some existing assets and kind of a vision for this. Um, in 2021, Ninstar acquired about 17 acres north of 600 North and went through that kind of preliminary effluent uh, permitting process with IDM to ensure we could possibly discharge there. But this would be the host of that wastewater treatment plant uh, Greg Greg talked about.

Um, can I ask you a question, George? Um, you said 400 north. So, the diff distance between 300 and 400 north is not under our tiff right now? No, it is not. Okay. And when the the wastewater system goes through for for that area because there is a lot between 3 and 400 North, there's a there's an apartment complex that that u eventually will either I mean it's been there for years. Oh, yeah. Cranberry. I think it's Cranberry Lake Apartments or

Yeah. Yeah. It's been there 25 years longer than Cranberry has been there. Um, that I'm sure is not a I mean the systems, you know what I'm saying? It's sometime it's going to have to have some type of sewer systems and stuff like that. Is there is there plans for you to go outside the tiff for any of that or

No, it it wasn't only about maintaining in the tiff. Um when Ninstar got into the water and wastewater business, uh we worked with the city of Greenfield, city of Forville, town of McCordsville, New Palestine on kind of defining, uh uh sewer territories and wanted to respect their 30-year growth projections. Greenfield projected their annexation boundary at the end of that 30 years would be basically Cranberry and 400 North. Okay. So, our or our uh sewer service territory begins north of 400 North. Okay. Green Greenfield is cranberry and those apartments there. Okay. Now, there's nothing to say that you two utilities are able to come together through mutual agreement and trade service territories.

So, but at the time it's it's fixed and I assume that's probably why the tip district was kept boundary at 400 North. Thank you. Um the need in Maxwell um lots are as small as a tenth of an acre. Um, I know you said you've you've tried and probed around and looked at looked for septic tanks out there and uh suspicion is most of them are probably 50-gallon drums or two 50-gallon drums welded together and tied into a brain or a private field tile which ends up in Sugar Creek ends up in

Yeah, my dad My dad told me that he was aware of a tile u running on the south side of he thought on the south side of mom and pop's store heading east u at some point. So, some of them probably hooked into that. He didn't, you know, but yeah, it's a mystery where all the waste water goes for the for the area. And then there I do know their wells are extremely shallow, which is high contamination. You know, it's one of those things you don't think about if if the toilet flushes and whatever's in there goes away, you don't think about it. But

but if it doesn't get any type of treatment before it gets to the ditch, then you're basically just straight contaminating whatever you're and it's going somewhere. Yep. Absolutely. Um even in Country Mill, which I know you described about maybe that was not the best farm ground, so why not put houses there? Lots are still pretty small. Um, I I maybe totally agree that there's probably enough room for the first generation of septic system on there, but those do have a lifespan from the day you put them in. There's probably not room for the second one.

No, really 25 years is is uh if you get 25 years out of your septic system in Hanok County's clay soil, then you you've done a a service. you know, I mean, you've gotten money out money out of good quality out of your money, but most of these subdivisions 25 years was is already here

and was here maybe even when uh when the district was first formed. So, kind of the target and this this ties in with uh Mike Higgby and his uh his group which I was fortunate enough to be a part on uh part of with Clark Smith and they looked at kind of what what does this committee what does maybe the county want to see as far as development along State Road 9. Um it was there's already kind of an industrial district out in Mount Comfort. You know, do we want more of the same? So when we were working on the the per we factored in a lot of that study groups uh you know kind of thoughts and you can see on there you know in these various areas along State Road 9 low density commercial you know the commercial school district residential and commercial loads of density commercial residential and commercial kind of that nice mix they talked a little bit more about kind of the vertical you're very familiar with vertical mix use you may see out at McCord Square not saying they turn away any development but they talked more about the horizontal mixuse and kind of preserving the village of Maxwell for what it is on that grid system in the small businesses and you may have you know a doctor's office peppered in with uh you know a couple homes and then maybe a dentist's office or an insurance agent but that horizontal mixuse kind of preserve that uh small town feel to it and village kind of special. So kind of from that um the state road 9 corridor envisioned as a next generation rural innovation ecosystem a place where agriculture life sciences and technology coverage to drive both economic growth and community well-being intentional marketdriven investment connecting cutting edge research business and entrepreneurial opportunities while celebrating and preserving Indiana's farming heritage. I hope that kind of describes what the the vision that you may even see in your own mind for that area. Well, it people don't realize, but if you if you took the um assessed valuation of the homes near Maxwell, it's the high it's one of the

highest in the county. Okay, the we have $3.5 million home within a half mile of Maxwell. We have that subdivision that now services through the thing. Those are those are million-dollar homes now. You might as well say it. You know what I mean? We have uh a lot of million-dollar homes close to Maxwell and it it's kind of snuck up and become a very rich area and people don't you know because of that people don't uh uh understand that's one of the richest area in the county now.

No, I'm actually glad you brought that up. When we were working on the per we were hoping we were able to work down to the census block level, which if you kind of think the census block is the smallest, the census track is comprised of multiple blocks. Um there was only two tracks on the whole tiff area, but you you're right, you are capturing kind of Twin Oaks. You are capturing that home there at uh five or four east and five north

in those tracks. And you know, we know that when we go into the village of Maxwell, those homes are are not to, you know, that high level of assessed value. But, you know, it kind of um even with the failing wastewater system, I I think of like my own grandparents and stuff when they eventually wanted to retire, downsize, whatever else, for most for most of our residents, um your home is your biggest asset, your net worth, the foundation of it. And you may have a young couple that come wants to buy that house and they're looking at an FHA or a VA mortgage that requires inspections and uh pretty in-depth inspections and you can't sell your home. your greatest asset is basically stranded there and you can't sell that home. That young couple that wanted to move here and just kind of counterproductive to the process.

Well, we we have we have to somewhere in the county um either create or allow areas that higher income individuals can live. um because that's part of the goal when when we're doing when we're doing, you know, stuff at Mount Comfort and there's going to be higher income individuals coming to the area and we don't want them to to take their income tax in their lives and go somewhere else. We want them to support the local community. And if we already have subdivisions of high income already in the areas, then it it it puts itself more, you know, one of the richest houses ever built in in 1970 or 75 in in Hancock County was just east of the Nin Star's office. George McInness built it. And so that was kind of the start, you know. Um, and so that's why I said that area is so affluent now, you know, u with with the Smith projects and all of that and then with the the subdivision out on 700 North and it's amazing how much uh quality of housing is happening in that area. And as a county, we should we should make sure that can can continue because there isn't in the city the areas, you know, right now that that those of uh really high income people can can can buy.

So, as kind of Greg alluded to, in January of 25, we entered in kind of a memorandum of understanding with the county commissioners to share in those costs to jointly fund this SRF level per. Um, in March we got that 26 final report and then we had a very quick uh turnaround, a lot of quick team meetings and stuff with the engineering firm to get that submitted to SRF in less than a month. It's probably the quickest turnaround of a final report to submission they've ever had. But, uh, you know, when you're dedicated to the cause, you're willing to put in the hours and put in the labor to make it happen. So, some of the components of that, I I talked about the land that was already acquired. um a sequencing batch reactor or SB um type treatment facility. Um initial uh treatment would be a 100,000 gallons a day. In the PER we looked at all the way down to 50,000 all the way up to a million gallons and you know why not go big with a million gallons but if there's not enough flow there um initially the plant will not work. So 100,000 felt like the right starting point but when as you as we hope this area grows it's not a rip and replace when you need to expand it. It's almost like a modular system of Lego blocks that to add capacity, you simply add a tank to the north or to the east or to the west and you can kind of continually expand that as and grow that plant out, the treatment plant as needed.

Can you tell me because I haven't been able to ascertain by the maps exactly where that property is in relation to your guys's office? Um it would be almost 3 to 4 ten of a mile straight north of our office. Okay. That ditch that's just uh east of our office is the same ditch that you kind of see on the back side there. And then it would be just it's in between six and seven. Yep. Right there on the east side of the road there. Yeah. Very good.

Yep. But I think it's two parcels right now, but the totality of them is about 17 acres. So looking throughout that whole entire tiff district um being really hard for you to see um and it's actually hard for me to see as well. So we had our uh our regional wastewater treatment plant there on that ground. You know I have these indicated that green's kind of a definite and you'll see one kind of yellow there. That's maybe if the prices come in right um an 18-in gravity main extending from that plant going north up to State Road 234 which 18 in will carry much more than that 100,000 gallons but the in the pipe infrastructure is really what we wanted to size for what that development is going to be not today but 30 years from now. Very expensive to rip and replace piping infrastructure. We can always modular block out and build more treatment capacity as we needed, but we wanted to get that pipe right the first time. So, Eden Elementary School, it's an existing uh treatment plant there. We would basically retire that, regionalize it, and turn it into a pump station.

That's a treatment plant, I guess. You know how many years we pumped that? Um, I'm an old man and I think since the creation of the that school has been there since the creation of time and I know I went there I went there first grade through fifth grade. No, my my mom graduated from Eden High School. So I can tell you and then since the creation of the septic tank truck we've been pumping we pumped at that facility. That's not really a treatment plant but I know it's at least in IDM's eyes. Yes, it is technically treatment. We'll turn it into a pump station and as part of that PE is a regionalization plan to take both Maxwell and Eden offline with this new one.

Um I have in there in yellow right now is an Eden lift station and I think when we put this out to bid it would kind of be a bid a bid B. Um if if contractors are hungry, want to be aggressive on it, I think that Eden lift station would make a lot of sense to have there. Um it would if not um you may be able to put that on a future developer there to install those facilities should they want to develop around the old imi headquarters or any of those corners there. Um going south a little bit. Um obviously there's some more opportunity to the south than to the north currently. So we're looking at a 21in gravity. And the other side of that is the bigger the pipe you install the less slope you need to get everything back to the treatment plant. So the slope on a 21 inch is going to be slightly less than that of an 18 inch and we got to cover more ground to the south. Um once again retiring that Maxwell wastewater treatment plant and turning into a pump station that would just pump Maxwell School into uh into that gravity. Then finally some sewer along 500 North and sewer and laterals within the town of Maxwell and Country Mill that system to work. We need flows to come to it. Um I I couldn't think of a better deal out there if you get a one-time shot to connect and include that lateral as part of the process.

As uh you alluded to some of the costs and you had 22 and I think um there was a secondary one of you had 225 on yours. Yes, sir. I can't remember what we're missing on here. That would have been the 21. Use the higher number just in case. Okay. Okay. But yeah, I was kind of looking that you see a thing of probable overall costs and SRF eligible costs. Um, you're not allowed to use land acquisition for SRF. So, easements, property, that type of thing. You can't use SRF dollars to purchase those. That's why there's just a little man different columns. So, that's what we had of 21790. I guess we got to have some engineering in there.

Well, and this is not including any right now. We're not at we're not figuring anything any grants or anything in, but there will there will or should be some participation from grants. Hopefully, it's it's probably a little on the income side. SRF looks at that and the cost of service. Okay. Um

some it's somewhat, you know, we operate as a nonfor-profit cooperative. We make a margin. We give it back to the members, you know, proportional to their usage. Um our be honest, our rates aren't high enough. some areas of like Cumberland and New Power seeing 130 $125 sewer bills. Um, you know, we're projected at the end of three years to be I think it was shy of a hundred bucks. Um, it used to be kind of $100 was yeah, you may be able to qualify. And the other thing that we talked about was like the census tracks and average income level. Now, we can target that a little bit and try to get more granular with income surveys of truly the areas we're serving and try to exclude those peripheral developments that are, you know, kind of driving the uh higher than I would say median income.

I think we're going to have

I think that may open up some grant opportunities, right? if we do those extra steps um kind of in that timeline kind of that red line right where we're sitting today we got that uh per submitted um hoping to hear something in June and if all this kind of follows through as it is um we'd have an operational system in November of a long time but uh I think we probably talk and sit and have coffee about maybe visualizing this four years ago so four years have already went by so this is just snapshot in time to get this uh operational. So to kind of conclude have taking a tiff a regional sewer district an independent operator most people don't know but in Avon Indiana right this is how we started the first mile of Ronald Reagan parkour

we had to get a mile done and we had to get sewers up there and so the good news here is rather than a forprofit uh independent operator. We're going to have a not for profit, which if you've read the most recent legislation going on in England, like last week, they have said privatization has not worked with all of the independent operators took all the money and ran and made huge returns, but did not invest it back into the asset. So now they're going back to maybe public or maybe municipalities in their sense is the way to do this and have a partnership with someone that's not going to just take the money.

And so that's where this makes a winwin for all of us, right? But just for everybody's knowledge, that tiffic doesn't generate any income at this time. Right. So, we're going to have to use once you're you're in the process of consolidation and so that's going to be the key. Right. So, Gary has the money. I got to look at this and analyze it. It's not Gary. I got to look at this. So I assume if if I may that you're talking about us holding the bond, us backing the bond with tip pledge backed again by property or

property tax property tax pledge just like the amplify. Okay to amplify not similar to health campus. Health campus they hold the pledge. They hold the stuff and they it would be actually SRF having the bond. Okay. Okay. So, SRF will hold the bond. When you say the district is holding the ownership of it, you mean who specifically? County Regional Water and Waste. Okay. So, they would hold it. Yeah. Until the while the dead service was out. So, it's kind of like a reverse build oper transfer to Sure. if you want to call it that. And then there was even like the contribution. Obviously, the the district cannot build a wastewater treatment plan on

start is going to have to lease that ground to the district. So when and what decisions will be asking for from what boards? Well, some sometime over the next year. Okay. So the regional zero district would have to enter into the obligation. The RDC would have to obligate TIFF revenue which looks like about $800,000 a year. No, it's 1.6 here.

Right. Wrong. $1.6 million a year. And so the county council would then have to approve the property tax backup like it did and the bonds like it did with uh amplified. And so all in all, every board will be reinvolved at some point, right? But the 20-year bond the commissioners have been in involved in this the whole the whole time, right?

I mean, I could say I haven't really because but the council Jim is our representative from the council. So both the commissioners and the council have been involved in this from the from the start. So, but the timing is is what now we're just now learning on what how much money and when there's enough of a project put together now you can start making some absolutely when those decisions have to be made for you to find your hopefully that may dictate a lot of yeah this summer

yeah and I truly believe that we'll get probably even kicked to the next uh round of SRF for next year because they'll probably want us to go back and do the income survey. They'll want us to do the that the capital asset management plan. So, so I need to look at how this fits into the TIFF revenue collection over the next 20 years. That's correct. A little bit of that. We're obviously trying to hope to, you know, marry this project with a equally $2 million water project. And that's where I kind of started with we do property taxes on this. sense. I don't know what that's going to generate. Well, the property taxes are in the tip district are nice because we actually collect them.

We're really interested like you show those neighborhoods and stuff before with the EV. We're really more interested in the low it now, especially with the way the state's going with those pay household incomes there. Um, so in the future, if you put one of those other if you can get an estimate low collection, that'd be nice too. On the side note, and and Gary, again, that's with assumption that the uh RDC, the redevelopment commission's okay with what we're talking about here. It's assuming that the uh regional sewer board, who we're meeting with this afternoon, is okay. Everybody's been giving us preliminary thumbs up, but obviously approvals will still probably be six to I'm going to say maybe even a year away.

Right. Well, as many years as you've worked on this, this is the most important meeting you guys have had because you have Gary and the RDC and and Greg and everybody now laying out well actually what um what's what's going to happen. And you're right. I' I haven't heard any of the other elected officials um anything negative about cuz it's for us it's it's one it's solving one major problem for the future. Uh, and then we have more we have to go after after this.

And that's where we we've been kind of arm wrestling with Ninstar and saying, "Hey, if we can put two or three dollars in on the monthly bill and then deposit it into the regional sewer district like we're going to do with the 75,000 and the other, then we can start the ball rolling." And I think I told C County Council, you know, we've been having a dollar or two in Hendricks County and we've got over $7 million at bank, right? And so, you know, those dollars kind of accumulate and and help for what could be

we've got to create something here to keep it. Well, you know, the if one thing I'm proud of, and I hate to say this, the the what we spent the six million on from the Biden bucks that were given us for CO because the restrictions were huge on what you could spend that on. And we don't have Indian tribes here in our county. So, we couldn't spend the money on 90% of what we needed it on, but we could spend it on on wastewater uh and sewer treatment. and and uh that 6 million came from that that money. Um and so it was a good it was one of the good things that ever came out of any of that.

I think there will be even a tipping point from the from the Ninstar perspective. Right now our water and wastewater utilities are relative small. Um but you know when our cooperative was first formed you know when you know folks in Greenfield had lights in their homes and the farms on the peripheral of Greenfield had no lighting and no electricity. you know, farmers and bankers and doctors, they all came together and formed a company and they figured out a way to serve an area that no investor owned utility wanted to serve at the time. I think eventually there's going to be that tipping point when we get to that five, six, 7,000 wastewater customers where we may be able to even tackle a willow branch Charlottville without coming to this body or anything

planting those seeds and getting that utility um established. So, um, I'll I'll briefly come. I know it probably held you a little bit longer than you needed. Um, I said we already own this property for a future well field, water treatment, and elevated tank. This is just immediately our, uh, you can see our north campus office right there on the right side of this picture. Um, we ended up doing in 24 a pump test and got an DNR permit for 3.3 million gallons a day of withdrawal without affecting adjacent or nearby wells. So, we know we have a water source right there in Maxwell, right on property we control. And

um some of the components of that is a water treatment plant to take that ground, filter it, add a little quick shot of dose of chlorine into it for disinfectant and pump it out onto the system. Elevated tank um spheroid versus composite. It really depends on the size. Also, we'll try to marry that with 4.42 million or 4.42 miles of water manes along State Road 9. basically mirroring exactly what's installed with wastewater. If you have access to wastewater, you'll have access to water as well. And that was kind of our total infrastructure cost that we were looking at that that at least give Gary that number of what may be generated property tax- wise in that tiff district from a private property tax paid thing that that's at least a n a little seed of development for that maxwell tiff. Uh we have several letters of support. Um I can email you guys copies if you want. The on the left is from Dr. Olen, um Senator Krider, Representative Lawson, and Randy Sell from HDC all provided letters of support for the project. Um kind of in that ultimate destination of if we can figure out Maxwell, I think we'll be able to have a lot better handle on some of these unincorporated villages of Charlottesville, Mohawk, Willow Branch, and Philadelphia here in county.

I didn't have a picture of you, Greg.

He's Yeah. Well, the the RDC has to u be in conjunction with the commissioners and the council and the RDC on projects like this. The good thing about it that along the way each elected body has its opportunity to either approve it or disapprove it before basically too it would come to us. And so we'll have plenty of every elected official in the county government that's in the on the council or the commissioners or we'll will have an opportunity um to um either approve or disapprove this or you know to support this. Um so it should be a a unanimous venture.

Yeah, I very much appreciate that. If you have any questions, happy to happy to take them. If not, I'll I'll slinker into the background. Thank you, George. Yep. All right. Um All right. So, moving on real quickly. Brad wants to discuss our SRO position for the drone project. You want to talk about the drones at the amplify, Brad? Couple topics there. Okay. Morning.

Morning. Morning. So, let's uh I'll start out with the uh topic of the SRO or school resource officer. Um so, I was approached probably beginning of the year. Um I'm not sure what his title is, but Stan Wilkinson um kind of director. Well, I said I don't be the director.

Yeah. And so we discussed the SRO, you know, for the school um and how that's going to work. So that's technically on the county um jurisdictional area. Um his board, which is the superintendent, um apparently has offered up about $25,000 just for part-time. Um, personally, I don't think that's a good idea to have a part-time person out there. Uh, for security purposes wise, that doesn't make any sense to me to, you know, employ a part-time come and go, you know, whenever willy-nilly schedule of an SRO at a school when, you know, we've built the facility with a an office and, you know, we want to maintain security for the facility whatsoever. And so, um, I don't have the ability and I don't I don't think we should and I don't have the ability to actually, you know, pull a deputy from the road. You know, as this county continues to grow, there's probably going to be future for additional deputies as we move down the road. Um, so I don't know necessarily that's this the greatest idea as well. Um, and so I guess my thought is is I know, you know, with TIFF dollars, you know, operational money towards that can't go to the school, but it can come to the sheriff's office to to hire a deputy um for an SRO position,

right? And my my thinking and that's why I'm coming here today is is if if the school where again I don't know where their $25,000 comes from um if they're willing to participate and offer up the $25,000 there. Again, I don't know if that's per semester or per school year. I need to find that out. Um and contribute to that. You know, would the TIFF RDC be able to fund a deputy to to work at as an SRO? Right. So, we talked about this at the Amplify meeting the other day. Um, it's not the intention of Amplified to cost the county uh operational money.

Okay. Okay. So, what we're working on is Amplify reimbursing. Um, you said, you know, the school has agreed to a certain amount of dollars from the from the HC3 project. Yes. That's the current u trade school project but and and that along with amplify there should we're we're we're incorporating that in the budget. So uh those operational dollars will be reimbursed back. Okay. Because it does it does make sense for the sheriff's department to provide a shift. It's a one shift thing.

It's it's an 8 to4 um situation out there Monday through Friday what I understand. And then anything after the fact, I know there's going to be nighttime type classrooms through IvyTech in the hospital and things like that that that's going to be done with a private service, right? IvyTech and them will have that responsibility, but it's the school. It's the school.

It's the school thing. So, we want the school children under the opaces of the Hancock County Sheriff's Department if we can. And uh um and yes, there is operational dollars by law that can be uh that you can use from the tiff district, but then there's the um um the the whole oposes of the bond that built the amplified school was that the operations wouldn't be fall wouldn't fall back. It would be self- sustaining. And so the to refund that amplify will be able to refund back to the sheriff's department or however the auditor says it can be done to pay for that.

I have a dumb question. What's SRO stand for? I'm sorry. School resource officer. School resource officer presence at the school. Yes. On site. Yeah. Okay. During school hours. And how is it handled at the other schools now? So like so like Mount Vernon, they they they have officers that are they're at the schools. Um a portion of their salaries to be there is paid from the school districts to be there. Um portion I think comes from the town as well.

And and I think some of what happens in their and I know Greenfield also had one as well until they became a police department. um you know that officer in the off time during like the summer hours um when they're not in school, he would come back and work you know for the department during that time period, but during school hours he was at the school. Um and so wasn't sure if they really law enforcement officers or they were security like a security firm. No, they're all every every every infield of course Greenfield has got its own police office or police department now. That's I think that's a good idea. But Mount Vernon, um, you know, they they're tier one police officers.

Um, Eastern has an SRO. Um, and New Palestine has two SRO's or three SRO's. Um, those are part-time. Those are what are special deputies. Um, I give them their law enforcement authority um, as a as a sheriff to to work and have arrest powers. And so they are or were tier one officers that have retired. One was one that's eastern. He's a IMPD officer that lives in the county that you know I've known for years. Um that he works out there. Um officer at New Palestine. He was a retired DNR officer I've known for years. Um and he's down there. One of my reserves works down there part-time. And so they're all well I guess they're not all tier one because two of two two of the SRO's at the New Palestine are just special deputies with training that we train and one's a reserve. So um they're not just security what yeah not you know consider just concern security and so but it it but they're there during every day during school hours and if they get sick then we we will cover that um if need be. Um, but the idea is to have that person at the school, you know, you know, it needs to be more. Not school starts at 8, but they need to be there a little bit early. You know, I'd say 7:30 to, you know, 4 or whatever it needs to be or whenever when everybody's leaving. Um, but you can't do it just part-time,

right? It doesn't make any sense. But, um, Right. But because it's going to come from your department, like I said, if there's a problem, if there's a backup, if there's or if the if the officer can't be there, you have the whole department to s to help yourself. Same way with your jail. If if you had three jailers not show up, you can pull somebody.

We can we can find I mean, we have the ability to be able to do that. Now, it's not ideal, but you know, it is what we do. It's just like Eastern. I mean, since he's only there's one only one out there and if he says I can't be here this week for whatever, then we'll pull somebody out there or we'll find somebody to work. Generally, the the school will pay for that. It's not the county paying for that. The school is pay we I don't like Eastern the county doesn't have any financial back burden to that, right? It's paid directly from the school. That that's the ultimate goal here too. Yeah. the county won't have financial burden. Yeah.

For Amplify. Amplify charges for its services and uh and operationally um and the the fundraising and the equipment and all that stuff that is going very well. So, it's um it's not a major glitch in the in the situation and uh but it's a it's a vital that the children are protected the same out there as they are at any school. Oh, absolutely. And so I just don't know. I mean, you know, when school's starting up here in August, you know,

I don't I, you know, pulling somebody from the road is there again is not ideal. And so, you know, having an extra spot or availability to, hey, okay, I'm going to pull somebody. Yes, I will, but then I can hire somebody to fill that gap. So, I don't know. So, where do we go from here? Do do um um does the county council have to agree to another position? Uh or h how do how does it work that you can because yeah school starts in August basically August 1st. Okay. Sure. Well the county council depending I suppose where the funding mechanism came from. Yes. They would probably have to do that. You know that's why I was looking at hey you know tiff dollars versus general fund dollars.

Even if they said that it could come from the RDC or whatever it's going to get reimbured. So, I mean, wherever it comes from, uh, they'll probably say since the RDC can fund operational security that the money initially come from the RDC. Um, and then I don't know how it'll be fed back in, but we'll let the auditor worry about that. So, u, but, you know, I think that would be the idea, you know, say I ask for extra deputy knowing it's not, you know, a general budget item, right? Um, because we know how that is. Um, yeah. But yes, and approach the council to say this is this is the idea and this is what I need to do.

I I'll work on that with the council members and stuff and maybe by next month we can have um we can have that ability to give you one way or the other. Uh I just need I just would need to know how to move on it cuz I mean you know hey could you I can't I can't see the building open up without security. Yeah. I don't know if she needs that. She thinks we're done with the meeting. She I can't add I need to know too because I need to add it to your budgets for next year. Right. Right.

It's going to be it's going to be is zero reim it'll be a reimbursement of somehow. But we got to figure out if it's going to come through that or if it's going to come through um economic development or something else too. You know what I mean? But um all right, I'll I'll work on that. I mean, you're looking probably I mean, if you're utilizing, you know, the school's $25,000, you know, you know, roughly it's a $100,000$102,000 kind of what I figured for a deputy that includes benefits and everything. And so if you're if you take to school 25, if that's an annual thing, I don't know. You know, you're looking about a $77,000 really um you know, burden or you know, to to an additional that we would need to make that happen. I think.

Okay. For one shift for for the one person, right, for an annual basis. Okay. But I got I do need to check with Stan. I I left him a message and I wasn't thinking about until this morning. You know, is is the money that he's getting is that a semester? Is that is that is that is that is that a whole year? To me, $25,000 doesn't seem like a lot to go very far for a part-time for a for a whole year. Right. What what he's saying is see H he gets money from the state for the students that'll go there and that money that's going to him from the from the state and the federal government is going to go to Amplify because those students then will come to this school. You know what I'm saying?

And so that's how part of the operations of the schools being paid. Okay. And in that is is mixed in security. Okay. And that's out of that whole pot. That's this is what was allotted towards that. So, right. So, which to me is not a whole lot. So, yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll have to figure it out. And we are Okay. Yeah. All right. And you you wanted to put a drone on

Yes. I want to I want to show you what we've done so far. Um I've I've actually you you I showed council the other day. You had left. Um, but I' I've showed the commissioners and as well as um council and so we currently have two drones. Well, actually I currently have one in place. Now, this was this sits on top of Mount Comfort School at uh 600 West and 300 North. Um the second one, which will go in probably end of July, 1 of August, will be on top of the amplified building. Um, and so I just kind of wanted to demonstrate what this looks like. Um,

and the Amplify building is already hardwired for this, right? Oh, yes. Part of the part of it we wired and it's it's ready to go. We just got to get the installation done. Yep.

Um, I'm having some technical difficulty. There we go. All right. And so when calls of service come in, which is so this will fly within a two mi, it's got a two-m radius of flight. Um, currently I have four dispatchers that are certified to fly it. Um, and so when a call comes in through 911, they're able to pull up, you write in the address or create a mission and it'll fly to that scene. Um, and they do it right from their computer. And so say we want to just go check out what's going on at the inter the interstate here and there's some integr you see the doors just open. It got brighter of the station.

Yeah. Um, so as integration we once we start integration with 911 in a little bit, they'll be able to just actually push the screen and it'll automatically send it at that point. Um, they're kind of still having to do it a little bit manually right now. Um, we're we have weather conditions that we have to watch. Um it's telemetry right now is trying to from from the amplified school you'll be able to cover the interstate almost you'll be able to almost get to Meridian. So yeah it'll cover about Fortville Pike all the way to Three West. Yeah. And then then the other one picks up right at 3 West. And so

yeah, there's a ton of accidents. So, the new the new one um there actually is a new version that'll fly farther than two miles um that I'm I'm looking to it in as well for maybe some other locations throughout the county. Are you restricted around the airport?

Yeah. So, we we so that's a what is called I think it's called fly Z or G area. Um and um we are geo we geofence the that area but it's not something where we have to call or we can fly in that area but we we put a geo fence around it so it won't um and over here at the side you can see the flight um those are the flights that are within a certain distance yeah of the area. So now it's taken off. It's live right now. I just I just I just launched it. He just launched it. We should look at that.

And I told it where to go and I can once it gets to wherever it's going or I can stop it from wherever it's going, I can manipulate to flight from my my computer. Do you have a restriction on flight based on weather like wind speed? Uh so yeah, wind speed. Anything over 25 mph, you don't want to fly it. And so up in the corner, you can see it's got wind speed 17 miles hour. So we know where it's at. Um it just mo mostly unstable landing is where where you get it. Um rain if it's torrential rain we don't fly it. Cold weather's fine not a problem. What's what's the capabilities of this like infrared wise or

So it's got thermal. So we use it for at night for thermal which has come in handy. So we've used it on a few calls. I mean several calls so far. I mean, we've had a a couple few crashes out on the interstate um that where the drone was first on the scene. Um that way they can give intel back to dispatch. Um well, dispatch is right there. They're flying it. Um to what what apparatus may need, you know, if the road's completely blocked, which direction they need to come in from. Um there was a piece of furniture that was out in the middle of the interstate. They flew the drone to find out it wasn't actually in the middle of the interstate. So we did we could disregard the car, you know, because the car they sending out, you know, police cars to go check it. Well, if we can get the drone, see, well, it's not in the interstate. I I can move that that car can go and do something else.

Is that limited to the same 400 uh feet? It is. Um, it's set right now to only launch and fly at 200, but we could go to the higher elevation. Um, so right now it's it, you know, it made its way to the interstate. I can adjust the camera. Um

um it also will cover the majority of our tiff districts. Well, exactly. That's the idea and that's why I'm showing you because so some of the the the funding the mechanism to this is is some equipment dollars um from from the right because we were talking about school security and then these are based at the school but these drones are not just for school security it's this is for the whole area the whole area period

and so um like I said I'm all the way on the I'm on the east side of the interstate But say I want to look at that truck right there and then I can zoom in on that. Well, you know, if you get calls for problems at the truck, you know, and we've had that. We've had some emotional emotional mental there. Amazon, same thing. You've had emotional mental issues.

We had a I had a crash at Amazon. We flew it over to the crash. I happened to be up. I'm up all the time working on my computer. I heard the crash go out, so I flew it over to the Amazon that night because there wasn't a pilot working. Um, and so, um, I can I can fly it forward by my keyboards and so I'm making it go forward now. Um, what's the flight time maximum? So, right now, I mean, we we're at 89%. Um, it'll fly home when it gets down to a certain amount. Mhm. Um but it's about 40 minutes. Wow.

And then it has to recharge. What's the recharge? So this Yeah. So this this version here has to recharge. Um the new version of it, which is a larger unit, which a larger station, which is a little bit more money. Um it has a a ability to change its own battery. It lands, changes, and takes back off. Yeah. But you should be able to ascertain. You should be able to get to anywhere within the 2 miles within what? So, this one here travels 25 miles an hour if you have good wind behind you

and then ascertain any information you need within the first 10, 15 minutes. I would think the new one, the newer version, larger version that'll travel 6 miles up to 6 miles. It flies 60 m an hour. And hopefully the fire department will be saying, "Hey, we got a fire call and we need

Well, that actually it's actually already there's been two instances I know of that we the drone's actually been used. Uh the condo fire or the town home fire that we had across from in Whitland Village, they flew the drone actually were able to to give us some thermal view of the incident. They were a little late in getting into there, but it still gave us a good uh our investigators kind of a good site. And then we had a semi fire on the interstate actually just three days ago and I got a report back from dispatch. Um one of the dispatchers was able to fly it and he said, "Yeah, we had eyes right on it from the drone. I didn't hear. It was right at the edge of the flight." So they ended up using some traffic cams as well. Uh if the amplify one had been up, they'd have had a better view of it from that that drone. But yeah,

so we're seeing some benefit from it as well indirectly and we're working with the sheriff about getting the view available to our battalion chiefs at some point. I I missed who you're talking about. Who had a drone? No, this this one. This? Oh, that one. Okay. Does But Creek have a drone? We do not. No. Mount Vern uh Vernon Township just recently got one. Yeah. So Vernon has one. Sugar Creek has one. The downside to those is that then we're committing a resource to be able to fly and man those drones where they're able to auto launch this and it can just be an eye for us. Yeah. Or the dispatchers, right? They have 911 dispatches are able to manage that. So the dispatchers can Yeah.

Yeah. And I and some of in some of also too and I don't know what they're flying um majority of law enforcement and public safety bought into DJI drones. Um know what this is? No, this is Americanmade in US out of Seattle, Washington. Um, the That's what I was going to ask with DJI. Is that even allowed to be used in government anymore?

Not anymore because the the president signed a executive order I believe in January. Um, and no longer will you get J DJI stuff. Um, what's what's available you can get, but nothing else. And so all these agencies out here that have it, it can no longer or will no longer be able. So they're they're having to scramble to figure out what they're going to do. Yeah.

Um in the future. And so um so we've done our mission. Say we you know we're we're ready to roll. We've done it. We went. So I can all I I got to do is say return to home. Um and it'll fly back and land itself. You know, I I'd like to know the stats, but I bet Hancock County has the worst record for interstate for any interstate in the country as far as fatalities and accidents because there's never a day goes by that there isn't something happening on the interstate from our county line to county line. It's unbelievable. And I know of multiple M fatalities over the last 20 years in the stretch between basically Henry County and and Marian County. Don't ask me why, but I mean there's been dozens of people killed.

It's also been in under construction about that whole time. About Yeah. Mhm. I mean, I I worked I worked multiple fatalities in 1987 and 88 and all those on the interstate between Henry County and and and Marian County. I I can't tell you why that that piece is, but it is. I drive home across the interstate every day and the interstate is closed. I mean most it just seems like at least once or twice a week. What's the cost for a drone like that one?

So telemetry with a station. Um it's it's 80,000 a year. What? Yeah. 80,000 a year. 80,000 a year. Um what? Because 80,000 a year. Yeah. But what that means is is anytime that drone it gets upgraded Yeah. that we'll get a new one. It's not It's not to where it's a service. Yeah, we own it. I mean, it's ours, so I don't have to give that one back. Um, but if they upgrade it, you get a new one. We get a new one. So, it's it's like a subscription service kind of so much. Yeah. But you don't have to It's not like a lease program where, hey, we lease it and you turn it back in and get another one. technology is advancing so fast,

but it's it's the telemetry of being able to launch it from another location. Um in a station, you know, that's different from just your normal drone. Does it have like a replacement? It like something would happen to it. Same as Yeah. And it's got a parachute and you have to have a parachute on these. Um so if something happens um Yes, you would. The replacement happens. So we've had we have some interior ones we use as well for SWAT operations. Yeah. Um, and we've had a couple of those damaged. Um, you know, somebody either hit it or knock it, they replace it because it's all part of that program. It's like a quick turnaround. Yep. Yep. So, I can I mean, just like this right now, I'm sitting here watching this intersection just to watch it to see what's going on. And

what frame rate is it? I'm sorry. Do you know what frame rate it is? I do not. I didn't know if it was laggy or that was just No, it's not laggy. I mean, not really laggy. I mean, obviously that depends on your your connection piece, but we don't I don't find it as laggy because the radio communication that I've heard between dispatch and the cars on the scene, it seems like it's it's pretty quick. So, thank you, Brad. Thank you.

I mean, to really I mean, this is, you know, when we talk about, hey, we going to need more deputies. Yes, you still need deputies to go to the scene and handle situations, but this is kind of the future of public safety of getting eyes on locations, whether it's fire or police calls, um seeing what we need beforehand or keeping people safe. I mean, if that gas station is getting robbed and there's a guy standing out there with an AR, I don't want a guy rolling right in on top of that. But if I can get a drone on top of it and say, "Hey, you know, he's standing out front with a weapon. We need to rethink this a little bit before approaching the scene. Who determines whether the drone gets used or not?

Um there's protocols be in place for call types, but we've been utilizing it pretty much on all calls just for for mostly training purposes. Yeah. Um so anytime we get a call within generally in that two- mile radius, if there's a pilot available, we'll fly it just to get eyes on what's going on.

I used it one night. was up. They're again on a pursuit. Um, and they crashed right there at the roundabout. So, you can see right now where it's landing in the station. The camera turns downwards and you can see landing back in the station. Well, hopefully we'll have one at Amplify and hopefully you'll have more moving north towards our county line towards McCordsville. Well, I think that would be the idea and hopefully, you know, some of the other municipalities like if if

Mccordsville would buy into it as well. I mean, you don't want to have multiple different types of drone systems. You know, if we had one system like this and we had it at multiple locations, you know, it'd be nice to know, does the Vernon one cover the ver the U Mount Vernon school system because it it'd be nice for the school systems to have be in a drone area to be able to access quick. Yeah, I think that if we invested in the newer version, you know, the one that five six miles, it would take less of these. Obviously, it's more. It's about 120,000 a year for those. Um, it's a larger unit,

right? and it changes out batteries. Um, it also has the ability inside, it's kind of like I look at like a big vending machine because if we're going to a call and say it's somebody that needs um some sort of life saving, you know, kit or a life preserver, you can actually put these things in this device and it'll pick it up, attach it to it, and fly it out to the scene with you and they can drop it off, right? um you know so it's just pretty amazing technology um that they have. Uh we have we have lost individuals, mentally lost individuals, seniors, we have lost children.

We seem to be flying those a lot lately. I mean the drone the drone calls have I'd say we're getting at least three or four a week now for different things. Um whether it's this or whether it's a patrolled lead, somebody's got one in a car or whether you're using fire department ones. Um there's always somebody seems likely going missing or walking away with mental and emotional. And so we're using drones more and more all the time trying to find people. Wow. Impressive. Thank you. Thank you.

Yep. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Um we can move on here. We have um $266,000 worth of invoices to approve. Uh mo I'd entertain a motion for those. Um well, Gary's still here if anybody has any questions, but I move to approve the invoices for $266,276.17.

I second it. All those in favor say I. I oppose the same. Thank you. Um, very good. Seeing nothing else on the agenda. Oh, Jason, we did go ahead and and pass and sign the uh pass through agreements or allocation. Yeah, sorry for being late. No, no worries. Thanks for coming. Sorry we did it ahead of you getting here and everything, but that's fine. Um, no questions. Everything's fine. Good. Um, I'll also be using Jason to analyze. We just had a bunch of ass here analyzing this stuff.

Okay. Yes. Yes. And yes. That's why I said that whether for me this was the most important meeting for all of what we talked about because it's different factions of the government been working on this for a while. But to get them everybody together and actually how it's going to be paid, when it's going to be paid, and how it's going to be done. This is really complex. It's going to take Yeah. I'll need Jason's help. Okay. Thank you. No worries. Uh, I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. I make the motion that we adjourn. Second. All those in favor? I