Village Council - Regular Meeting

supposed to get started. Please stand for the prayer pledge of allegiance. We have Pastor Steve Irish here. We'll give a prayer.

Let me pray. Lord, again, we just uh thank you for your love and your grace and continue to work in our hearts and our minds. Lord, I I pray for the um pray for the people that serve our village and I pray for our village itself that you uh continue to protect us. You continue to guide us and continue to give us direction. Lord, I pray that you would just break our hearts to understand you, Lord, and to believe that you are the one true living God and continue to move in our hearts and our minds in Jesus name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right, we have a special clerk here tonight. Okay, for Cheryl, you want to do roll call.

Here. Good. Thank you, Mr. Justin your first. Oh, man. Yeah, you're I'm the property uh can property farm there off of Spencerville Street. We sold a lot and they're going to house and I'd like to extend the utilities and continue to put lots back through there. Uh we went to the plan commission zoning board.

Zoning board went to zoning board a week or so ago did not like to ask for variances through the zoning board to make projects feasible to work and I can go variance obviously with you guys. I don't know what you guys have heard or seen. Okay.

So this is a sketch of the property that I like to do. I like to do it in phases. The whole property looks like it could be roughly 44 lots. The new development would start um if you guys find Spencer Street. The new development would start after Scott Brown. He's the guy building. One of the not one some of the ordinances in the subdivision were written were written years ago and it's very tough to develop in small towns and make it work. One of the things is sidewalks. Sidewalks are very expensive to put in. Sidewalks do not go on the developer. The homeowner puts the sidewalks in after they purchase the lot. My speaking with uh the zoning orders. The sidewalks lead to nowhere. There's no sidewalks that connect to this property. I would be for sidewalks if they were close to the property, but to put in sidewalks that lead to nowhere, I think is It doesn't make sense. I think that I should write in the deed. I would set up a homeowners association out here and write covenants and restrictions in to keep it nice. But in those covenants and restrictions, I think I should write in there that if a sidewalk gets a certain 100 ft away, then the homeowner is responsible to put a sidewalk in it. What would happen is they would put in sidewalks. Now, by the time they connect, sidewalks would need to be replaced. So, I would like to ask for variance on the sidewalks. The other variance I would like to ask for is in or in Hicksville there's no ponds inside the city limits and today almost all subdivisions over in Allen County they require ponds and it's retention to keep the the runoff but also it's its beauty and I think here in Hicksville and any small town you have to offer something different to drag

people to our community and pond lots are very very ideal. People love pond lots and there's no pond lots that I know of around in in our other small towns Edon Woodurn and things. So I'd like to put a pond in. I know that people hear a sense when you hear a pond in city, you're going to end up with a bunch of kids floating face up and that that rarely happens. I agree it's awful that it would ever happen, but I don't think it happens. A lot of people think the worst. So I'd like to for a variance to have a pond on the property. I'd like to do it in phases as you guys see on the first the first page is I would think you would go down to like almost like lot 19 and it would give 12 lots basically and put a small section of the pond in and then as the community grows you can break in the attic. Um the other big variance I would like to ask for is in the u the subdivision ordinances is you have to have curb and gutter and storm sewer in this property out there. I've taken some from the zoning board and take anybody out there like to go. The whole property falls to the creek. There's a creek down there and it would be a great property to put in surface drainage. And when people hear surface drainage, they instantly think of Her Drive, which are deep ditches that are unmovable, that are weedy. And I'm not talking about that. Sycamore Hills and Fort Wayne, which are one of the highest end subdivisions in Fort Wayne, is all surface drainage. And I think we should build the community to fit the the topo of the ground and make it a I don't know country feel the state.

Does your pond sorry to interrupt your pond is that for like to be filled all the time or is it to take I would like I would like but like the school has a retention pond. Yeah. I like to have it full and ours ours just gets water because the parking lots and the road drains into it. You couldn't you couldn't put water in the creek faster than what it was when the ground was there. You have a dry one and holds it like a dam and lets it up. Yeah, over in Leo, we build them to be wet retention ponds that they fluctuate, but there's always water in them because if they're not, they they're hard to mow. They turn into tails. They look I want the pond. I want the water. I want to pump them. So, I would like to build a retention pond to be a wet retention pond. It fluctuates with elevation.

You're changing the location from what it was before. Before you're a little bit more on the curve

before I wanted to come in. Yeah. Uh before we spoke it was Dr. Horton and I thought to come in from the route two side off of Kasa Grande side because I think that value of ground is less valuable over there with being right up to the back of commercial property. So you're not going to have bigger estate houses back in there. I think I'm going back to another game plan coming on Spencerville side and uh I have a person right now from Auburn that if I could just get lot 24 zoned right now they would buy it today. I know Dean Yoder would buy two lots and I have another builder from county that instantly buy two lots and start specous. The one thing that's the main thing too that I would like to ask council is I'd like to have a tip and you guys know what a tip is tax and finance. We've talked I've been in meeting after meeting from 2017 when I bought the golf course on getting a tip. It's really easy to say. It's easy to say in meetings but it's hard to do. A lot of people don't know how to do it. I reached out to Dennis Miller a while ago. This is 21 pages that I I went up and typed up. This is You guys can pass around. My wife would kill me if I printed 21 pages eight times up here. But uh so I took Was Ohio. They had a tiff. They had a developer agreement with the guy and I took the tiff and I rewrote it. Change all the partial numbers. Change the village of Hicksville versus Wasan. basically mimic that tip and I would like to ask for a tip

with is that a developer tiff or is that a village tip? That is a developer tip. Developer. So the way the developer tip works is I front the money and then I get paid back to the taxes of the property till I'm paid in full for the cost of the infrastructure. So for the road, the water, the sewer, the prints, the engineering, there's a bunch of things correct you can put into the the thing that I get frustrated with on the tiff is it come everybody wants to do calculations and figure out numbers and figure this and figure that. At the end of the day, in my opinion, it's pretty simple. The the tiff is a tool to repay the developer back with the cost of the infrastructure. Is that correct?

Is that what the tiff is for? Well, there's I mean that's why we need the calculations of like I know like it also depends on what infrastructure you're talking about.

So all the infrastructure, the water, the sewer, the storm because we every time this tip gets brought up, everybody wants calculations. I roughly took calculations from Leo that I just did a subdivision in two years ago. Bought all the material of Midwest Tile, which would be the exact same place out here. figure the dirt work and give me a cost of a lot price that I know is the price. So I rough estimately put that price in. So if you take 44 lots times the price I have in LEO, which is very simple math, you can calculate pretty close to the tip. Where the hangup on the tip in my opinion hits is you can get a 10ear tiff, you can get a 20-year tiff, you get a 30-year tiff. Is that correct?

Okay. So the the goal of the tiff is to stimulate the economy and pay the developer back. So the number is not that big a hangup. In my opinion, the most important part of the tiff is the time of the tiff. Most people want to do a 10-year tiff. They say, "Oh, it's a 10-year tip." The goal is to get paid back. That's why you're doing the tip. So, what the way that it would work is I my opinion is I would get all my quotes. I would go somebody from the village and we would work closely together and then I would submit the bill. When I get a bill, I submit it to the village. Everybody sees all the cards are on the table. I pay the bill that gets Mark down. The most important thing to me is in small town America, the reason nobody's developing is because it's the biggest risk you can take. I mean, there's very little risk across the state line over county. It's exploding. So, I want a 30-year TIF. The the time of the tiff, you're only getting paid back is when the funds come in. So, if the tiff's paid off in six years, 30 years is gone. If it's paid off in seven years, it's gone. If you only get a 10-year tip and it takes you 15 years to pay off the tip, then you you never got paid back. So, the goal is the tiff is to pay back the developer. So, I would ask for a 75% tiff with 30-year payback, hoping that it's a six-year payback or an 8year payback or a 12 year payback. But if you don't go long enough, you're you could never get it. If that makes sense.

You could do a what's called a rolling tiff. So then you would in your your plan have you're going to have a set amount of houses that are you list out the parcels and then that one could be for 10 years and then once you started building on the next um phase then that's when that tiff would roll into place.

Well I don't know I mean if I go out there and put in 20 lots could you sell 20 lots in 10 years? Nobody knows we had a crystal ball. Life's easy. So I I'm sick of making this thing complicated. This tip is between you and I. So, let's make it as easy and as simple as possible. I don't I I appreciate the rolling tiff and I've talked with Taylor before and you know, you can take it partial and you can do a little bit and but guys, everybody's so confused at the end of the day, nobody knows what's going on. Well, I think that so it it it depends on what you're going to do at the end of the day in order to determine what that redirection is. So, I know that the village has requested like a list of different items from you. Yep.

And once they get that, I think then they can start making some of those those calculations.

So, I went through on and I wrote the tip and to develop the whole canoe farm. My engineer said he had roughly 200 homes on it and I'm dying right now to build a 55 plus retirement community. I can't sleep at night. I think it'd explode. I'd like to put it behind Cass Grande down west. My partner who's in this tiff, whoever's got the tiff, his name is J.R. Parent. He owns 3,000 retirement units. He owns yellow retirements in Fort Wayne. He's part of could, would a, should um he's my investor. We want to build a retirement community. So, we have uh roughly 300 homes on that property. So, with the quick math that I did on a tiff because everybody wants to know what's the price, what's the price, what's the price? If I take the development cost I put in Leo and 300 homes is like $24 million. And I called Mike and I said, "Mike, I think you could do it a lot less, but I got to put a number in this tip." So, I put $19.5 million in that tip if you guys look and see. And I said, "You know, out of all 21 pages in that tiff, nobody's going to read any paragraph in there for section six. They're going to go want $19.5 million." So to prove my theory, I was at one day, well, when I bought Charlie's, I was on the tax on their site and I asked them, I said, "Hey, did you guys get the tiff?" And you know what they said? "$19.5 million." It's the only thing that they're worried about. So I'm ready to roll. I mean, I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I've heard that if I like do this sewer main extension up in the water for Scott bronze if you start search project and the tiff's not in place you can't go back you can't get it we're ready to go I'm I' I've beat that horse too we're ready to start developing if you would I don't I don't know this

at all if I understand that right there's no money coming from the village right there's no money coming from the If only the taxes go to you paid off. So if if a house is built, the way I understand it is 75% of the property taxes go back to developer to pay for the infrastructure. And the one big thing is it's the school. The school is the most important thing in the what's the school thing ever made. What's school? What's school? There's an email in all your guys from Keith Country. You can read. I know Keith is now stepping down. There's a new superintendent and Keith said the new superintendent would before we need to orchestrate a meeting. We need housing. So that's why I say the main people in the tiff is you, me, and the school.

Can I ask about the tiff as far as you know all this talk about doing property taxes? Let's say that goes to crick. I'm bankrupt and everybody here. So that's it. That's the truth. So risk, we did tell them about the risk. But if they don't go through and I get the money paid back, then so it's a no win. I know there's a lot of lot of talk on the property tax because it affects so many different entities within government. I don't even care to hear about the property tax. That's a risk. I take risk every day. My gra my hair is not gray for

so I don't care about it. That's a part of the risk. If the property taxes don't go, then then I'm up Put on a paddle. Yeah. Um, with this, I know we talked about Justin's property had whipped through the variance committee, right? I think they had full approval on those kind of things, right, Brian? Um, you know, this is something council can take a look at. Now, when it comes to right, like you said, you've kind of written a pre-tiff. I just And did you show that back to Mr. Miller by chance or I sent that to Dennis? I sent it to Keith and then now Donnie somehow is back in Donnie want some stuff presenting and it's just evolving. wheel. Yeah.

And we talked last week with some of the questions and got that back to you, but it's part of I guess hindsight is part of the process, but we want to keep moving process. Yeah. We don't want it to delay. It's been over two months that we've been waiting for the documents. So, I think if we can get that, then we can start really moving forward. I can probably scratch that down and then then have sit down with all the entities and and talk about the levels of tiff. I It sounds like you know what the variance committee had talked about with the with the applications I think were favorable council has any questions about that. Was there any uh changes since last time we talked about natural gas availability?

So all these homes over here will not have natural gas because I think was it 80 40 homes but it has to come in from Kasa Grande site because the pipe is going to FWT. So over on Spencerville site there's no gas capacity. So every home would have to have a propane tank. I know last time there was some issues or concerns on sewer and low station. On the other side there is because the sewer out front deep. Okay. So but on the Spencerville side it's super deep. Uh Cory did some work and there's a lift station in that Dor Drive. Den drive. Don Drive has a list station and they can take 100 homes. Drive.

It's like 44. I misspoke. I'm sorry. 44 homes on that side without any pump upgrades or anything. The uh sanitary sewer is 15 ft deep out in the in the ditch, which is super deep. The first house that Scott Brown is building the sanitary sewer and I have all the engineered submitted EPA. It's 16 foot deeper than his basement, which is insane deep because the ground of the Kadoop property continues to go up and the sewers out here. So, 26 ft deep in the ground which can gravity flow the whole north side of that property which is good for all of us. It's no more infrastructure except 8 in sanitary vein run off the property on a grade to go to the existing leg

with the current build that you have out there. When's that house supposed to be completed? I would probably say eight months probably. I know that Cory just signed the papers from our engineer to do the water and sewer main extension and I heard it takes 35 days for EPA to sign off on that.

But then I've also if I'm going to do it, I would like to get that in the tip. Now Cy mentioned and this is even open up another can of worms about that road. Uh the road one up there is a city road. Uh so who paves the road? Who does that? Do I pave the road? Do you guys pave the road? I don't know if you understand what I'm trying to say. Joey Larry's road that goes up is a city street. It's designated as a city street, which in my opinion, in the old days, it should have never happened. They shouldn't have let Kaduk plot off those three lots without putting in the infrastructure. Today, I don't fly. In the old days, he probably came in here like I did. They let him parcel it off, and they never made him put it in the road or the sewer, but the town has taken it over. So that's that's a 400 some foot run of road that the city owns. So it' be like me going up and pavement high street. It's already a deed road to get to where then I would take over. So Corey mentioned about maybe it's city paving to get to the start of the new infrastructure, but I don't know what you guys thoughts on that. Glory. I'm open to talk about it. So I don't know what you guys think is fair. I just want it to be fair. And I knew that was some type of ask, you know, to at least pay.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up because the other variance I'm asking for is a 22 foot road. So to come up come up the existing drive off of Spencerville like the new city or the city ordinances in the books and need like a 30 foot road or something 30 foot road which is huge. Spencerville street is 22 feet wide. So I was asking the variance committee to give me a a 22 foot road. I don't think that the subdivision should have a wider road than Spencerville Street. That's the main road that more traffic's on. So 30 foot road is just continually more cost. So I was asking for a 22 foot road, pond, surface range. There's one more.

Sidewalks. No sidewalks. Yep. No sidewalks. So my question I guess I'm just skimming this but if you don't complete all of this do we have to reimburse you for anything?

Oh no I it's going to it's going to be phases. We' all be insane to go out there and just start putting in lots. I think you go and you put in the road maybe go six lots on each side and you put a stone cisac and those six cell then you continue on and you do another sewer extension. What the reason I'm asking for the tiff is to just do one 30-year tiff is I don't want have to come back in here. If if right now I go out there and I put in 12 lots and six of them sell to come back in. Guys, can we do another tip? Can we do another tip? I just want to say take this parcel, give me 30-year tip on the whole parcel and I'm going to go on a developing spree. I have investors lined up to help do it. I think it's a great thing for Hicksville and it would be foolish not

might be a dumb question. are dumb questions. Uh, so let's just say you sell off all 12 lots. Yeah. But nobody builds. I'm going to put it up. That's the worst thing that can happen. I mean, but like and was it Hman and them there's five or six parcels back there. I think there's two houses. That sucks and people own them. I mean, the same person I think the one lady bought three or four lots, but they don't have any intent to build right away.

That's a great question. In Leo, I put in there if you buy a lot, you got to build within a year. I'm going to do the same thing out here. Empty lots do not help any of us. So, I'm going to I'm going to start an HOA. I'm going to call a place Fox Creek and anything inside Fox Creek when they buy the HOA rules are if you buy a vacant lot, you have to start a home within 365 days. If not, you get a penalty from the association. So, we want homes. We don't need empty lots. Is the penalty going to be hefty enough that they want to build instead of pay? We'll make the penalty up. We'll sit down in this room and we'll decide what the penalty is. because if it's, you know, small, they're just going to pay.

I said I I I we all need to work together on this. We need to all sit down and say, "What do we think is best for Hicksville? Let's all write the covenences together. Can we swing this? Trampolines? How much bricks on the front? How much is the find if you don't comply on the building a home?" Was there a time frame to complete it, too? I mean, there's you go down Jericho, there's a guy building a barn that's been like that 10 years. I mean, they just we're just getting done to it. It's just there's never that

what I did with the Leo is I took uh I looked at like Shadow Creek Shadow Creek. It's a new subdivision and Corey some other ones. I took their covenences and then I basically did tip I rewrote it and there has all that in there. There a certain time frame you got to build the house or you can't your concrete guys can't dump the concrete truck out in the front. You got a boy shelf on the side. You can't have open burning. There's a $5,000 fine if you don't do this. So, I want to let's change the way Hicksville's kind of done stuff and start getting in the realm of duty, right? I don't mean that as a thing as a down. I mean, let's set some stipulations and try to to stick to them.

We had talked before about somehow or other you'd have to designate that road from like whereas at Yeah. between Schmidz so people aren't cut through the dealership, cut through the restaurant, the daycare area guard rail or whatever size or

right I think now over there that's still not sidewalks but that's closer to town like something like that we need to do a sidewalk thing and hopefully someday there's a sidewalk into the police station that leads to town over on this side I think it'll be a long time for sidewalks if I do a retirement community and stuff back behind passing around I think that's the right place for sidewalks but I again we should write it in the covenants and restrictions that once the sidewalks get within a certain f then you have to connect over in Leo we had to put a uh a 10 foot asphalt trail out front I don't know if you guys have ever drove by and seen it leads to nowhere and their intentions are to hook to it in 2040 2040 by then the asphalt's going to be redone how about I just give you the money and put it in the bank and collect interest on the CD but anyway similar scenarios if you go put in sidewalks don't leave anything by the time they do place. So until people get caught up, let's put them in there.

No, I would like to back to the tiff is if we're going to do the tiff, it's a headache and it has more meetings at time. I think we just take the whole parcel and if I do the retirement committee on one side, it falls under the tiff. If I do the housing on the other side, obviously the goal for the farm is to grow Spencer into one with the road all the way through. A lot of information been passed out tonight, you know. Oh man, I'm about winded. I need to watch.

I'll take you back on you saying about paving that or whatever. Yeah. So like on this front here, our rideway goes up to where that first cross is.

It's like four 4t. The number one rule in development, just so you know, is you don't put in road, water, and sewer unless you can get a lot on each side because it's so expensive. So even like Cas Grande, for me to put a road in from two to get to the back behind the truck dealership in Kas Grande, that's like the number one developer mistake. You're putting a 400 foot of road in asphalt that you get zero payback on because there's no lots onvious. So obviously at the end of the day, we're all in this together and it's no secret that we need housing in this town.

I was thinking if the town could help at least get to where it starts. And if it's not right, it's not right. Well, Justin, how about this? Uh we get with Corey Dennis to keep things moving. Uh put some of these um letter of intent together. Uh you got a draft of your tiff kind of agreement. um some from the school, but let's get our main group of people together and and keep moving this project down the road. So, well, let's I I'm ready to move her. So, right. So, trying to get that scheduled here within the next week or two. Okay.

And uh if you have any other information that we passed from that last email, if you can grab grab any of that, you know, we can bring back to next meeting might be helpful. But, uh I know Erica talked about helping. I think council's excited about the project overall. been working with you on stuff and uh like I said, let's keep it moving and get the powers of beition. Sounds good. Charlie's open.

Thank you. Thank you guys. You can have it. Uh next we have Erica from the divine CIC along with Mark Warick. interrupts the attorney for the CICs. Sorry, you might as well come up here. You're going to miss the talking.

We're here because you guys had um questions on just like the process of using the CIC as a pass through for different projects like for example the Hicksville spec building. You guys own the land. We're very close to getting the fully executed document to my knowledge. Um and then we're very close to um hearing what the state has said about a grant that we're going after um to assist Keller Logistics and or Keller Development um with that project to build a a spec building there. So with that um I know I sent you guys the emails and how it works. I guess we're here to answer any questions that you might have on the process. I think the main question that got brought up was funding like who's paying for all all the fees when it comes to the contracts since it was going through the CIC. We didn't know but I think you can answer all that.

Yeah. So typic so typically how it would go is um for all the different villages and the cities that we work with. We cover our attorney fees. You guys cover yours. last time.

What basically what we offer is the ability to we've got a statutory exception to the rule that says that governmental entities can only dispose of excess property through the public bidding process. And if it's an approved project, you know, something that that you guys have decided is a worthy economic development project for the village, you're allowed to convey to us and then we can turn around and and sell the property to a private developer without the public bidding requirement. And that's a a an exception that's been recognized by the Ohio Attorney General to the public bidding rule

though the the village or city is still actively involved in the development agreement the say they're they're utilizing us to

it's a lot of the same things that Justin just talked about you know are you going to have have uh you know must commence by such and such date you know that this developer is going to get land that the village currently owns. You know what what are your expectations? That's got to get written into a development agreement. I don't think you just want to turn over the land to this guy and let him turn around and do something else with it. That's all to protect, you know, your expectations. And that's why, you know, we would want a lot of involvement from the village. You know, whe whether we draft the agreement and sign the agreement or whether you sign it directly with the developer yourself, you guys still need to be involved because it's, you know, you're you're the ones that are answerable to the voters and you know what your expectations are. You know, I don't think you want to turn it over to a developer and then get get something other than what you were represented you were going to get.

But with those development agreements and the the transfer and different things like that, each entity is looking out for their best interests. Correct. The builder opposes the developer. What's best for him economic? you know, financially, uh, time wise and everything else where the village is looking at, you know, our building codes, timelines of if things don't get done in a certain amount of time, then property gets reverted back to or if it fails. Let's say they bankrupt or whatever, you know, they don't get to keep the property, they back to the village, right? Uh, we did that with the Keller kind of agreement. something happened where we would get paid back which I don't think I mean we're we have to bring all that back

but you know a prime example of this if we let the other party write the agreement for instance like American Tower they wrote the whole agreement for that tower and look what we have happen they looked out for their best interest their wise and what's forever as long as that tower sat there uh and you know we've been trying to get a dirt road move for three years. Three years. Right. Right. And we're bound by their contract where we could have should have been bound by a contract we wrote for them and they accepted it to an agreement. Right. Same kind of concept. So

I think the biggest question we had last time was just the development agreement. Who was responsible for paying for it? If it was something that you guys took care of that fee or something that worked. So typ have there have been times where like Mark has written the development agreement like for the city defiance we've done some but then the city will help reimburse those costs to us. I mean you each municipality the county commissioners they contribute to the CIC for for the operation of us being over here working with the businesses working with the schools but that does not mean that we draw out for the attorney fees that we can't expect. Yeah.

Did you want to update them maybe with some of the current projects that you got going on?

Sure. Um well, I don't know if I mean I'm sure you guys have all went by Bruce Guilford's um the daycare and I know that they've started to try to um get new get signups. I guess that's going pretty well. So, that's very exciting. Um and that'll be around 14 15 new positions once they get those filled. Um we are currently working with Saber Industries. Um They are in the process of hiring um 150 new welders. We are actually working with Northwest State for County Career Center. We've even pulled in Ping County's resources to like Vantage Career and then Tim Copsy with their economic development office to um create uh basically pipeline where we have courses and then once these people will u graduate through the course, they're automatically they automatically get a job at at Saber. On top of that, I was just um last week a grant that I applied for um for $20,000 um through a grant will go towards all marketing of welders at Saber Industries. So, we're pretty excited about that. Currently working on two major expansion projects um in uh Hicksville and I know I sent this email, but that's going to be over 300 and some new positions coming. Um it's kind of there's a ramp up period. So it's not going to be all 300 at once, but that just shows and reflects the need for housing.

And um I told you about that we're working on the state grant for the Hicksville spec building. And um there's just a lot of like great things happening in Hicksville. I know Cara, my partner in our office, she's been over at Hicksville Hicksville Hospital. Picksville schools probably wants to be in the hospital after she's been like working with all the kids being the judge and she she was telling me it was a lot of fun. She did the amazing shake and um she was excited about um how well the students they all dressed up and were really proud. So she says she had a a really good time doing that. So I think there's a lot of great things that are happening in Hickol. I'm I'm excited for the future.

Question for Erica or All right. Um, go into the uh I know Joanne was here. Joan, do you want to talk now or you want to wait till the end of the meeting? I had Joanne had asked to talk to us real quick. You want to talk now or

I'm Joanne Gardner. My name was Otis. I lived on a farm out on Lake Road with cows, chickens, milks, milk cows all my life. Um, I graduated I graduated in 58. My son was on the ball team at one state in 78. So that's a little my history. I worked 30 years at Defiance Municipal Court as chief deputy clerk and deputy ba. I know you say the chicken ordinance is dead, but I'd like to to talk about it. Uh I sat here and listened to you people say you were going to change the ordinance. You were going to improve it. She was going to go over. The mayor told me a couple times. You were working on it and all of a sudden it's dead. Well, I want to tell you my granddaughter's story. She has PTSD. No, she didn't serve in the Lord. She didn't hear any bombs or anything. She was at her uncle's funeral, her mom's brother over in eastern Ohio. He was a fireman. They said, "Hop in the fire truck. We'll take you for a ride." Well, you know how high the doors are on those fire trucks? The door had 11 people in the fire truck. It was supposed to be nine. was the capacity. They went around a curve. Her mother, the latch came open, her mother fell out, hit her head on the railing, a guard rail, and actually bled to death. Her two little girls, which were about three and four at the time, said, "Why is grandma's hair red from the blood?"

So that's why she suffers PTSD. She sees that to this day. So she saw her neighbors having chickens. So she raised these little baby chickens in the house till they grew up. They mean a lot to her. They are her comfort pets. The kids love them. They carry them around. I know she didn't check the ordinance before she did this. She put money in her coupe to build it. They worked hard to get it. They appreciate the aids that she comes home from work and she goes out and sits with the chickens and it helps her. So I'm encouraging you to go back to the chicken ordinance, change it to 50 foot. That's not asking very much. And if you're going to start enforcing this ordinance and not change it, you're going to have to every single person in this town that has chickens or it's going to be a harassment suit. I know people that's got chickens behind fences you probably don't even know about. So, it's only fair that you do something about this ordinance. If you read the Ohio State law, it says you cannot deny a person a comfort or a therapy animal. So, if you want to look that up, there is a speculation they may need a letter, which she has no problem getting. So, I'm urging you to change just change it to 50 foot. Is that so hard that you couldn't do that?

So that's why I would like to see the ordinance worked on again and changed. I'm sure I know her neighbors already moved out of the country, out of the town because she had chickens and she left.

Well, Joanne, uh, like I said, we've talked a lot over the course of time, you know, and councils Different different council people have heard this over the course of what a year and a half with discussing this and you know we we value your opinion. We all have different opinions about this and different ideas and um you know we sit these seats to either agree or disagree but at the same time um you know with with the rhetoric we've had and and discussion council kind of said you know holding the ordinance as it was doesn't mean it might change down the road. I can't guarantee any of that. But, uh, like I said, we've had a lot of people, well, a couple of you had talked about the ordinance and how it was presented and held back for all these years.

Is the ordinance dead now? As of right now, we're it's the ordinance. So, they have to have the chickens moved by June 1st, right? Well, we'd like Well, as soon as possible. Yeah. There's no hope of changing the ordinance. Well, as far as I know, from I'm just being honest with you. I don't see it happening. I I don't think it's fair. I really don't. I agree. And and I would appreciate you looking up to state law because these are comfort animals, therapy animals to her.

And maybe there are some exceptions out there with the state law. I have no idea. I mean, it's something we can look into, but um I I don't know. I've never had I've seen dogs, you know, and cats and things like that as therapy, but Cats cats is a problem. We talked about that. I appreciate you. Thank you for coming in, Joan. Thank you for your side of the story. Thank you. Um, thanks again, Joanne. Uh, we have approval of our council minutes from May 4th. Motion to approve as written. Second. Roll call.

Yes. Yes. Okay. Um, we have a bills list in your packet. Any questions on that?

A couple of them. I know's not here, but one St. Mike's Catholic Church for a rental wonderly. Oh, that's um that was a thing that happened with um we double booked the pavilion and um we were able to and we talked to the the people that we double booked with. Um we covered they paid for the pavilion and then we covered to find them a different spot because they have a family reunion. People are flying in. We had to find a different spot. So, uh we picked up the St. Michael's Catholic Church gym to help them out with their situation. So that's what that was for. But they went ahead and booked and paid for next year.

I'd like to say something. I asked about this as well and it was not double booked. That was not double booked. They had called. April can tell you how this went down because I unfortunately was up here when the gentleman was going off the rails about it. Um, they had called, tell, correct me if I'm wrong, they had called and said they wanted to reserve it. Okay. So, they're going to call back and verify it. That was the date. How long went by? Couple months. Couple months.

Couple months went by. Somebody else that came in said, "Is that available to the village?" Yes. So, these people paid for that day and then I don't know how much time went by and that family came in it. Sorry. He didn't like that. So this is again this is the village paying for a rental for that family because they didn't like

So did that family pay anything? They kept their money from this year that they paid. Um they send a check in when they come in and then we use that for next year for it. It's I he had mentioned that they have done this for 20 years every same weekend.

My other question was there's two different locations. It says John's towing and repair or ambulance towing towards the top of page towards the bottom of page. I talked to chief and he said there's only one time that EMS was checker on there was just one to zero from last week. Oh yeah. No, the posted date was 512 and 518

and then flat rocket drive. The driveway was 419 South Main Street. The way that runs, we had to cut a square out of that driveway there. So, it was that and then once illustration. There's a bow is right in the sidewalk and the sidewalk on each side of that bolt starting to to do this. So there was a lip like that going and go over top of our bolt, our concrete bolt. So I I took that upon myself for the village to take care of that rather than the homeowner having to take care of it. So it went from the bridge to the vault. I think you had to do two or three panels to get the right elevation. So that's what that sidewalk is. I didn't feel it was right for the homeowner to have to fix the issue at our station. questions.

She already that was on me. I I o because of the situation. So,

but that's my call. I I made that judgment call on that situation. So, talk to Cheryl bills if they're already paid. Just ask. I'll vote no because I don't think we owe it to pay except for that one. Yeah. And I wouldn't pay the duplicate ambulance bill either. Okay. Well, I'll vote yes if you take those two out. Okay. If they stay in, then I vote.

So, you'll need to have somebody second one way or the other pay the bills or to pay minus. I'll make a motion to pay minus those two. Yeah, I So then since we have first and second, All of those other

uh boards and commission you have board of zoning appeals met. Uh minutes are in your packet or minutes lots of minutes. The uh the one for metro box is that supposed to be conditions are denied? Denied. Okay. Because to prove a conditions are checked. Both our conditional permission is denied. But that's okay. What we got was Sorry, that's fine. Okay. But no, they both denied and I have it in my minutes.

Yeah, it's in here. says yeah denied but for

right um question from Brian we have council committee reports at 4:45 today, but next we have final reading of resolution. Make a motion to approve. Roll call.

Yes. Yes. Yes. First reading of resolution declaring the necessity for the renewal of taxing an emergency. determined.

The auditor hits it and it comes back to final rules. Second roll call. Yes. Yes. Second priority resolution motion approved.

I'll second roll. told you guys.

She doesn't have it on the reset. Oh, I didn't even notice it till No, I read that. I had a question on it because there's no specific in it. It wasn't on the list. Okay. Okay. There was any there was no conditions of the agreement anywhere.

That's why I went from 15 to 17.

Yeah. I just saw that was I forgot administrator report. Sorry about that. Unless you guys have any questions on supply that leak on Beach Street, I will tell you guys that after checking the pump pumpage numbers every morning at the water plant, that leak was more around 30,000 gallons a day and that was going directly into a field tile right officially completed. Valley emailed me today and they still had not got enough income surveys back. So they asked if we wanted another third round of mailings or go door to door. So I for them to go door to door like 44.

So do they charge us to go door to door? Because I know in the past we talked about door. Yeah. We pay for all the mailings, but

how many letters went out total on that? Do you remember? What was the area of town that went to? I can't remember. It was pretty much the entire south side of town. from we'll say the west southwest side of town

any questions for up to the department has chief

any question for chief Bruce, uh, at the last council meeting, um, or a couple council meetings ago, I talked about a program that we were looking to implement where it was a piece of equipment that we were going to put on both ambulances. and the total cost of the software. Uh, I'd like to uh say a big thank you because we did receive a donation from the Hixel Eagles for the equipment and the first year software and that total donation was $1,500. So, thank you to the Hixel Eagles. Uh, other than that, um, I don't have too much more. Uh, got Destiny Henderson and Ryan Bell is with us tonight. Matt was I forgot to say something to him, but these three um have just passed their national registry and our and we're looking to put them on and do some replacements. So, I'd like to bring those two on. Uh Ryanna is u looking forward to it and so is Destiny. They're they're both chomping at the bit to to be running for us. So other than that um

well I will make that recommendation to bring Brianna Brianna Brianna Matthew and Destiny y onto the spot I have everything I think also

it. Yes. Yes.

Yes. And finally, this week is National EMS week. And I would like to take the opportunity to thank the EMTs that came before us here in the village. And I would also like to thank all the current EMTs. We sometimes have a thankless job. People don't call 911 when they are having a good day. All first responders, fire, police, EMS, people when they feel terribly. So, I had to sit I was sitting and I've got a couple things that I wanted to say. What is an EMT? An EMT is your neighbor decided to dedicate themselves to helping others in their time of need. What does it become? What does it take to become an EMT here in the state of Ohio? It's 150 to 160 hours of classroom time. Then clinical hours on top of that. Then you have advanced. It's 200 to 250 hours including clinical hours. Then you have the paramedic 500 classroom hours and then you got another 300 to 500 clinical hours on top of that. Then on top of that, we have to do continuing education every every three years for the state of Ohio and every two years to maintain our national registry certificate. For EMTs, that equates to 40 hours. For advanced, that's 60 hours. And for paramedic, it's 75 hours. We dedicate our lives to an ideal to help people. And sometimes sometimes that we get that We're not thanked for that. We don't look for the thanks. But I just wanted to say thank you to all the EMS agencies

out there because let's face it, without us, without us, um, this healthcare system would come to a screeching halt. So that's all I have. Eric, do you have anything? Well, guys, I don't have a whole lot. I just wanted to um let y on a couple things. Uh finally, after all this time, there was some back and forth about our uniforms. So, class A uniforms did arrive and they were issued to uh all the members. So now we can look good maybe uh on Memorial Day um in that parade. So that's a good thing moving forward. Uh no other new business going on besides the first weekend in June where we will have that breakfast. Um I believe it's the 6th of during the Hfield days. So, that's our next big upcoming thing next door at the department. Uh, lastly, I I want to put on record for the public and council. There's been some things as far as what we do in the community. I just want to put out there that our job from the village and the citizens of Hicksville is to protect and serve you guys. So, if y'all see us out and about, we're out doing a community service a lot of times. Um, we're at neighbors houses doing fire alarms, just very active in the

community. I know there's some questions about why we're out so much. Um, our fire department side, we're actually active. EMS is a lot busier than us. But on the fire side, these guys go out and check on some of the neighbors who may have fallen the day before. Um kind of the behind the scenes. We go out and check on some of the sporting events, making sure everything's okay. And we've gotten a lot of support as far as us being shown in the community. So, as far as that goes, if there's any council members or residents of Hitchfield that has any questions or misunderstanding about what we do, guess what? I'm available via phone or next door, ask those questions. Um, because the village and the citizens are entitled to know what we do and why we do it. Other than that, I don't have at this time and I'm available anytime.

I've got to ask and I hate doing it so please don't come with pitchforks to my house and I'm not saying it I don't know where you live so that might be it's rather ironic or coincidental the example Mrs. Gardner gave. Does that affect anything we discussed earlier at the committee? Mrs. Gardner, she talked about the chickens and the example of the death. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's my question. Okay. No, I said I'm not doing it. No, no, no. And I love you.

Okay. So, what is your question? No, it was related. So her so Peggy Apple was her name. She was she was on the her brother passed away and he was a firefighter and they had a funeral procession to go to the cemetery and she had fallen off the fire truck while they were going to the cemetery and hit her head on a guard rail when she fell off and she passed away from it. That's the lady that was in here earlier. I think she left. It was just something one of those things we talked earlier about like donating waiver form and everything for somebody like if the fire truck is out are not fire business is my concern because that's been brought up to my attention and so I have concerns from a legal standpoint with my ability.

All right. Well, I'm here to try to answer that even though you're the lawyer. You're the one taking what I'm saying is whether you put me to it or not. However, I never negated the fact of there not been a liability. Okay? But traditionally for years and years they've done a lot of these functions as far as the kindergarten rides, the first grade rides. The school has always had the kids sign permission slips, that sort of thing. And for me initially, it was ironic that after all this tradition and years, all of a sudden it pops up after it's been going on.

So we had an hour meeting. She wasn't she wasn't at the meeting earlier. Again, I never negated that there should have been either a waiver, but that waiver was, I guess, as you would say, understood by the permission slips and the kids doing XYZ or however. Um, as far as salvatory rides, it was always understood. I'm I have zero problems with a waiver being drawn up and give to every single person. As far as that goes, I mean, I remember it was brought to when I was in like kindergarten or something, but nowadays we can't just go off and there's an understanding because people are

Well, no. The school says I've never seen it visually, but the school has said that we have permission in place. So, not even the I mean, I've heard about some other instances that we don't need to get into, but here in someone we talked about having a waiver form of someort And and Dererick had told us earlier that he had talked with the school or somebody had talked with the school and the permission slips the kids have would qualify for because some kids are not able to take these rides based on the parents sign or the not signing permission slips.

So anything outside of that has been associated risk and not to get deep into it but it had been that risk like you said when you were younger they did all that and all this time I'm assuming has been now and no one's really I guess dug into it but Mr. to go in and just says, "Well, now we're trying to be proactive instead of reactive." So, moving forward, I don't have any issues. I don't have any issues putting those waiver in place, but we do a lot of what we do, ma'am, is public relations and it does the the village great good and the feedback that we get from that is is outstanding. So, without the support of the residents and some of what we do on the community, we won't be a department. So, with this levy coming up, that's important. Yes, PR is PR, but it's important for us to stay out there, whether we're police, fire, EMS, just showing up and us being visible is important to Elijah's residents. And so whether it's personal use or however, I don't use that word personal because I don't just willy-nilly allow guys to just say wrap around the corner and go down to the Pizza Hut and have a party in the parking lot or however. But when we move, we move as a unit. We don't just go by ourselves because when the call comes, we all need to be ready. So when he's got here on the truck, whether we're going down the street, everybody has all their gear. It has to go on the truck. No one goes on the truck without their gear on because anytime we can have a call and that's that's where that's where that is, but I'm sure there's conversation for later about different other issues, but that's the nuts and bolts of it. Our job is to be

ready when that call happens. You guys do a fantastic job. No question. I kind of wanted you to ask because like I said, here I want the public to know what we're doing and why we're doing it. Thank you, Dary. Gary, thanks for pulling the stump out of my house as a fire truck.

Thank you. Well, we have your financials in the packet. Um, April usually doesn't do those, but if you had questions, ask those are

no questions. But thank thank you for filling in tonight and other times you fill in for Cheryl Cheryl quick recovery and stuff. So she is still working with the auditors a lot of conversations back and forth. I don't think they're coming much but she is working closely. There's a purchase order list that's kind of new in here, right? Maybe she keep you guys like that kind of look

as part of the packet. Yeah, I mean I think it' be very we talked earlier be very beneficial to have it listed when it comes to the whole list or department heads not in this right insurance

yeah we talked about that department had talked getting that information from their budget purchasing abil with that.

I just had a couple quick things. Um, this coming uh Monday is Memorial Day. We always have the Memorial Day parade. I think uh the permits were signed and everything, but uh we for praise we do every year to honor um our veterans that have passed and and remember them uh honor them. The um parade starts at 10 o'clock at the American Legion. It follows the same path through town high street to Maine out to Union uh cemetery. And again, it's the American Legion's uh post is doing this again. Um they ask people if you want to be in a parade please come. I decorate your carts uh cars, motorcycles, if you want to walk, be a part of it just honor our veterans that have passed to be at the American Legion by 9 9:30 to line up for the parade. The parade kicks off at 10:00 a.m. So uh we thank them for doing that. Uh guest speaker this year is uh Marine Corpal Christopher Sparks. He serves the eighth ESB engineering support battalion. Um, I can't pronounce his name. Uh, he's down in camp down at camp in Jacksonville, North Carolina. He is a 2023 graduate of Fairview High School. So, he will be speaking at this year's, uh, Memorial Day at the cemetery and have that going on. Uh, Hicksville High School commencement graduation is going to be May 31st at two 2 o'clock. Um, that's a Sunday. Um, we wish the seniors and and the high school kids and the new year ending, but we wish the seniors well in their endeavors uh either in college or work or whatever their plans are for the future. We thank them for uh graduating from Hicksville and for county and being part of their system. Um, again, the festival's coming up June 4th, 5th, and 6th. We got brochures out, still getting some activities planned.

The committee is working hard on that. So, uh, keep watching Facebook, the different flyers and things of that nature. So, excited to have that. Hicksville Heritage Day is back in Hville. There's anything else? Once Bill disconnects, I promise it'll only take two minutes. I promise. Okay. Once he disconnects, I think we need a quick executive session for economic development issues. It'll take less than two minutes unless other I know I'm saying

let us know what you're done doing. Thank you everybody. Thank you. Don't you have to Don't you have to vote to go into executive session? Oh, yeah. No, they're not allowed to vote. No. If they don't vote, it's not legal. They're discussing something. They're not allowed to vote. No. No. They have to vote to go into executive session. That's why I was like, what? If they go into executive session without voting to do it, then it's not legal. I got the two motions. I got the two motions. Yes.

I'll build this connection.