Council - Regular Meeting

I've read the minutes.

I'm okay with them. I'll make a motion to accept the minutes.

I second. The budget, there's only a couple things I'll make note of. On the voucher register, well, I'll do that next. On the budget, if you know The appropriations report, the services, the charges that were the minus $68,000 have now been corrected to plus $13,000. Okay. I notice our gas is deep and getting a little low on the percentages, but I guess we'll be fine. Oh, you notice the water operating on the front of the fund. The fund, it's at a plus 200 and some odd thousand. it was so we're staying the same we've already paid 210 000 right we need more projects so we actually didn't spend the whole two hundred and eighty sixty thousand stuff like i didn't even light up on that what i got more money to spend that's all i heard no i just said we didn't use it all yeah um the current balance is 310. um and we start out with 332, one of these first is 22, so we're down to 31. And the sewer operating, I don't really know where that's going to be. That's basically about all I had on the budget. Do you have any questions on the budget? No. On the revenue report, you'll see where the refunds and reimbursements are. 79, 94, 84, 84,000. That's what reimbursements are.

Oh, I see that, yeah.

We were only allowed to recoup what was in 20.6. We lost anything before 20.6. We didn't lose it in the refunds and reimbursements, but we couldn't roll it over into the purchases. Thank you, Katrina, for doing that. Appreciate it.

And on the vouchers, it says I am in response to a letter ban and it's $330.

We don't have an official one yet. I called them again and said I don't have one. We don't have a copy of it. So I guess that's the letter they sent telling them we'll give you a better answer later.

We have it.

no he's not done with it the letter they sent we haven't seen that well this is not a final response this idea response letter is just saying we'll give you a better answer later we'll work it out so he is still working on it i told him you'd be getting your stuff back he's been right here thursday well we got to have a plan for ourselves we did have Anyway, that's what he said. He said he's coming down Thursday to bring the books back. Yeah. Is that because you need the books back? But we don't have a timeline as far as what... No, he said, well, I don't... We didn't have to have it in right away. I'm like, huh?

I thought we... I mean, years past, we... We've been... You've done the right thing.

Well, I did send a response right away.

She sent a response telling them that we're going to be working on it. But I thought... I thought... I think I thought we had a certain amount of... We have a contract under $10,000.

They want to do this and it's supposed to be like $6,000 for the final response. I guess my thing is I'm just shocked it's taking this long. Me too. And that's what I told him. So I just want to make a note that I did call him and that's what he gave me. That was my answer to that. Other than that, I don't have any questions on that. I just wanted to make a notation for that because I was wondering.

Do you have any questions? No. I'll make a motion to accept. I second. All in favor? Aye.

Okay. Paving up, they said they're going to be here next week, you thought? If they can get the milling machine. And you've been working on the edges and all that and you've got all the colors you need or are they right?

I'm glad that they're doing it next week. That's great. Great timing because we just, if you haven't noticed, we had to park down.

Man, they did a fantastic job. The only problem I have Oh man, I came flying out of the car and I said, can't you read the sign? He said, well, we didn't know any other way in. I said, you're not supposed to read it.

So is it going to be back open tomorrow?

i think we can open it tomorrow afternoon it was supposed to be 24 to 48 hours it's been 24 hours so that'll be close enough i think because we originally posted i was gonna because he didn't know for sure if they get in there and get it all done in one day they did i mean they were fast they were done yesterday at noon right it looks great

And they were striping the handicapped areas today. So we should be completely done. And then I'm glad that that's why they're coming in and painting because they're going to be putting a yoke into the front, top, bottom of the park where we have the road.

The water validation is done. And there's a copy of it in there. I really don't understand. We really haven't got any numbers.

yeah but they're there they're just we didn't put them all out but they are on that no it is at the e-mail office and

you'll have to go there to sign it okay yeah the only questions i had on that was about again 10 years we have one in 1989. i'm not sure who signed it because tom did tom did i have a copy of it well no i mean last year i had somebody signed it last year i think that was just with part of the county yeah yeah yeah it's all about the county yeah uh the one that's in effect right now is the one from here it is

1989 and honestly if we didn't redo it every 10 years like it says in here it continues on no they they uh it's uh they do it every year and it's just for this throughout the county basically like uh like we do we have saint henry come sit for us at diamond dance night right um If there's a big situation going on, then the county may ask different departments to go sit at different departments. That's what it's all about. It's really not anything crazy.

Yeah, I would just notice that it says 10 years on this one, and this one says 30 days before or after it can be canceled or whatever, which I'm not planning on doing that either. But yeah, there is one in effect still from 1989.

i'm sure that one's you can probably shred that one well it's basically the same thing yeah it's very similar besides yeah but yeah that's i mean that that's basically all that is uh contract our contract yep um you can have it um sign it give it back to you thank you for

i say you the whole one yeah thanks for giving me the whole yeah email me he said this paragraph's not finished i said well that's not the last page so i don't think you have the whole contract um yeah and i don't i can bring another one back if you want uh well i have one here too if you want a question

I guess you guys know that Ken's out of commission for a minute.

Oh, that's right. Marilyn said that.

He's functional. Maybe he's in still will they took him down a little one yesterday it should all come back you imagine between their board out of his mind I feel sorry for the people down there.

I think you should go visit them. Brian, I think you should take Vicki down there. Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

The only other thing I have is you asked me last month about training. September 22nd, we're doing the best training in the county. with the county at i think it's i'm not sure i can't tell you exactly where that's going to happen but um it is with september 22nd and it's with all the county uh fire departments uh ema assuming they're going to have policing involved in that but should uh And then I decided that I'm not sure. Who's putting it on? AES. I'm pretty sure. Are you sure? No, I mean, that's, yeah. AES is setting it all up or whatever.

So with the 58, I think, batteries that are out there now, you haven't received any training at all?

Nothing new than what we've already got. What did you get? Just info. Just info, no actual formal training? Not where we've had them here or we've gone there.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So you've had informal, basically informal training from AES since the batteries are out there now? Not since they started, shortly before. Shortly before. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you.

But yeah, I think where they're sitting now i'm almost sure those are just holding pads then they're going to be moved those are those are the pads for the train to lift them they're putting it on right yeah i saw this tonight that they're working on the the concrete pads and stuff that they're getting ready to pour what it would be yeah because they're running out of room we got 50 58 of them out there now yeah i was close to 60 and i wasn't getting out there now so yeah got the 30 more waiting

Okay. All right. Thanks, Brian.

Go ahead.

I got nothing else unless you got something for me. Nope.

Nope. Everything looks good.

What's that? Nope. Nope. Yes. Thanks, Brian. Brian, what about this letter? Do you already get something for the town allowing you guys to have...

So do you need a copy of that? Do you need a signed copy of that?

I guess he's given you that for reference, and then he probably wants a signed copy of that. I did. You did?

I did give it to him already. Okay. Yeah. I gave him a couple of stuff. Okay.

Making sure that you guys are good to go.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep. It'll be good.

Thanks.

Thanks, Brian. See you guys.

See you.

Wow, you know it.

Yeah.

Don't you have a chance about the

Who sent that to us? Was it Tom?

No, that was sent.

I don't have anything from the State Board of Counselors. You said, you mean an email? Not a text?

Yeah, this is to cover what we had a shortfall in the street baby.

So this is going to cover that. What we need to do is have you food appetizer.

and we will adopt it at the end of September. Send it to the state.

Well, we had $130,000. We were $4,500 over for the regular week off. Then we did another $9,200 by Q&A season. Then we paid $206 for the fall. That's $1,500. $1,500? $1,600. Okay. I make a motion to approve the addition of appropriations to the streetcar building.

I second it. All in favor? Aye. We're going to advertise this. We do advertise this. It's a motion to advertise. It looks good to me.

I'm going to be talking to I had suggested we do an extra 6,000 on Park Electric because we're going to have a shortfall there. Also in town, an extra 6,000 on Electric because we might be able to have a short there. And then the family run is going to be covered by the $20,000 that we did at the end of the year. from 2025 that we did not use. We were gonna, I kind of figured around 15 to 24 to appropriate, but since that money was not in there, we don't have to. Money is coming in, as you can see on the budget, we chose money in there, but Katrina tried to, they told them the electric bill hadn't been paid. They got the wrong address on it, and somebody paid the June one. the only thing i can think of is they were there through june so they should have paid basic june's bill because they were building over there and using the electric off the line temporary meter so they'll have to and i tried to call twice today and you know i didn't get any answers you have to like keep going through the automated thing and say customer service so i'll try again so i have to do it down here i can't do it on my phone because yeah but anyway that's where the answer appropriations came from i just kind of figured what i thought would be and then i said the fire department this year we got some extra money from cass township an extra two thousand so that covered most of the extra we had to pay for me this next year so i don't have any i want to see the budget i think i mean i don't know anywhere else that we need to change I've gone through a bunch of times and I'm not really sure. I keep thinking, oh, no, we're all right there. Oh, no, we're all right there. So that's what I've got there. We haven't missed you, sir. Do you have something you need?

No, I'm just listening in. Okay. I couldn't hear in the back there.

Oh, yes, I know. You can't hear anything. And you're also freezing. We do have a couple extra bookings coming up for the Valentine's Center. Red Cross was there today. They're going to do their one project.

Well, that's awesome.

We'll be posting something on Facebook about that. He's putting together something so that I can share it on our page. We do real well with Facebook sharing and stuff. I think we do really well. People pay attention to it and they kind of get ideas on stuff. Usually, we tend to get up to our Facebook page because we have a lot of followers, too. So, I think that all works pretty good.

So, you asked if I had anything. That's kind of one thing I didn't have. How do I know what activities are taking place? I'm not a Facebook member. I have the desire to be a Facebook member. Amen.

Yeah. Is there any guarantee poster board?

We have a poster board out here, but it's one for events. Yeah. Yeah.

The meetings are every month.

After a while, I guard us. The activities at the new center.

Is there any kind of hosting up there?

No, we will have... Yeah, she hooks all of the CC stuff and park stuff. We're going to have a silly night down there. That's the only one so far that's public that we have. Anything like that, it'll be on the bulletin board out here by the door.

Okay. I can read. I just don't want to. Yes. I'm sorry, sir, but you have to have Facebook. I'm sorry. Don't be given about that. Don't.

Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I thought that I was real close. They were going to have it. They usually have it at Matthews Church by Drive, but they're painting that week, so that came down here, and he was very happy. it really is and I think Steely Night we're going to have we're going to have that doors open for people who want to sit down inside and they'll serve everything out of the box because I think they're having pizza and cookies and chips and then the band will play too we had it open during the ice cream festival because you know Do you have anything else on the website? The building permit, why don't you fill that? I think it's pretty good.

Well, I, yeah.

Oh, no, I know.

I've got the ordinance and the protection permit on there. I kind of just wanted to talk about it. So this is an ordinance establishing a building ordinance for the town. We've got ordinances that deal with, you know, things related to construction and building up people. We don't really have a comprehensive building. ordinance and the state of Indiana recommends that you have one. So when I started drafting an ordinance to just have a building permit process, this is what it evolved into. So it defines a lot of different constructions and terms which would be beneficial for us. You know, just when people are asking what a building permit would apply to, then we have a direct UN code provision to go to that says, you know, this is when it would be applicable if you need a building permit. And it also just lays out the different articles of the Indiana Code and Title 675 of the Indiana Admin Code that would be adopted by reference, which would be very beneficial to us to adopt those codes by reference. But Article 2 is where it actually starts to talk about the building permit. So this is where the application for the building permit uh is laid out um and it is lately but it kind of just recites everything that's in this building so um it says what would be required to be submitted to the town prior to someone coming to a town council meeting and discussing the build that they would like to to construct but you know this is like i said very directly taken from the sample building code that indiana provides so we can keep this if we want to it's just kind of a starting point for us and i've taken out a lot that would be relevant to us to try to shape it down take out more so that it's not as heavy. But the gist of it is that it's a $5 building permit fee. The application just gets general things like the property owner's name, address, phone number, the property address where the construction is taking place, and the type of construction that's taking place, estimated start date and completion date. It's got a provision for them to list out the contractors that would be involved because that might be beneficial for the town to know if there's ever an issue. If we have their contact information, that would be very helpful. It also has places for the applicant to list out. the water that's going to be supplied to the bill, whether it's wastewater or septic system, electric service, or sewer, yeah, wastewater and farm service that will be provided to the bill and then gas as well. So just kind of general things that would be beneficial for the town to know if there ever is an issue with the new bill or if there's a reason for you know the town to stop to put in a stop work order because there's a concern for safety when there's a new bill that's happening it kind of gives us a lot of information and really helpful you know if there's ever an issue and it gives it it's not an idea of what new bills are going up around town So that's kind of the purpose of requiring a building permit. That's the purpose of requiring people to come to town meetings and to talk to the town about what they're wanting to build. But yeah, that's what the permit looks like and kind of most of what the ordinance generally says. And it talks about you know like i said you know we can issue a stopboard order if there's concerns about safety or that the construction is not being done in a safe manner revoking a permit if we find that information has been submitted that's not correct or they're not complying with building or fire safety laws it also would allow the town to withhold issuing a permit if some which i think would be beneficial um you know just kind of gives different instances where building permits can be held and it it gives the town residents the right to appeal a denial of a permit or revocation of a permit it lays out the process that indiana support order or a replication of a building permit. So that's just all taken directly from Indiana code and the administrative code.

i don't really think it's all that one could keep on the books because the permit is so straightforward it is yeah and that's what people are really going to be looking at they're going to be looking at that and if they have a question on it you can always ask right i mean i i think it's really straightforward from it pretty much lists everything single family residence multi-family deflux commercial industrial garage carport shed barn I mean, that's pretty much anything that you would want to add on.

And if there's anything else that isn't included there that you would like to be included, we can absolutely add that. This is just kind of, like I said, just starting.

I kind of revise a little bit, so I'll send you what I've got done. Perfect. i mean i think this covers pretty much everything you know when you're sitting there thinking you know and it kind of helps people when they're putting in advance know that it has to be it can be on the property line as long as on your side have waivers if it's closer than six months.

But, you know, it's different for a fan setting than for a ship. Right. Well, it provides an opportunity to have those conversations with people before they start building. And your name, you know.

You build it, then you have to carry it.

Exactly. Is this $5? Did you say that last time? In other words, if it concerns the concerns of public or the utilities or anything other than that you can do what you want to on your house other than if it concerns the community and and you if you build something and somebody else is going to build something there and so let them know first well it basically just lets us know that somebody's intending to do something so that we can it'd be in an advertised meeting yeah if you're going terrible terrible pipeline it wouldn't be good to put in gasoline it's pretty specific so

I mean, I really don't think this ordinance is terribly long. You can use all the facts.

And it could be in the books. This is so specific.

So that's what's going to be important to them. I would recommend that we just hold it over at least until the next meeting and get everybody's comments.

and then this being submitted to the Fire Prevention and Billing Safety Commission for approval. So we would have to submit it to then get approval and then publish it before it would take effect. First reading tonight. Ray, I don't know if you know what ordinance this would be, number-wise. So that I could get a copy of.

once yeah once we get it you can look at this you can draft for it so what if i have a production or suggestion yeah yeah next month if we give any open comments before we announce yes yes yeah we always we always have visitors and that's when you can make your comments and then we'll we'll listen to you we'll tell you this is on facebook No, no. Well, and that's why you get a chance to, to let people know that it's going to be an open comment session. Yeah, because we don't vote until we have the open comments. We don't vote first. Okay.

Like some other. I'll take you up on getting your copy. Yeah.

So you made a couple of changes.

I made some changes to this.

We did get some money that we can spare.

Stuffed in.

Yeah, well, you're not going to choke on it. It's $66 a bunch.

I don't even think we can order anything.

We might not even get one future.

A case of water. I mean, we will have to spend it all. Yeah.

We're not going to get much at all. That's fine. Yeah, and there's no restricted funds. Just the $60.

That is why I did down from what it started at. Just like art money, it kind of finished down and went around. John, do you have anything else?

Yeah. So I went to the little get together around Robin today for the comprehensive plan. And basically what they were each station was talking about was that survey that's out there. And if you haven't done the survey for the comprehensive plan, please do. It's unfortunately on Facebook. Wait a minute. I might have something for you on that. Or did I share that? Anyway, you can actually go on to what kind of zoning they want to look at, and also they talk about the mid-state corridor as well. There's a lot of people there that were given very good information on how they would like to see the county proceed with some type of zoning, whether it be self-zoning or special use. I heard a lot of people talk about special use and what that means is that instead of putting out zoning throughout the county and telling the farmers this is there if you're going to put solar you have to come in you have to change all this is that we that the special instance the special use will be directed towards the companies that are coming into the county like solar solar best wind data centers and things like that and they have to they have to show a certain certain step that they have to prove that they're meeting all the requirements and if they don't meet hey, an acquirement, then the permit is not granted and they'll have to go. And that's kind of a rough explanation of it all, but that's kind of how that is. I think Honeyburg has that in. And so there's been a lot of people thinking that a special use ordinance would be better than a full-fledged hardcore zoning. And I kind of feel the same way. I don't want to tell these farmers, you know, what to do with their land. You know, it's, it's, there's a lot of there's a lot of turmoil in my heart about all that. So it's just that it's kind of thinking about, we want to go after the industry, we don't want to have to fight our neighbors. That's, that's basically how I'm feeling more so. Something else? Can I get a second? think about it. So if you got something, go ahead.

Well, and we all talked around that you have to annex groups if you want to zone them, because we only have our area where we can zone anything from, which here's no room at Holland. So you have to annex in anybody else, and that's quite the nightmare.

Yeah, that's what I was going to, that was my thought. I was going to talk about bringing that up with zoning inside the town. Honestly, the only way that we can control anything that could harm our community is zoning. Period. That's the only thing that's going to give us a right to say no. Or put it moratorially. But the thing about that is it's kind of tricky, moratoriums, because we have no We really have no say.

We still don't have authority to regulate outside of the town's limits.

We could do a solar ordinance in the town limits, but the only thing we could really talk about, because we don't have any places open ground, we'd have to talk about solar on homes, solar on businesses. I don't care about that. Anything to reduce your monthly pay to CenterPoint, go for it. i don't think we had a need for it but i just think that this building permit will kind of help us help us a little bit say you know hey let's think you know you got to show you got to show your part to it do your part due diligence so we can approve it whether it be setback waivers or anything like that for the town so that's i just don't think we have the what we need to do is to be active in the county with the commissioners and the county council and tell them how you feel whether you're for it or against it tell those people how you feel so we can get something started in this county so we can not become a so a uh

That is all. And the only thing I would say is we do have a medical board meeting in August. Expansion or whatever. So who owns the building?

The medical board. The medical board owns the building. All the buildings. The dental hand?

Yeah.

Okay. So they own both.

And Deaconess wants us to... You know, we've expanded the dentist's office and updated it all with that money. We get lease money from the dentist's office and lease money from the doctor's office. And, of course, he's in obedience. And Memorial is also included in that. So, I mean, they would... We did all the renovations for the dentist's office We don't do upgrades, so there's not money really to do a lot with the doctor's office. So we're going to discuss maybe working out something. Maybe do some more expansions or more providers or something like that. Just a talk about it. That's it.

So is that something that Du Bois Strong can help us with? Not really. Not really anything like that? What about Jessica for grants?

No, I haven't looked at it.

She's already looked.

But it's just something upcoming. so if we don't do anything with the medical is that a possibility that they they say you guys are you're cut off you're not they have they have they don't have a cell phone they don't have no i mean they you know that would be something maybe if there was anything done you can't just put that in and then sell out because you don't want to pull out five years after you put 20 right so it's just ongoing discussion that we'll have and you know the town may be brought in on that that's why i'm saying it here haven't had the meeting yet we'll have our meeting on the 11th and we'll discuss some of the options that are being presented but the town will be brought in on that but the medical board has to decide So, I mean, I just wanted to let you know that it's upcoming. And also, to Bob, meeting with the SS, with the Indiana Free News, she's coming down to talk about the SS4A. She called me and talked to me for a long time and said, did you get the grant for the studies? I said, yes, we did. Well, why? Are you going to do a construction? I said, well, it's just a cost of college. And then she asked, well, why wouldn't you use the money? I said, I can't believe you said that. north side of Main Street. From the daycare down. From the daycare down. And I said, you know, we've turned in a grant, a construction grant last time for $167,000. It's going to cost us another $180,000. We took it aside off then, and instead we turned the money back, and it's been reported $2,000. Anyway, she is going to talk to me tomorrow about that. What time was that? 1 o'clock?

1 o'clock. I got a quote.

I reached out for some quotes on some tires. So I can send you guys group texts on that when I get the prices on the tires.

Also, I think I've mentioned Homeland Security training. I did it on my own time. I'm now applicable for a decent sized grant. I would like to apply for that if it's OK. If not, I understand. It's fine. The talent benefit from it, I think it's $109,500 that I'm applicable for. It doesn't really require that I do anything else really. The training is done. The training is 40 hours of training. I'm required to do 25 mandatory for the state. So I did it a long time. So I would like to apply for the actual money.

yeah well I mean know if you were taking more and more before but i mean i see the financial benefits of the time you're eligible for the grant i think that was my concern initially the grant application process was separate from the well it included involved in the business it included the training you know yeah yeah so so i think if you're eligible for it guys are on board with it and i don't necessarily have you know concerns about anything from a liability perspective right that they're and i would never do anything to risk it right yeah i mean i've been through five years i would never do anything against my reputation or risk anything

I haven't yet. I'm doing it as far as what I do every day. I mean, it's no different. So this grant that you are entitled to? It's for vehicle and equipment. $103,000 for a vehicle. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be on one vehicle. I could revamp the truck and fix some stuff up. I could get... And you're already entitled to it. I'm entitled to it. Okay. They do, and I'm hard on them. Yeah, honey, go through the tires. Well, that's not bad, though. I mean, that's just four years ago.

I think if you're entitled, I'd be okay for you to go through that, right? Yeah. Okay. But you have to understand what we're talking about in life, Bill. Absolutely. We don't want something that will come back on us for some reason.

And I've got some more information that you can read, if you like. If the Department of Homeland Security, if they do allow me to do overtime, and that's after I do the 40 hours for the town, if they let me come in on a weekend, do like an operation pullover, there's money set aside for that. Or I just stop traffic. I can do it in town, too, and write the town citations, and the town gets all the money for it. And they don't even have to pay me for the overtime. And I don't like working that many hours anymore, so chances are I may not even do any of it. But it's there. If I want to make some extra money, the opportunity's there. So I would benefit from it, and it would be the regular in-town patrolling and stopping some of the crazy traffic on the 61, and there's been plenty of it.

Go with the grant first.

It's free money, yeah. I've got all the applications done. All I have to do is number where it goes.

And the grant funding is contingent on you signing that agreement that I reviewed. Is that right?

And doing the training, yes. But that, like, all I have to do is say, I'm not involved. And it's done. Or if they tell me that they... me to help them do something, I can just say no.

I don't tell them anything. Is that a grant that you just receive outright?

It's done. One and done. And then if I'm on an operation pullover or whatever, I'm stopping traffic and I make an arrest or something and it qualifies under that Homeland Security stuff, all the stipulations, then in another three months the town might be applicable for another grant. So it's a win-win for the town. I'm not doing anything out of the ordinary. And then when I do sign on, this matchup, just tell them I'm on OPO time. Like through Homeland Security or whatever. And something happens to me, it would be on them. It wouldn't be on the town. Like anything, you guys wouldn't have to pay for it. If I get smoked out there, you don't pay for it.

Just make sure I have the safety vest on.

My wife gets an extra $100,000 if I die. She'll kick you out on the street, dude. You might be surprised.

You might touch in on it. I would say I'm okay with applying for the grant.

If you just want to give me whatever additional stuff. Sure.

I'll send you everything I've got on the information. There you go.

So anything else, I would make a motion to adjourn.

Second.

All in favor? Aye.