Town Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everybody. It feels like July.

It's like forever since we were here.

So we'll start this meeting at 6.01 p.m.

I don't know why she has two copies of it in here.

It's okay.

Here's the original. Oh, there's like extra copies of stuff in here.

I don't want to read.

Oh, this one has a signature sheet. That might help. Let's try that again. Next, I would like to ask for a motion to approve the APVs in the amount of $115,081.73. I'll make a motion. Seconded. All those in favor? Aye.

But we still do have her on. She wasn't going to be here tonight. When will she not be noticing this?

I don't have that answer. She did agree to show the new person, whoever that may be, the ropes. But we have to figure out who that person is. So, what do I have here? DLZ. This is... She gave me a preface report, which is here. We need 26. Yeah, she put app 26.

There's two things. There's the payment application 26.

Yep. So that's it right here. Okay. So I would like to ask for a motion to approve payment number 26 in the amount of $30,400. Motion. Second.

All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Best time off on it.

Appreciate it. Do I sign off on this one or the clerk?

The clerk normally does. Normally does this one. It's approved by the board. Yeah. I'm sticking out.

Yeah, I don't have any sticking out.

I have like ones that just have my name on them if you just need something to fly something.

Just to show that it needs to be signed.

We can make it so that Cindy can sign things.

Don't we have to say that? Were we, was Cindy able to do that before or was it just one of us?

When Chris was, Cindy is the official deputy clerk, I believe.

If she is officially in the deputy clerk. She is.

So she should already be able to do that.

She's able to fill in for the clerk when necessary.

Correct. So we shouldn't have to approve anything. She should already be able to. There you go. Thanks. Next is the DLC progress report number 27. THIS IS JUST SAYING THAT WE'VE SEEN IT. THERE'S NO PAYMENTS OR ANYTHING ON THIS ONE? YEAH. IS THERE A PAYMENT ON THIS ONE?

THE FIRST ONE WAS FOR PHOENIX.

CORRECT. THE FIRST ONE WAS PHOENIX, AND THIS ONE IS YOURS. SO I'D LIKE TO ASK FOR A MOTION TO APPROVE DLZ progress report number 27 in the amount of $17,231. I'll make that motion. I'll second that. All those in favor? Aye. Aye.

Okay.

There was nothing else to sign on it.

Whoops. What's that?

there might be a same form for distribution for the clerk. Distribution only for SRF.

This is all I have here.

I think he's saying that it's the same process. Clerk signs sends it to SRF and SRF issues payment.

You said it better than I did.

So that's the end of

the courtesy request and report so up next we have utility okay we finished our filter media on the other two tanks on july 14th so everything is all done with that respect and working fine uh morgan's side i think we're there down to dig the last lot. Lot one and lot 72 called for grinder pits. They're down on Breezewood. So right now they were able to do gravity from the lot one. So they have given us a letter that they are taking responsibility if anything goes wrong with that. And then Patrick was going to get a hold of the county.

I haven't heard back from Randy yet. And then they did, their engineer emailed me last week, Brett, with the fare. 72, they're not going to be able to get enough, so they'll still have to do it on 72. But block one, they did get that.

This paper, just for lock-in. Yeah. So, and then once we, yes, they found out that. Yeah. So we have that. I'll put it in the file. The servicing of the generators, Rich from Banner Electric, or used to be Banner when he worked there, he is getting all of his, get the bond and everything for him to do the service. He did come and look at them. We haven't had many hours on them, so we're kind of pushing it off to fall just before winter to service those. The I will say the lift station ones, the generator at the filter plant just happened to be, Cummins had contacted me, and when we bought those, and I don't even think Banner knew, there are two free services, and they just noticed it on the paperwork, so they are going to schedule coming up here to get that one service, so it won't cost us anything on that.

Okay.

The hydrant at Summerfield at daybreak, we just got it back in service today and re-bedded and everything, so it should be good to go. I sent for the Community Crossings grant. The grant opened September 1st, so I did get sent everything to... August 1st? September 1st.

It will open?

That's when you can start applying for it. So I did send all of our information for roads to get an estimate, a budget from the paving company. So we will have that before that comes up. And the tower update, all the fence posts are in for the most part. We're just waiting on the concrete company. Supposedly they're supposed to start this Thursday. I'm not going to hold my breath.

but that's the tentative date, unless you heard anything else. Yeah, it could be this Thursday, it could be next week. Yes. Because milestones should be out here shortly. Yes.

Yeah, other than that, everything's, I think, going good there. We can get them out there. We do. Last thing that wasn't on your list, and I didn't get it until, hear back from somebody until after I did this, I talked with Andy today, this morning, and he had about all of these, uh, cybersecurity up in Michigan, hitting water plants in Minnesota and everything. So I did contact Peerless and basically our, we have no controller apps. It is just an alert and our lift stations will be the same way. So the only thing they can do is send me an alert and make me come back in and somebody hacked in, but they can't do anything to our plant or anything like that. So we are good there.

Okay. I mean, I believe it's in the life of a person. It's some sort of something that they'll be in, like, physically. Yeah.

A little, like, it all comes together.

I just wait for what it comes. I have one question. Yes. From my son. Yes. And I told him, you know, nobody likes to bear bad news. So, you know, he's not going to come and bring it to you. But in case somebody else mentions this to me, He's saying he's not getting good water pressure after the new thing. I'm not going to say the difference.

Yeah, we've had people that say they've asked, are we on the new tower now because we've got more water pressure? Right, right. So, yeah.

So, on Patterson, I had this problem and so did one of the neighbors. After they dug the road up, our water pressure went down two years ago.

Okay, he thinks it just happened, but he might...

There was so much sediment in all of my faucets, I had to unscrew and clean them all out.

That's happened to me a lot. I've had people call me for a screen change. I go to a house, you know, they bring up all their faucets. Or you put a screen change to it.

I think it's only the second time in the 11 years I've lived in that house I've had to do it. But I did have to do that recently. Okay.

so being a neighbor you've been doing so many improvements your water systems you have to close about here around here and that changes the normal water flow so there might be more things that caught up into it and then once the flow kind of gets stabilized and you won't see that so it very well could be that just a recommendation they're the neighbors and possibly the same issue just as long as nobody got my son i don't think anybody is complaining

SOMEBODY'S GOT AN ISSUE, PLEASE CALL.

I MEAN, IT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE FOR. OKAY.

BESIDE YOU. YEAH, I HAD A BUNCH OF CREDIT LINE, AND THEY'RE NEXT DOOR.

ANDY, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING TO ADD ON TO ANY OF JOE'S?

NO, I THINK HE COVERED IT ALL.

OKAY.

PATRICK? So our activity for July of 2026, we had a total of 243 calls for service. Of that, there were 16 assists to St. Joseph County Police Department, had a mental investigation on Lilac Road, crash on Kenilworth, a mental in progress on Tamarack, a suspicious person on Weller Road, suspicious person Lake Trail, a suspicious person on New Road, and a suspicious person on Rising Road. Had one alarm at Hoosier Tire. and a 911 hang up on Lake Trail, crash on Miami Road, standby on Tyler Road, Welfare Check Maple, Fighting Progress and Dice Street, a traffic complaint on Milock Road, was a tree down, fire assist on Quinn Road, and then a standby on Kenilworth Road. Took a total of 17 reports, two driving while suspended, three theft reports, three assisting outside agency, one non-criminal information, one traffic investigation, one juvenile investigation, one death investigation, had one public indecency, one crash report, one fraud, one public intoxication, and a domestic battery. Had a total of five arrests, one for theft, two driving laws suspended, one public indecency, and one public intoxication. The public intoxication was from the one at Newton Park over 4th of July that we had this incident with. at 13 total tickets written for the month and two local ordinance violations. And then the coffee shop is fully open now. So they're back on their, the only days they're closed is Sunday and Mondays. What are their hours? 6 o'clock to 2.30. So, yeah, last week was their first kind of full week that they had.

Is the drive-thru one open?

If they've had it open, I haven't seen anybody utilize it, but... I was curious about that. If winter's coming, it might be more... Yeah, they have the menu posted on the drive-thru window, but I haven't seen anybody utilizing it. Okay.

Interesting.

Thank you.

RDC? We don't have too much to talk about except that we did start on the blue bar today, so hopefully... I'm waiting from somebody to get a quote And he promised me he'd have some numbers for me by the end of this week. And I think our architect is also getting a quote from somebody. So we'll see whether we can even afford the building or not. I did notice we got a lot less money this year in our, whatever you call it, from the county. About $100,000. Yeah, money that comes in. So that might change things up a little bit. So the difference there. So we'll see. I don't know. I really don't want to take a long out to do this, but if we want to at least get the shell done this fall or winter, I might do that just to get that finished, but we'll see. Okay. Something I want to make sure about the building permit.

Yeah.

We need to do.

So we'll, as soon as you get to that point, once we, with the drawings, we just have to, um, So that will probably have to, depending on square footage, well, cubic, that'll go by cubic inches to determine whether or not it'll have to go to state plan review, but it'll have to go through county plan review.

But we need to get one from you.

Yes, yes, yes. Or technically, we have to take it to state. Yeah, it goes off probably because of the size of the ceilings, because it goes off of cubic inches.

So yeah, we're adding to that. Yeah, definitely. So we are being legit.

Okay, I'm sure. Yeah, I don't just have to have sealed blueprints for the state.

So I think that's about it.

We've been sharing the love with our local business, businessmen as much as possible. So I did. Is there anything we can do about that? You don't even building.

I mean, yeah, we're the main thing because I got to talk with, yeah, with Randy James because it had been legal. We had got it issued as a unsafe building for stuff and corrective issues. Notifications were given. That's another conversation with Randy James. We need to follow up with him. I haven't heard back from him. So and then the other issue on the town side was just because of the tax because it's not showing him as an owner anymore. So we had to kind of wait. Yeah, it was showing the company out of Chicago was the owner. Somehow everything got transferred when they did the foot from Jeep.

Yeah, I think we've been pretty gracious with our timeline. And just, you know, when you look through town, it's corded up windows is not one of our... things that we want to happen. But just not the one you mentioned, violations, I feel like. Thank you for bringing that up because that's always number one on my list.

That's it, I think.

A few things I'm going to talk about right now. The flowers continue to be beautiful. The flowers.

The flowers.

It's still looking nice, she said. Yeah, he does a lot of monitoring for that. Yeah, he's about every day pretty much.

He's doing a good job.

Yeah, they look good.

We did, I guess I should mention though, we did put $20,000 into our trails and added another layer of gravel, like a fine gravel so it's much easier to walk on.

Except for the trees all the time.

Yeah, we We do have, we did, you know, looking to hire somebody to cut all that up, but we are ordering signs that say, you know, enjoy our parks or our trails, but travel at your own risk, basically, kind of thing. We're going to post that.

And don't walk in the woods when there's 50 mile an hour winds.

Well, we know we have Halloween coming up. Shouldn't we be worried about the trains and stuff?

Well, I don't know. Should we go ahead and order?

The ones got cut, the ones got cut up, um, And that and Tim was willing to help on the other ones. The ones locked in pretty good. It's been about two years. It's got to be just to walk underneath. It creates an archway there and they're locked in to each other.

Are those the ones? A lot of people are not talking.

It might be. I'm not sure because there was a couple.

It's been all over social media.

Yeah, because there were a couple in the front that had fallen and Tim got those cut out. They're the... the bigger one but but yeah the other ones are because there's three of them um the one's been had been waiting for about at least a year or two yeah and because your roots are still on the ground and then an older a dead one had fallen and it's on top of that one and but they're locked into another tree yes they're not going anywhere it's just the idea that when he's a kid they defund the climate

don't give them any ideas I would say it is the older generation that is walking the trails that is concerned that it wasn't marked as a dangerous area it's not dangerous like walking in the woods they're not well we shall refer the next complaint to you exactly anything else

No, I do. I do. So are we hiring somebody to finish it or what?

We can, obviously. That's your call.

Well, you guys were discussing. No, I wasn't the one.

For the one tree or all the trees?

The guy that walked through the woods, you look at him, can't drive equipment back there. We just put all those new trails in and I'm going to smash it down. So he looked at it, he quoted like 40, he'd go through and take those trees out or down there. Not even carrying them on, just cut them down, push them all the way. It's woods. And then walk through and see if he had another tree close to the trail that might look, you know, bad. It was $4,200.

I think we're more worried about... What? the ones going over the top and the safety part of things, not the ones that are just looking down. You know what I mean? Because we know how the woods is.

It's all marked off. We get a caution tape around it.

Okay, well, that's good. And now you have it documented on live.

Okay, my question is, do you have somebody that will take care of it, or do we need to hire?

We're going to have to get to it. So he could assist me. It's up to you guys. Because I didn't have the time initially when I looked at it that Monday because I was leaving for Ludington. I had trained the weekend right once we got back over in Middlebury. And then I was off last week for hockey camp. So I didn't have the time. So that's totally up to you.

We'll just hire somebody. We'll just put it out there now. Well, You kind of jumped the gun a little bit there.

If you want, there is another guy that's in town that would probably be a lot cheaper. Because you can't drive that. Yeah, and he climbs them when he cuts them. Because there's actually two different people on Lake Trail that, yeah, the one guy had his own business. That's all he did for the longest time. Because I can ask him to see. I'm sure it'll probably be a lot less than the $4,300. Okay.

At least, okay, we made a decision. We're hiring him.

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah.

Do you want to get price from him and reveal what he wants to charge? Yeah.

Okay, good. Thanks at least if somebody comes to us again.

That's why we have professional complicating. Yeah, I know.

We are going to post signs though. They've been ordered. Yeah.

Okay.

We know. Nature is not always friendly to us.

Don't walk in the woods and it's 50 miles an hour wind.

Hear that on there? It is.

Anything else? No? Patrick, can you stop by NC Fetchers tomorrow?

Okay, yeah. Yeah, because the last time I talked to Tara, she was supposed to get it that Thursday. I talked to her, I think, on Tuesday. Tuesday.

for the 4th of July sponsorship. Yeah. And there's one up at Doc Auto also. Okay. But she's been out of town. She should be back today.

Okay. Yeah, I can do that.

A reminder, it's budget time.

Yeah.

Does anybody have their budgets ready? I'll see you at the time.

Start working on those if you need the, like, well, does everybody have their previous spreadsheets for them? Yeah.

Yeah.

Then we'll just have to set up a date to...

Yes. We'll go over and talk about it.

We had our first fall festival meeting this morning. I think it went well. October 10, is that right? Yeah. So Cindy was sending out emails today to our previous vendors, and then we will publicize it for all other vendors next month. Got it. So we're not going to publicize it until next month. Well, not that we're not publicizing it. Not going to be posting and pushing until next week.

Not today. I'm just going to mark that today and reverse. So I remember.

Yep. And then within the next few weeks, we're going to start Halloween meetings also.

Okay.

We're going to be part of those. Awesome.

You should put that out there that people are welcome to be on committees. Yeah. People from the public are, we just want people to know that they are welcome to join the committees for Fall Festival, for Halloween, for Fourth of July. We need all the volunteers we can get. We work on a very small crew, so it's very important that we should be able to rely on some community help with that. So if anybody's interested in getting involved, we really could use some help.

Anybody other than the people that already work for the town or the fire department that want to be part of Halloween now, I really think we should maybe do some background checks if they're going to be in the woods Halloween night. I mean, it's open to the public. Anybody could be back there, but I don't want you wearing a safety badge if you're not a safe person. Right. Right.

That seems reasonable.

Very. Yeah. You know, I do a little spiel. If you want to get out, if you're scared, look for a person with this badge. If you don't have this badge, they're safe for you. community. I agree with that. If anybody from the public wants to be part of it.

I agree.

Public contributions, there's open spots on the park board if you live within town limits.

Yes, if you live within town limits, we're looking for a park board. If you want to know the regulations, what's required, it's a volunteer position. But you can look that up under Indiana Code. I don't remember offhand.

Is it still floating, Wayne?

yes if you find people that are interested and you can't find anybody else the town has the authority uh the town council can waive the political affiliation requirements at that point in time because it's been a very long time since we have to live in town in order for any of us to go forward to get our perp board plans updated there has to be a perp board we are basically stuck because we no longer have a park board. We're stuck at updating things.

Dean, we want to know why it's interested. That's great.

Talk to me again last week about it. That means if we don't have a park board, we cannot up the park plan in order to get grants to update and make our parks better. We have to have a park plan. So we're kind of stuck. So if anybody's interested, you have to live within time limits. But I think there might be one. Isn't there one, like if you're a volunteer or something or a member that does not have to live within?

Wasn't it something like that?

You can't be a voting member. You just can't be a voting member. So someone from in the county can?

Can be on the committee, but can't be on the board.

Correct.

Yes.

So we're just putting out there, please come and work for the time of day.

Go and do some good things for our kids. The problem is it's safe.

Yeah, it needs to be updated, but we can't update it without a board.

So every five years you're supposed to update the plan, yes. And now it's behind now. And so we're kind of stuck in the water. Does anybody have anything else? I don't think so. I wondered about the fall festival, so I got my answers on that. Like starting all that.

Well, we will have our August workshop. It may just be a 10-minute quick meeting, but we will have it. August 20th. And if there's nothing else, I'd like to ask for a motion to close. This is 6.32 p.m. All right. All those in favor.