Common Council - Regular Meeting

I aliance 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. Hey, I can't get no.

Thank you. You may be seated. The next agenda item is the roll call of members and determination of quorum. Let the record reflect that we have se uh seven counselors present and that we do have a quorum. This meeting has been properly noticed in accordance with the Indiana open door law. Copies of the agenda are located at the back of the room. Also, for any citizens wishing to speak during citizens comments, please use the sign-in sheet at the back of the room. We will now move along with the next agenda item, which is comments of common council members and special recognitions. Do we have any comments this evening? Thank you, councilors. The next agenda item Oh. Oh, I'm so sorry, Councelor Freeman.

Thank you, Council President. Um, I was um driving down [clears throat] Post Road and there is a go-kart place that has been closed long time ago and it's looking kind of runchy over there. I don't know who the owner is. Um, I believe the address is 4544 and I know it has a lot of code violations. I'm at the trash. the fence is bent down and no telling who's going in and out over there and maybe our code department probably needs to look at that. Thank you. Thank you, counselor. Would anyone else like to speak? Well, my thing went away.

Councelor Wells.

Um, there it is. There. Um, thank you, Mr. President. Uh I was looking at Facebook the other day and u a lady uh lady by the name of Denita Crickmore put a post on the large chatter and uh she was saying how she would like to see more uh restaurants, you know, like sit down restaurants, nicer higherend restaurants in the city of Lawrence. and uh it kind of struck a chord with me and uh I like to take just time just to read what my response was to her and the other people and I wrote as a city councilman of district 2 which is basically old Lawrence comprising most of Pendleton Pike east to Minhoffer Road and Franklin Road north to East 50th Street. I entirely agree with your desire for an increase in nice are in my district. These established restaurants are in competition for food sales. Plus, they are paying property tax, paying utilities, and paying for licenses and permits where these portable vendors do not have to comply with. I have spoken to several of our brickandmortar restaurants, and none are happy about this mobile competition, but are getting no help from the city. I am very sympathetic to these brickandmortar establishments, but unfortunately, I appear to be the only one that is. Possibly new restaurants may come to areas these mobile operators are not operating at, but I question if our city has earned a reputation that may keep the nice nicer restaurants away. So, I have done some homework on this and I have actually made a call uh to the Marian County Board of Health and learned quite a bit. Uh first off, the these mobile vendors,

even if they did comply and get the proper permitting and what have you, uh Lawrence is never going to see a nickel of it anyway because it all goes to Indianapolis. Um the U and does that help our, you know, our brickandmortar restaurants? Absolutely not. And u the other thing that I learned in talking to this lady is for them to get a board of health license, they have to have a home base. And that home base has to be inspected by the board of health before they're issued their license. And this home base has to have the ability to refrigerate food to proper temperature. has to have a clean culinary place for them to prepare the food. It also has to have the ability or a place where they can bring this truck or trailer to every day to disinfect it and to wash it and clean it for the next day's business. I can guarantee you, I can give you at least six of these vendors that that truck or trailer hasn't moved in months or years. it just sits there. So, uh, in talking with this lady, um, she also told me, bear with me while there was a bill that has passed. Um, the state legislature is bill 1577, which is actually goes into effect. It's already passed, but goes into effect next year. And next year, Marian County will no longer have the oversight of these food trailers or trucks. It will all be the state of Indiana. So, if you think it's bad now, wait till the state

gets a hold of it. And that's, you know, not my words, but coming from the lady that gave me this information. So, she urges me as a councilman to urge our administration to meet with her because she said she'd be very happy to do so. And she has some ideas of things that we should do to try to get a bit of a handle to circumvent or maybe to go around some of the things that the state's going to put on us. But I know I brought this up once before and about these food vendors and it seemed to be something that some of you didn't have any interest or or I don't know or was indifferent about was took that I got. But I just think it's I think it's terrible that we have people that uh you know set [snorts] up shop here in Lawrence and they're paying utility bills. are paying property taxes. They're contributing to this city when these people bring these trucks and trailers in. And they don't bring anything. And if they did, I said if they did comply, they wouldn't have to. it still wouldn't it wouldn't be anything to benefit to the city because the money all goes to Indianapolis which is is another thorn in my in my side is when this administration first got started I was told by uh the deputy chief of staff that we're going to hire these u these lobbyists to lobby the state of Indiana to get control of our zoning and our code enforcement. Well, in the first year, uh, I had two of them stand right there at the podium to give me a what have you got done? Well, basically it was nothing. And so, we spent hundreds of thousands of dollars

for the first year for basically nothing. What did they get done last year? My guess is probably another replay of of the year before that. And then if you look at the budget for this year, these lobbyists, the money's in the budget for these lobbyists again. Why? You know, they're not really doing what I was told that they were supposed to do. Well, my question to the administration is, you know, the mayor seems to be our mayor seems to be on decent terms with the mayor of Indianapolis. And if the problem is because this, you know, their departments won't get uh off of off of first base, why can't our mayor say, "Hey, we've got a problem out here and we definitely need your cooperation."

If a question, let's do that during uh administration's comments, please.

Yeah. So, anyway, that's uh that's what I have. here. Again, I would strongly urge a hearing uh maybe even council president that this lady from u uh the state or from the Marian County Board of Health could come and address the council and make us all aware of what we're going to be up against with this proposal or this bill 1577. Um that'd be your call. But if you'd let me know if you're okay with that the next meeting, I'll have it arranged. And if not nothing else, maybe we can meet with the uh you know meet uh behind closed doors. So anyway, thank you for your time.

Thank you, Councelor Wells. Any last words from counselors? All right, we'll move on to the next agenda item, which is the approval of minutes for the regular meeting of January 5th, 2026. Are there any questions or corrections to the minutes? All right. Um I will entertain a motion. So moved.

Thank you councelor Freeman for the motion and Christy Gr for the second. We will now any further last discussion. We'll now proceed with the vote. Okay. I said yeah. Yeah.

Let the director reflect that we unanimously pass the uh minutes for the special for the normal meeting January 5th, 2026. The next agenda item is reports of committees. Um sorry, assigning of vouchers, approval of claims and the authorizations of payment. Do we have a motion to approve the signing of vouchers? Thank you, Shiron, for the motion. And thank you, Carlos, for the second. Is there any further discussion, Mr. President? Yes. I Excuse [clears throat] me. I'm sorry. I have a question for the administration. They're for someone that can answer a question about the bills.

I thought you was on vacation. I'm sorry. I thought you was on vacation. I'm going on vacation tomorrow. Oh, well, have fun. Um, well, my question is, are there any of these bills because I thought it'd be easier just to ask you than me try to cipher it out. Are any of these bills that are up for uh approval tonight over the ones that are over $5,000, have any of them been approved or brought to us by the board of works? I I have not looked at the claims. I know it was shared. I think you all have them, but if you have any specific ones, I can So, you don't know? I haven't went through them, so I don't You didn't go through them? No.

Oh, okay. I that's the job of the controller and your job as council to look at the claims. Okay. Uh well, I mean that still is a sore spot for me because you know I initiated the proposal too. I wanted to see the board of works not approve anything over $5,000 and uh you know and I understand that they still are. We we have a meeting next. Uh I don't think Allan's part of it, but I think Scott is and Council President Kramer with with their legal team to go over got a whole list of issues to go over. Right. That that's will be one of the topics. Okay. All right. Thank you. One question before you leave.

Sure. Um Catalyst Public Affairs Group, that's a professional service contract. Yes. And that contract is for what service? For lobbying. And I was going to talk on that as well. You would now be appropriate. Sure. Yes. You you brought up the stuff with the lobbying and and not having anything over control over our zoning. I think am I paraphrasing correct? That you were promised by the former deputy chief of staff that the city was going to work to get control with the from the city of Indianapolis on zoning. Well, that no that they were going to lobby lobby the state reps. I don't know if they I I don't know what was promised. So,

well, that's what I was told. They were going to lobby state representatives to change the uh you know the law that I I guess has to do with u you know the oversight uh from uh Indianapolis.

Well, there's well there's two ways to do it. It's going through the legislature and getting that passed through the legislature or working cooperatively with the administration in Indianapolis to do that and that's what we've been doing. In fact, last Friday, Council President Kramer virtually or a audibly and he was on phone and Council Vice President Giles was on the phone and uh Councilwoman Mur was in person. We had a meeting discussing that very issue and that was brought about by one of our lobbyists making the contact through Indianapolis bridging that coalition and get getting us in the process to take over more control for the city of Lawrence on his owning issues. So, I'm not sure what the former deputy chief of staff promised, but it is being we are moving in that direction. It maybe is not as fast as you would like or we would like, but it is happening.

Well, with all due respect, sir, and and I really don't mean to say this to sound insulting, but if I had a dollar for every time that I've been told that we're working on it, I'd buy everybody and hear some Culver's on the way out of here tonight. But, uh, are you working on it? Huh? Are you working on it? You're an elected official. Hey, all I can do is poke you guys. Let's keep the conversations Germaine, guys. Let's Okay. Well, I mean, I Thank you. Appreciate it. We'll do We're doing our part and if you have any suggestion on how to move it forward, building coalitions with

city coun uh city county council members, if reaching out to the Hoget administration, I think we're making progress. I'll let Councilwoman [snorts] Zur and Councilman Kramer and Councilman Giles uh have their own opinions, but I think we're moving in the right direction. Well, I uh on this uh food truck thing, I called the only thing only way I've got to get a hold of anybody in the hog set world is just like anybody else here is to call the mayor's hotline. I stood on it for an hour and 20 minutes and finally just gave up and hung up. So, let's continue with the vouchers, please, and keep conversation with the vouchers.

Yeah. Councelor Jennings, did you have a question pertaining to the vouchers? I'm sorry. Councelor uh Jennings has a question for you. Oh, sorry. Was it the Oh, I'm sorry. Uh is there a timeline on um getting the uh the approval for um or taking over from Indianapolis? Oh, you talked about on the [clears throat] zoning. Yeah.

Uh I I think we had a productive meeting. We've got some We have a draft of taking over some things there. In a perfect world, I I it would happen uh sometime in the second half of this year, sometime in the maybe third quarter. Not saying no guarantees. That's the timeline we're shooting. Non-perfect world. Non-perfect world. In a non-per You just gave me an example of perfect world. Yeah. Non-perfect. Well, a non-perfect world would be it'd be later than that. I don't think it'll happen before this year. Okay. Oh, cross my fingers. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Liz. Did you have a question?

I just have a question about the vouchers because uh because of the new year, we did the vouchers the second meeting, but the uh habitually we will do at the beginning of the month. Just wanted to make sure that that tradition would continue. Thank you. Thank you, councelor Merur. All right. So, we have a motion to approve the vouchers and we have a second. will now proceed with the vote.

Let the record reflect that we have a 7 to one vote. Six six sorry 6 to one to approve the vouchers. The next agenda item is reports of committee. Um we do not have any reports the committees from this at this time. We will now move on with proposal number three. Madame clerk, could you please read the title of that ordinance into the record? Proposal number three, 2025, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Lawrence, Indiana, amending title one, article 2, chapter 5 of the code of ordinances of the city of Lawrence, Indiana.

Thank you, Madam Clerk. Uh that proposal remains with the committee of the whole for consideration and recommendation to council and will be brought to the council when appropriate. We'll move along with the next agenda item and unfinished business. Proposal number seven. Madame clerk, could you please read the title of that into the record? Proposal number 7, 2025, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Lawrence, Indiana, adopting a code of ethics. This proposal also remains with before the committee of the whole and uh for recommendation to the full council and will be brought when appropriate. The next agenda item um in unfinished business is resolution number 10. Madame Clerk, could you please read the title of resolution number 10 into the record?

Resolution number 10, 2025, a resolution of the common council of the city of Lawrence, Indiana, amending the common council rules and procedures. That proposal remains with the committee of the whole for consideration and recommendation and will be brought back to the council when appropriate. The next agenda item is new business uh proposal number one. Madame Clerk, could you please read the title of that ordinance into the record? Proposal number one, 2026, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Lawrence, Indiana, amending title one, article one, chapter 2, section 12 of the municipal code regarding common council approval on expenditures of professional service contracts.

On behalf of the common council, I'm referring proposal 1226 to the code and rules committee for consideration. We'll now move along to the next agenda item which is comments from the administration. Do we have any comments from the admin this this evening?

Thank you. I just wanted to address on the uh food truck issue. U I think we talked about it last year maybe sometime. I'm going to go by my memory which is less than perfect. Um I know it was I think you brought up some concerns with it. I think there was I think your description was correct that there were some members of the council that had maybe some different thoughts or some weren't quite as receptive to it. The administration is open if you any stipulations, regulations you wanted to put in. If anybody wants to propose it, we would obviously take it under serious consideration. One thing you mentioned though, you said, [snorts] and I'm I don't want to misquote you, that you did you talked to the person at the board of health

and and you said something about you know of at least six. I think you said you know of at least six trucks that were not have Did you report those to I did what? Good for you. Okay. Yes, I reported them today and I reported them to the inspector. Uh as a matter of fact, one truck is operating on Pendleton Pip or was and that uh that truck didn't have any permits any board of health certificate and also was operated by a city of Lawrence employee. So, uh who I would think should not have known better. But at any rate, um okay.

Yeah. My biggest concern is the licensing aspect of the and it's also a concern of theirs is this homebased thing. There's no way there there's no way some of these trucks have moved in some of them in years, right?

You know, they just sit there. So, you know, how are they properly, [clears throat] you know, and it's something I never even give a thought to, you know, cuz the board of health when they look at this home base, they expect to see, you know, water, you know, where you can take a garden hose and you can wash these things out and really, you know, give them a good scrubbing. They're not going to be able to do that without water. And they may have electricity, and all of them do. All of them have permanent meters, so they don't have to fool with the generators. And I mean they've set up shop and the the one restaurant that I spoke to that you know told me that I asked him I said why haven't you complained to the city they say it wouldn't do any good and unfortunately he's right.

Well I mean like I say most of if it's a board of health issue it's outside the city's control. We don't have a city board of health. It would be Marian County Board of Health. They're the ones that regulate the food trucks and their licensing. Well, it is, but there's also a permit that comes from the city of Indianapolis. And so the city of Indianapolis Oh, you're saying that city of Indianapolis couldn't I I thought you were saying city

there's two of there's a there's a board of health uh permit from Marian County and then there's a permit that comes from the city of Indianapolis and uh it should be in a perfect world the city of Indianapolis should be coming around inspecting these things and seeing you know that uh they're complying with she gave me a list of things that they that the that the inspector would look for. But it's obvious that neither one of them are really. Now, I guess I can't say that they haven't checked because the one that the city employee, you know, they did check him shut they did shut him down. But, uh, the other ones are all up and running. And like I told this lady, I said, if if they're supposed to have this homebased thing, there's no way these vehicles, these trailers and trucks have moved in in forever. And uh so you know they got to be in violation. But but the point of it is why should we have to even I mean why should our brickandmortar restaurants have to be subjected to losing trade by these guys when they don't donate contribute nothing to the city? I mean absolutely nothing. Uh and if they did pay if they did pay by the rules then it all goes to Indianapolis anyway. So we're still out you know not getting anything out of it. I think did you have any other comments?

No, I did. I did. Thank you. For yourself if you're good. These are conversations that we can have outside. I agree. Thank you. All righty. The next item on the agenda will be citizens comments. Citizens comments shall be limited to 3 minutes. Um those wishing to speak, please approach the podium and state your name and address for the record. We will start with Curtis and Denita. Is it Crickmore? Hi.

Um, I'm just g here to reiterate a lot of what Rick has said. Um, our community does not like all these trucks, like 10, 15 trucks on that side of Lawrence. I mean, I think we're beautifying the Fort Harrison 56 Street side, but this side over here looks terrible. And it's just really making our community look bad. Um, I kind of had some of the same thoughts he did. what are they doing to, you know, bring revenue to our city? You know, and I kind of opened this thing on Facebook just randomly saying, "Hey, how could we get some, you know, different restaurants besides pizza and Mexican?" Not that I don't like those, it's just we wanted more variety. And that kind of opened this whole thing. Um, so [clears throat] that's kind of what I'm here for. Also, I wanted to read something that came up in this discussion on Facebook, and this is um from a business owner here, a restaurant owner in Lawrence. Opening a new brick and mortar is very expensive. My experience from Lawrence has not been the best compared to my other locations. We have experienced a lot of dine and dash customers complaints for everything just to get stuff free. Low tipping from our servers, vandalizing, vandalism to the building. We do not foresee us wanting to stay longer than our lease contract even though we are profitable. Just now worth just not worth the headache when we make money in our other sides of this city where the customer base is of higher quality. I understand this comment will be criticized, but this has been my personal experience which concluded my personal opinion. So, it's kind of sad, you know, that the restaurant owners that are here are not wanting to stay,

you know, so I wanted to bring that up as well. Um, the other thing we have, you know, my husband and I talked about where are these people washing their hands at? Where are they going to the restroom? you know, it's not sanitary if you really think about it. We I would not eat in any of them anyway. But, um, anyway, I think that's all I had to say. I just wanted to reiterate, you know, that the our community does care. I, you know, when I drive down towards, you know, this side of the city, to me, it just looks bad. It's trashy. I hate to say that, but that's the way I feel. It looks trashy. So, anyway, that's it for me. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Would anyone else like to speak?