Common Council - Regular Meeting

Alright, good evening everybody. Thanks for being here. We'll start the meeting. Welcome. Today is Tuesday, June 2nd. Welcome to the City Council meeting. Like our prior meetings, we are streaming live on the City of Madison's YouTube channel and archiving the meeting there. Now we would invite you to stand to recite the Lord's Prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and we'll get into tonight's business.

Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. 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.

Thank you. May we have a roll call, please?

Sure. Patrick Tovenow is absent. Carla Kretz? Here. Lucy DiTillo? Here. Josh Schaefer? Here. Joel Storm?

Here.

Jim Bartlett. Here. And Josh Wilber.

Here. Thank you. Council, I've had an opportunity to review the minutes from the last meeting dated Tuesday, May 19th. If so, I'll entertain a motion to approve.

I'll make the motion to approve the minutes.

I second.

Any discussion? If not, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. And moving on, we'll go directly to resolutions and bills.

Joe? The first thing we have is resolution number 2026-4C, and that is a resolution declaring for primary economic revitalization area, resolution real property tax abatement.

Yes, this is the proposed... declaratory resolution for Clifty Madison LLC and I invite Tony up to give a presentation on our new economic development opportunity.

Good evening, Council. We're excited tonight to talk, as you are aware, about the new 82-room Hampton Inn to be constructed on the Madison Silt Top. This project started in 2023 shortly after a study showed additional need for hotel rooms and we've been working with BMI, our parks department and JCBT on some other strategies to enhance our tourism and this hotel is a key component for that. This will be an upper mid-scale hotel with limited service and it's a brand that's not in Madison and that's really important for our visitors and business travelers who use Hilton, the Hilton honor system and the reward points Currently we know there's a lot of manufacturers on the Kentucky side that many of their guests stay in Carrollton at the Hampton Inn and some of their Marriott folks stay on this side. So at least we maybe can attract some of those folks to the Hampton Inn on the hill. Really great opportunity. You can see that the Hotel, as we said, mid-scale, upper mid-scale. This will be the first model of this built in Indiana. It's their new concept. The closest one, I think, is in Lima, Ohio. So we're real excited about that as well. Let's talk about the economic development incentives for this project. The location, as you know, is on Cliffy Drive behind the old Speedway Hotel. or the Speedway gas station. The Hampton Inn Hotel will be located in that parcel behind that. They have easements from Clifty Drive back to that property. The issue with that property is the infrastructure for water. With the demand necessary for fire protection, the accounts of their fixtures, there needs to be a loop constructed for water, which will ensure the pressure and balance and give a redundancy not only to the hotel but the other businesses in that area. Currently, we do not have a looped system there as a part of our water system, so that will ultimately be what the infrastructure dollars goes towards. I want to thank you for passing the increase in the innkeeper's tax. That's the tax that's paid for for those who stay in hotels or short-term rentals in our community. That investment and that tax gave the Jefferson County Board of Tourism the ability to use some of that money for infrastructure associated with tourism, and we were able to receive $200,000 towards that infrastructure improvement. So there's technically no city tax dollars in this project in terms of infrastructure enhancements. And again, without your support of that, JCBT likely could not have done that. We'll talk a little bit about employment. You've seen the SB1 statements before. These statements are a yearly declaration by those who receive tax abatements. You will be receiving a review of those for the current tax abatements we have here in the coming meeting in June. But this basically states that they are... committed to spend approximately $15 million on this development and roughly $650,000 a year in salaries. And I'll get into that a little bit more here in a minute. I think it's really important to compare and contrast these deals and understand what we currently are receiving in terms of property tax revenue and what this new development we will ultimately receive. We currently, that parcel currently receives around to the county about $2,500 a year in taxes, which if you look at that over a six-year period or a 10-year period, you can see those numbers. But the new hotel with that $15 million development, we will receive $190,000 a year in property taxes as you move forward. And again, that's based upon today's number. So over a six-year period, which is what the abatement period for, That's close to $1.1 million. And over a 10-year period, that's just a little bit more. So you know that basically over a 10-year period, we will receive approximately $1.2 million versus the current $25 million in property taxes. So again, I think a great investment for the community in that regard. The innkeeper's taxes. We currently are receiving zero dollars for that. Again, the city doesn't receive that directly, but I think it's a huge benefit to many of our tourism nonprofits in our community, as well as other governmental agencies that often ask for assistance with tourism-related infrastructure. With the hotel, we're anticipating a couple hundred thousand dollars a year in innkeeper's tax. You will see that. We basically will be collecting over a 10-year period about $1.6 million in innkeeper's tax after the investment versus today, zero. And then salaries, the local income tax is based off of roughly $650,000 worth of salaries. And you'll note that those range from about $80,000 down to $30,000. Again, those are $15 to $40 an hour jobs. So if you look at the local income tax summary, We're currently receiving zero taxes off of those current jobs, where we will have received over 10 years about $654,000. So if you look at the total investment, we believe in the first six years, which is the tax abatement period, there's a 64% return on our initial investment of the tax abatement and the infrastructure, and about an 80% return over 10 years. on that initial investment. Happy to answer any questions at this time.

I just want to clarify, none of the innkeeper taxes are being abated. They'll be collected as soon as the hotel is operational and that this partial tax abatement is only 50% and the assessed value is held flat so we're not projecting any increases in assessed value during that period of time?

Yeah, we typically project over that window of time a flat assessed value and taxes so that we're being very conservative. Again, the proposal that's in front of you is the one year 100% tax abatement and then years two through six at 50%. So we will, again, start collecting a portion of those taxes in year two at about $85,000 a year, again, as an estimate. And yes, JCBT is not abating any of the taxes. What they are doing is giving us a grant for the $200,000 for the infrastructure improvements, which were made possible by the increase in the innkeeper's tax from 5% to 8%.

So the money comes from tourism and goes back into tourism.

Correct, as that was set up before. And again, I would say that the dollars that they will be receiving from this investment over each year will roll back into supporting tourism nonprofits and other organizations that are related to tourism throughout our community. So again, it's the best way for us to create additional tourist revenue to help support projects the city has, the county, the town of Hanover, and other festivals and nonprofits throughout the county.

The economic proposition here is excellent, and I know that this hotel investment will attract additional investment on Flippy Drive. There's other parcels in front of it.

This is the first step. The next step will be a public hearing at the next city council meeting and then a confirmatory resolution that you'll be asked to pass.

do we need a motion on this it's a resolution so I yep sorry I was looking for my paper I'll move that we approve this resolution 20-26-4C. I second. Okay. Is there any public comment?

Seeing and hearing none, we have a roll call.

Patrick, I'm absent. Sorry. Carl Krebs. Yes. Lucy Dottillo. Yes. Josh Schaefer. Yes. Joel Storm. Yes. Jim Bartlett. Yes. Josh Wilbur.

Yes.

All right. Thank you, Council. We'll move into our next two items of business.

Sorry. Oh, here we go. We have ordinance number 2026-11C, and this is sponsored by Councilwoman Krebs. It's an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, establishing the TIF grant fund for the Madison Redevelopment Commission.

So I just want to give a brief explanation. Basically, these two ordinances, 11C and... 12c are both just creating funds for us to put one is to put grants into and one is to put tiff donations into we're just it's some housekeeping for our wonderful clerk treasurer who keeps us all tidy so that's really all it is it's not doing anything else except creating accounts i think considering that they're both eerily similar why don't we just go ahead and we can do them as a

a package so the next one is ordinance number 2026-12 C and that's ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Madison Indiana establishing the TIF donation fund for the Redevelopment Commission so both of those are for consideration good evening council Carla kind of summed them up just to give you a little bit of background per state statute now the Redevelopment Commission is required to report on their grants and donations

And so we have internally been tracking them, but now it gets uploaded to Gateway and reported to DLGF. And so Reedy Financial has been putting that into our monthly financial plans that they do for us, and we present those each month at the RDC meeting. And so now it's basically just taking that to the next level. If you remember a couple years ago, we did the same thing with each of our TIF allocation areas where we basically made, funds for each of those allocation areas so each of their property tax revenue can go into their own fund. So this is basically the same thing as that, just separating out the grants and the donations that RDC gets so that it's not commingled in the same fund where all the tax revenue goes. And that way it will help us on the back end and the clerk treasurer's office and so we'll be able to pull fund reports as well. it'll just help for financial tracking all the way around and help us track all of our projects better because we love some capital stacking so it will really help us track everything and and it'll also help reedy so that it will better align the clerk's office records with reedy's records too so as this is a

this is essentially a paperwork cleanup I would move that we waive the rules and move on to second reading motion in a second that would be for each ordinance or for each or both for both yes okay so we have a motion in a second to suspend the rules Josh seconded all in favor Any opposed? That passes unanimously. So we can go on to the second reading. And so that is ordinance number 2026-11C, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Madison in Indiana. Well, hold on, let's back up.

Yes, we do.

Is there any public comment on either of these ordinances? Okay, seeing none. Now we'll go on to the second reading, and that is ordinance number 2026-11C, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, establishing a grant fund for the Madison Redevelopment Commission, and ordinance number 2026-12C, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, establishing the TIF donation fund for the Madison Redevelopment Commission. All right. Are there any comments or questions here on second reading? Anything from the public? Hearing and seeing none, roll call vote on both ordinances. Yeah, let's do a motion to approve. I didn't think so either, but if we can, just go ahead and do a motion.

I'll make the motion to approve both ordinance number 2026-11C and ordinance number 2026-12C. Is there a second?

Second. Okay, roll call vote, please.

Patrick Temenos. Absent. Carolyn Krebs. Yes. Lucy Dottillo. Yes. Josh Schaefer. Yes. Joel Storm. Yes. Jim Bartlett. Yes. Josh Wilber.

Yes.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you, Council. That concludes the official business for tonight. President Bartlett, I'll move it over to you for any public comments.

I'm sorry we have one person who has signed up to do public comment that's Paula Weatherby 2685 West Deputy Pike Road Madison and I have a couple of questions when I read the paper I know that the mayor just went to Indianapolis and went to a flood committee there and we've had a lot of flooding in Madison recently it seems like everything comes at once we live on Big Clifty Creek and in the paper recently the battery that the battery whatever it is it's going in up there I've read where you're redoing the railroad track so that it's going to route the water into Big Clifty Creek And our drive is a quarter of a mile, which runs right along Big Clifty Creek. And I've lived there over 50 years, and we have had some floods. The largest one was the one that you had on Walnut Street, and it took our drive all the way to Bedrock and stripped the pavement off of it. It just rolled it up in rolls. We had to get three triaxial trucks of gravel. We won't ever be able to have asphalt in there again. This last month, we had it again. It wasn't as bad, but our neighbor had just plowed his field. and planted corn so we got topsoil all on our drive and part of it is a curve that it doesn't matter how much gravel you put on it it's going to wash away and it's never come up over our road before but now in another spot below our home it's washed where we have a a pipe that goes through that takes the water off. But my concern is, I was at the commissioner's meeting last week, and they were talking about the jail and not having high electrical costs for the jail. And thinking about putting in 50 acres of solar behind the woods, back behind the jail, which I assume would meet up with the battery installation. I don't know that for sure. But any time that you put, the jail was built on wet ground. And my understanding, now this is just hearsay, that proper planning wasn't done and that the structure is too heavy for the ground that it was put on and that it's sinking. And the commissioner said, no, it wasn't wet ground. The woods behind it were. But it doesn't stop just at the wood line. And if they're going to put solar behind that, any time you do that, the water's not going to permeate. It's going to run off, and we're going to have more flooding. And the battery factory was built on wet ground. And so they're already having issues with that, because that's why you're raising the railroad tracks. Is that true?

I can't really comment on what's happening at the railroad. I mean, it's a separate entity. We do have members that are on the board there. I'm not aware that they're raising the railroad track. I believe what they're doing is replacing a culvert under the railroad track that's collapsed.

Yes.

And that will help stormwater flow in the proper direction.

Into Big Clifty Creek.

That's the tributary to discharge it eventually down to the river. Water, Ms. Weatherby, as you're talking about, is a common enemy for all of us.

I know.

And there are wetlands up in that area. You're probably pointing that out. I'm not aware that the railroad is doing anything that is going to exacerbate stormwater. And then if there's new development out there, like the solar, that would have to be approved at the zoning.

Right.

the county would also need to approve a stormwater drainage plan.

Well, I think it was in the paper, and that's what you mentioned, that the culvert was going to be redone because of water issues at the battery installation.

I apologize. I don't recall making a comment about the railroad.

Well, I think it was in the May 1st paper. I know I made a copy of it.

Okay. I'm not aware of making any comments on the railroad activities. We do have a small culvert on Wilson Avenue. I may have made a comment in relationship to the last storm that we had that created some minor flooding downtown and some minor flooding across from Arvin Sango off of Wilson Avenue. And we have a railroad crossing there with an undersized culvert. And the railroad is also going to be replacing that crossing. and for our benefit in enlarging the culverts so the stormwater can flow quicker through the drainage.

I just want you to always think ahead and consider when you're building in these wet, flat areas, as you say, the water has to go off. We don't want the downtown flooding, but we don't want to be flooded out either. We're landlocked. Our drive runs right along Big Clifty Creek. And it's not just us. It's people across the road from us. We've had a lot of erosion over the last few years. And when you're planning, please take that into consideration just like if the data center goes in then that water that's going to make runoff and they'll probably want to hook solar between the data center and the battery storage and that's going to go into harvard's creek And that runs down Deputy Pike, and there are a lot of homes right on that creek that would be completely flooded out. You're raising the right issue.

Stormwater is a very serious problem all across our community. One of the proactive things we did last year after spending a year modernizing ordinances, we adopted a new stormwater ordinance that is intended to be on the front edge of development so that the displacement of water doesn't increase after the development is completed. And through a series of new rules and regulations, And the creation of a requirement for on-site detention. That's guiding us in our development objectives. And we don't regulate all of that in the county because our ordinances are applicable for the city. But when we are looking at development opportunity, we are bringing that to the forefront as it should be. It's a very serious issue.

Because we're in the buffer zone, so we're stuck in the middle. And we have to keep track of folks.

You're raising the right concerns.

Yes. So please don't send any more down Big Clifty Creek because it looks like it's a little creek. But when it comes up, and luckily our house is on the hill, it looks like a raging river. You would not want to get near it. And so I appreciate your time.

Okay. Thank you so much.

That's all.

I know we had this registration of the sign-up list. Was there someone here that wanted to make a public comment that didn't sign up? Okay. Sir, feel free to come up. Please come up. Do you want to come at the podium? Or do you want to talk after the meeting? Okay. Yeah, please come up. All right. Just introduce yourself to your audience across the city of Madison. You've been here a few times.

My name is Claude Rotay. I live at 820 Fillmore, right beside the bridge. And I mow along the bridge. Actually, it belongs to the state, but I mow it and maintain it. Actually, I just got this seed that's growing in there. But I was weed eating the other day, and I found it. Can I show this to you? Sure. I'll show it to you. I really like that.

Giant bowl. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. We'll share it with our state collaborators.

My other thing is, I see a lot of new faces here. Are you all familiar with the pumpkins for farmers thing that I'm working on? Well, I talked to the mayor here at the council meeting a little while back, and he asked me if I could coordinate, which I wish I'd never said it, but I'll tell you the truth. But I think it's a wonderful idea. We're going to collect pumpkins. buy some places to park trailers for people to bring these pumpkins. They set out thousands of these pumpkins. And every year, you haul them to the landfill. If we could get these trailers parked in different places, people bring these pumpkins, put them in these trailers, farmers could bring their trailers here and get food for their animals. Like I said, it would be a win-win. Farmers get free food. The city wouldn't have to pay to haul it to the landfill. Methane gas in the landfill, it saved everybody. But here's my issue. I'm having a really, I'm new, I'm kind of new here. I don't know any farmers. I got two farmers lined up now that say they want to bring trailers. I have two places committed to let me put trailers. Two, I got Hanover Baptist Church that let me put two trailers there. I got this lot down here where the old ironworks burned They're going to let me put two trailers there. What I'd like to have is permission for you all to let me put two trailers at the Johnson Lake Shelter House up here on Craigmont. And the other is an empty lot down here on River Road. And I'm still searching for it. I mean, like I said, I knew I don't know a lot of places. But I'm going to need some help. people. You can introduce me to say the Kiwanis or Boy Scouts of America or Rotary Club. I need help from people that know people around here. I don't know anybody around here. But my big problem is, I mean, I'm fine in places with trailers, but my problem is contacted farmers. I've got one guy over here on... Are you on Facebook?

well I mean if I can make one suggestion upcoming the second week of July is the R4H fair You've got a captive audience right there. And within the fair is they have tables set up in the merchant barns or different barns or whatever. I would think that you might talk to the fair folks and. To me, this would be a perfect opportunity to meet people.

I think it would also help with some contact information about all the people that participate in the fair, a member of the 4-H fair. There's an office building at the fairgrounds. If you went out there, you could probably contact them, too. So I think we can help put you in touch with the people you need.

I'm thinking about what you all put it on Facebook. It gets closer in time. And I also talked to somebody. I probably sprang for the printing of it. If I could find a printer around here, print enough flyers, take them to these schools, give them to the grade school kids, and take them on to the parents. I've got a feeling this is going to be a really, really big thing. It might be slow this year. I've got a feeling once people find out about it, other states and cities are going to be contacting you to find out what to do about it.

Is it safe for the animals to consume? I don't know what the limitations are on.

I can tell you that my mother-in-law has chickens, and she gives them her pumpkins all the time, and they're gone. I mean, it's unbelievable. But yeah, it's food, and there's no issues.

Well, like I said, I need permission to put that shelter house on Johnson's Lake in this lot down there.

We'll contact our office on the dates and the times and we'll work with the parks on coordination with them.

Yeah, they're probably, like, later, two weeks of November and the first week of December, somewhere around. But if you know any farmers, people have goats.

Oh, yeah, it's not limited to just... Pigs, especially pigs. All right, thank you. Thank you very much, sir. Anyone else? Closing the public comment then, I'll just give a quick shout out to everybody organized and definitely Economic Development organized the Welch Park groundbreaking last week, which was phenomenal. You're going to see that park be revitalized as well as several other parks. High priority for us to improve quality of life in Madison and a lot of it is done through emphasizing health and wellness and recreation with our parks. I will quickly ask, do we have a date yet for our ribbon cutting on the connector trail? Emily?

I think we're going to hopefully make the final decision tomorrow. The rain a couple weeks ago really slowed us down, but we're tentatively planning for the week after next. But there should be more information coming out this week about a specific date and time.

A lot of activity happening in June. As Mrs. Weatherby was mentioning, I did attend in Washington, D.C. a couple weeks ago an American Flood Coalition Summit for leadership across the country. And it was a great week. We did a lot of policy development and then meetings with our senators and congressional delegations to talk about flood resiliency, how to improve our communities. All of our communities all across the country are battling stormwater related issues because of precipitation and also a lot of it is what Madison has experienced is not having proper practices in place for stormwater management as our community was emphasizing development. Hilltop is a prime example of lots of commercial development. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s stormwater policies really didn't exist. We've modernized them as recent as last year and it's intended to stop future displacement of water because of development. We still have a lot of work to do. We did recently adopt the Crooked Creek stormwater mitigation plan. We're going to be implementing the first phases of that. And that hopefully will bring some much needed solutions to the Walnut Street and Jefferson Street corridor who have been suffering decades of displacement and flood damage and in some instances loss of life. So we're going to work very hard to prevent that. But the only way to do that is to continue to make investments in infrastructure. Crystal Beach is open. So if you haven't been to Crystal Beach yet, I know it's the first week. Go. The pool is great. The weather has been awesome. And like I said, June is going to be a big month for rolling into our festival season. And, of course, America 250th anniversary is coming up July the 4th. We're looking forward to that. Our next meeting is Tuesday, June 16th. Council, anything to add before we adjourn?

I just want to make sure I get your name in contact, sir, before you leave. I want to write down your name and your phone number, okay?

If there's nothing else to add, like I said, our next meeting is Tuesday, June 16th.

Is it time to adjourn? Are you waiting for me to say that?

I would move that we adjourn the meeting. Seconded. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thanks everybody for being here.