Common Council - Regular Meeting

June 16th City Council meeting and of course this meeting will be live streamed on our YouTube channel. With that, if you don't mind, let's stand, remove your headgear and begin with the Lord's Prayer. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

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. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.

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. Ms. Shirley, let's take a roll.

Okay. Patrick Tevinow. Here. Carla Krebs. Here. Lucy Dutillo. Here. Josh Schaefer. Here. Joel Storm.

Here.

Jim Bartlett. Here. And Joshua Burke. Here.

Apologize for that. I was up at Rutgers Sports Complex attending a strikeout cancer game. So they're up there honoring those who are battling or surviving that horrible disease. Council, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from the last meeting dated June the 2nd? If so, we'll entertain a motion to approve.

I move to accept the minutes as presented.

I will second that motion.

Any discussion? If there are none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye. All right. We'll move straight into tonight's business. I will say that we did add a couple of things. We do have some department reports toward the end of the meeting, so hopefully you guys have a corrected agenda that shows that. We'll get some updates from Dewey as well as on parts from Tanya and Tony Steinhardt is here to lead the discussion on. on one of our resolutions as well as the tax payment renewals. We'll get right into it. I'll turn it over to Jim.

First is resolution number 2026-3C, and that is resolution electing to join the 1977 Police Officers and Firefighters Pension and Disability Fund as administered by the Indiana Public Retirement System.

Thank you. Yes, Council, thank you. You probably recognize this form. We did this about a month ago. This will be the third rent addition that INPRESS is requesting us to complete. So on page two is the change. On the move section, we were listing the employer will pick up the employee contributions, and that should have been zero. So rather than just white out, have you sign new ones, we're going to go with a fresh copy and change that.

any questions as it pertains to the resolution 2026-3c anything from the public do we have a motion to approve so moved second second okay roll call vote please Patrick Chapinot yes excuse me Carl Krebs yes

Luke C. Dottillo? Yes. Josh Schaefer? Yes. Joel Storm? Yes. Jim Bartlett? Yes. And Josh Wilburn? Yes.

Next, we have Resolution Number 2026-5C, a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, transferring certain appropriations.

And Mandy McGee?

Good evening, Council. Pretty easy. This is just a mid-year cleanup. These are all related to park activities. As you know, Parks has a pretty large budget and it's spread out over a variety of budgets. So as they're about halfway through the year now figuring out where they need to spend the money, we're getting it in the right spot so they can continue their seasons at the golf course and the pool and all those important park activities. So happy to take any questions.

Any questions for Mindy on this?

So just to be clear, we're just moving money around within the same parks department? Yes, ma'am.

Do we have a motion?

I move that we accept Resolution 2026-5C.

I second. Anything from the audience? Roll call vote, please.

Patrick Chavanagh? Yes.

yes yes yes yes yes yes thank you council next resolution is resolution number 2026-6C that's resolution of the Common Council of the City of Madison Indiana confirming the designation of an economic revitalization area and approving the deduction from the assessed value of real property improvements and this is for as it relates to Clifton-Madison LLC. And we will, at this point in time, it's been reduced, and we will recess the meeting and have a public hearing.

I think there is a signature sheet being passed around for those in attendance for the public hearing. Tony Steiner is here to discuss the... the project as well as introduce our new partner.

Yes, so I do have a presentation tonight just to quickly review the development on the hilltop for Clifty Madison LLC, which will be a new Hampton Inn. Pateek Gupta with them are representing us, and we're going to run through quickly a quick presentation. And Pateek, would you like to say anything?

Well, I just want to thank everybody, the mayor, the vice mayor, for your tremendous support. It's a little bit of a challenging time for, generally speaking, for the construction industry, for the hotel industry. It is in the best of times considered to be a risky proposition to construct hotels. but we are just happy that we were able to get the support from the city as we were overcoming some of the challenges in the costing of the of the project and generally the general support mattered a whole lot for us to be able to finally you know pull the trigger for the trigger to start the project right now we are at About 25% completion of the architectural and engineering work and the city should be seeing some of our submittals shortly in the next couple of weeks or so. So thank you all very much. Still a long journey. We're expecting to open sometime in the first quarter of 2028. So still a lot of design work remaining both with the help of the city and the franchise. but we hope to continue to get your support and start to move fast towards groundbreaking something like this. Thank you very much. Thank you. Do the councillors have any questions? How many units are we talking about in this one? It's 84 room hotel.

And again, as I mentioned, this will be the first Hampton Inn in Indiana under the new design.

Yeah, so there is a new prototype from Hampton Inn. Hampton Inn is the number one franchise brand in hotel industry worldwide. And within that, Hampton Inn is very high, just somewhere around Marriott. And they have a latest prototype that came into production about a year ago or so. And the closest one that someone else has finished is about 100 miles, or maybe about 50 miles, 60 miles north of Columbus, Ohio. So this is the first in the general Kentucky area.

Thank you. I'll walk through real quick again the financial analysis that's been complete as a part of the tax abatement. If you notice on that current property creates about $2,500 a year in property taxes. The new hotel with its development, $15 million investment will create about $190,000 a year in taxes. And you'll note that over a 10-year period, that's about $1.2 million in taxes versus $25,000 in taxes. So it shows you what development and investment does bring in, in terms of revenue. What's great about a hotel development is it also brings in our innkeeper's tax. And that's a really important piece, not only for supporting tourism and helping promote our community, but also now with the support of you with the council and others that we have an increase in our innkeeper's tax some of that money is able to now go into infrastructure projects that not only support the tourists but also the rest of the year support our residents so we're real excited about that and that will generate currently no innkeeper's tax on that property and will generate over 10 years about 1.8 million dollars and what's really great about the innkeepers tax is the Jefferson County Board of Tourism we're very excited about helping contribute to the one of the incentives which was two hundred thousand dollars towards water and infrastructure improvements that needed to be made in that area to support the fire sprinkler systems and etc. for this project. So again, zero city tax dollars or TIF dollars are going into this project thanks to the Jefferson County Board of Tourism. Local income tax summary. Currently there's no local income taxes on those properties and Patik and his group will look at about $635,000 a year, which will create about $654,000 over the course of 10 years for local income. So our total new tax revenue from this investment with tax abatement, which has been proposed, will be about an 84% return for the city over 10 years, a net and that tax revenue of about $3.6 or $3.7 million through all the tax sources.

Tony, I just want to mention, and I'm sure council knows, but what was in our package as well as what was available for review online was the site plan. as well as the resolution adopted by the declaratory resolution in support of the abatement adopted by the Redevelopment Commission, as well as the Economic Development Agreement setting forth the terms for the abatement. This has been a strategic investment for us. We're really grateful that Prateek and his company are wanting to invest in Madison, and it's part of a larger strategy, as Tony was saying, to support tourism. as well as our growing need for business lodging.

Well, and I would also say in that comment, Bob, last week I had the privilege of doing some business retention and expansion tours with some folks and meeting with industry, and two of the four had events here coming up this week and next and had difficulty finding lodging. for their sales meeting and some customers coming to town. So they were really excited to hear about the Hampton Inn coming to town and appreciated that investment. So there certainly is a need in our community today. And the studies that we've had done show that.

Is it the intention of the developer to operate the hotel as well?

Yes. And I want to talk about...

We usually hire professional hospitality management companies to run our properties. So we would expect that right from the get-go, it would be professionally managed by a hospitality company. That is approved by Hilton.

Tony, is it just the lot or the hotel sits that is under the economic revitalization area? Or is there any extension of that?

It is just the lot, I believe. Just the parcel. Okay. Good question.

I see that on the map there, it's like the plan is to have a pavement connection in between Hardee's and Rowley's, as well as a secondary primary road. around where Speedway currently used to sit?

Yeah, so if you're looking at the site plan, sorry, I apologize for not having that. You will note that there are two easements through those parcels by Hardee's and Rally's and then also to the west of the Speedway. Those are easements that were put in by previous developers.

And that Speedway lot, there's no current plans for that?

There's ongoing interest in that.

Nothing yet?

Nothing yet.

I would certainly expect with this investment, it will attract additional investment, and that's going to be a prime parcel for some restaurant who would want to be located in front of a hotel. So we'll see more investment, and this will be the spark for that area.

Yeah, since we announced the hotel, interest in that parcel and a couple others nearby have spiked.

Does anybody have anything else? Anything from the audience?

Okay.

That will close the public hearing. And do we have a motion to approve resolution number 2026-6C?

I'll make the motion to approve resolution 2026-6C. Seconded.

Okay. Roll call vote, please.

Patrick Tevenow? Yes. Carly Krebs? Yes. Lucy Dottola? Yes. Josh Schaefer? Yes. Joel Storm? Yes. Jim Bartlett? Yes. And Josh Wilber?

Yes. Council, are there any reports, recommendations, or other business from standing or select committees of council? And now we'll move into reports from city officials. So I'll invite Tony back to the podium. I don't think Emily's here. We'll talk about the abatements and why we do that.

Thank you.

Just move on to Dewey.

We'll take a... Just take a second here. All right. Tony is going to be here to talk about the annual review of the tax abatements that we have.

Thank you very much, Mayor. Tonight, as a part of our annual review of tax abatements, Per Indiana code, you received the CF1s from each of those tax abatements, and I'll quickly run through those and then be happy to answer any questions. We have reviewed those along with the mayor's office and feel that all are in substantial compliance with their original tax abatement. Trilogy Real Estate currently has a tax abatement through 2028. And this is their fifth year in that cycle. Riverside Towers has one through 2032, and they're in their third year. The Cotton Mill expires in 2033. And again, these are all 10-year tax abatements, and they are in their fourth year. And again, so if you think about that, they get 100%, 90%, 80%, 70%, and it comes down 10% each year of that 10-year cycle. And then finally, Grody has one that is expiring this year in 2026, and their newest one is one that expires in 2035. And it's a very unique structure compared to the others. It has a sliding scale just like the other ones, but Grody committed to and will be making their first payment to a pilot, which is a payment in lieu of taxes of $75,000 back to the Redevelopment Commission. for further investment in quality of place and quality of life initiatives. They recognize that it's important to have those things moving forward as they have grown and invested in their LED headlight business and chose Madison to bring that line to two years ago. They currently have 395 employees moving towards 477 and they are 53 open positions currently And so they're well on their way of attaining their numbers. So at this point, I would ask for a motion to accept those five test papers.

For a motion, somebody could request to split off the early one.

Yeah, if you would like to make two separate motions, that would be fine.

Again just for clarification for the people in the audience or at home. These are already in place. We're not changing anything. We just evaluate them periodically to make sure everyone is in compliance with the abatement policy that we set up. So all we're doing is saying everyone is doing what we've asked them to do and we're renewing it. We're not changing any numbers. We're not really doing anything like saying continue in what you're doing.

The state of Indiana requires a review yearly on tax abatements and that's certainly what we're doing. Nothing has changed from the original tax abatements.

I would move we approve the renewal of the tax abatements for Trilogy, Cotton Mill, and Riverside Tower.

Seconded.

Aye. Aye. now I would move we approve the the approval we approve the tax abatement for renewal for grody and that's both expires in 2026 both both tax abatements for grody I second that aye

Thank you. We will move on with our reports from city officials and ask our code enforcement officer, Dewey O'Neill, to give a presentation on vacant and abandoned. While he is coming to the podium, I'll just mention that He did the same presentation yesterday at the Board of Public Works and Safety. And the ordinance that we adopted about a year ago said that we would do similar reports to council. So here we are. You're getting it fresh. If you watched the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting yesterday, this is going to sound like a repeat of that conversation. But the conversation was, I think, very good yesterday.

Yes, I think it was too, Mayor. Thank you. Unlike, good to see each of you again. Thanks for having me. Unlike most presentations, I have no pictures for you tonight. In front of you, you should have an Excel spreadsheet that is colored red and green and yellow. Just a quick overview of that. Essentially, think of red as bad and green as good. The yellow column off to the far right indicates the number of days that a property has been on the registry. There are some outliers from 2022, but we're going to go through some numbers here. The other part of my presentation is called vacant and abandoned by the numbers, and you'll see that as well. Mr. Schaefer, I believe you asked for this spreadsheet a couple of meetings ago. Yes, I appreciate it, really. Yep, absolutely.

One thing, and if you could send that by email to us after the meeting at some point. Yeah, I can do that. If you have in your data, you have the district, you could add that as a column. That would be awesome. If not, it's not a big deal.

Nope, I can do that. I will absolutely do that. Okay, so just the single page now, the letterhead that you've got in front of you. Essentially, we currently have 42 active cases that I'm working on. Twenty-three of those cases have been registered on the registry. They've come forward and registered with us. Sixteen of those have not, and those compose a problem. Of the three, or there are three that have challenged our determination. One of those challenges is a vacation home, which is an exemption in the ordinance. The other two are currently in conversations with the city attorney. so we have three I'm sorry there were four we did this yesterday too didn't we there were four challenges three are still outstanding we did have one challenge that was upheld we had a Board of Public Works hearing is that what we're calling it and that challenge was upheld that the property was vacant so Let's see, 23 that have registered, 17 submitted an abatement plan to me, and just one of those 17 has begun work. The average time of those abatement plans is roughly six months that I've had them. So for six months, 17 submitted a plan, but only one has really begun any work. Six of the 23 actually meet standards and we'll continue to monitor those. About halfway down, 347 days is the average time on the registry for these properties. This includes those that are currently meeting standards, those that have not registered, and those of which we are monitoring. 373 days is the average time on the registry of the 17 that have registered and have submitted an abatement plan. 194 days, about six months, is the average time since an abatement plan was submitted, yet no work has begun. 14 properties have been assessed liens and fines, I'm sorry, penalties, and that's equivalent to nearly $9,000. That's a quarterly situation that I go through. I mean, it's a rolling thing, but the next major part is in August. And then finally, actually, I've updated that there's actually four new structures that we've identified. I did open a new case today, so three more cases to open. So our total active cases will go up to 46. And that is pretty much what I have for you tonight. Any questions for me?

let's make a couple of anecdotal comments here, which is, uh, the results are what we expected, which is it's hard. Uh, that's why we did the ordinance because we knew it was hard, but it was important. I'm very grateful for those who have, uh, uh, collaborated with us. That's the goal is to have a dialogue with the property owner, uh, Far too often, these properties have sat there not just for the six or nine months that Dewey's been working with them, but years, and in some cases, decades, with no plan and no accountability for what those properties are doing to their neighborhoods. Most of the owners of these properties don't live next door. They live in other, nicer neighborhoods. And that's very unfortunate. But we're going to continue to work on this, and the goal here is to not have any penalties or fines. Because if you're working with the city, and you're developing a plan, and you're working toward the minimum standards of maintenance, there's no fines. But as Dewey's describing here, many of these had to be force-registered. Half of them aren't providing any abatement plans. Some of those who are providing abatement plans aren't doing any work. But it's important. This is extremely important for a number of reasons. We keep talking a lot about historic preservation and how important that is to our city. We talk about the unsafe structures and abating those. If you want to If you want a first-hand example of dilapidated properties that are unsafe, you can walk around town and see boarded up, burned up buildings that have been there for a while where they have not been properly maintained and they catch on fire. And now that's another situation that we have to correct. But this is important work. Dewey's doing a really good job. We have one person doing code enforcement and the nuisances in the three, you've been here four years now?

It'll be five years, January the 3rd.

And in total, how many nuisance, unsafe, and vacant and abandoned cases have you managed in that short period of time?

Oh, I'm over 2,000 now combined. 2,000 cases.

This is a real problem for our city. And our goal here is to get the attention of the property owners. It's all across the city, mostly downtown. And the penalties are finally starting to accrue, unfortunately. That takes a lot of manpower to manage and collect and enforce. It's a lot easier. And we do have some good examples of... property owners working with us and actually completing an abatement plan and doing the work. And I will just say thank you to all of them because it does make a difference. So that's just my anecdotal comments to that, but I hope that everybody sees the importance of this and our plea to those property owners. You have an opportunity to positively impact your neighborhood. Please take it.

Anything else?

Thank you, Dewey. You're very welcome.

Yeah, absolutely. I'll come back again in three months or so. If not before, for some time. Thank you.

Okay, moving on. Thank you for that presentation, Dewey. And now we'd like to invite Tanya Burnett, our Director of Operations for Parks Department, to give you an update.

Good evening, Council.

I'm going to wait a minute for Mindy to pull up the reports, but you should have them there with you. Well, needless to say, the Parks Department... Okay. Needless to say, the Parks Department is rocking and rolling. We're six months in into our busy season, and summer's here. So there are some participant numbers there on the front. Oh, I didn't turn that around. Wait until she goes. Is that the first page she's got on there? Can you slide down to the participant numbers? It's this one. It might be at the bottom.

Oh, they're all sideways.

Okay, well you guys have that. It lists all of our programs and then different areas that people participate in our programs and facilities. And like I said, this is just six months in. These are the numbers year to date. So we're at 12,554 individuals. It's adult and youth, so... That's what that is.

Different programs on our facilities for the first six months of this year? Yes.

I will highlight that 274 of those are our furry friends at the campground. We track how many dogs are with the campers at the campground. Now, we cannot track how many dogs are at the dog park, but we also serve them there. And then Crystal Beach has dog days of summer before we close down the pool, and it's always a. A favorite of the community. So any questions looking through that? I'll flip over to the Crystal Beach Daily Count. And this is up until Sunday the 14th. And as you can see in three weeks we had 10,907 people in that pool. which is crazy to me. Like, just three weeks, guys. Three weeks. It's phenomenal, the amount. We did break a record this Saturday, the 13th. We had 899 people in that pool, and that's capacity. So, I just want to commend Shelly and the rest of the staff at the pool. They are such hard workers. We get so many compliments on our guards. They do a phenomenal job, and it This is her third year here. She started after the renovation. And I've been here that long, too. It just gets better and better every year. So I do want to commend them on their work and effort. That's a lot of people in a small, confined space in a short amount of time. So thank you to her and the rest of the full staff. You do a great job. The next page, we're going to switch to a little concession stand fun. Yeah, I've got some charts there for you. And our top seller is something new this year. We added Dippin' Dots. And we sold $5,538.24 in Dippin' Dots in three weeks at the pool. Crazy, I know. That doesn't even include Rucker. We have Dippin' Dots at Rucker as well, but this is just at the pool in three weeks. At the beginning of the season when we were going through, you know, what are we going to sell at the pool, we had the same things we've had in the previous years but nobody else around now since the movie theaters open they do have Dippin Dots up there but nobody else downtown had Dippin Dots and kids love Dippin Dots so we looked into getting those and they've done phenomenal by far our top seller quantity wise we've sold more hot dogs but they don't cost as much and then there's just the top 10 concession stand items And then the next page is just the revenue and numbers, day passes versus how many season passes we've sold. It's probably one more down, Mindy. Might be back up. And then that last one there, if you look at the revenue for the pool in three weeks, We're a third of what we did last year in just three weeks, and we've got 15 weeks for the season. So we're ahead of schedule and revenue. We've had a great spring, early summer for the pool, campground, and sunrise. So doing good. Revenue's coming in. I also want to thank you guys for passing the FAB tax. We're running about $50,000 average for the past three years. And that enables us to do so much. Three months. Did I say three years? Yes, I do mean three months. But it makes a huge difference. And if you add the participants in our programs and the pool daily count, I mean, that's up to 25,000 people touched in six months. And that just makes our jobs a lot easier. We're able to be more efficient, get the equipment we need, and we really do appreciate that. It's been a big help. I didn't have the whole month we do it month to month and I just had for May four thousand three hundred fifty five eighty nine cents for total revenue for the pool there's not a total

Sorry, I can get that to you. That's all right. I was just trying to look at the total revenue numbers, $51,940 for the passes. Entry fee, yeah. Sounds like maybe $10,000, $15,000, somewhere in that ballpark for concessions revenue.

Yeah, I can get that to you. I just didn't have it on this chart. Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been fun. And that's a lot of numbers. And I do want to share that it's not always about the numbers. It's about the people. And I'm going to invite Martha Jane Schimpfessel and Merritt to come up here and join me.

So this is Martha Jane's 70th year at the pool. Seventieth.

She's been coming to Crystal Beach for 70 years. Raised her family there. She's got her daughter here. Martha worked for us last summer at the front door. For a little while. She wanted to be in the pool. And then Merritt is here with her, who's one of our gray watch. And, um, Then her son also worked at the pool. I'm going to let her tell the story. But Martha, she's just going to share what the pool has meant to her and just how important it is to their family.

I'm not a public speaker. I don't even know why I'm here. But I love the pool. I always have. I started when I was 14 years old. My mother did want me to come before then. So when I got 14, I talked her into it. So I'd take swimming lessons and everything. And time went on. Excuse me. I brought my three children down here. And then I was with Mary Helen Hill and her three children. And we had a wonderful time while they was growing up. And as time went by, then the grandkids came. So I had Patrick Guy and Milliken. I came down. And I spent the summer with them at the pool. Then Patrick later on wanted to be a lifeguard, but he lived in Shelby County. And I thought, oh Lord, I don't think I can let him work down here. I don't think you guys would let him work. And besides, it was a different party.

It was a Democrat, you know.

So anyhow, I came down, and I talked to Mayor Welch, and he said that he'd hire him. So then I told Patrick he had to send thank you notes to the mayor and people that let him, you know, who hired him. And he was really thrilled about that at that age because he was a sophomore in high school. And he did a sophomore... season and when he was a junior and then he quit and then later on down the he moved to Madison and he lives here now and I do love Madison and I love the pool and I like the aerobics at the pool and the lazy river and and we have a great manager Shelly and she's good with people and she works hard And my time at the pool is a great time and great fun. That's all I have for you.

I really appreciated the stories because all of us have our fond memories of Crystal Beach and And honestly, in 2022, one of the hardest things to do is close the old pool because it had become unsafe. But we knew and all of us worked and so many across our community worked so hard to build Crystal Beach back because we knew how important it was to our community. And it is continuing to extend and build more memories. more memories and you mentioned something too that i thought was also kind of funny because one of my first jobs for the city i had to get a merit card signed because if you you know in order whoever was in political power at the time controlled all the jobs they don't do that anymore but you had to go around to the to the precinct committeeman and get their get your card signed and turn it in but they don't they don't do that anymore but In recognition, and on behalf of the Parks Department and Carla, our president of the Parks Board, in recognition of your 70 years of memories at Crystal Beach and four generations of family tradition, from her to her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Crystal Beach has been a part of your life and their lives for generations. And you know our slogan in the Parks Department is, from one generation to the next. And you're living it. And so on behalf of the city, we'd like to present you a lifetime access to Crystal Beach Aquatic Park. And so that you will enjoy many, many, many more years. I sure hope it's a long, long... And if you keep coming to Crystal Beach, I know it's going to be a long time. So congratulations and thank you so much. I'll present those to you.

Okay, and Merritt's going to share too.

I love the energy of summer in Madison and Crystal Beach. It is where it all comes together. Families, neighbors, friends share in the same space. Being a part of that daily rhythm makes it so meaningful. The community connections are so special I get to see the same families return each season. and we remember names, milestones, first jumps off the diving board. My mom has been coming for 73 years. I've been coming my entire life. I was assistant manager during COVID. This was also my third year as Grey Watch Guard. My son Patrick was a lifeguard for three years, and my daughter has brought my grandson, Dean, for swimming lessons. Crystal Beach brings my family, cousins, one of my favorites, the Nants, and friends together. It makes you feel like you're a part of a very special tradition. Being a part of Gray Watch has improved my well-being, fresh air, movement, and sense of purpose. It has made my summers healthier and happier. But honestly, my coworkers have made it some unforgettable summers. Shelly has done an awesome job running the pool the last few years. I love our community pool. Crystal Beach will always hold a special place in my heart. Thank you.

Hey, Tanya. Just looping back around from Crystal back to the complex. I just wanted to say that Brett and her team have been doing an outstanding job. Seeing baseball and softball back up there this year in a serious fashion has meant a lot to so many families.

She's been a phenomenal addition to the team. Yes, they've done a great job.

Her and TJ and Zach, you've been doing great. Christian's been keeping the fields in great condition.

I will mention they've gotten John Paul Park ready this year. The men are back down playing at John Paul Park. That's been nice too. They've got the lights fixed and the dugouts and field work done. Christian and the guys have done a great job getting all that ready. We've gotten a lot of comments from parents about just the fields haven't looked that good in years. I commend the whole team. We've got a lot of hard workers. A lot of hard workers.

So my daughter is home from New Albany today, and she told me her co-worker that lives in Paoli, they're coming to Madison tomorrow, spending the night just to go to Crystal Beach. Awesome. Because they heard about Crystal Beach.

Well, when I told the mayor and Tony the numbers for Saturday, Tony's like, the word's got out. So I expect a lot more of those days, honestly. Yeah. It's a phenomenal facility. And really, for $7, I mean, we think sometimes that's a lot. But if you look around at aquatic parks, I mean, when we got invited to for the states, $30 a day per person. It's bigger than ours. But still, I mean, $7 for that facility is amazing.

I'll just echo that I think the Parks Department is doing a great job. And it reaffirms how important it is to our community. And I'm grateful for all of your support for the investment as well as our community's support. There's really nothing more that can be better than Parks and Recreation. And as we think about the importance of health and wellness, City of Madison is the premier provider in our community for health and wellness opportunities.

And that's why we had Martha and Merritt here just so you could hear their story. Um, they're just one of so many more, so many more. So thank them for coming.

Thank you guys. For on the parks team and Crystal Beach for being here today too. And Nancy, thank you for being here too as well. All right. Um, Moving on, President Barlow, were there any public comments?

Yes, we do have a couple. Lisa Ferguson?

Lisa Ferguson, 718 East 2nd Street. I'd just like to do a follow-up to a good news story. A couple months ago, I came before you all and asked about getting... 10 flags placed down at grody lamplighter park and hannah text right away during the meeting and said we don't have any money for that can you go out and raise money and so i just called jd webster and said can you uh pay for this and so the riverfront development stepped up and sent a check thank you shirley for figuring all that out that was not easy i know and the jefferson county republican women paid for all the flags so it was a collaboration between both of us and they went up Before Flag Day, I kept saying to Trevor, are they in? Are they in? They didn't make it for the Grody celebration for 125th. They just missed it by two days. But they were up for Flag Day, and I'm getting text messages. They look wonderful. I think it makes Grody look better because there's more flags out there. So I just wanted to follow up and tell you all I've already sent a letter to the Republican women and to J.D. for sponsoring that and getting it paid for. So if you've not been down to see Grody, Lamplighter Park, go see it. It looks great. Thank you all.

Thanks for that. And I'll just mention, too, that Fourth of July lights are going up, and we had an awesome Flag Day celebration on Sunday. You can't drive through Madison without, I think, being proud of your community, being proud of your country, feeling very patriotic, but also being very grateful for all of the sacrifice that has gone before us. And we have a duty.

We also have Deanna Shelley.

Hello. I'm Deanna Shelley, 120 Wall Street. I'm a carbon copy of Martha Jane, except she got a head start on me, because I'm only down to grandchildren. Don't have the great-grandchildren yet. But I've been doing the same thing, coming every day, every day with my kids, every time I have my grandkids. Two are here now, and were just there yesterday. So they have a ball. and John Paul Park. My grandsons love to watch the games there, so that's something they ask about on this trip. But I have noticed the weeds at the very top of the hill, they're kinda high, so I'd like to see some attention to that. I did wanna bring to your attention, there's a traffic problem at Main and Cragmont, because hardly anyone turns left. everybody's turning right or going straight so when IKA shift changes we have a real bottleneck there and it goes in both directions because we can't get any relief for those who want to turn right they have to wait in line wait in line and that means one person or one car can get through the light and the whole light that wants to turn left and go up the hill that's facing east so it's a problem it backs up a block in both directions so if you could think about finding some way to get us a right turn area it would relieve that immensely And of course, you know, I love this town. I know everybody here loves this town. And I know we're all caring people. But I have a few questions that I want you to really consider. Would you submit yourself or 80 residents to periodic flooding with the project still in play our riverfront and why would you choose to put new structures in the middle of such historic treasures nothing you add will attract tourists it's just different 80 residents along with the possibility of a hundred and sixty cars one corner will eliminate our present peaceful riverfront subject to heavy traffic do not replace what you see as blight which I see as natural character with urban sprawl the front of the warehouse could be painted it's making notes around my paper it's more it is more appropriate to that area than space for new apartments a very high percentage of the town and you know we oppose this project I don't know what it is that pushes this forward it's not the people so maybe you can explain but I'd rather see you put your money into acquiring the old Meyer manufacturing building still in the riverfront area very close transform it into housing it would be another recovered treasure that fits our heritage if you want 80 more apartments Please, put them on the hilltop. You can't hurt anything up there, but you can on Vaughn Drive. So that's my plea for our city's historic heritage. Common sense, caring, protection. Please. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, that's all? Okay. Thank you, Ms. Shelley, for your remarks. I want to answer a couple of things, just for the record. A couple of things you mentioned about urban sprawl and tourism and the Meyer Building. We're not seeking the development of that property for tourists. It's for residents, new Madisonians who will call Madison home and support our local economy. We all have, hopefully I think you've read about or heard about or heard me speak numerous times about difficulty of expanding our property tax base in Madison, property tax reform that as we have projected here with council and community, going to eliminate millions of dollars of revenue for the community. Part of the way that we have always tried to address that, not just me, but my predecessors as well, is there's an element of it where you have to grow yourself out of this. You have to bring more people here. You have to expand your tax base. You have to do improvement and redevelopment across the community that enhances the value. Well, and on that note, we live in a beautiful historic community that's not all historic and isn't, we're 21st century people living in a lot of 19th century architecture. It's architecture. We are doing things very carefully so that it does make a contribution without impairing the historic district, the National Historic Landmark District, and We've already received a letter from the Department of Historic Preservation and Archaeology to that effect. A bigger problem is all the dilapidated and vacant and abandoned properties in Madison. That's a bigger problem, in my opinion. But we have an opportunity and a duty to pursue redevelopment activity to help support the long-term goals of the community and bring more residents here. and manage it appropriately. There's a lot of care and discussion, and there's still three more meetings that we'll have to have. We'll be bringing information back to the city council. Our redevelopment commission will have to sign off on elements of the development, and then Historic District Board of Review will sign off on design. And we have design guidelines in place, and I can assure you that we haven't been on this journey for three or four years because we want to hurt the historic district or we think that putting the apartments there are wrong. And I can tell you I don't believe that that is a naturally beautiful piece of our riverfront. It needs a plan. We've introduced a plan. No one's introduced a better plan. And we're going through methodically all of these steps and have been for the last several years and particularly over the course of the last year. with all the approvals that are in place. I acknowledge that the weight of this development is extremely important. We don't take it lightly. There is a lot of thought and care being placed in it. We've gone through a lot of of public discussion as well as public meetings for the approvals. There's still many more months to go on this endeavor, and I appreciate your concerns. I live down here too. I've lived here my entire life. I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. And you can see the success of our redevelopment efforts everywhere. Five years ago, you couldn't walk down the street without having Abandoned property, candidly. Our gateway was horrible. We had burned up, boarded up buildings, littering all through the town. And if those 40 properties and our gateway and those 2,000 nuisance cases that Dewey was talking about, if they don't have any negative impact on a beautiful historic district like ours, I believe that the right thing to do is bring more people to Madison. and do it appropriately and with care. I just want to let everybody here know there's a lot more steps that we're still following through and we'll do that over the course of the summer and we'll continue to have, I think, very robust public discussion about it while at the same time we're bringing in new investors for our hotel or new investors for subdivisions New strategies to improve the beauty of our community. We're doing a lot of things at the same time, and I think that they're producing results. Other announcements that I want to make, too, I want to invite everybody in the community to our ribbon-cutting tomorrow, speaking of making additional investment in the quality of life for our community. And that will be at the trailhead on McIntyre Street, 530. And this is in recognition of all of the multiple collaborations relative to the Clifty Connector. I want to thank Tony and Emily and Erica, the Parks Department, everybody who's been involved. This investment is very spectacular. And as a person that loves our community, exercises a lot, lives at Crystal Beach part-time, I'm on the trail part-time, and it is a beautiful trail, and it looks like it belongs to Clifty Falls State Park, and Clifty Falls and DNR are big supporters of this particular investment that we're making. But I wanted to just recognize the work that they're doing on the entire trail system across the city, and the Clifty Connector is part of it. We'll go over more details about that tomorrow, but I want to hopefully counsel you guys can make it, community members can make it. Come celebrate with us. Celebrate the good things that are happening, the investments that are happening, the new opportunities that we have. Celebrate with us. Because a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of early long days, a lot of planning, and a lot of... Community support and fundraising goes into making all these things happen. And that's what it takes for a thriving community to evolve. We're not static in any regard. If we are, that's taking a step backwards. But we'll just continue to work very hard. And I know that there's, like I said, some people don't like the parks. We had a groundbreaking on Welch Park. Some people don't like the improvements for pedestrian safety. Some people don't like the crosswalks. Some people don't like the turn signals. Some people don't like on and on and on and on. And we take all those factors into consideration. We have to balance it out. So we make good decisions that are not just based upon our love or our differences, but just about good decisions and use a lot of data to help guide that. Our next meeting, I do want to mention the next time we'll meet will be after 4th of July. So I want to wish everybody a 4th of July, a great 4th of July and America 250 celebration. We're going to have lots of activities planned for that week. Our hometown USA parade is going to be phenomenal. We'll have well over 10,000 people there. Our fireworks are going to be bigger and better than ever. Rooster Tail Festival, Juneteenth holidays this weekend. we're leaning into just really the best time to live in Madison, which is during our summer. But I'll stop there, and our next meeting is Tuesday, July 7th. Council, if you have anything you'd like to add, we'll adjourn.

I've got a few quick things since you decided to bring it up. You say the development down at Bonin Jefferson you don't take it lightly so why did you make a complete 180 with the way the proposed development is going now not taking into consideration anything that was brought up over all of the time we spent on this last year bumping the capacity way up, pushing the setbacks back.

Well, since you brought it up, what are we doing that's different than all that discussion and changes to our proposal and then the final adoption? Everything is complying with the zoning that we spent literally a year working on. uh... and as you know you're in the real estate business so what we're doing now is the refinement process we're looking at what fits on that space with the parameters that were approved a lot of public discussion was happening on that and we're also working with an investor partner who is trying to figure out what's the right unit mix in order to make it economically economically viable so i didn't do a 180 and you know i didn't do a 180 yeah yeah you did because you presented this

project to us and you presented this zoning to us under the guise of this specific project because otherwise this could have easily been lumped in with with the full-on rezoning project we did earlier and and i'm still speaking and at that that first plan commission meeting i think it was you came in you said no no you know we're listening to the public we're scaling back the building we're scaling back the number of units that go into it Using that in good faith to present to the plan commission, to the city. And we move forward. The zoning passes after months and months and debate with large setbacks. And these design plans that are coming out now don't respect those setbacks.

That's false.

They drastically scale up the size of the building.

That is also false.

And you know it. eighty eighty eight units you get that and that that was it that was a chief that was a chief concern of this was that the density of the project on that this like in your head bob bob i'm like i'm bob i'm speaking point of order stop yelling don't interrupt stop don't don't interrupt point of order don't interrupt i don't i don't i don't i don't interrupt closing the discussion no no you can't you can't close the discussion because i'm a member of the city council and i'm speaking point of order you're out of order i'm not out of order you are out of order i'm not out of order Mayor Courtney, I'm not out of order. I'm a member of the City Council, and if I wish to make comments as a duly elected sitting member of the City Council, I'll make those comments. You don't have to respond to me, but you're the one who has chosen to engage with me. I did not.

Your first concern is from 40 to 80, correct?

There's a lot of drastic concerns.

What are the other 180s that you see?

Setbacks on the building, the design itself, the scale, all of it. Not engaging with the public, not considering... the really serious concerns that our community has about this project and also pawning it off to a private developer and asking the taxpayers to subsidize what, about a third of the total cost?

First of all, I want to say, despite Councilman Thibault's remarks, I appreciate investment in our community.

I absolutely appreciate investment. And don't imply that I don't. I'll make a point of order here as long as he's – to raise the point that don't put words in my mouth because I don't – Well, you're stating things that are untrue. So the setbacks – Specifically what's untrue.

We spent a year debating and litigating the creation of the Riverfront District, and it was approved in October after going through months and months and months of public conversation on it. And then after October, we completed our work on the Unified Development Ordinance, which included the Riverfront District. And that was unanimously approved by both the Plain Commission and City Council. Now the stage that we're in is, like I said, the refinement. We know what needs to go there and it is blatantly false to say that we are somehow not complying with setbacks, somehow putting a larger building on the site. That is not true. What is going through now is general economics for real estate to figure out what can we do within the parameters in order to, A, provide housing to our community, which we have demonstrated is a great need, make them even more affordable because the units are going to be a little smaller than what had anticipated, but also what's it going to take to attract investment to our community to solve a chronic housing need. So you are stating things that are just false and creating division. The topic about whether or not there's going to be apartments on Bond Drive has been litigated. It has been approved by council not once but twice. It's been approved by the Planning Commission not once but twice. You signed the ordinance. You actually led a lot of the, frankly, good discussion about how do we make this a better deal in that area. And where we landed I felt was appropriate. There was compromise on both sides. But it is false to basically say I'm pawning things off on an investor. We are working very hard to bring investment in our community. It's also false to say that we are violating setbacks. It's also false to say that we're putting a bigger building on the site. What is true is that we're working with an investor to attract the investment. We're continuing to work with the Indiana Economic Development Corporation and the One Southern RDA to finalize the commitments that they have made for the Ready program. And we're doing that simultaneously with also working on our other Ready projects, which is the amphitheater and the other park investments. So there's still a process. There's a process that takes time. There's a tremendous amount of complexity and moving parts to an investment like this. And I would think that after a half a century of that riverfront kind of turning into what it is, that portion anyway, we all agreed we needed to bring new investment in there. It is an area that demands new redevelopment strategies. We've introduced a plan, but over the course of the next few months, there will be more opportunity for public discussion, as I mentioned. There's council meeting. There's a redevelopment commission. There's a commission meeting. There's historic district board of review. So we're working on parallel tracks. And these are very, very hard things that we do. We don't do them because they're really easy and anybody can do them. We do them because this is what we specialize in. And we have a chronic shortage of housing. Many of us here don't because we have great homes. We need more housing. We're building housing. Sunrise Crossing is an example of that. single-family subdivisions are going to be an example of that we need our market study was a predictive housing analysis and it says we need housing across all income points so you know what I would say for the community is take a breath there's more information to come we're working really hard and I do agree that there are people that will never agree to build any housing anywhere, let alone on the corner of Vaughn and Jefferson. But we're doing our best, and we're working really hard on it. We're rolling up our sleeves to get things done, and like I said, there's more opportunity to have conversations about it as we go.

Real quick, one last follow-up here. You won't be asking for any variances from development standards?

I do not anticipate asking for any variances. I'll hold you to that. What's that? I'll hold you to that. That's okay. I fully expected it because... We are accountable to our community. All of us are. And we can choose to do nothing, or we can choose to do something with a plan. And I think the time of doing nothing is over. It's been too long. So we're going to work very, very hard to bring the best housing development we can in an area that we all love and is dear to us. So I would just ask that let's just be patient and continue to work through the process. Some of those who don't believe in this project, I hope that we can convince you to support us. Those who will never believe in this project, I hope you understand why the community needs support. Those of you who have businesses downtown, thank you for taking the risk that people will walk through your doors. I did say people. Everything we've done in this administration has been people-focused. Everything. And we're going to continue on that path. And I will say it. I'm grateful for having a great team. Tony and his team, Mindy, Shirley, the staff all across the city, all 100 of them are working extremely, extremely hard. And thank you, Council, for your support, all the volunteers on our two dozen boards. This is not easy stuff, but it's important things, and we'll just continue to do the best we can. If we get to a wall... We get to a wall. But we're problem solvers. And we'll just do the best we can. Like I said, our next meeting is July 7th. Council, anything else? I'll have a motion to adjourn.

A motion to adjourn the meeting.

Seconded. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thanks to everyone for being here.

Thank you.