Common Council - Regular Meeting

Speak signed in. If not, please come up here. I've got the list.

Well, good evening everyone. Today is Tuesday, July the 7th. Welcome to the City Council meeting. We're streaming live on City of Madison YouTube channel as well as archiving the meeting there. As with all of our prior meetings, we would invite you to stand to recite the Lord's Prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance and we'll get to the meeting.

on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. 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. For the diligence to the life of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands,

All right, clerk, may we have a roll call, please?

Patrick Tevenow? Here. Carla Krebs? Here. Lucy DiTillo? Here. Josh Schaefer? Here. Joel Storm?

Here.

Jim Bartlett?

Here.

And Josh Wilbur?

Here.

All right, council, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from the last meeting? The day of June 16th, if so, we'll entertain a motion to approve. I move that we approve the minutes as written.

I will second that.

Any discussion? If not, all in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Before we get into the agenda tonight, I'd like to go over some rules. And this is from the city master rules of procedure that we adopted, ordinance number 2024-6. We adopted this in October of 2024. The mayor shall preside over all meetings of the common council in case of the absence of the mayor, then it's a president pro temp. The presiding officer of the common council should call the members to order promptly at the date. Now we're appointed. And during the session of resigning officer shall preserve order and the quorum and I should decide all questions of order. If any member transgresses the rules of common council. or commits any other breach of order or decorum, the presiding officer shall call them to order, either on their own motion or at the instance of any member who shall call attention to the same by voicing a point of order. In such a case, the member so called to order shall refrain from further comment immediately unless permitted by the presiding officer to explain their remarks or actions. If the transgression of the rules or other breach of order or quorum is serious enough in the judgment of the council, the member so offending may be censored or fined by a vote of the council. On all points of order, the member affected shall have the right to appeal the decision, and there are also rules of conduct for the public as well. So with that said, we'll go right into tonight's business, and I'll turn it over to Joe.

Resolution 2026-7C, a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, authorizing the transfer of interest in real estate to the Madison Redevelopment Commission. And this is sponsored by Councilman Storm. Do we have a motion to approve?

I move that we approve resolution number 2026-7C.

Okay, do we have a second?

Seconded.

Okay, and so now it's open for comment.

I have an amendment I would like to offer to resolution 2026-7c and it would add the following clause as number two and renumber the existing 2 and 3 to 3 and 4. And the clause would state, the Madison Redevelopment Commission shall include a clause prohibiting any request for variances from zoning standards in Madison's Unified Development Ordinance as a part of any agreement to transfer this property to a developer or other third party.

Is there a second?

I will second.

all in favor aye or is there any discussion on that sorry I did I did is there any discussion on that any discussion from the public on that seeing and hearing none oh just the amendment yeah okay seeing and hearing none let's do a roll call vote on this

Sure. Can you repeat who did have the motion and who had the second, please?

Patrick had the motion and Josh had the second.

Patrick Tavenow? Yes. Carla Krebs? Yes. Lucy Dottillo? No. Josh Schaefer? Yes. Joel Storm?

Yes.

Jim Bartlett?

No.

And Josh Wilber?

Yes.

May I ask for the written motion, please?

Thank you. So now it is open to discussion.

Turn your mic on.

Open to discussion. I don't know if the council wants to go first or wants to hear from the audience first. Okay, open it for public comment.

They made an amendment to the resolution to essentially ask the redevelopment commission to put a clause in any in a in a economic development agreement with a potential developer

that the developer would not ask for a variance from developmental standards in the UDO.

Robert Stacer, 518 East Second Street. I can see the future. Many voters will speak tonight, virtually all of them against the sale of the Madison coal lot to the Redevelopment Commission. Patrick Tevena will listen to the voters and will vote no. The other six city council members will not listen to the voters and will vote yes. We know who those six listen to, and it isn't the voters who elected them. The motion will pass. It is a done deal. There is nothing anyone can do to stop the development on the Madison coal lot. I speak now to the voters. You elected those six and you can't undo that. The only thing you can do is wait for November 2027, the next election, and elect other people. Which other people? You might think that your only two choices are Republicans and Democrats, but you would be mistaken. You have a third choice. The cutting back city hall party will run a slate of candidates for mayor and for city council. You can learn more about the cutting back city hall party at its website, www.cuttingbackcityhall.org or on its Facebook page. You can contact the Cutting Back City Hall Party via its website or via Facebook. If you want to run for office as part of that slate, then contact them. If you want to support them, then contact them. If you want to change the way City Hall works, then vote for them. Thank you.

Excuse me. For just a moment, I do need to remind the audience that we do have a four-minute limit on comment from the audience to make sure that everybody who wishes to make a comment has opportunity to make that comment. Thank you.

Name and address, please. I'm sorry. Can I get your name and address? Turn it off.

All right, Kevin Callum, Thornton Road, Madison, Indiana. As a private citizen who cares deeply about Madison, Jefferson County, eighth generation in the county and fourth generation in the city, what I know is I believe that the largest deficit that we have here in this community is housing. We need more as quickly as possible. We need it at all price points, as many locations as possible. The downtown economy is very fragile, especially during winter, as some of you know. So what does that mean for us here today? What it means is we need more permanent downtown residents. Now, if I can put a dividing line across that, I'm also your representative on the Regional Development Authority Board, and that's a five-county entity. And on that board, I can say as one board member that When we first looked at this project, it's in question, the state's strongest emphasis was on housing, adding additional housing throughout the state and especially here. The project scored very highly during the first round, and what I think is more interesting is that very recently it scored first out of the entire five-county region for additional funding.

Anybody else?

I'm Randy Bellamy, 409 East 3rd Street here in Madison. I don't understand some things. I don't understand how we can pay $150,000 for a piece of property and sell it for $100,000 and call that fair market value. That doesn't make any sense to me. Our property values have done nothing but rise in the last several years. Ask anybody that's trying to find a house in Madison. So I don't understand that at all. It is illegal to do it that way, as far as I can tell. I don't know where you found your people that backed up that as fair market value values. But I am sure that they're, I'm not sure. I think they're probably bought and paid for somehow. Another thing I don't understand is how the city and all of you can go against what all of your constituents are saying, not all of them, most of your constituents are saying, and vote for this thing. I don't understand that. How can you do that? You're spending all your political capital and your good names for this. For a piece of crap along the river. Because that's what it's going to end up as. That's what I have to say. So, Mr. Buckley, Yeah, makes some sense, yes.

Not really, but yeah.

Gee.

Yeah. I've been going through the online thing that you guys . Thank you, thank you. And I'm through page eight right now, and that was in and out of signatures, and . I don't think it's the majority, necessarily. If, according to this petition, only 50% of people actually live in that incentive assignment, Okay. But...

When we have done surveys and all of that, everybody says, oh, that's an inflated number because the people that are against it are the ones that are going to make all the noise. Of course we are. But usually when some people are making noise against something that you love and want to have happen, you stand up for them. So I don't understand how you can disregard the feelings of of all of your constituents, or most of your constituents, a majority of your constituents. That's it.

Anybody else?

Good evening, I'm Jan Vitrus at 701 East 2nd Street. Just to piggyback on what was just said, I was down at Regatta this weekend and talked to lots of people that don't live here anymore, but grew up here. They are horrified that Madison would do this, and also tourists like What are they even thinking? It's in the floodplain. That would destroy our riverfront. Everything you've worked for, it's beautiful. Why would you screw it up? So yes, there might be a lot of out-of-town people that signed the petition, but many of those are tourists, and we need those tourist dollars. That's part of our economy downtown. The other thing I wanted to point out, I was doing some research for something else and stumbled across some 1950s newspaper articles when Mayor Vaughn was starting the riverfront cleanup. It was coal yards. It was junkyards. It was derelict buildings. And the vision that he had in the 1950s of the open green space where people could walk We actually had a lot more boats on the river back then. We even had a ski jump. All kinds of really neat things. And he's, well, the Madison Courier actually had an editorial about the wonderful vision for the riverfront drive, which wasn't even called Vaughn Drive then. So since the 1950s, the mayors have had a vision of what that riverfront could be. I've watched it in the 30-plus years I've lived here. people have grown up here and realize what a treasure and how this will destroy that. And yes, we need more housing. We have gobs of opportunities in other places downtown. So thank you.

My name is Champ Clawson, 722 West 3rd Street, right here in Madison. My wife will probably get angry at me because I say this regularly at home. Feelings, as important as they are, are not facts. Now that I've just angered my wife, I still love you. The reality for me is we're not talking about this grandiose scale building. We're also not talking about something any different than almost any other community along the same river has. If we take a look along this same river, we see all the cities in which tourism is important. A vital part of our economics is indeed tourism. But yet, in those cities, a building, a single building along the river has not affected negatively tourism in those areas. In fact, when we take a look at places like Louisville and Jeffersonville and New Albany, We look along this same river, and we see buildings in appropriate areas, just as this one would be. What is concerning to me is that those in opposition, as well as they have the right to be in opposition, don't seem to have the ability to negotiate. It's all or nothing. It's not just that we're against a hotel. They want a green space that flattens out. And they negate the fact that we have green space all along the river except there. They also negate the fact that they could have purchased that property themselves and developed that green space. And not only that, it's like we can't even talk about the potential of a restaurant or some other economic development. It's an all or nothing. To me, we need to take a step back. We need to start working together. Yes, we need to listen to each other, but holy mackerel, we've had, what, a year now of rancor and banter? Perhaps we do need to take a look at what the other cities are doing and ask, why not here in Madison? Is one building in one area upon which every part of that used to be buildings really going to destroy Madison or Is that rhetoric we want to tell ourselves? Economically, it makes sense. The box has not changed. Maybe our view does. Thank you.

Richard Ice, 118 Jefferson Street. For many, many years, we have said, Madison is different. That's why you want to come here. Now he just says, we want to be just like everybody else. Build the building and be like Jeffersonville. Build the building and be like Louisville. No, that's not what we want. We want our riverfront exactly the way it is. As far as the idea of other ideas, I put up a Facebook post for a food court down there. There's an idea for you, Mr. Mayor. Let's engage. Let's talk about this. Slow this down. Let's talk about what else we can do down there. We could have a meeting in this room tomorrow and have 50 ideas for you. Just invite us. Open it up. And as far as the value for that lot, there's a $450,000 offer to buy that lot on the table. from Bob Canada, a very reputable person in this town, and it's gotten zero consideration. $450,000. $300,000 profit tomorrow, zero consideration. We don't have to give $7 million away to a developer, a third of the cost to build these. bottled by a tomorrow as is. And if you guys do anything and care anything about the city, you slow this down and you go talk to Bob and see what his ideas are. See why he's willing to pay that much money for a lot you only say is worth $100,000. Thank you.

just clarify that I'm not sure where mr. ice got his information but the city is not putting seven million dollars on that property and and so the economics of this the economics of this are very very positive for the city and the property is was acquired in 2021 as an area in need of redevelopment and that is the plan that we have embarked on and for the past year we have been debating what that plan should be and no one's come forward with an actual plan so this is where we are today and I actually support this because one of our most critical needs in our community is housing and we have to eventually address it point of order point of order you need to be at the podium not a Q&A it's a public comment

Are you giving the developer $7 million?

The developer $7 million?

And how is this getting built?

Where did you get your $7 million number from? Your grant application. I don't have that grant application. Where did you get that grant application at?

You've got three of them out there.

I've got it.

This is not a Q&A. You can have your statements.

Warren Oxford, 3611 West Ohio Riverview Road. First, the mayor is correct. The city is not putting $7 million in it. But there is, according to the grant application that was submitted by the city and so forth, there will be $7.2, over $7 million of public funds. It will be a mixture. First of that is the $2 million from the first ready grant. And then there's asking for another $2.933 million. And then there's TIF money, which is tax money that goes in, that will go in on the front end of another $2.25 million approximately, something like that. And there's also going to be some other tax abatements that go in on it. So there is a great deal of public money. But let me get back to what I came up to say. Everyone knows that in spite of the overwhelming opposition, the city council decided to approve spot zoning on the riverfront so Mayor Courtney could build his high-rise apartment building. And the council's actions have made it clear you are not willing to reconsider the decision at this point. So I'm not asking you to change the zoning decision. However, your unwillingness to reconsider your spot zoning decision does not relieve the council of the responsibility to guarantee the mayor builds the apartment project he presented to the council and the public to obtain the spot zoning approval. The mayor first opposed and submitted a ready grant application for an apartment building with 65 market rate and low income units. The Regional Development Authority awarded a $2 million grant for the project. The project overall cost was supposed to be $35 million, according to the application. After receiving public opposition to the 65-unit high-rise and determining the project was financially unfeasible, the mayor submitted a project addendum to the RDA for a new project called Hendrick's Loss. The Hendrick's Loss project would be a new market-rate, Class A building with 52 one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments. The loss would include extraordinary amenity package, The addendum went on to state the project would bring approximately 60 new residents to downtown Madison. These residents will have an average income of $100,000 and will have an immediate impact on the local economy. This project addendum, the council passed, or this is the project that the council passed their decision to prove the riverfront spot zoning on. It was there in the background. It was presented constantly. Here's what we're going to build. 52 units going to attract high income people. The RDA approved the amended project and the Indiana Economic Development Authority issued a $2 million funding commitment for it. Well, at some point, the mayor and or the developer apparently also found this project to be financially unfeasible. That project would have cleared up the blight. No new money. If everyone had anything in order, what was put together, it would have cleared it up. Because in November of 2025, the city issued a request for proposals on the lot again. This resulted in the mayor submitting another project addendum and the Ready Grant application to the RDA asking for an additional $2.933 million from Ready Lily Blight Elimination Fund. That application is still pending. It was scored high at the local RDA level. This latest project addendum states that the additional funds are now needed for an 80 unit apartment building offering studio, one and two bedroom units with 10% at or below 80% of the average medium income. The size of the apartments have been greatly reduced, and there's no longer any mention of attracting residents with an average income of $100,000. This is the project you're being asked to transfer the lot for. Clearly, it is not the high-income apartment building you've based your decision to approve the riverfront spot zoning on. The mayor's riverfront apartment project is obviously going to continue to evolve and appears to be evolving into primarily rent-subsidized housing. The council should insist on a written commitment from the mayor and the developer that no more than 10% of the units will be rent-subsidized.

Mr. Okshaw, I need to stop you. You've exceeded your four-minute limit.

I move to allow Mr. Aksher to speak for another minute to finish his statements take a vote aye

I'll vote to allow Mr. Archer to finish.

Before transferring the property, the council has the responsibility to assure all the necessary measures will be taken to assure that the building the apartments in a floodplain does not negatively affect our community and the health and safety of the new apartment residents. I know the mayor's response to my comments will be no need for the council to be involved. He has all my concerns covered. However, the problem is the mayor has clearly demonstrated his obsession to move this riverfront apartment idea forward has prevented him from being objective on this project. He has continued to ignore the public opposition and the serious health and safety issues of building apartments in a floodplain. I respectfully ask the council not to transfer the property until you know exactly what is going to be built and that the needed safeguards are in place to protect our community. Once the property is transferred, the council's ability to have input on the project will be greatly diminished. Thank you.

May I ask you guys to tell me who made the motion and who made the second? Okay. Okay. And all in favor?

Mr. Bartlett, I use two minutes. May I have 15 seconds?

Yes.

So the more apartments, the better. The more people, the better. That's what the downtown economy needs. It also makes them more affordable. It means more people get into it. The original opposition was because it was just going to be rich people. So now it's because there are going to be people who might not be less than rich. I rest my case.

I'm Judy Stacer 518 East 2nd Street Madison I just think that this transfer of the property to the Redevelopment Commission looks like a sleight of hand to make it possible to get this thing through that makes me very unhappy I just feel as though transparency has not been a part of this process I realized that we don't all get what we want. Some people are inevitably going to get what they want and some will not. but the transparency has been so lacking in this process there have been so many ideas for other ways to develop this property that have gone ignored there's never been a town-wide meeting just to say bring your ideas let's see what can we do with this is a whole is a an apartment complex the best thing for this is there another way we can build housing in in downtown madison with a lot of the empty spaces that we have what other ideas this is an incredibly creative artistic town there are lots of people with lots of ideas who would love to help come to a wonderful decision but i don't see transparency happening and you know many of you are just losing the faith of your constituents because of that why not just be open with us why not what have you got to hide that's what we keep thinking what's being hidden what do we not know why not sell the property to Bob Canada four hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money the city could do a lot you could maybe fix the sidewalk so people don't keep falling and breaking bones and help hurting themselves a lot of my friends have fallen multiple times and been hurt and come down to City Hall show their injuries that's a big project that really deserves attention I would like to see I'm assuming that the property that there was a proper assessment done to show that it was worth $100,000 I would like to see that can you please post that someplace where we can see that I know this is not question and answer but I would like to see that as a citizen of Madison Finally, when people, I live on the corner of St. Michael's and East 2nd, which is a very busy corner. A lot of people who stay in the hotel walk by. I'm often out in my garden doing gardening, and they chat with me, and they'll say, oh, what's the Save the Riverfront business about? And I say, oh, the city wants to put a great big apartment building right on the riverfront. And they're like, why would you do that? And nobody says, hey, that's a really cool idea. I would get one of those apartments. And I know that this is not scientific, but people are just aghast at the notion that you would put a gigantic building on the riverfront. And they're like, what? So I just wanted to pass that on and say I would really appreciate if you would be more transparent with the citizens who elected you. Because faith in the city council is at a very low ebb. You can fix that. We may end up with this apartment, but you don't have the faith of many of your constituents, and that's not a good thing for anybody in this city. Thank you.

Lisa Ferguson, 718 East 2nd Street. Just a point of clarification, I agree with Mr. Bellamy. Under Mayor Courtney's leadership, I've seen tremendous investment in our own home and the equity that's gone up, so... Let's just say where it came from, okay? It came from the leadership of the mayor and the city council. I would like to say to Mrs. Stasher, also, when you put something on change.org for a petition, you get 26 other states that say things. I don't care what those other people think. I like to say to somebody else who thinks they don't have faith in their city council, most of you I've never seen here for the last seven years. I have tremendous faith in the city council. I have arguments with Patrick, but I believe that you all have what you think is the best interest of this town. Not always what I think. not always what Carla and I agree on but I have faith in you because I watch you every two weeks consistently so I have faith in what you're doing I might disagree with you but I'm not going to discount your four years of service or your seven years of service or whatever it is to say I'm not going to elect you and I'm going to get a different council because of one issue that's just how I feel I don't care about that building I think it's an empty, dirty lot anyway. I challenge people who want more green space, have you been down to help Bob Green clean up Heritage Trail in the last four weeks? There you go.

Shelly Murphy-Smith, 418 East 2nd Street. still just really have a hard time feeling that this town the community that I live in where we are a river town and we take pride in our River is still having this issue when it is very apparent how many people are against it yeah there are a few that aren't and yeah not this all the people come to the meetings but there are a lot of people that watch the meetings that are not able to come as far as that petition people out of state come here they're tourists some of them don't live here anymore but came from here so their address might not reflect a Madison Indiana address but they could have potentially been residents at one point grew up here moved away I am like Mrs. Stasher as far as I live on 418 East 2nd people go by all the time they stop they talk to me and I have not had one person when they ask and I explain what's happening that has been for it and even when I explain that so many people are against it they are appalled that we are not being listened to and they think it's a travesty of what's going to happen they said they enjoy our riverfront they like it as it is the fact that we've been told that there have not been other ideas presented is I spent a nice over an hour with Bob Courtney. Well, I even brought a draw up as best as I can. I brought it. There's lots of people with ideas. And I think that it's sad that a community such as ours is not taking everybody into that mix. bring us together let us do it that is not the answer there are more and more houses appearing all the time for sale downtown as well as on the hilltop other ways can be found there's been many ideas published there's some really good ones out there I think it could be a great boom to our community and a tourist destination if we could do some other things with it rather than just a residence that has some people there that could there's other places that it could be taking away that riverfront being at regatta this weekend that space was very much needed and used and it could still be used with some of the other ideas that people would propose the fact that so many people are against it just really boggles my mind that this is still being pushed and pushed and pushed and then you know the fact that yeah if we get rid of it we don't have much oversay on it and the original proposal at one point because i addressed it said that the city was going to be responsible for infrastructure issues that happened so then there's that added cost and then this beautiful piece of our river once it's gone is gone and it's not going to be maybe it'll be a beautiful building but it's not going to be a natural asset to our community that can be a community place that could be also beneficial for everybody involved, tourists, citizens, people who want to, maybe if the right thing happens, there could be other economic value there that would not destroy that green area. And I think, like we said, bring the community in. We are smart, we are creative, and we care. Thanks.

Okay. Looks like that's everybody. unless there's anything from the council. Oh, sorry.

Kirk Jacobs, two 12 West second street. Um, I really didn't plan on speaking, but, uh, the transparency issue is interesting to me. Um, and I understand that you all feel like you've explained this over and over and over and you have, uh, Mr. Kelms wrote a fine article in the paper. Um, explaining that you had jumped through all the hoops. You had done the necessary things that you have to do to inform the public. But transparency takes more work than that, I know, because I spent a lot of time and effort explaining things to this work, running an organization that explained things to this community. We did it over and over and over again and often got the same questions, and that's frustrating. But the fact that There is so much public sentiment. I don't know if it's a majority. I don't know if it's a sliver that's just very vocal. I don't know. But the fact that there is so much strong feeling about this tells me that you haven't done that job well enough. So given notice of a public meeting, I mean, that's just the bare minimum. Many people can't take this information in like Warren can. So you have to explain it to a broad section of this community. And you have to do it over and over again. And the fact that you're meeting such vocal resistance tells me you haven't done that. You know, there's still a lot of questions I think need to be answered. There's still time to do that. So... I guess all I'm saying is I think you need to work harder to do that. I know how absurd that feels to you, but that's what I think needs to happen.

I'm a Republican. Sometimes I feel like this town is all about Republicans and Dems. And anything that Republicans come up with aren't going to be good enough. It's not going to pass. As far as opposition, I am for this building. I am for progress. I just am. If you all think for one minute that you guys are the voice of the whole town, you are not. There are plenty of people that are fine with progress. Plenty. And they're not necessarily all Republicans. I just want... The city council with a fair chance and it not be Republicans against Democrats, Democrats against Republicans. How many of you out here do I know that I love that are my friends and you're Democrats? That's not that's not the point on all of this. This city stuff has to stop being so political.

Gina Freeman, 1123 West Main Street. First of all, can I see who are the at-large council people? Raise your hand. Thank you. And Lucy, you're my, right? Okay. Well, and the reason I ask that is... When I vote, I try to get to know the candidates. And with that being said, I was under the impression that when I'm voting for you, that you're going to be voting for the people who put you in office. I mean, I know you have an opinion. Everybody has an opinion. But am I wrong to say that the people within your district, that's who you're looking out for, can vote? Go ahead, Lucy.

Well, this is not a Q&A, but I will state that we work for everyone. So I get calls from all over the city, and I still listen to people and discuss issues. But we also work for people who don't vote. We work for people who do vote. We work for people who vote for our party, people who are from another party. Everybody... is who we represent.

Thank you. Another question I had, and I see the mayor left, but maybe somebody can answer it. Studio apartments. Anyway, I'm just curious who's going to move into a studio apartment on the river for the cost. But anyhow, getting back to 80 units in that, and then the apartments that are behind Kohl's and all that, which are wonderful, okay, which are great. but they're income-based. And here's the thing I just want to put out there. My granddaughter, who works at the Call Center, and her boyfriend, who does IT at Clifty, so they work in this community, okay, and they were quite honest on their application. Together, they make $70,000 a year. They made too much money to be able to live there. And that saddens me because they can't afford to buy a house in this town, especially downtown. That's not going to happen. And I just, you know, I know that there's a percentage, and I forgot what you said. Somebody can let me know. There's a percentage that's going to be income-based on the river, 10%. So what is that out of 88? Okay. And so the rest are going to be just anybody and anyone can apply and hopefully get in. Because I was, you know, I don't know. I was just kind of curious where the cars are going to park. You know, because I was trying to do the math. And I'm not good at math. I'll guarantee it. I hire people to do math when I work. But, you know, there's 80 units. That's one car. Usually there's two cars per family. Okay? So, I mean, can somebody do the math for me? Because I'm 160 cars I don't know I know we have a housing issue in this temple we have a parking issue in this town too which you know we've we've since I've been here we've had a few upgrade parking but I think we have to look at that too so not to say that I'm not well I can say I'm not for it Because one of the reasons I came back to live in this town, I mean, I grew up here, left for 23 years, came back, moved to the west end, which is kind of the forgotten end, I hate to say it. But a lot's going on down there, you know, with the Heritage Trail and stuff like that. But the river is where everybody's heart is. I mean, I know my four minutes is about up in the car. But I just want to say, you know, that I'm not for it. And I just hope that you guys will look at all the people who've come together and voice their opinion on it.

Thank you. Gina, your four minutes are up.

I forgot to add something, and I was going to let it go, but then when I heard somebody else speak, I had to just say, for me, this is a community issue. It is not a party issue. I've never voted party as far as local politics as it goes. I go for the person. and how they represent me. And I know most people here, they do think it's a party issue. I think there are some party biases going on. But for me and most of the people that I know that are concerned about this project, it is a community issue. The party issue might be for the fact that some people don't always listen to the community, and they try to use that as a complaint. So, community issue.

Okay.

All right. I think that's everybody. unless there's anything else from the council, we'll do a roll call vote.

I've got just a brief, brief statement to make. Um, as we've not seen any proposed plans for any developments on this lot, um, the plans that we have seen have repeatedly changed and fairly dramatically. So, um, and the council has not been informed of specific intentions for the property beyond descriptions and other kind of vague descriptions of, of the, uh, proposed housing development. Um, and because this resolution is described as a transfer for fair market value and to consider a hundred thousand dollars fair market for that lot given its location and the value brought by the new riverfront district zoning that applies to it it's kind of absurd to me so until we receive further information on this specific project plans and and that sort of thing and have had further time to review the appraisals and seek further information on that I would ask the council to vote no and retain some say over what happens on this property because there is a large contingent of the community who is very engaged with what happens there. Thank you.

I just want to make one quick thing here just to correct some things that were said. There is no property tax abatement. None of the units are subsidized. We're complying with all of the standards and regulations that were adopted in the Unified Development Ordinance that was adopted last October and then again in March, one for the Riverfront District and the other one for the Unified Development Ordinance. On the transparency front, I get that some people feel uninformed and I will just say that there's been a tremendous amount of information shared about this project in public meetings and across the community I believe everybody here as well as myself have been very accessible. This is a community issue. I totally agree with Shelly. It's a community issue about how we solve our housing crisis. It's a community issue about how we provide more people for our workforce. It's a community issue about how we bring more people into the doors of our small businesses to keep them open and vibrant and thriving. There are Not a whole lot of solutions. There's a lot of ideas. We need plans and solutions if we're going to solve some of these more chronic issues, and that takes investment. And fortunately, there's a priority public policy at the state level to support the development of housing in rural communities. And in Madison, Indiana, we've had a deficit of housing construction for nearly half a century. It's time to address that or things are going to get worse, candidly. I'm working very hard to bring solutions across the community in a number of ways with council, with our redevelopment commission, with our historic district board of review, with our planning commission, our VZA, and like I said, there's two dozen boards. It takes a lot of planning and there are times when we just disagree on I want to make that before you guys continue your deliberation. Thank you.

So I wanted to add, I had a constituent say that my opinion doesn't matter, so I will speak to life experience and to actual data and facts. As a third generation business owner in Madison, I know that the tourism trade benefits, but it is the locals that keep you alive. Twelve months out of the year, the people who live here, December, January, February, and March, kept my doors open for 15 years on Main Street. We need more housing for people. We need people to spend money locally and to contribute to our community. I appreciate the offer by the Canada family. They've made two offers. They wanted to trade land. I talked to Ben Canada about that. He had a small lot. Their family has a small lot on Mulberry Street that is landlocked. It is nowhere equivalent to something on Vaughan Drive and Jefferson Street. He admitted that. There's a new offer, $450,000 that our community can get in 2026. If we wait another 10 years, 15, 20, with having a housing development, we will have millions. That also makes that offer apples and oranges. They are a wonderful family that has contributed a lot to this community. I don't hold anything against their offers. But data will tell you that through property taxes, through what people spend that live here, that we are going to stand to make far more money than $450,000. It has to be about the big and broad range. We have to think long term. We can't think about the short sprint. We have to think about the marathon. There's people depending on us.

Just a few more thoughts. This is kind of now being framed as we have to do it, we have to have the housing. I'm not denying we need housing in Madison, absolutely, but our riverfront is our riverfront and it's a place for everybody and with these city and community owned parcels down there, they should remain for everybody and there's other sites that the city owns out downtown that would be prime candidates for infill that would House host buildings that would keep with the character of our city I mean we've got a huge lot down at 4th and West that could be a prime development site for for housing other other spots around town and but The community wants the riverfront to stay a quiet open space and a place that's accessible for everybody So I again I would encourage the council to vote no on this. I

I've been involved with urban planning for about 25 years. There are nine parks down on Vaughn Drive. Most of our communities are sized throughout the state. If you have one park, you're lucky. We have nine. There can be incredible imbalance, and it is not a good thing to not think. I have not heard one suggestion with a plan that will have the type of economic impact on the community that this project will have.

The apartments are not mutually exclusive from benefit to the citizens with the economic value that can be derived from that property. We can also invest in future parks, future opportunities for the riverfront. If anything, that makes it more economically viable. In order for us to provide services, streets, roads, goods, entertainment, and new opportunities, we have to invest. And I know we can disagree on whether this investment is wise, but I think in the future, if we don't lean towards investment opportunities, and I agree, coming together as a community to explore those opportunities is prescient. I think we are remiss, truly,

doing that and in the future I look forward to the opportunity working together to do that but we must invest it is not a choice we need to do it wisely there was a few comments made by Mr. Oksher that there were tax abatements attached to this that's not true this is not a high-rise that's laughable it's four stories high I believe Three, sorry, three, three with your parking lot. Point of order, I'm speaking. didn't interrupt you and that is high-end was also another comment that was made I do agree there is a communication issue it happens with almost any anything any issue that comes before us trying to get information disseminated to the public but it's more obvious when it's very important issue we do our best The community has changed. I still get the Madison Courier, but not very many people do. And it's two days a week. It's not six days a week. Things have evolved and changed to where communication is extremely difficult. I download my music. I don't necessarily listen to WRX as much as I would like to. So that is just a natural thing. And I don't like it either.

If we can have a roll call vote.

Patrick Tevena. No. Carla Krebs.

No.

Lucy Dottillo. Yes. Josh Schaefer. Yes. Joel Storm. Yes. Jim Bartlett.

Yes.

Josh Wilber.

Yes. Thank you, Council. We'll move on with the rest of the agenda. Joe has to leave. And I know this is not an easy decision, and the weight of that decision and this moment is – It's heavy on all of us. Council, are there any reports, recommendations, or other business from state or select committees of the City Council? None. Now I'll invite Emily McKinney from Economic Development for the Vintage Lanes Liquor License Renewal.

Good evening, council. Just a quick update on the program itself. So currently we have 12 total licenses in the program, and right now eight of those are taken. So four of those are taken through the cultural experience category, and then four of those are taken in the restaurant category. So one cultural experience license is still available, and then three restaurant licenses are still available.

Can you say those numbers again? Let's see.

We have 12 total. Eight of those are spoken for. And there are four and four in each category that are taken. And so then one cultural experience is still available and three restaurants are still available.

Does that include our new restaurant that's coming downtown?

No, these just include the numbers of everybody that currently has licenses. so then tonight you just have vintage lanes annual renewal application before you and so that has been reviewed by the economic and redevelopment department and the mayor's office and so we are just here for you tonight to ask for your motion to do their annual renewal I would move we approve the renewal for the vintage lanes liquor license renewal I second that any discussion

There are none. All in fair, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you.

Thank you, Council.

Thank you. Also tonight, we want to give you an overview of two things. Our PACE program, which has been a very successful preservation and community enhancement program downtown and on the hilltop. And then after that, we'll talk about the important ordinance that we adopted a year ago, the Bacon and Abandoned Structures Ordinance. So, Brenda Haley. who is our preservation planner, will give us an overview of the page program.

Hi. So this should be in your packet, but just to explain this very briefly, our fund balance currently is $89,138.65. the amount that we have open cases that is still promised with requested amounts is $350,840 no money from the RDC has been transferred yet so once that has been transferred we will end up with a total amount I'm sorry with a total amount of $331,723.65. And then with the additional $100,000 from RDC, it will end up being $138,298.65 available for this final round. And that round will take place next week on Tuesday. And we have somewhere in the range of 22 to 25 applications that will be coming to that meeting.

Verna, could you send us this when you get a chance?

Yes, I can do that. This is the spreadsheet that shows all of the open applications or cases currently. This is as far back as 2024. Everything before that has been either closed or expired.

Can you, there's some that are highlighted purple and some that are highlighted blue.

That is just by year.

Okay. Thank you.

You remind me, is the PACE required, it does not require the property to be owner-occupied, correct? Correct. Do you know what proportion are owner-occupied?

I don't have that tonight, but I can give it to you. So currently we have 22 open cases, and of those 22... cases they are requesting a total amount from the city of four hundred and one thousand eight hundred fifty thousand dollars private investment coming from those same applicants is 1.6 million and their total amount including city funds is two million twenty thousand dollars four hundred seventy six and fifty seven cents So that is a four to one ratio of private investment to city investment. And we'll go through some before and afters just to show some of our really impressive cases that have been completed. So our first one is 811, 811 and a half, East 2nd Street. This is what it was before, and it is now complete, and it is a duplex.

Can you speak up a little bit louder?

Yeah, I'm sorry. This is a duplex now. Our next one is 118 West 5th Street. This was it before. It sat like this for a very long time. This is it now. It will be painted. That has not been finished yet, but he is getting to that. 623 Broadway Street. This one also sat like this and also in progress for a long time and this has just been almost completed. She still has some steps and a couple more places to put siding on. 1030 Park Avenue. This one, it was in pretty rough shape. Actually, the first time that I was traveling around looking at all of the buildings here, there was a vulture inside. It was still vacant. So this is now occupied and there is a modern addition on the back. They rebuilt the portico out front and they actually just had an open house there to show off the work that they've done there. Vintage Lanes, this is actually two buildings in one. So this was the before and this is it now. 1126 West 2nd Street, this one, there was a house next to it that was demolished a while before any work took place on this one. There were holes in the ceiling and the sides, and that has been fixed now. And then Central Hotel, this is one of our newest updates. This was it before, and this is what it looks like today. So that is what I've got for you. Any questions?

I spoke to a guy day before yesterday from out of town. Two years ago, he was stranded in the West Street parking lot with a dead battery. He had rented a room at the Central Hotel and was scared to go in. And the day before yesterday, he couldn't remember why he was scared to go in because now he's looking at a beautiful new roof on the place.

And all the facade improvements, it looks great, and the PACE program has been very successful. It's made a difference. You know, the PACE program is one that's made a big difference, but as you've heard me talk about before, We also have the owner-occupied rehab partnership with OCRA. That's underway. And then we also have the Paul Broon grant program, which is underway. And those are no matches and, therefore, low- to moderate-income homeowner-occupied. So this year we'll have $1.1 million for housing preservation in downtown and on the hilltop. And it makes a big difference for our community, as Brendan was saying. We leverage those dollars to be really, really truly effective in just the 22 that are outstanding. It's a four-to-one value proposition for us, which is a good use of our dollars.

A couple questions. In 25, we had target areas of Walnut Street area and Pinehurst. Is that still true for 26?

It was the same for 26. Okay.

It looks like the majority of our... Pace properties are still downtown. Is that 100% or close to it?

It's most of them, yes. We've had a couple on the hilltop since I took over the program. Let me get back to the spreadsheet there. Almost all of them happen downtown. It's our goal to get more from the hilltop. We're looking for anybody who's who's interested on the hilltop.

Is it primarily just a lack of applications?

Yeah, I, I think there might be a lack of knowledge that there, there are, um, opportunities there. Um, on the hilltop, we do have the curb appeal grant, which is what most people would, um, be eligible for. And that is a $5,000, um, grant. And then we, you are also on the hilltop eligible for dangerous and dilapidated. Those just have to be reviewed by the building inspector first.

And, just roughly how does the distribution of i guess because it's all downtown but more for what dewey is working on the distribution is also primarily downtown with a little bit on the hilltop so does it kind of match up evenly this is a joint question here but so our pace funding has obviously been most impactful downtown and i think from our previous reports most of our vacant and abandoned structures tend to be downtown as well.

Yeah, I put together a rudimentary map over here for you. But yeah, you can see this is just the vacant and abandoned structures. And of course, we had the unsafe universe before that. But yeah, you can see 38 of the properties on the vacant and abandoned structures registry are downtown. By district, 26-1, 6-2, 6-3, and that's just a smattering on top. You can see it's all over the city. I don't know if that helped or not. I think that helped clear it up a little bit. True story about the vulture. I was there with her at that time, and she protected me from it. Thank you.

I guess one continuation there, Dewey, before you head off.

He's coming back.

I know he is, but this is a PACE question. That's okay. How do you guys work together, I guess, as you're doing your work? You're obviously coming across homes that could potentially be PACE eligible. What kind of efforts do you guys make together to help inform those homeowners of the PACE opportunities that they could be taking part in?

Brent is a peach to work with, I've got to tell you. She's, you know. Well, and our building inspector comes into this, too, a little bit, right? He's, more times than not, I've identified these properties. But as a unit, I think all of us in the planning department, you know, we talk about things. We meet just about every morning informally and then kind of decide where we can go. help out the best.

Does that make sense? When a case is raised for unsafe, typically they do have to, or if it's vacant, they have to come in and register and be put on that list. And so when they do that, there's an opportunity there to let them know what PACE funding is available to them. And so I do try to state that when they are there. And then the same thing for unsafe. Not everybody knows that it's unsafe until the building inspector is there. And so when that is the case, then we can kind of explain how PACE can help them in that case as well.

I'm done for now, Dewey.

What's that? I'm done for now. Am I good?

Any other questions for Brenna? Good work. Important work. Now Dewey will give us an overview of the vacant and abandoned structures. You know, when we adopted this ordinance a little over a year ago now. we said we'd come to council with information that we would also be sharing with board of public works and safety. And, uh, it's also very helpful to talk about regularly as we do in board of public works and safety on some of our properties.

Okay. Um, my first time using this clicker, let me make sure I get it right.

There we go.

Okay. I don't know if I, Jenna, this is in your packets as well. I, I tried to save paper and put four slides on a page, but, um, You can see the reference there. They put out this list of why vacant structures really should be dealt with. And I just highlighted a couple of them there. They certainly pose fire and health risks. We've seen this, right? Some of our more recent fires, although inhabited, I don't know whether they were the actual owners, but there was fire there. They lower surrounding property values and deter investment. They undermine downtown revitalization and vibrancy. They impose higher costs on taxpayers and public services. And they can erode the overall community quality of life. I've updated this for you in the past. I've shared these numbers with you. This is what I'm required to share with the Board of Public Works every three months on a quarterly basis. Currently now there are 51 properties on the vacant and abandoned registry. 23 of those have voluntarily registered. You can read through some of the rest of that. I would highlight that three properties have actually changed ownership. So that's a good thing. We're seeing that happen. And then finally, maybe not such a good thing, is of the properties that have registered and I have obtained an abatement plan for 14 of those properties are now being assessed penalties for not completing or moving forward with their abatement plan. Some of the pictures, the rest really are all pictures of some success stories at the end. We're all aware of this property on Broadway currently being assessed penalties for noncompliance.

For your non-compliant properties, what do you find? Is it people that just simply don't respond? Is it responding but not following through? Is it all of the above?

More so of second, right. So they've come in and registered. They provided an abatement plan, but now there's no follow-through.

Do you have a? opinion of whether that's because of funding issues, because of will, because of any idea?

I mean, I'd say it's probably a mix of things. Some I don't know. They just have lost contact. But sure, there's funding issues. We have funds available, as best I know. I think it's just a lack of commitment to getting maybe not a belief in what we're trying to do. I don't want to speculate, but does that make sense? Yeah.

But I understand they're the ones that are presenting the abatement plan, right? They're the ones coming up with, they're presenting their abatement plan. So they're presenting their timeline to do it. So I would assume that then they should follow through with what they have actually presented. They're the ones committing to that.

Yes, that's true. Yeah. This is on the hilltop actually in the Oak Hill subdivision, Bernard Place. You wouldn't even think that's in the Oak Hill area, but again, we're currently assessing penalties on this property. Right down the street here on Poplar, I am currently assessing penalties here, but I understand there may be interest in purchase, so let's hope that goes through. wanted to buy that and my boss at the time said i couldn't do it not not bob when i first came on board uh this is on east street another downtown property elderly couple registered but just no follow-through i know there have been some health issues with the gentleman here that much i do know

ever been any discussion about any kind of rebate if these people have been assessed penalties and then when they inevitably do you know transform their home for the better perhaps there could be a program where we could rebate some of those costs i understand the penalties are important they can become onerous for you know anybody who's trying to make that investment and i feel from a morale standpoint it does get difficult you know um that's not to say that it's not necessary, but I wonder if there's an opportunity maybe to influence that change by saying, even though we're having issues now and there are penalties, maybe that incentive is when that time comes and you can make those meaningful changes, perhaps, you know, we've assessed $500 in penalties. Maybe there's a way to recontribute that back to someone's expense. I don't know, but it would be, you know,

The ordinance doesn't talk to that currently, no. I have the ability to, you know, if they're working with us to waive registration fees, I have done that. But as far as rebating.

It's not a rebate, but Board of Public Works could waive it. Could waive that. And I'll just mention on that because it's a really good point. There's a whole progression that's happening here. And the assessment of penalties is the last thing that happens when all other efforts aren't successful. And many times what we're talking about, like some of these now, and you mentioned there's only a handful out of the nearly 50 that are getting fees. He's been at this for over a year now. And it's a progression. And my observation of where we're at after meeting with Dewey about this every single week is there's a lot of ambivalence about vacant and abandoned and blighted property across our community by their owners. But we do have that option, Councilman.

This is down on McIntyre Street. just over the bridge on the west end of town there. Again, came in, registered with me, had a plan, but haven't heard from the owner since. North end of Walnut Street, 900 block. Looks a little different now. The tarp's a different color, but still in the same condition. It's a relatively new structure, I relatively new to the registry. I just sent out the initial letter last week. 709M, we're all familiar with. The owner did appear last week and I met with him. He is currently seeking a demo permit for that. I know that's maybe one of the last things folks want, but that's also considered an unsafe structure this is next door to that you can see it before and after here the work is happening here currently registered work is work is progressing here so we appreciate that this is under new ownership this was troublesome for two or three years for me I couldn't get in touch with the owners this is under new ownership and plan is in place and abatement will be happening here.

And a PACE applicant.

And a PACE applicant, yes. Good point. This is on West 2nd Street. Again, came in voluntarily registered, but nothing has happened since. We're aware of the fires on West 3rd Street. I have been in contact with this owner. It's an unsafe structure because of the fire. but she is being required to register as a vacant and abandoned structure. Alright, some successes. I don't get to do this too much. Too very often, I should say. You may remember, this is E Street. Just before you get to Ahlenbach, as you're headed north, that structure, I think, had a fire at some point. I'm not sure how many years it sat there, but that was demoed by the homeowner, and that's how it looks.

They have plans to rebuild a home there. They do? Yeah. Okay.

Good. This is one of the first structures. We call it the leaning house because you can see in the picture on the left, it actually tilts to the right a little bit there. And then the property owner, I believe his mother lives there now, and that's the after result on the right. Was that a...

It's a demolition, and then that greenhouse was just to the north of it.

Okay, gotcha.

And it was renovated after that demolition occurred.

Yep. Although this wasn't an inhabited structure, or I don't even think it was a workshop, this is on Jefferson Street just across the creek. It was severely damaged and an unsafe structure, so we did get that taken care of. It's a poor picture here, but you probably, you may not even remember, up at the entrance to the state hospital, the DSI, I believe is the business, they were using this for storage, and just in horrible, horrible condition, and now that is gone as well. I believe they're going to be developing that site too, if I'm not mistaken. First one to register. First one to take care of it. And looks like that today. Really proud of that one. Brenna kind of shared this property with you already. 811 East 2nd Street. I remember walking past that. I don't know, can I say this? There was a liquor store that used to be down there. I live on the east end and I would walk past and there were vultures in there too. I remember that. And that's how that looks today. Brenna's picture is probably a little better than that. West Main Street actually had a porch removed at some point. That's two different pictures there. And then some great work has been done. Brought it up to standards. So we appreciate that. This house has been through some things. But you can see the standards of the front facade at least are what we're looking for so we appreciate the work that's been done there I think the next couple of properties are probably the most dramatic this is before my time the mayor can probably speak to what happened at these these properties were there fires except there for decades if I'm not mistaken and now just Taylor got that whole North Mulberry Street rent of

renovations all started revitalizations and say, it looks beautiful down there now. Okay. A lot more investment.

Yeah.

Yep. And then councilwoman Krebs actually brought this to my attention. I mean, I had driven past it many times. You may not even remember. Do you remember, remember that house? Um, this happened so quickly. Um, it went from that to that. Yeah. It, it, was quite dramatic.

Today's presentation is all properties that started off vacant and abandoned, right? Not occupied.

I would say, so prior to the vacant and abandoned, all we had to work on was the UBL, the unsafe building law. And so I categorized them all as unsafe, but then many migrated to the vacant and abandoned ordinance. But today's presentation does have some that were unsafe and now...

But they were unsafe and unoccupied. Yes. All of them in today's presentation. Do you know, just a rough estimate, how many of their success stories are now, are they all occupied? I'm sure it's not all of them, but do you have any idea how many of them are occupied? You've got to ask me that, Josh.

So that is... Those are clearly no. Not yet. Okay. Yes. No. Although I wouldn't mind living there either. No. No. And yes. And no.

Not to add more to your plate, but that would be an interesting metric to keep an eye on is as these properties move into success stories, how many of them do become occupied and useful to the community? No, you're absolutely right. Or occupied or rentals or whatever it may be.

Perhaps I can add that to, not perhaps, but I can add that to the spreadsheet that really tells the success story. Sure. No, you're right. That's a good point.

And I'll just add that... The collaborations really work. When you have a collaborative property owner, great things really happen and it improves an entire block, which improves a neighborhood, which improves a city. These programs work together between PACE and the unsafe building law and now the vacant and abandoned and the 2,000 cases that Dewey's managed in the nuisance world. We have a very minor amount of resources dedicated to this, but it's extremely important and very effective in what Dewey and Brenna and Chris are doing in this space because we want our community to be beautiful. I would like to see a more robust effort on behalf of many of the property owners to bring their properties at least up to the minimum standards of maintenance and then go further than that and actually beautify them and bring them back into the housing stock that's what we've been talking a lot about today is housing supply and many of these properties are vacant and abandoned and they're not part of the housing supply we had a year or two ago we had over a hundred unsafe buildings in our community And then, like he said, as we started dissecting them down, many of them are still unsafe or nuisance properties. And about half of them, 50 some odd, are vacant and abandoned. So we have a potential for a big boost in housing stock if we could get some of these properties back into the supply. And the market's healthy for that.

Last question for you, Dewey. We've been focused on the vacant and abandoned lately. Yes. But the non-vacant, the occupied nuisance or unsafe structures or suspected unsafe structures, do you have any estimate of how many of those are still out there?

So it's interesting because it's hard sometimes to determine. I'll give an example of the 776 West 3rd down there, the yellow house that had the fire, you know, Citizens, neighbors would tell me it's inhabited, but there's no water. There's no electricity. So it would vacillate back and forth. Do I know it's inhabited or not? I don't have the authority to go past the front door. My friends at the police department could help me with that, but I don't have any probable cause of what I'm saying. So to answer your question, it's sometimes hard. I can tell you there's a dozen or more properties that do not have water that people are living in that may not be so unsafe. I've never liked the word unsafe because it conjures up the idea of it's going to fall in or collapse on itself. But the unsafe building law allows for, to some extent, uninhabitability. Is that the right word? Inhabitability. uninhabitability right unable to be lived in so i i think there are dozen or better properties that i know of that are uninhabitable that people are in yeah does that help um and i don't know how to deal with those i'm admitting i don't

Well, the way we deal with them is we have to go to the next level, and that is inhabitability inspections.

Right.

A partnership with the health department, it's just very difficult to do. And in many instances, you have to get permission to gain access. But there are a lot of people living in very, very, very poor conditions, unfortunately, and we do not have. a registration program or an inspection program, but there are inhabitability concerns as well all across our community. Very much so. I'd love to. It's a resource thing. There are state statutes that govern it. There's a health department aspect of it. It's very difficult, but it is necessary. It would be helpful, wouldn't it?

Dewey, you've got a really hard job, and you're good at it, so thank you for keeping up with it.

Thank you. I agree.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dewey. Appreciate it. Thanks. All that great information. We do not have any bills on second reading, so we'll go to public comments. Were there sign-ups for public comments?

We have a number of folks that signed up for public comment. I suspect a lot of these folks did their comment earlier, but I'll go down through the list. If they have additional comments, they're welcome to do so. Mr. Auksher, do you have comment? Again, we have the four-minute limit.

Warren Auksher, 3611 West Ohio River Grove. I wanted to follow up on... Mr. Jacobs' observation that a lot of the problems that came up with this project, in his opinion, he had commented on the transparency issue. And the city has wanted to try to maintain that there was transparency on this project all the way through. And from my observations, I believe Mr. Jacobs was right on. There was a huge lack of transparency on this project. If you look back, the first time that changing zoning onto riverfront zoning came up before the Planning Commission was three, four years ago when Mr. Henderson was still on the board. It came to the city, brought it to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission basically discussed it at two meetings and said, no, we're not going to do that. Never heard another discussion about it, period. I read all the minutes of the plan commission, all the minutes of the city council, until the city made the application for the zoning change. Had never been any discussion, any announcement until then at either of those levels. As far as on the actual projects that were interested and the information that was disseminated to the public, The city made three applications to Red for Ready Fund grants that contained a great deal of details as to what the project was going to look like on the apartments, sizes, so forth, money, and so forth. None of that was disseminated to... Council members to the best of my knowledge that I talked to had never seen it playing Commission's never saw it The public didn't see it until such a time. I made public record requests to our southern, Indiana Received those documents and then distributed them publicly through social media. So I think there was a huge lack of Transparency on this project.

Thank you Eyes Kevin Kellum still here Okay. Can you read that name?

No, it's not Debbie. Well, maybe. Yeah, actually, I think it is. It is what? I think it's Debbie Beeman. Oh, is that Debbie? Okay.

Debbie, Debbie, can you tap the mic? You turned it off. Thank you. Thank you. There you go. Touch it one more time.

There you go.

Anyway, that have people live in their houses for free. They have to pay their utilities, but there's no rent, no kind of payments, just so those houses aren't caught, abandoned, and they're falling down. So that's something I don't know if you all know about, but I know about it. And still, you guys, it's the same old crap. Tyree and Link, I mean, I had to get on Facebook, made this huge post, and he came and finally mowed the yard. It's literally been months and months. So while everything is going pretty good, I'm still over there in the same mess. with the same people doing the same thing.

Mike or Linda Pittman. Okay. Sandy Palmer. Okay, thank you. Randy, do you have anything else to say? I can't imagine.

Well, one thing I want to say is that I am not against progress. I just don't think that was the progress that we want for us. So to classify anybody that is against that project that you approved today as anti-progress is incorrect. That's all I wanted to make sure you knew.

Thank you, Randy. Jan Vitrus?

I just want to follow up because Josh asked a really good question and I think it does relate to the shortage of housing but one of the issues we have is so many houses are not occupied. One of the things that I learned in my career is if you want people to do the right thing, that needs to be the easiest thing to do. And with the PACE program, it would be so simple to make sure the requirement is that people live in the house. that it's not a flipper thing. But so many PACE projects, as soon as they're done, they sell and they're out. And that's not the kind of investment in housing and people that we really want. So you can use the things that we have to actually incentivize the things that you want the city to be doing. The PACE program would be a great place to start. Thank you.

Thank you. Kurt Jacobs. skirt still here okay is Judy stacer still here Robert stacer it's gone Gina Gina Freeman okay I've been better thinking right

which can be good, can be bad. Okay, so this is the way I look at it. So the people who are in presidential right now are all moving to the new apartments. I'm not saying all of them, but, you know, that's probably the way it's going to go because they're income-based. And, you know, like I said, people who are young professionals are making too much money to live in those wonderful apartments. So presidential is going to be vacant. I know that's government housing, isn't it? Okay. But I'm sure you can talk to the government. And, you know, you can demolish that, and you can put a brand-new apartment building in there. Now, think about this. Because the people who are going to live in the one downtown, you move it up on the hill, that's where all the factories are. That's where the hospital is. That's where all these people who are going to live in any apartment are going to work. So just give it a thought.

Shelly Murphy-Smith I wanted to speak to the PACE grant I really appreciate that program it helped me do some improvements on my home that I probably would not have been able to do without it so I wanted to express great appreciation for that program I do think that some people that want the program because there was a couple times I was going to apply and funds were already gone but people who do flip a lot. And I understand the need for those homes to be fixed, but I think there could be some maybe amendments to how they do that. People who maybe are buying properties that they're going to fix with a PACE grant, maybe when they do sell them, they have to put the money back to the PACE grant program. Maybe if you've lived there 20 years or you've done your 10 years, something like that, and then you fix it and you do sell it, that's different. You've put some time into that house. You've put equity into that house. But I feel like people that get those PACE grants, because I've seen several people get them, they just turn around and they flip it. They make money off of that city money. Yes, we want those structures fixed, but I do feel like another way to make money go back into that funding is would be, hey, you fixed up that property, you sold it for this, reimburse the PACE grant now. I just think that's a good thing. I also just have to say I'm very disappointed in the way that vote went and I do hope that there will be other evaluations of that property and its value because I know from property values going around talking to people selling vacant lots in different places in the middle of the country they're going or like in the middle of the town that lot where it's at is worth more than a hundred thousand dollars so I hope that there are more people allowed to have people maybe estimate those values of that property before they would sell that for so little I also know from talking to people in the fire department ambulance services that they are very concerned about that project with flooding because they said they do not have the means to take care of issues that might happen there and the cost of making that happen is also a thing to factor in because we already have trouble with our community having volunteers do those jobs so it's just there's a lot of factors to it thank you

Angie Williams?

I do not like speaking publicly, so Angie Williams, 1117 West Bain Street. I came here tonight to share details of a recent dispute I've had with our neighbor. I wanted to write it out because I know my hands will be shaking and my voice will shake a lot, but bear with me as I read this to you. As I wrote this, I came to a new realization. I'm not here tonight simply because I have a dispute with a neighbor. Neighbors disagree every day. I am not here tonight because I expect the city council to resolve my dispute. I understand that is not your role. I am here because the neighboring property owner is a member of this council, and I believe that raises important questions about fairness, accountability, and trust. We purchased our home in 2019. The following year, our first dispute occurred. The police were called and responded. We were told that if we disputed the property line, we should have a survey completed. We followed that advice. In 23, we hired a licensed Indiana surveyor, had a boundary survey completed, and had it recorded. My husband personally walked the property line with our neighbor, showing him the survey markers. At that time, there were no objections. Over the years, this property has had significant maintenance issues, including an unsafe building, deteriorating structures, habitually unmaintained yard, and has been vacant since about 2020. And it was on Dewey's property. thing there so I do want to acknowledge something positive the recent property maintenance ordinances adopted by this council have been have made a noticeable difference over the last year improvements have finally been made and have not occurred for years while I don't believe all the issues have been adequately addressed I do appreciate that the ordinances have helped move things in the right direction but in June our community experienced a devastating tornado A tree from our property fell onto the neighboring property, landing on his building. Our insurance company notified our neighbor that the liability under Indiana law for the damage was on him. Unfortunately, instead of ending there, the situation escalated. Our neighbor began cutting limbs from the fallen tree and intentionally throwing them over the fence and into our property. I repeatedly asked him to stop. He refused and was aggressive. Law enforcement was called again. Because the individual involved was a sitting member of this council, Madison Police advised they had a conflict and requested assistance from Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. Deputies instructed him not to enter our property. Despite those instructions, he returned and continued placing debris onto our property, identified as ours by a recorded survey. Law enforcement responded a second time, a third time, and even a fourth. I'm not here tonight to debate the legal definitions or determine guilt. Those matters belong elsewhere. I am here because no resident should feel intimidated when trying to protect their property or exercise their rights. Since this began, many members of our community have reached out to me. The conversations were incredibly consistent. People have said things like, be careful. He'll make your life miserable. He's vindictive. and he'll come after you. Whether those statements are accurate isn't really my point. My concern is that there appears to be a perception with our community that an elected official is treated differently than an ordinary citizen. Whether that perception is accurate or not, public confidence suffers when people believe there are different standards for different people. So tonight, I have two questions for you. First, are there written policies that govern when the Madison Police Department may or may not handle incidents involving elected officials? And if so, where can they be found? And second, what code of conduct, code of ethics, or accountability process exists for members of this council when citizens believe an elected official's conduct falls below the standard?

Ms. Williams, I need to stop you because you've reached the four-minute limit.

Allow the extra time.

Go ahead.

The presiding officer can do that. Go ahead.

When citizens believe an elected official's conduct falls below the standard expected of someone serving the public, public office is a privilege. With that privilege should come a higher standard of conduct, not a lower one. My hope tonight is not to relieve a dispute with my neighbor. My hope is that every resident of Madison can have confidence that our government is transparent, accountable, and that the law applies equally to everyone, regardless of the office they hold. And since other people who have made complaints about this individual did not want to name him, I have no problem with saying that it is Patrick Tovenal.

Ms. Williams, thank you for bringing these matters to our attention. You've brought a couple of issues before us. One requires additional research, which I haven't had an opportunity to do yet. And frankly, I've discussed the issue with several other members of council and frankly, they agree with me that we need to have discussions with the city police and the mayor's office to determine what the backstory is with regard to policy and get this straightened out because We need to understand and there should be no difference in calling the city police on a member of council versus calling the city police on a member of any other member of the citizenry of Madison. You should feel confident if you're having a disagreement with city council or having a disagreement with anybody else within the city of Madison. So you haven't heard the end of that part of the discussion. Now, in terms of your disagreement with Mr. Tevenall, Councilman Tevenall, I was there that afternoon. I witnessed the disagreement. He was intimidating.

Point of order, Jim. If you're going to make unfounded accusations against me, this is not the place to do it.

Sir, I was there. I witnessed the situation.

You were standing in the alley probably 100 feet away, Jim. Please continue. You're not making accusations. You're making a statement.

I'm making a statement. I was there. You were intimidating. It was embarrassing and this is not the, it was the first time I witnessed anything, but it was not the first time that we have heard these discussions in this very chamber. These matters must stop. This is, it's ugly. It puts a black eye on the council. It puts a black eye on the city of Madison. Frankly, if this is what you think being a public servant in the city of Madison is all about, I feel that you should consider stepping down from your office. Point of order.

Can you please provide some specifics about what you think?

I think if you'll look back at the record, I think if you'll look back at YouTube, you'll hear this same discussion and see this same discussion two or three times over the past six years in this very council chamber.

if we'd like to discuss that since you brought it up the other time that it did come up was a disagreement with Elise Detmer and I believe she's now moved and is now doing the same thing to her newest neighbor so before you start throwing stones Jim I'd expect you to have all of the facts which you do not I would like the police chief to address why

the Madison Police Department would not be involved with this dispute. They said it was a conflict.

Well, since we're going to go this far as well, I just want to add some clarity here.

Councilwoman Dottillo speaking.

Well, again, I do believe it is a conflict of interest, so we handed this off to another police agency. It's not like we ignored it, you know what I'm saying? We handed it off to another police agency.

It is a conflict of interest because...

He's on the city council.

Well, he's a city employee. If it was anybody from city employment, would you also treat it the same way or would that be different? Most likely, yes. It would be treated the same way. Yes. So you would call in another department. In this case, it was the Jefferson County Department. sheriff's office to address the issue yes sometimes you have sometimes you have issues where you have to call in the state police to if it's like an internal thing within the government correct or the police department correct so that is how you handled it it wasn't ignoring it it was choosing to remove the potential of a conflict of interest in order that justice could be served as best as possible Yes. Correct? Yes. Thank you.

No, no, sorry. Unless you've got something else. I already have the floor.

Yeah, thank you. So in this specific situation, I will add some information and facts for clarity that Jim does not have because he was not there. And I do thank the Madison Police Department for their very courteous and professional response. Sheriff's Department as well. This was a boundary line issue that was most likely going to be litigated in civil court. A tree fell onto my property, crushed a building. I was cutting up the tree, moving the limbs out of the way as best I could, and the neighbor do a fit her husband ended up trespassing on my property as well standing underneath a really large limb while I was trying to cut it up point of order and I've got photographs and video of that as well but it's a boundary line issue to say that I was intimidating or threatening is not true at all I was cutting up a tree on a 95 degree day I didn't have much of a sense of humor that day the police did respond and the sheriff's deputy came over to my house and talked to me about it and the neighbors had made accusations that I was trespassing based on a video of me and my truck in my own driveway after I had been working on my house restoring the electric service on my property so these sorts of petty disputes They could be resolved really easily with a phone call and a conversation, but instead it seems that people would like to try to use a public forum to embarrass me because I'm defending my property rights, or frankly, just because I'm working on a property. And it's sad. it really is and Jim for you to make the statement that you did without ever speaking to me you stood about a football field away in the alley you couldn't hear anything you never spoke to me so if you want to make those sorts of statements be a man and call me

Just a point of order. If Bedford's going to be speaking, please come to the podium and just identify yourself.

Is Mr. Williams on the sign-in sheet? I'll allow it. Can you please cite the ordinance that allows you to overrule all of our... Rules of procedure. No, please. I'd like to check now, Mr. Mayor. Point of order.

I would like to check now.

Point of order, please stop. Point of order, I would like to see the ordinance that allows you to overrule our standing council rules.

Name and address, please.

It's in Ordinance 2024-6. Can you hand that to me so I can see it, Mr. Mayor, please?

discuss it after me and your name and actions kevin williams i also live at 11 17 west main street so i'm hearing all of this discussion right i was present obviously um i think it's being glazed over that this was the fourth third attempt or third time that the sheriff had been called that day before i ever met mr tampa so he had been told by the police department We showed them the legal binding survey that's been there for three years. I've mowed that section of property for the last three years. No dispute ever from Mr. Tavanaugh. That's my property. None of the tree on his actual property has been touched. He's purposely left it so I can't remove the tree. He only cut what's on my property and was throwing it over the fence. We have a video of this. It's not... It's not me trying to be vindictive. It's a fact. I have the video. Okay, so let's talk about facts. So on the 20th, there were all these calls. Then again on Tuesday, the 23rd, again returned. That's, I believe, when Ms. Kelly spoke with you. But there are statements in here about there's never been an altercation. This line's been disputed. This goes back to 2020. So we're here tonight to ask for accountability for these kinds of behaviors. That's it. It's not here to dispute who's right, who's wrong, where the property lines are. That's not the function of this body. We are here to stay to have you guys understand what we've gone through. There have been videos made with other complaints of similar behaviors. This is a behavior pattern. That's what we're talking about.

behavior pattern what are we going to do when behavior patterns are unbecoming of a public official that's what I would like to have addressed thank you that's it's interesting you're asking for accountability regarding behavior patterns when the behavior is me working on my own property so Well, yeah, I own the house. But yeah, please, you know. Anyways, it's a civil matter. It's a civil dispute. So that's that.

On the closure of that topic, I just want to state that as elected officials, we are held to a higher standard. And at the next meeting, I'll appoint a select committee to review and make recommendations for a professional code of conduct. because we currently do not have one, and we do not have a conflict of interest policy, but at the discretion of Chief Munt, he felt it was necessary. Thank you.

Lisa Ferguson, 718 East 2nd Street. Patrick, I chose talking with Angie to not involve my family in this discussion on purpose, because at 81 and 85, they've dealt with as much as they can. And so I said, please Just don't say her name, and I did not tell her about council, so she did not come here tonight because they've dealt with enough already. That's been our history, and that's what Angie will verify. That's what my request was. Please do not bring up my family. I don't appreciate you saying my aunt is having problems with a neighbor. When you don't know what has gone on.

Oh, I've got it on video.

No, because what she's asked for is to be able to have that yellow line removed from the street department so that she could pull up and park in front of that. Because the lady that owns the tax place called the law on Ann for parking there. And they made her move that spot. Like they wouldn't make you move the night that we called. And I didn't call. I didn't call. Lucy didn't call. Lucy called. No, I'm going to finish. Thank you. Lucy's the one that called because she saw a truck pulled across St. Lucie's front parking lot. She didn't even know it. And then when the police came, they said we're going to give him time to move. And I said, if I'm breaking the law, am I going to get time to move? I'm just a regular citizen. If I'm breaking the law, I'm expected to follow the law. But they let you stay, and then you came back later and moved the truck. I didn't want to involve any of this history because I want to be done with it. She moved to get away from you. You know that. We all know that. And now she's dealing with another neighbor because she wants to pull up and keep Uncle Wayne, who's an 85-year-old very disabled veteran, from getting in and out of his own property. Now, we tried to resolve it with Chris Hale. And he told her, paint, you can remove the yellow paint yourself. She's 81 years old. She's not going to remove the yellow paint because then you would call in and say, at least Edmure's out there removing the yellow paint. Well, she was told that.

Please don't put any words in my mouth.

Well, you put it in my mouth when you said you've seen what she's done with the neighbor. No, you've not.

Yeah, I have.

She just wants to park in front of her own house. That's all she wanted with you, park in front of her own house. But my desire was to not bring any of this history up. Just let it go. I've told Carla this. Just let it go. But you brought her name up. And I'm not going to let her name be smeared. She didn't call you nasty names. You called her names. She didn't know what they were. She called and asked me, what does this name mean? And I'm like, oh my God, who called you that? Why are you asking me? She didn't call you a name. She won't call you a name. I guarantee you she won't.

I should just add that I have no issues with Mrs. Detmer anymore but Jim decided to again dredge up history that he has no knowledge of and use it to make baseless allegations against me so ready to close discussion yes please close discussion

I'll forego my normal mayor comments and save those for the next meeting. Our next council meeting is Tuesday, July the 21st. Council, any other business to take care of? Otherwise, I'll have a motion to dismiss.

A motion to adjourn the meeting.

I was the last one on the list. But then I got called before this one. And I feel like that was intentional. So I just want to make a point to make sure you look at that list and see who was signed up last to speak.

Frequently there are people who are not on the list that would like to speak.

Oh, no, she was signed up after me. And he called her after me on purpose because he wanted to make this the ending. No, it was back.

So you were signed up to speak after? A motion to adjourn the meeting. We're still speaking here. Jim, Jim, that's interesting.

No.