Common Council - Regular Meeting

Alright, well welcome everybody to Tuesday, July 21st City Council meeting. Like always, we are streaming live on City of Madison YouTube channel and we're also archiving the meeting there. Like with all of our other meetings, we would invite you to please stand and invite you to recite the Lord's Prayer and I also invite you to please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Thank you. Clerk, we'll have a roll call.

Patrick Thibodeau? Here. Carly Krebs? Here. Lucy DiTillo? Here. Josh Schaefer? Here. Joel Storm?

Here.

Jim Bartlett? Here. And Joshua Burris, absent.

Council, I've had an opportunity to review the minutes from July 7th, and so we'll entertain a motion to approve.

I move to accept the minutes as presented.

I'll second that motion.

Any discussion? If none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. We'll move on to our first guest. That's Chairman Glenn Schulte of the City Tree Board. Welcome, Glenn.

Hello again. I was here a little over a year ago. I have three main points that I wanted to share with you today, just kind of let you know what we're doing and why we're doing it. First is an explanation of why we remove trees. Sometimes we feel like and we're told that all you do is cut down trees. Well, there's specific reasons. We look for diseased trees. We look for trees that have been damaged either by a vehicle strike or lightning strike, storm, or something that they are damaging like utilities, water pipes underground, wires, that kind of thing. A tree that presents a danger Like after our last storm, there are some that are split vertically. Some of those we can actually put a rod through, pull them back together and save. Some of them we just can't do that with. Those have to be removed. And finally, invasive trees. Things like Bradford pear, the tree of heaven, things like that. Second thing I wanted to share with you was the urban forestry plan. In the tree ordinance, it's mandated that we create an urban forestry plan, and we've never done it that I know of, mostly because we had no idea what it was or how to do it. Well, we figured it out. We've got a five-page draft, which you have a copy of. That urban forestry management plan basically has five key areas. One is inventory and assessment. And that's one where we actually need some critical input, preferably from tree care professionals, like, you know, Davey Resources. It's a group that comes in, identifies every tree by species, gives us tree GPS coordinates, gives us size of the tree, condition of the tree, can tell us some things about the tree. All of that would go into our software that we currently have and are using it for. That would give us a really, really good baseline of, all right, this is what we have. The tree board is only responsible for the downtown area. This is exactly what we have right now. and then we can go from there to make sure we've got a good diverse population of trees, different ages, and we're not going to, we're kind of in a situation now where we're timing out, we've got a lot of really big trees, haven't planted so much underneath them to come up and replace them as they time out, and we need to be on that. Our goals and objectives, management strategies, what we're trying to do, why we're trying to do it, The community involvement and engagement, letting people know what we're doing, why we're doing it, if they want to help out. And monitoring and evaluation which goes towards safety and maintenance of the tree population. The final thing is our budget. We do have a $28,000 budget which for a town the size of Madison is exceptional. It is written as a part of the tree ordinance because we are a tree city. They have a formula that says what you need. And it's the $28,000. We started off this year with a little over $29,000. As of June 15th of this year, we've spent a little over $27,000. So we've spent right around 93% of our budget. And notice I said June 15th. The tornado hit June 18th. So a whole lot of stuff is going to be coming in the next month. Of that money that we've spent, 72% of it went to removing trees. So a little over $19,000. Removing trees is not cheap. And you need to have it done, particularly the bigger trees, by professionals. Our city arborist, Tim, can do a lot, but there are some things where he just says, I can't do it safely enough. 22% is stump grinding. So between those two, you're looking at 94% of our budget goes to removing all traces of a tree. The rest of the expenditures, 4% went to buying new trees. We would like to up that number. We will in the fall.

Not including the grant. Pardon?

Not including grant money.

Not including the grant. And there are other trees. We affectionately refer to them as police trees. Any of the trees that are removed or replanted as part of a project, those are not coming out of our budget. That's part of the project as a whole. 2% of the budget went to maintaining the equipment and getting new equipment. And that big tree giveaway we did on Arbor Day where we gave away 400 trees, that was less than 1% of our budget. So you can see what we're doing here. We're spending a lot in an area that we would rather spend less in. And that's part of something that the Urban Forestry Management Plan will hopefully help us with, with better maintenance, replacements, and making everybody more aware of the tree population. We should be able to keep a better handle on it, get that removal number a little bit lower. You know, with the tornado, it's gonna go, it's probably gonna double with the number of trees that we lost around town. So, that's what I've got. Any questions for me?

Yeah, do you have a strategy with replacing dying trees? Do you have a grander vision of a type of species of trees that would look better in Madison and accommodate the town?

We try to replant with natives or varieties of natives because they're adapted to the region and they tend to do better. We adhere to what's called a 30-20-10 strategy, where you try to have no more than 30% in the same family of trees, no more than 20% in the same genus, no more than 10% in the same species, so that if we have something like the emerald ash borer, we're not losing half of the trees in town and having a spike of $100,000 for tree root. We want to make sure that trees are appropriate for the spot. There are places there across the street, right in front of Red Roaster there. We're not gonna put an oak tree there. Okay, we're gonna put something a little smaller. We have to be... aware of where we're putting it because a lot of people don't like trees that are going to produce a messy fruit that is then going to get tracked into the house. Trees with lovely smells like female ginkgo trees. We try not to have those anymore. The ones we have are all guaranteed males. It's not like you can really look and tell. So yeah, we do, and there is some more information about that in the urban forestry management plan. Diversity is really a key to maintaining a good population regardless of what's coming down the pipe. And there's a whole pest management section in there that talks about emerald ash borer, the spotted lanternfly, which is already infested in Switzerland County and really takes on a lot of trees. weakens them to make them a little bit more susceptible to other things.

So what would success look like for the following, you know, for this year? And what would the ideal budget, just hypothetical world here, you know, what does the success look like and what is the budget required to achieve that success?

Good question. The budget for an area the size of downtown, I would say that $40,000 would be exceptional and could probably then be trimmed down later because a lot of that's going to go to tree removal. And as we get a healthier population... As we get a healthier population that's a little bit more viable and has been cared for for a number of years, we should see the number of renewables drop. For a while there, there was, you know, the rule about cutting trees now was like, no you can't. And so now we have a lot of trees that should have been taken care of years ago that, you know, we're kind of behind the ball on taking care of now. I would like to see more going to planting and, you know, planting more appropriate trees. We do have a tree list that's ready to get put on the website when the new website rolls out. It gives people a lot of suggestions of trees that you can plant, a lot of extra information on it, and trees that you shouldn't or can't plant. I forgot the second part here.

Well, I think you're flushing it out in terms of if I had to guess, it would eventually be able to less trees being removed, more trees planted.

We would like to increase the canopy. If you look on... page one of the urban forestry plan. It has a brief list of goals. On page two, it fleshes out each of those goals and objectives. And you'll see there's a little bit of writing in red there, and it says, we would like to take the canopy from X to Y. We would like to go up by 5% over the course of the next five, 10 years. It's not something you can do quickly with trees. But that's going to be caring for what we have so that fewer come down, putting some in to reestablish the canopy, make sure that we have, one of the good examples, we've got large trees along the riverfront. We need to make sure that when those age out, 20, 40, 60 years, there's something right there. Try to imagine regatta without those trees down there, without that little bit of shade. Okay? We need to remove the invasive, the Bradford pears off Main Street. We are not going to go down Main Street and cut down every Bradford pear. It would create a heat island in the middle of that street that would make summertime in Madison miserable for all the tourists. So we're going to take out about four or five a year. We'll take out one here, one here, one here, one here. So we're not creating this huge dearth of shade. And we're keeping things going, getting them out, putting in something that's appropriate that's going to maintain that shade level for businesses and for the tourists.

Thank you. Go ahead.

How achievable is the goal to increase by 5%? Do you? Very.

One of the things that we need daily for, you know, one of the things that Bob actually pointed out is, you know, I have a set of numbers. I inherited them. I have no idea how accurate they are. I don't know how they came. So we need somebody to come in and say, all right, this is what our canopy is now. All right, if our canopy, and our canopy to be a tree city has to be 39%. 39% of the downtown area needs to be covered by trees, public and private areas together. If they look and they say, all right, we're 38%, okay, we want to get up to 44%, and so then we can start being really strategic about how we're doing things.

But it's going to start with having that data. So right now the goal is 34.8%. That's the number I inherited. You're still working on an assessment methodology?

We're not working on anything quite yet other than making sure that anything that's taken down gets replaced. That's still a draft. And that number is flexible based on what we get professionals to tell us.

But we need to be at 39% to qualify as a

Tree City it's a federal definition it's a definition put forth by the Arbor Day Society they're the ones that created the Tree City designation they do allow a little flexibility on it I'm sorry I didn't mean to no no no that's okay I thought you were done that's my bad you mentioned the Bradford pears on Main Street we had did you have a meeting recently last night Tree Board did you happen to have a citizen come that expressed his very passionate

And strong desire to remove the Bradford pears because he's been emailing us and we've referred him to you.

We have an email, treeboard at madison-in.gov. Tell him to email me.

Okay.

I used to be a teacher. I can talk for days.

Because, well, like you said, we know they need to be removed, but we can't take them all out at the same time. And we've tried to explain that. He's just very passionate and he's got a good goal, just like you do. But, okay, that's helpful because we can email him. Treeboard at Madison-IN.gov.

Okay. That just went live recently.

Thank you.

You're welcome. I assume once this is no longer a draft, we'll be posting it. on your page as well.

Once it's no longer a draft, it'll go to Bob for final approval. It'll go to you guys for final approval. And then I'm assuming it would go on the website and get tattooed on your back and I don't know where else it would go.

Thank you for this work product. You've been working on this for a while and we've had lots of conversations about it. And like we've talked about in many, many meetings and this meeting too, when we have a good plan, you can have intentional outcomes and While you're there, Glenn, do you want to introduce the other tree board members who might be in the audience?

Let's see. Who do we got?

They can say hello.

We've got Karen in the back. Oh, we've got everybody here. Karen Skillman. We've got Jeff Matheny. And we have Lisa York. We do still have one vacancy on the board. So if you're interested, you can see Bob.

We're working on that for the next meeting. But thank you for all the work here. And I do find the whole data gathering process is going to be really interesting because we are working from very stale data and a lot of our tree response is reactive unless we're doing a project and then we're planting a lot of trees and Glenn and the tree committee or tree board spearheaded a grant application with DNR, so we're planting how many trees out of that downtown on the hilltop?

We've actually had two accepted. The first one we're kind of in the middle of right now. We've planted, I believe, 42 trees, maybe more. um and we're rolling into phase three of that uh this fall uh the second one uh was we were able to postpone it to next year that's got a hundred trees that we can plant anywhere we want not just in the downtown area and they would be cared for they would pay for the care of those trees for three years after they plant them which is nice and they give the government a student intern for the summer to help the third one Erica just made us aware of last night we're looking at it now and we may actually be able to use that grant to pay for DV resources to do all the data assessment and research for the city so it's a major survey a couple more questions for you on that your list of trees you said what were the metrics you track

on your list of trees, all the metrics you track, health and location, age, what else?

The list of trees that we're posting that are recommended for planting.

The planting list, not your survey list.

Correct. We do have a survey program that's basically administered by Tim that identifies almost every single tree downtown and has notes on it when it's been trimmed and things like that. Tim's just one guy. After the tornado, I'm pretty sure he probably hasn't had much desk time. to get caught up on that.

But that survey list does note potentially risky trees, right?

That's how you're helping to... predict what you're going to attack? Our software does have notes in it about, you know, this tree is going to need to be trimmed in five years. This tree is, you know, we really need to examine this tree in 10 years. And those are Tim's notes based on his experience. The Davy tree data, when we get that, we can fold that directly into that program. All of a sudden we have, all right, we know exactly right now every single tree and its condition downtown. And we know what we need to do moving forward. After that, what the UFP proposes is dividing the downtown area into about five sections to have the city arborist concentrate on each section you know, covering all the trees in any emergencies throughout the year, but really focusing on this one section this year, how are all the trees doing? You know, do any need maintenance? Do they look like they're going to need maintenance soon? What do we need to be thinking about and switch to the next section next year? So in a five year rotation, every single tree downtown is going to be touched and examined.

So for the potentially hazardous trees, Are those, in your opinion, you probably don't have card data, but are they mostly health related or are they growing into areas where they could fall over or get into power lines?

The ones that we've had to remove, I'll give you an example, the Catalpas down in Bicentennial Park. One was hollow, and that's a thing that you get with catulpas. The other one was leaning, and with all the rain that we had earlier, it started leaning more. Well, we're going to take those down, and that actually goes into a bigger project that's going to be redone, and so we'll get some more trees back there. Other trees, I mentioned the ones that are split earlier. That was as a result of the winds and the tornado. You know, a tree is like a gigantic sail. It catches all that wind. And if a tree goes up and splits evenly, you can really have, if one part catches more wind, that split's going to go straight down. We've got two that we've caught in that situation. Like I said, one, we're going to put a rod through it and a bolt. We think we can save it. The other one... We don't think it's safe to try doing that, and that one's going to be taken down. So it's really all over the place. We had to take one down because it got hit by a truck.

More about tree health damage or health of some sort, not because they're growing too close to an object, a building, a sidewalk?

That has very occasionally happened. But not much. There were a couple of trees taken down outside of the courthouse because they were buckling up the pavers there. We're looking into some ways to try to address the area around the trees so it can be a little bit more fluid. Because the last thing we want to do is take down a big tree because it's affecting the sidewalk. It's moved the curve an inch. Because these trees, the shade they provide is just... You know, my yard is an example. I've got two giant oak trees. If I stand on the street, it's 100 degrees plus out there. I move into my backyard, it drops by 10 to 15 degrees. I cannot tell you how much money those trees save me in air conditioning every year. So, you know, trees are living things. There's going to be some good and some bad issues. We're trying to maximize the good and minimize the bad.

When it comes to the pest management and invasive species sorts of things, what kind of system or plan to help mitigate all of that and kind of keep an eye on things?

It actually varies by individual species. So emerald ash borers, I don't know if you guys are aware, we have the largest ash tree in the state of Indiana right over here. And we encourage those homeowners to treat that tree so that that stays alive and healthy and the ash borers don't kill it. We're in a weird situation with ash borers. There's virtually no more ash trees, so is the population gonna starve and disappear? Or is it just waiting for the next one to, because they're starting to grow back up in forests again, but they're not more than five feet tall right now. We have a couple over in that same area that are on city property, those we actively treat. Now we know the Asian longhorn beetle is coming. We know that the spotted lanternfly is coming. One of the ways we're trying to address that is making sure that we're planting trees that aren't food items for them. We don't want to create this concentrated food oasis for a pest that's going to wipe out these plants and then cost us thousands of dollars to remove and replace. Past that, it's kind of looking out a little farther to see what's looming on the horizon. Things tend to come east to west because they're coming into the big ports along the east coast, and they just slowly make their way across. So we look to the more easterly states. We're looking at Virginia, West Virginia, places like that. When it starts to hit Ohio, it's like... All right, it's on its way. When is it going to get here? It's not like we can stop it. We can slow it down. When's it going to get here? What's it going to do when it gets here? What can we do to prepare ahead of time for this thing getting here in five weeks? Anything else? You guys are making me sweat. Thank you very much, Glenn. You're welcome.

Keep up the good work. All right, Joe, we'll move into resolution of bills.

So the first ordinance is ordinance number 2026-13C, and that is an ordinance annexing pursuant to voluntary petition certain territory to the city of Madison, Indiana, placing the same within the corporate boundaries thereof and making the same a part of the city of Madison, Indiana.

Tony, come up and give a presentation or, I'm sorry, discussion on the two.

annexes you do we take these separate or Joe you want to can we sort of time together sponsors did you mention sponsors we've got a sponsor I'm happy to do so yeah we've got sponsor on that is Josh Schaefer and yeah I think we can we can go ahead and introduce at the same time ordinance number 2026-14C and that's annexing certain parcels into the city of Madison The first one is 23.16 acres known as Madison Woods and the other one is 80.54 acres known as Kaler Farms, and yes, I believe that they're relatively similar, so we might as well introduce them both.

Thank you. Good evening, Council. Today is an exciting day for the City of Madison. As you all are aware, we've been in negotiations over the last few months with two developers as it relates to new housing opportunities for the City of Madison. These projects will provide a diverse mix of single family homes, patio homes, duplexes, town homes, market rate apartments, new trail and park amenities designed to help grow the city of Madison, Indiana. And these will be at all income levels. I can talk more about each one individually, but I'll give you a quick overview of them as it relates to the annexation. The first one is called Madison Woods. It is going to be a development once complete about 175 homes and potentially as high as 300 apartments. It'll provide entry level to mid-income and market rate apartments for individuals here at Madison. If you could go to my PowerPoint, that would be great. This property is located just off of Virginia Avenue, north of the Lowe's and contains four parcels to be annexed. All voluntary and all have the signed petitions as a part of the ordinance. So you can see there that the annexation is just to the first pond on your On your right, on the backside of that pond is the annexation line. There'll be more additional property later to annex. And we have our attorney here as well, Ryan Reynolds from Barnes and Thornburg, that can address some of those requirements. But you'll see the phase one and the apartments there on the right side are a part of that development. The additional parcels, if you can go to the next map. are the two parcels to the right or to the east of Bevshare Drive that both have agreed to be annexed as part of this project. The next project is Kaler Farms. That development will include paddy homes and single-family homes. It will provide a new entrance off of Clifty Drive and will provide mid-market to high-end homes. as it relates to those two project types. Again, both subdivisions, as we've talked, will conform with all the new UDO requirements that you've passed in the past. They will be developing the south two parcels in phase one, and then at some future date, the farmland to the north as a potential phase two at some point. I will introduce at this time Ryan Rogers with Barnes and Thornburg to address any questions you might have about annexation. I would say we think that as we looked, we're not sure who was the last mayor to do annexation, but even Miles Ridge was in the city when it was developed, so it could have been pre-1980, since the last annexation in the city of Madison.

No doubt it was prior to that. And I'll just add here, too, is that we talked a lot about key initiatives Housing is certainly one of those. We did a predictive housing analysis. We've worked with the Redevelopment Commission, public-private partnerships, the state of Indiana, so many different layers to bringing in new housing. And, of course, what we're missing is more options, more housing options. And as we've talked about before, we need housing options from all demographics here in Madison. It will work to serve Jefferson County, the city of Madison, as well as the region. First step today is the first reading in the annexation process, and this will be the first time in modern Madison history anyway that we've actually grown or expanded the corporate boundaries of the city. So this is very exciting. As you know, we've talked a lot about budgets, and one way that we can combat our shrinking budgets because of state legislation, is to expand our property tax base. And you do that with new investment, whether it be single family, multifamily, bringing more people into our community supports our economy. Welcome, Ryan.

Hi, everybody. My name's Hunt Reynolds. He asked me if my name was Ryan Reynolds earlier, and I thought he was kidding. I said, yeah. No, but it's Hunt. Good to be here. Got a beautiful town and a beautiful city hall. It's my first time in the city hall. It's really nice. As has been mentioned, you've got two ordinances. They are called supervoluntary ordinances. 100% of the landowners in the annexation territory have submitted petitions, so they're fully on board with it. It's a bit different than if you only have 51% or a lesser percentage. The proposed annexations meet all requirements. Applicable state laws, they meet the congruity requirement, 1-8th congruent with the town. I can go over the process here. Tonight's just the first reading of the ordinances, and I believe the team from Breedy here will be giving a quick talk on the fiscal plan that has to be adopted before the ordinances can be. There's a public hearing scheduled for August 4th. That'll be for both ordinances 13 and 14. And then by state law, you have to wait at least 14 days after the public hearing to adopt the ordinances. So that could come August 18th or thereafter. And then after, if they are adopted, uh, we'll publish notice of adoption in the newspaper here, and that will start at a 30 day appeals period. And then once, that appeals period is up the 30th day, the ordinances are effective and that property will be treated as such as part of Madison. Happy to answer any questions or talk about the process a little more if you need.

I don't know that this question is for you necessarily, but I was trying to write down Tony talks fast. I just want to verify on the Madison woods. I think you said 175 homes and up to 300 apartments, both? Did I write that down wrong?

Yes, when all phases are complete, there could be 175 lots as well as 300 apartments. Realize today that lot sizes are getting much more narrow and neighborhoods are becoming more dense as people in today's market wants less yards and They want different unit types. So both of these developments will accommodate both of those. You'll see smaller lots in both and, again, different typologies or types of units that you don't necessarily see here in Madison currently. Townhomes, a lot of patio homes, potentially some new duplexes.

So the Madison Woods, how many phases is that?

Likely two to three, depending on demand. Both developments will be done in phases, depending on demand.

And then on the Kaler Farms, I wanted to clarify, Phase 1 will not include the patio homes.

Phase one will likely include both patio and single-family homes. Again, both of these, depending on the final layouts and how you split them, they want to have multiple options at multiple price points to attract as many people as they can. So they'll probably introduce different typologies at the same time so that they understand what the market is going to actually look for.

And did you give us any numbers of how many? Lots, you know, like how many houses on the Gaylor Farms one. Did I miss that?

You did. I think I saw a lot of numbers today. Did we say 60? We modeled 60, but I think it's 75 ultimately is what they're looking at. But again, they could go up and lay on layout. But the good news is between both, we're looking at adding 400 to 750. plus units in the Madison market in the next five to ten years. That's a lot of great units. It's across all income levels. We've already, as I was going to just close here, these projects have been part of a broader housing strategy focusing on quality housing at all levels of income. The city, thanks to you, have been supportive of many of those programs, whether they're The PACE program, our Oak Hill investments we've made there, the Habitat for Humanities projects, as well as our community grant program, owner-occupied rehab programs that we've received grant funding for. So, again, as a part of a complete strategy here that housing at all incomes will help unfreeze the housing market that we have here in Madison. It's very frozen. If you have a entry-level home you want to move up as your family grows there's not a lot of options and if you're you have a big four or five bedroom house and it's just you now or you and your spouse so there's not a lot of options to downsize or more options in terms of typologies to downsize different unit types you know patio homes or maintenance-free homes so both of these developers are committed to providing unique typologies to our marketplace to help help attract and give other people options

I just want to mention, too, the phasing is important because the housing has to be accepted into the marketplace as it's built, and that will prompt additional housing, all indicators in the area. So we have a strong housing market, a very low unemployment rate, very robust demand for new housing. There has not been any major multifamily built. Sunrise Crossing is the first one in probably about 40 years, and Downtown, the apartments on the riverfront will be the first in about a half a century. And so we've got to provide more housing options, and we're missing that middle. We are really missing the middle market here. So Mass and Woods will focus initially on entry-level housing, not a lot of that, single-family entry-level, whereas Kaler Farms will be more on the, I'd say, $350,000, $400,000-plus mark, which there's a high demand for that as well. And that will also allow us to attract more population and move mass. And so this is a long-term strategy and I'm grateful that the, uh, partnerships, uh, are also resulting in expanding the boundaries of the city.

And I would just also say, having visited recently with a number of industries, um, all, but a couple in town are looking at mid, uh, mid to upper management opportunities. Housing is a number one conversation. One of the developers told us today that the last three houses they sold were people moving in for mid to upper management opportunities at our industry. We need those to continue to grow, plus we need the opportunity for those who are working hard in our community to have the right to home ownership. Everyone deserves the right to home ownership, and so our goal is to try to help them do that. There will be more information about that later. Madison's Woods is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to continue to help them have lots for available housing and so we're excited that we were able to partner and bridge that gap as part of our conversations and so we're really excited about that as well and we're certainly continue to be supportive of others and other ideas and we'll be happy to look at that and again want to thank you all for your support through the years here on the various things that have helped us get to today UDO the bonds that the incentive money is coming from and those sorts of things. So thank you for that.

Tony, have you sent that presentation out yet?

Have I sent that presentation? The City Council presentation has not gone out yet.

There was a press release just a little while ago after our Redevelopment Commission meeting. I would encourage anybody to watch the Redevelopment Commission meeting where this was also discussed there. We signed two EDA agreements and also a

Partnership with the small business for more investment at our industrial park Any other questions for hunt or myself All right, thank you Are there any public comments on this ordinance I Welcome, Chief.

Hi. I'm Robert Black from 1988 North Borchardine Road, or my other address, 3413 North Michigan Road at the firehouse. My question to you, I understand we've got to develop and we've got to expand for the city, but then the fire department has been taking care of that area for over 50 years. It's going to get less tax revenue for a contract. How do we address that? We fight for every dollar we get now because we won't get those tax dollars for a contract for the fire protection for those two areas. How do we address that?

Well, right now, both areas are vacant farmland or vacant areas, so there's very little. What this will actually do is enhance the property tax revenue, and then we also have the mutual aid agreements between the city and the Township Fire Department. So our goal there would be to continue to work together as that housing gets constructed.

But when it starts getting developed, money starts coming in, that would have been a big boost to the two county fire departments for that area. So, I mean, that's my question is how do we address it?

They will still pay county taxes, though.

Huh?

They will still pay county taxes.

Yeah, but the fire, what's on the county tax for the fire protection, this city doesn't pay into for outside the city limits.

look back at which fund there's there's a fire tax for the township outside the city of madison and that's where we get our contract money in well i mean yeah i mean joe's point is that becomes a city of fire city of madison fire department relying upon mutual aid again uh as you're well aware in a couple years or over the course of the next couple years both the city as well as jefferson county will be um evaluating their municipal local income taxes included in that local income tax is a municipal tax for fire and EMS. So along the way, there's going to be a lot potentially of additional revenue that's going to go specifically to fire and EMS because of the tax rates chief.

That's my question. I thought I'd ask it in public. Am I trying to be hard to get along with? No, you're not. I'm trying to protect our fire companies that are currently there that struggle with every dollar they get. Yes.

Well, and expanding the tax base does help create additional revenue, convert property into income-producing properties. But there's a lot of work to do on the fire EMS side. Your question's a valid one.

We'd like to be kept in the loop on it. we'd like to set in on some discussion so we can make sure we are taking care of it takes anymore. It takes a lot to run a fire department. A lot of money. We're expecting our new engine and the next month or so at 822,000 at the same engine that we ordered days over 1 million. Our fire gears 5000 is for coke pants. So we're trying to fight for every dollar we get that we can get. Likewise. Thank you.

Do I need to say my name?

Okay. It's Cami, C-A-M-I, Kelch, K-E-L-T-C-H. I live at 318 Broadway Street. Yep. So, I don't know if now is the time, but I just want us to be aware, I guess, as moving forward. I don't see any issues with the annexation or anything, but I do have concerns on the Madison Woods property owner, which is listed as Hackberry Property Investments, and that is owned by Temple and Temple Excavating and Paving, or Ken Temple who was the president of that company. That is the company that was given the contract for our Heritage Trail expansion. They are out of Salem. I'm just kind of curious how they came to get this land. And I want to be sure that we're being good stewards of City of Madison tax dollars. I don't want preferential treatment being given to people that it appears you know have a relationship with Kevin Callum's who is our regional development representative I just have a lot of questions kind of around this relationship and how this is coming to be and from my understanding that land was previously owned by somebody who's incarcerated I do know that Kevin Kellams had paid the bond for that person when they first got out that was later revoked but I'm just trying to be a watchdog as a member of the city and making sure that we aren't doing behind door deals that are inappropriate I guess

Well, some of the things you're saying I'm not aware of. I don't know what Kevin's relationship is there. Okay. That property was purchased by Ken Temple. Anybody could have purchased that property. Everything is public. It's gone through the Redevelopment Commission. You know, the implication that something nefarious or behind the scenes or preferential is happening is just not accurate. So I'd like to just set the record straight on that, Kami.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yep.

Sorry. Please come to the podium.

How many structures?

If you wouldn't mind, introduce yourself. We'll get it on the record. We all know who you are.

Yeah, you do. I know you. Deanna Shelly.

Let Shirley give your name and address.

120 Wall. A higher ed district. And who are you? Mrs. Shelly. Deanna Shelly. I heard on the Madison Woods how many units, but I didn't hear the Kaler Farms. That breakdown. Can you tell me how many structures?

What was it, 75 initially?

75 lots. Are they all going to be houses?

Okay.

That's one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Weatherby 2685 West Deputy Pike Road. Our property lays right next to where this development is on the Kaler Farms is proposed and we've lived there over 50 years. We're on Big Clifty Creek. It runs directly to the Well, it goes through the goalies and then it goes to Clifty Park on the other side of the road. It's a beautiful area. I think sometimes we get so caught up in, oh, what the state says. Every meeting that I listen to or I come to, I hear the state wants housing, the state wants housing. We have housing. We have a community in downtown Madison until we put over 200 homes in. into bed and breakfasts and rentals. You know, building everything up into commercial and buildings, we have the beauty of nature here. And if we build everything up into housing, housing, housing, I mean, we're going to lose a lot of that. There are places that aren't pristine. This area is pristine. It's right next to Clifty Falls State Park. And it's going to diminish our property value. We own 50 acres on the other side. This is between Oak Hill and our property. And we've already had flooding issues coming through. And I don't know. I find that everything seems to be a lack of transparency. There's lots of planning, but the planning is not done with the citizens. I think that what we're missing here is this is Madison. You are here for a short period of time. You'll be out in two years. Your term will be over. Is that correct? Yes, my term.

My current term.

Yes, your correct term will be finished in two years. And it's like the Indians. You sort of have to think in the long term. you know we've come in we've destroyed we've we've done all these things to nature but eventually we're going to have more foresight than we have now and we're going to realize what we were given what we have here is a jewel it's a beautiful place and if we bring all this housing and we bring this data center Which we will need the tree canopy because if it raises our temperature, you know how hot it's been, and if it raises our temperatures here from 4 to 16 degrees, we will need a lot of tree canopy. And we are, I don't know, I mean, housing, but who's going to live in these houses if we make this place so that it's not livable? If our water, when it comes out of the faucet, turns brown, or our toilets don't refill, or our air quality is so minimal, and... I think that, you know, I don't care what the state says. This is Madison, and we need more public planning, just like the riverfront. And I know that's gone on and gone on. But it went on because it was pushed through without really looking. Yes, we have seven parks down at the riverfront, but adults don't use these parks for the majority. The parks are for children, which are good. But people go to the riverfront because they want quiet solitude. They want a place where there's not a bunch of commercialization. And that's what this town... Look at Charleston. Charleston has been ruined. It's been decimated. It has so much housing through the whole thing. There is no longer any countryside. And then besides that, now we have all this commercial area. And they just put in. Okay, another data center. So I think that we need to put a stop. We need a moratorium on housing and all these things, and we need to look and see what quality of life people in Madison really want. And we want to be honest and upfront, and we want council members who think about things and don't just always vote the same way every time. And I think if we look up the record... We have several council members who never vote against what the representative wants them to vote. And I don't like character assassination. I think that we need to be respectful of each other and have, you know, we have a good life here. Let's keep it. Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. I don't see any others, so that will move on to second reading. The next thing on the agenda is resolution number 26-8C, and that is a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, to adopt the written fiscal plan and definite policy for area known as annexation territory in ordinances number 2026-13 and 2026-14.

Good evening again, counsel. At this time, I'd like to introduce Reedy Financial and Mickey to talk a little bit about the fiscal plan, which is a requirement in state statute, and they were hired to look at both of these. You have several documents, and he'll hopefully try to help you navigate through those. I know we've talked and went through some of that stuff with many of you, so at this point, I'll introduce you to work through the fiscal plan. Thank you.

Thank you. My name's Mickey Bell with Reedy Financial Group. I helped prepare the annexation fiscal plan for these two areas. I will briefly go through the fiscal plan, hopefully answer any questions that you may have. So the first attachment, I reference it as the narrative portion. It breaks down the area of the annexations for the Madison Woods and the Kaler Farms. And it also breaks down the different departments that the city has and the services that the city provides. The one big thing in here, the city doesn't anticipate to incur any costs with this annexation, and that is solely based off how the properties sit currently. When doing annexation fiscal plans, you have to look at how the property is currently. So that that's basically a breakdown of the narrative is the, um, the different legal requirements and then the different city departments moving to the actual fiscal impacts or tax impacts. Um, for area one, the Madison woods, the first 20 to 25 pages shows all the calculations and the breakdowns for the overlapping units. The last page is really a summary. of the 20 to 25 pages leading up to that. And you can see the breakdown to the overlapping units and the impacts there. To answer a previous question by the public regarding the fire impact, you can see on the last page there for the Madison Woods annexation, the revenues that would impact the fire for the township is approximately $50 just for that annexation. Going down, you can see the other different impacts to the overlapping units. Below that, we show the impacts to the property owners of the four parcels within the Madison Woods annexation. Two of those properties are exempt and don't pay property taxes. The other two, you see the impacts there. Then the bottom portion there shows the impact to the city.

Are those two current exemptions because of their agricultural status?

No, they're non-profit, so yeah. The bottom portion there shows the impact to the city. It's mainly the max levy impact, so with the city annexing the properties, the city will see an increase to the NAV, and then there's an offsetting increase to the max levy to keep a neutral tax rate to generate more property taxes there. The third attachment, the Kaler Farms, It's essentially the same thing. The first 20, 25 pages shows a breakdown of each of the calculations for the overlapping impacts, overlapping impact to the units. The last page has a very similar breakdown of a summary for all the impacts. This annexation affects Mass and Township fire revenue by approximately $63. $63. And then you see no impact to their tax bill for these three properties in the Kaler Farms. And that is because they are currently classified as agricultural. And they will not pay the city tax rate until they're reclassified by state statute. The bottom portion there shows, again, the impact to the city. Again, it's... Even though they're not paying the property taxes because they're classified as agricultural, the city will still see the NAV impact to the max levy, which will then be an offset to increase the max levy. So the city will still see a benefit from annexing those three agricultural properties.

Tony, if you could send this file out as well. The highlights did not come through in the printed copy. It may be in our packet online now. Was the color in there maybe? It might have been.

Any other questions?

Actually, we need a motion to approve this resolution.

I would move we approve Resolution 2026-8C as presented.

Okay, do we have a second? Seconded. Is there any other comments? Any public comments? Any comments from the council? or the roll call vote.

It's a little difficult to make decisions on something you were just handed right before meeting. I don't recall receiving.

Yeah, that document was in your packet and was reviewed.

I don't know.

Did you hand something out? No.

But we do have a motion and a second.

I don't know if it's all in the package. I'm sorry.

I know it's a lot of material, and that's why we had Mickey and our other friends from Reedy here to describe and summarize the fiscal impact.

Sorry, my apologies. Okay.

There's a lot of paperwork in the last week here on all these. So it was quite possible, but I thought...

All right, so we have a motion and a second. Can we have a roll call vote?

Patrick Tevinow. Yes. Carly Krebs. Yes. Lucy DiTillo.

I abstain for lack of reviewing the materials.

Josh Schaefer. Yes.

Joel Storm.

Yes.

Jim Bartlett.

Yes.

Council, thank you very much. Tony, if you could send that clean copy when you get a chance. That is scanned in. Yes. Okay.

All right, and next we have resolution number 2026-9C, a resolution of the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, removing and replacing Jim Bartlett as council president pro tem. Do we have a motion to approve?

I would request this resolution be read in its entirety, please.

Is there even, is there a rule on that? Okay. Whereas Common Council selected Jim Bartlett as President Pro Tem in January 2026 pursuant to Indiana Code 36-4-6-8 and the oath taken as a member of Madison Common Council requires one to impartially discharge their duties as a member of the Common Council, whereas Jim Bartlett in his capacity as President Pro Tem colluded with a member of the public to knowingly change the order of public comment for the purposes of not allowing any follow-up comment from other members of the public. In this manner, Councilman Bartlett facilitated the use of public comment for spreading unfounded allegations against Councilman Tevenaugh, whereas Jim Bartlett, in his capacity as president program, knowingly made false allegations of intimidation by Councilman Tevenaugh and called for his resignation, whereas at no time did Jim Bartlett discuss the matter with Councilman Thibault to have a full and impartial understanding of the situation prior to making public statements as President Pro Tem, whereas Councilman Bartlett's behavior was unbecoming of the position and demonstrates his inability to impartially serve as President Pro Tem, and doing so has lost the trust of the Common Council and the public he serves. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Common Council, the City of Madison, Indiana, that Jim Bartlett is immediately removed as president pro tem of the Common Council of the City of Madison. Upon successful passage of the process, the Common Council shall immediately move to select a new president pro tem. Do we have a motion to approve? Oh, and it's sponsored by Councilman Temple. Do we have a motion to approve?

I'd move we approve Resolution 26-9C. Okay.

Do we have a second? I'm seeing no second.

It fails for lack of a second.

now we have resolution twenty six dash ten c resolution of the common council of the city of madison indiana censoring mayor bob g courtney for transgressions of common council rules i request this be read in its entirety as well please whereas you can't hear me okay whereas the common council or whereas mayor courtney of the common council drafted and passed ordinance 2024-6 to update and amend the common council meeting rules and procedures accordingly the mayor presides over all meetings of the common council and shall preserve order and decorum and shall decide all questions of order and if any transgressions of the rules other than breach of order of decorum is serious enough in the judgment of the council a member offend a member so offending may be censured or fined by vote of the common council i'm not going to yell i'm reading this for the record i'm not necessarily reading it for the audience whereas pursuant to ordinance 2024 the common council requires all speakers to sign in in advance if they intend to speak during public comment Whereas on July 7th, 2026, two members of the public sought to make public comments outside of the established council rules requiring advanced sign in. Whereas on July 7th, Mayor Courtney knowingly transgressed council rules by claiming the privilege to unilaterally waive the rules concerning sign-in for public comment and allowed two further speakers. Whereas, in response to a request by Councilman Tevenall to identify the part of the ordinance allowing the mayor to waive council rules, he responded, I'll allow it. It's in our rules of procedure. It's in Ordinance 2024-6. We'll discuss it after the meeting and never follow it up with research to substantiate his claims. Whereas ordinance number 2024-6 does not allow the mayor to waive council rules and they may only be suspended with a two-thirds vote of all members of the council. Whereas the executive of the city and the presiding officer of the common council should be aware of all the rules and procedures of the common council and to knowingly ignore these rules constitutes serious transgression. Now therefore be it resolved by the common council of the city of Madison, Indiana that the Common Council of the City of Madison, Indiana, hereby censures Mayor Bob G. Courtney for knowingly transgressing council rules. Okay, do we have a motion to approve?

I move we approve Resolution 26-10C. Okay, do we have a second?

There's no second. And again, that resolution as well fails for lack of a second.

This is your first warning. Please stop disrupting the meeting. That's your first warning. Move on to the agenda. Thank you, Council. Council, are there any other reports, recommendations, or business from the Select Committee of the City Council? Hearing none, I mentioned at the last meeting that I would make the action today to appoint a select committee on professional conduct, and I'd like to make that appointment now. The way that procedure works is this is a mayor's select committee to essentially investigate the matter at hand for a limited duration, and I would like to appoint Lucy DiTillo, Josh Wilbur, and Patrick Thivenaugh to the select committee on professional conduct. Now moving on, reports of city officials. Mindy, did you want to make any statements about the budget process?

Thank you. I just laid a proposed schedule down for you tonight for our upcoming workshops and the whole schedule through approval. So if those dates for workshop do not work, please let me know right away. We do not have a lot of flexibility. I did build in one extra meeting in case something comes up in the process and we need to delay for a meeting. We have the room to do that. Budget status is a first pass is done on all the budgets. There's 38 budget worksheets. Those are done on first pass. I do not have any state estimates yet, so it's all a guess at this point, but we will have those soon. They'll start coming in soon.

Have you guys seen any? You're looking right for the budget estimates from the state. Have you seen any coming in yet?

Yeah, that's all I've seen as well. And that's estimated at 6% this year.

Yes, yeah. No miscellaneous tax estimates in yet. So my goal to get them out to you electronically will be around the 1st of August, 1st Monday in August. But then the printed copies take a lot longer, plus we end up making some changes. So those will come a little bit later. I'll let you know when those are ready to go.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right. Moving on, we do have one item here I'd like to talk about. And in your package, Council, there is the grant acceptance from Bethany Legacy Foundation. A little bit of a background here. Bethany Legacy Foundation has been a great partner to the city of Madison. They've worked with us on multiple new park investments, and that is what we're doing here. And today I'm proud to announce that Over the course of the last probably three weeks, we've received about $1.1 million in new grant dollars, $500,000 of which will be from Bethany Legacy Foundation. And the project is City of Madison Park Investments. It's not very restricted other than the year in which they're going to fund the money. So of the $500,000, $250,000 would be funded in 2026 and $250,000. So you get $250,000 each year, 2026 to 2027. half has to be utilized downtown, has to be utilized on the hilltop. We do have a park investment plan. As you know, we have several parks underway now, including Welch and Kiwanis, and then more park investments in the planning stages. So very grateful for Bethany Legacy's commitment to health and wellness and the City of Madison's partnership in that goal. So I would like to ask council for a motion to approve the grant.

I move to approve the grant gratefully and thankfully, from the Bethany Foundation.

I will second that motion.

All right, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. And moving through the rest of our agenda, I think now we'll turn it over before the mayor's comments for public comments for a sign-up sheet.

And we do have a number of folks signed up to do public comment. Once again, I would remind you that we are limited to four minutes per person for public comment. We'll start with Randy Bellamy.

Well, Randy Bellamy, 409 East 3rd Street, Madison. with what happened at the last meeting should never have happened. It should never have happened. It should not have happened at all. You should never bring your dirty laundry to the council meeting. That should not have been allowed. They made accusations, whether they were found and had evidence or not, they made accusations against one of your members without any evidence actually. And it was passed over by you, Mr. Mayor, that said that they could do that. I don't understand it. I've never seen it happen before in a meeting. So that's what my comment is.

Kami Kelch.

Just to follow Randy, you know, no matter what the meat and potatoes of that situation was at the last council meeting, I think it was very clear that rules of this council were not followed. They were very strictly enforced as people were in opposition of the riverfront development. They had to be signed in. They had a strict limit on how long they could speak. And that was thrown out the window. And so, you know, it's just disappointing, honestly, that you guys aren't standing up to the rules that you guys are here to enforce and the people, your constituents that you're meant to represent, that we all have to go by the same rules, that it's not different for those who... are speaking out against someone who is disliked or appears to be disliked by the majority of this council so you know I just I think it's a bummer I think it's a bummer that certain people are expected to abide by the rules of this council and others are not and are given leeway so thank you Lisa Ferguson

Did Lisa pass? Debbie Anderson? Robert Black? Deanna Shelley?

You know I love to come here and do this. I've done it so often.

Is this on?

Touch the base of it. There it is. You're good.

This red ring on the tip is on your microphone.

Okay. Thank you. Well, you know, I know we're all good people here. And I know we all love this town. But I just have a few comments on the unwanted project. and a look back on other issues. I'm here to express my disappointment with this administration and its council regarding the riverfront project. It is obvious the majority of the town opposes it. Common sense has been ruled out. The lots in the flood zone, core samples revealed weakness in the ground. The city had a better offer, was ignored. And add to that The good alternatives that fell on deaf ears. The sincere pleas of the many that appeared before you were ignored. I'm sorry to say, during my life, the town has not experienced a council such as this. Think of the efforts of Dr. Jones and his wife when they made two trips to our meetings determined to voice their opposition. And then consider the comments of a former councilman, Darrell Henderson, about the decision of the city when he served. This was at a meeting formed by Joel Storm at the high school. That council chose to protect the ambiance of the river for the future enjoyment of the people. Projects such as this would never have been considered. Overloading one corner with unwanted new construction is a slap in the face to those before you who work tirelessly to preserve and protect our treasured and unique historic district. 80 families plus even more cars will not enhance the riverfront. It will create excess and congested traffic where once was a sense of serenity. And the river will flood It will command the space, creating uninhabitable living conditions. Where will the people go and their cars? Foresight and proper planning seem lacking. Now for the other issues. Have you looked back to see how your changes are working or not working? We now have gridlock on Main Street. the East End and the West End. Southbound traffic from Jefferson Street turning left onto Main can't move. There's no space. Access from side streets onto Main is often blocked due to multiple blocks of bumper-to-bumper traffic. The corner of Main and Craigmont always has had a need of a right turn lane. That fact has not changed. The obstructive cones there are a constant unsightly source of aggravation. And please, no more bump outs. We have enough.

The bump outs have posed a problem.

I can't talk faster. Four of the church goers on Vine in Maine. And Mill in Maine has a stoplight, so it's not needed there. And consider the adverse effect on the addict's business. It would reduce available parking and hamper their stop-and-go customers and DoorDash service.

Deanna, I need to stop you. We've heard it before.

We're well past your four minutes.

You're welcome to email that to us if you want to.

Has my email been unblocked?

We can't block your email at the city email address. It was.

No. Okay. Well, let me tell you about, I do appreciate jobs well done. And I've always thanked the mayor for a great job on Crystal Beach. And I doubt there's another pool that measures up to it. And I acknowledge the effort it took to add the grocery downtown. I appreciate that. But let us work together for the future. We are merely short-term caretakers of a treasured town. We have a job to do. The shovel has not gone into the ground yet. You still have time. Thank you.

Ms. Shelley, I'm just going to remind you that the state controls east of Jefferson. We can make recommendations. We can try to talk to them, but they make the decisions. They also make the decisions at Craigmont and Main because they're state highways. And so we can't pick what kind of lights they put there. We can talk and we can try to reason with them and we can voice our concerns, but we do not make decisions concerning those two intersections. East of Jefferson. Once you get through that light, courthouse on, controlled by the state.

The light itself is also considered part of the state's intersection.

I can give you an email address to complain to them. Okay.

Karen Skillman. I'll pass, thank you. Mark Goley. I'll pass.

Gina Freeman. Gina Freeman, 1123 West Main Street. First of all, I just want to say that the city, whoever picked up the trees, who picked up the trees?

The Madison Street Department is picking up the trees on the city streets and in the alleys, and work continues because there's a lot to do.

Awesome job. I know I saw you at the West End that next day, I guess. It was horrible down at that end. And they're doing their best to clean up our alley. And I just want to say that they were doing an outstanding job. Now, to get to the point where I think everybody knew where to put our tree waste and our logs and everything, they went to the alley. They didn't go in somebody else's yard. They didn't go in the front yard or whatever. But I think everybody – I don't know. I'm not going to say everybody knew. But the majority of people in Madison knew if you put it out, you know, at the road, that it will be picked up. And it has been. And it's so appreciated. So I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

Donna Perry.

Can you read that?

Townsend, maybe?

Is there a Townsend? I apologize if I've mispronounced the name.

300 Hillcrest Drive.

Yeah, 300 Hillcrest Drive. OK. Andrew Williams. Shelly Murphy Smith.

Shelly Murphy Smith, 418 East 2nd Street. I just want to make a statement tonight about the last city hall meeting. I was appalled in a lot of ways. First one was the slap in the face for bond drive property. I'm not even going to go into it. Their market value, $100,000. We all know it's worth more than that. It's out of our control now. It's awful. But the most disappointing was in how that meeting ended. I cannot believe that when a city council member was being personally attacked for a civil matter, something which was not official city business, that this persecution was not shut down but rather encouraged. We all know that when someone is speaking, especially in contradiction, the speakers are quickly shut down at four minutes. But in this case, it's accusations and the defamatory remarks were allowed to go on much longer than allotted time and were even encouraged. So much so that others even came up and got in on the attack. It was shameful and disgraceful and this was allowed to even happen. I understand wanting to know how a situation is handled by local authorities when a city official is involved. But no names needed to be brought into that inquiry since it was a civil matter. We've also been told countless times we are not supposed to ask questions of city council but to voice concerns only. I don't dispute that it was valid to speak of a concern about understanding policy in that type of situation, but that is not what happened. It began that way by having the police chief explain how these situations were handled. He stated by referral to the county sheriff's department, which is what was done in the situation being discussed at the meeting, and as is the policy for the issue involving any city employee, which he stated. But instead of dropping it there with the policy explained, it turned into a persecution of one city council member, That was encouraged by others in our local government. That was shameful and by no means should have ever happened. If there was an issue of ethics or morality that could have been discussed in a closed-door executive session at a later time, this was a civil matter, not city business, and it had already been addressed by our local sheriff as stated by our police chief. Worse yet, it was in various places on social media that several people were planning to come and speak to this issue and join in the defamatory attack which made this a planned attack. To make this situation even more appalling, in all the city hall meetings I have attended and watched online, public speakers have been called in the order that they sign up to speak. But in this case, the order of the speakers was changed. I had signed up to speak last, but that didn't happen. My name was called to speak before the person who had signed up before me, instead of being called last as it was signed up in the order. The speaker order has never been changed unless someone has declined to speak or left. Every time the order has been followed since the order of speakers was changed by moving my name from last to speak before that person who started this incident, this suggests knowingly knowing what was going to take place. There was no reason to do that unless there was a personal agenda. Why else would the order of speakers be changed? After the meeting was adjourned, I personally saw what the word was last was written right next to that person's name to purposely make sure they spoke after me. The order of the speaker should never have been changed. It seems like it was because one city council member tends to go against the wishes of others and always make sure our community is informed of issues. And it is apparent that this is not always liked by some. Therefore, that persecution was allowed to happen. This was a civil matter, not city business. This would not have happened if any other two individuals came to talk about an issue. And the fact that the order of speakers was changed took away my right as a voting citizen to be able to speak and comment on that issue at that time if I chose to. Today I speak out because these personal vendettas and animosity are ridiculous and it shouldn't be allowed to stand. This was bullying behavior and persecution at its worst. I am super disappointed in the behavior of so many people in our government and locally that I sure hope this type of behavior changes. It's very disappointing in our community that it would happen. And I just want that known because it was on record.

Gerald Cameron. Kate Shafferty. Are you passing? I've got three more people signed in after you. Michael Greco.

Michael Greco, 820 Walnut Street. First thing I want to say is I applaud the council here for dropping these two last resolutions. The other thing is the mayor making this committee on ethics, I think, is great. especially the people he picked. I think what happened at the last meeting that brought all this up was festering for a number of years. This should have been taken care of years ago, and maybe a committee formed then, and this problem should have been handled years ago. I asked this new committee to look at the history of what's been going on and i think you'll be able to come up with some ideas how to hedge that the other thing is the people that are against this waterfront community or this redevelopment this town can only survive so many years with more boutiques and more antique shops you've got to look ahead My passion is the fire department. We had a false alarm today. There was close to $5 million worth of fire equipment on that street. And the city does put in part of that in the county. But a lot of that is, well, all of it's volunteer and a lot of it is privately owned equipment. That has to be funded. This town is going to, all of you are going to jump off the bridge here in another five years or so when you have to have a paid department. Just in the last eight years I've been here, you've got the attack factory, you've got Sunrise that's come up, you've got New Stick built across Movio, you've got the cotton mill down there, you've got all this business coming in and All of it can burn. And who's going to pay for it? It's going to have to come out of your tax dollars. And the only way to do that is to invest. And if the public wants to get involved, they need to get involved. If the public wants to buy that property, they should have bought that property. And as far as fair market value, I'd give a deal on a piece of property if it's going to bring in hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars versus taking money up front and it just sitting sitting idle the other thing is I don't know about this deal where you write last on someone's name I took that as being that's the last name on the page so I flipped it over and put my name down there so I don't think it meant that that person was to talk last that's all I've got to say Donna Perry had asked to speak Jim

Donna?

My name's Donna Perry. I live in 630 West 3rd Street, Madison. And this is the first time I've ever done this. So I apologize. I'm not going to go longer than expected. But something was said a while ago. It was a long, lengthy conversation this lady had. And I will tell you, I watched a meeting my computer a long time ago or not it's been months ago and I was so so disappointed in one of the council or one of the members that spoke to our mayor So disrespectful that it made me sick. And I was disappointed in that person. And I've lived here all my life. And I was so upset because that person was so disrespectful in front of the camera, in front of the group here. in front of everyone and i thought how and i even asked how is he allowed or she is allowed to speak to our mayor during a meeting like that in front of everyone i love what he has done my family one of my family members doesn't live in madison she said what is the so said so negative about our mayor mayor because it looks like he's done a tremendous job And I think so, too. So I am very disappointed in that person that disrespected our mayor and anyone else. And that's all I've got to say. Thank you.

Paula Weatherby.

Sure thing. Paula Weatherby, 2685 West Deputy Pike Road. And I watched that last meeting online. And I would say that the last part was very disappointing to me. I would call that character assassination. tried to and the definition for that is a slandering of a person usually with the intention of destroying public confidence in that person now when you're on my estimation is when you're on the City Council and we have many good City Council members your job is to think for yourself your job is to review what is given to you to decide for yourself you do not follow the mayor I know of three people on our council who if we look back through the votes I would bet a large sum of money that they have never voted any other way but the way that the mayor wants them to vote and I think that It's important. You have brains. You are individuals. You think for yourself, and you don't build yourself up by trying to put someone else down. And just because you don't agree and you bring that voice up doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with it. That's the way democracy works. We are not here to... Yes, everything that's put before us. We're here to use our brains and to think and to make good decisions. good decisions from that, and that's what we expect of council members. We don't expect people to just, yes, sir, yes, sir, and agree with everything that's said. We need, that's what democracy is, and that's part of the problem because everybody is a Republican on this board, and I'm not saying Republican or Democrat. I'm saying we've lost a balance because when you have a balance, then you play off of each other. And that's the way it is right now, but it was not that way in the past and it won't be that way in the future. But use your brains and think and review the information and don't try to put somebody else down who does use their mind and they think for themselves and they bring up relative things that are important for our city. Thank you.

Melanie Arden.

I'm Melanie Ott, and I live at 711 East Main Street. I am District 1. That is downtown. You should be my councilman. If I have a problem, I have to call Jim Bartlett. You want to sit here in judgment of Jim, have him step down. You're not a good enough man to do that. That is the most honest, the most fair, the most ethical man I have ever met. Maybe the best man in the room. You want to sit in judgment. While your girlfriend over here enjoys insulting people that do vote for you, and I was one of your biggest supporters. Was. Your district is not Kent not deputy it's not Columbus it's where I live I am in your district I am the one that you should be talking to you got Facebook followers not supporters you have always been a good man the rest of you I have appreciated everything you've done and thank you for what you've done for our city But you have tried diligently to divide our city. You should be ashamed. Absolutely ashamed of what you're doing. You're not helping anyone but yourself.

Thank you.

Kate Chaffrey.

If anyone should be ashamed, it's the other six of you sitting there.

Name and address, please.

Kate Chaffery, 106 East 3rd Street. Let's see, where do I start? Oh, the conduct that you want reviewed. I just hope the committee, I forget who was on there, reviews Mayor Courtney's conduct in April of 2025 when he followed me home in the city vehicle for eight blocks with his wife when I was alone and then trapped me in my vehicle. Oh, and then used his city email to have me removed from a volunteer position. I do hope that's looked at. I have lots of evidence of that. So if you would call me, would love to turn that over. let's see what else Jim at your age you should know there's two sides to every story I don't know why you never called to get the other side it's a shame that you didn't and said you just sat there and rolled off your tongue with one side of the story we also have evidence from that situation that we would have left to have shown you you didn't bother asking for it also brought up at the last meeting was the situation with the other neighbors that we've had before which I believe Lucy and Carla you sat in on mediation for that situation I remember a few comments after you tried to help with that which I do appreciate you did try unfortunately the other side was not reasonable and there was no solving it Carla I think at one point the words you used were don't know how you live next door to her if I were you I would move so again multiple sides to a story which also Jim you never bothered to get the other side of that either so they're disappointed you should be ashamed of yourself for what you did at the last meeting you should be ashamed of yourself for what you did in April of 2025 to me I'm sorry, is there something?

No. No.

Okay. So if any of you would ever like the other side to these situations, you have Patrick's number. You can call him anytime, and we'll be happy to give him to you. Josh, public comment is up here. I don't know whatever's on the computer. That's been so much more important than the public comment that's been going on. But also, if you ever want the other side to a story, you're welcome to call us anytime.

I've heard both sides' stories several times.

Do you have from Patrick himself? I don't think so.

Phones work both ways, if you haven't noticed that. Someone can make a call to you. Right. They do.

And they do make calls. But then you don't ever call the other side of the complaint to ask his side of it. So, yes, they do work both ways.

But when you only choose one side. Okay.

I'm not even really talking to you.

You're literally talking to me.

I mean, again, I'm really focusing on Jim and the mayor. Okay. And Lucy and Carla. So in the future, since you also didn't do anything last meeting to stop the circus, I do hope you at least try to give both sides. Thank you.

That's all.

Thank you. Council, thanks to everybody who spoke. We'll close here in just a minute. Our next meeting is August 4th. I do want to mention to Council, and probably if you attended or watched the Board of Public Works and Safety meeting yesterday, we had a conversation about the Community Crossing Matching Grant Program. So Council would ask each of you to be giving some thought as to the highest priority streets in your districts. I'm expecting that it will be a tough 2027 for road funding. We rely upon a large portion of that to come from the state local road and bridge matching grant program. Right now we're underway on the 2026 project, and we really had to work very, very hard in order to get that program funded. We need to spend approximately a million dollars a year on our asset management, of our roads and streets in order to, over a 10-year period, get the majority of them up to an average rating. So I think that funding is going to be very difficult. And if you watch the news, you'll see that there's continued discussion on property tax reform. In fact, there's a proposal to repeal property taxes altogether. and take the state to a sales tax-based model. That would be very disruptive to local government funding, as has been the implementation of Senate Bill 1 that will last for about five years and have millions of dollars of impact on our city as well as the county and all across the state. And I'll leave it with this, and that is this council works very hard. They do listen. They do deliberate. They do review everything that's put in front of them. The insinuation and insults that they've endured over and over again, I object to. I stand up for this council. And if you reach out to them, you know they're very accessible. We have a lot of challenges facing our community working together. And dealing with those challenges head-on are imperative. There's a lot of division in our community right now and in these chambers. And we need to reconcile that. Insulting and calling each other names is not the way to do it. But I stand behind this council for the work that they do. And, you know, anything to the contrary, it's disappointing. Council, we have our next meeting is August the 4th. Entertain a motion to adjourn.

Move to adjourn the meeting. Second.

All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?