Planning & Zoning / Properties & Recreation Committees - Regular Meeting

Our meeting will have to adjourn. Whatever whatever is left, we'll have to just pick up on the next committee meeting. I didn't think we'd have a quorum in a committee meeting because we aren't voting. I think you have to quum.

You have to quum to operate the meeting at all. any committee meeting. I I think we have to maintain a quorum. All right, it's 7 o'clock and uh first thing I like to do is call the meeting to order. Um everyone have the minutes from the January 14th, 2026 meeting. Any changes, corrections, deletions? If not, a motion to approve. I'll make that motion. Motion by CJ. Second by Peggy. All in favor?

First thing is public participation. Uh Mr. Carol, uh, come on up. I I guess I put this on my agenda just because and I know some people have seen emails back and forth. Mr. Carol, you had emailed me about wanting to use public some of our village public property to have a rally. Um, something that I guess I'm going to preface and say that no one on the board here is involved with. We don't I But Go ahead. Floor is yours. Could you state your name to your your Joseph Carroll C A R O L. Thank you.

Uh yes. On March 28th is the uh next no Kings protest runs next across the United States. And uh I had an idea. Uh usually I just go to the one in Can because that's the closest one we have. Um, I had the idea that I wanted to set up small one here for the people who usually can't go to the one in uh, can or just straight up can't go to any of them and just do a small one here and some kind of public place I could do it. Um, it would all be personally funded and um, distributed by me. I'm not going to need any help with this at all. My dad's going to help me as well. Um, personally responsible for me as well. If anything happens, I'll be personally responsible. Um, it would just be a simple 2-hour rally gathering. Uh, I'll personally advertise it and I'll personally, um, provide stuff like snacks, water, first aid if I need it. And I and both me and my father are CPR certified if anything goes wrong. Um, and I just thought it'd be a really fun event for people who are politically inclined in that way to participate in a peaceful, respectful manner to do our first amendment rights properly and protest on No Kings Day. Okay. Um I know that we I had asked you to look into it a little bit and I know the mayor had asked you as well. Um you checked with our village attorney regarding this and um what you you'd found that we really can't limit people from because my initial response to you Joe was I don't think it's a good idea at village property because it gives a perception that we're favoring one side or the other which none of us want to give that perception. Um, but then the the conversation got brought up that they're having a they're using the the this room here for a the room next door for a Republican party deal. So, is it my understanding that any public property can be used and we cannot limit

them? That's correct. Yep. So being a resident, you have cart blanch, I guess I would say that that we need to um wherever you're going to have it, if you could let Chris know so that this way, although it's intended to be a peaceful protest, I think we should be letting our police force know just in case something didn't become peaceful. Yep. Anyone,

where are you thinking, Joe? Um, if you want to do an indoor rally, it would be probably at the Leo Hasset Center, but if it was an outdoor one, I would prefer uh I think Legacy Park would be a perfect place. Probably in that uh that uh big field right um on the intersection of uh uh would be Walnut, not Walnut, um Maple and I forget the other road there that crosses by Sunny Acres. Can you just verify that we don't have uh baseball, soccer, football, anything going on that same day that it would interrupt or It would be Saturday, March 28th. Okay. Between three and five. Shouldn't where he just said either, but I get what you're saying.

I just just so this way we don't have any conflicts or I mean we do have lease agreements with them for our parks during those times. And if you want to book the Leo Hassid that's through our village, too. So, you might want to just you might want to just book that day anyway just in case because again, you never know. March weather. All right, that's all I have. All right, thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks, Joe. Okay. Um I don't think we have any other public participation on you. Uh next item is the baseball program. Jonathan, if you floor is yours. Hey, well, good morning everyone. Morning.

Uh some of you are new. Uh I've been doing this now for at least five years I think. Either me or Stacy Glenn, my predecessor. Uh my name is Jonathan Merky. president of the baseball and softball league in town. So, I come every year, I kind of give you a status update on the league. Um, we've had a tremendous partnership over the course of the last eight or nine years I've been on the board. Um, I've been either vice president or president for all eight or nine of those years. So, um, today I just want to go through I'll give you an update on recreational metric metrics. We do have our our part-time travel program which is somewhat full-time as well uh for raptors. I'll give you an update on that and then we'll just talk about some future enhancements. Um, I did I normally have a presentation you guys can see. I apologize. I forgot to send to Chris last week. So, that's on me. But, uh, he has it now and he can get it to you after. If you have any other questions, you can always reach out. Um, so over the course of my my time as president, we up through 2024, we had increased recreational registration by about 30%. It was a great we we hit uh last year or two years ago in 2024, we had 418 participants, which was phenomenal. When I started back in 2018 2019, we we were we were close to like 320. So it was almost 100 100 per player increase. Last year we had a dip. First time we've ever really had a dip in my tenure. We lost about 70 players. Uh really primarily two reasons. One, we had and it's a constant battle for us. Uh we always try to encourage our our travel coaches to stay part-time because then they can play Wreck and we want to keep our Wreck program going. We had three of our teams in baseball, specifically 10 through 12U, take their teams full-time. So, we lost about 33 players there, which was a big hit. Um, the other drop was actually T-ball. We had 37 players not sign up for T-ball that did the year before. Uh, and it's just that's the entry level, right? So, if you looked at our numbers, a lot of four-year-olds did not sign up. And it's

maybe just parent participation. um those people we can't really figure out why they didn't didn't come come out uh just because they haven't had access to our program. But we looked as a board internally and there's a couple things that we we did differently this year. One, we brought into our advertising. So we we created in partnership with all the local leagues in town. We did basically this flyer that had all of our websites, our registration dates, estimated cost uh for registering and gave it to the elementary school at the beginning of the year. So they distributed to about 720 kids um and families that they could see all the league information. And then what we also did is we got our flyers just for baseball and earlier into the elementary school uh as well as excuse me um into daycarees, something we've never done before. So really trying to attack the younger age group to try to get that participation back. Um, the other thing that we've done is we're we're trying to reach more people and the younger uh demographic is now not just on Facebook, they're on they're on X or they're on Instagram or Snapchat, right? So, we've created uh basically sites for our league on those apps to try to get some of those younger parents to realize, hey, our league is starting. Let's let's get going. So, those are just three things on on advertising that we did. The other thing is we just don't know if these four and 5-year-olds if their families are in need, right? Um, so something we can do is control costs. One thing we did this year that we've never done before is we offered a $25 discount the first two weeks of registration. So from December 1st to December 15th when when our registration first opens, we we had the $25 discount to try to entice some of these people to come in. And we didn't just offer to T-ball, we offered it to every every age range. So we knew the risk of that is short-term revenue loss because we were going to and we we used because we never done it. We didn't know how many people would take advantage. Usually, there's about 10 people that register in December. Most people, we have about a third of our registrants that register

in our late registration historically and pay an extra $25 for whatever reason. But we had a we had great success. We had about 160 people sign up in the early registration period in December. So, what that accounts to is about a $30,000 loss in revenue for us, which is but we're willing to sh take that short-term revenue loss in order for the long-term revenue gain. Hopefully these kids stay in the program uh for a long period of time. So overall it's a little disappointing. Right now we are training higher um because we've done never done early registration. We don't really know how late registration will turn out but right now we're trending to be higher than where we were in 2025. So that that is good news. We just have to see how late registration plays out. Uh I know I said a lot. Any any questions for me on recreational registration?

How much does it cost to register uh for uh so there's there's different fees. So, and a lot of our fees are tied to field maintenance. So, if you're going to play baseball or softball, it's $125. Uh there's a $50 raffle fee which you can get back and then a $25 $25 volunteer fee that you can also get back. T-ball, I believe, is $85 with the same type of fees. So, um basically they can as you volunteer, you get $25 back and you always get that $50 raffle back assuming you sell your tickets. So

Jonathan, do you think it's a result of kids not participating or correct me if I'm wrong CJ, but the schools seeing smaller and smaller classes? It it appears as though that demographics of our village. Oh yeah. I mean the class sizes are getting smaller. That's that's true. Mantino, I know we have other towns coming, but that might be a part of it honestly too to your point. Yeah. Yeah. I know that the elementary school which is pretty much the target demograph that's say pretty consistent about seven or 20 kids. Yeah. I don't know class size though if that those younger ages are are lower but yeah it's possible. It's another possible outcome. So if parents have more than one child is there a discount for the other children?

There's no discount for the other children. We we we decided not to do that. They only pay the volunteer fee once. Um but yeah there's no discount if you have multiple children. Um, Raptor metrics, we are up on Raptor teams, which is good. Um, this keeps kids in town playing and it prevents them from going to those full-time teams that are outside of town. So, uh, we are up two teams this year. So, last year we had eight. We have 10 this year. Um, we are also down on the full-time teams. So, we had three full-time baseball, we only have two now. And then we we had, uh, two full-time Raptor softball, we have one now. So, um thing things are are going in the right direction there uh and keeping teams part-time this year. So, uh we expect the fields to be very heavily used because these part-time teams are playing more and more at our fields which is a good thing too. We put a lot of effort into our fields.

Okay. Uh last thing I want to talk about and you'll be able to see on when you do get the presentation. So, just future enhancements. I talk about future enhancements uh you know what we do every year. Last year we we had great partnership. Oh, really the last my eight years we had great partnership with the village and and and Jim and his staff. Um last year just for the new new people, we put up new netting. Uh we modified one of our fields. We put up a new fence and we we put up a new scoreboard on field three. So great great partnership with the village who helps us with the electrical and things like that. And we're very thankful uh for all that partnership. this year. Um, big thing that we did, we were originally going to do is there's field four, which is the most south south, uh, east field in Heritage Park. We were going to put a a small fence on. It's one of the smaller fields ti tend to be t-ball to 8U age level. Um, we did get approval to do that with a warning track. Uh, we decided to hold back because some of our equipment was breaking down. So, we invested in a new gator. Um, so now we have basically two. One will be at Heritage and then one will be at Legacy for Legacy Park. Um and then depending on how wreck registration goes and finishes, we'll try to do field the field for fence on the back half the this season. Um other things that we're still going to target is uh field five, which is our most southwest field in Heritage. Uh that's a larger field. We're going to purchase a temporary fence. Uh the teams that play out there, the the girls or boys can hit it pretty far. And so if you hit it, it's gonna go. There's nothing stopping it. So, we'll we'll we'll put a temporary fence there. And then there's some work that we're going to do in the infield um there. Um and the last thing that's been on our our long-term list is assuming the league continues to grow and things like that, we'd like to get lights on field 3. Uh we talked about it last year. Uh estimates for that, we would obviously need full village partnership for that. It's 222,000 is the last estimate we got. So, um nothing

that we need immediately, but something that's a long-term uh outlook for us. Um, last thing, uh, last year we talked about, uh, field five dugouts. They still tend to flood. Um, we know it's a a village structure, so we we don't really want to modify it or anything, uh, by ourselves, but if we had were able to add drainage or something uh, and heavy rains, it might help uh, drain that those dugouts. Or the thought was to potentially go away from the cinder blocks which have potential holes that could store birds and bees and stuff like that and go back to just the regular kind of metal fence that we have on the other dugouts. I thought we talked about that last year and we approved replacement of getting rid of the cinder block dugouts. Yep. Oh, we did. We did.

Oh, even better. I didn't I did not know that. Yeah. Yeah. We were going to go away from those completely. Yeah. Just because of the bees and all the things that we had going on. So, perfect. I think we're going to build them to match what we did in the other. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. As far as the lighting, just I know you're not asking for it now, but this fiscal year, I think after our meeting last night, I don't know that I want to be fair to you and let you know that it's probably not in the budget this year. We we've got deficit in the budget right now that we've got to address that. So yeah, I just want you guys to know that lights probably are not in the That's okay. Yes. Okay. I appreciate it.

But we did commit last year to the to the dugouts. So yeah, you guys were a huge help last year. So we're thank and yeah, we're not asking for anything this year. Um but yeah, just things that are on our mind in our road map. Okay, that's all I had for you. Any questions for me? I appreciate your time. Thank you. I do have one more question. Do you have anything to help the families who can't afford it? Are there any scholarships or We do. Yes. So, uh actually, yeah, last year we installed the scholarship for kids going to college. So, we do give the one world one boy and then yes, we will do I don't know, we we basically title the scholarship or credit if the families in need, they can reach out and we'll, you know, we'll we'll allow them to register at a lower cost or no cost.

Good. We don't advertise it, but um you know, families have reached out. The last two years we've had a few individuals. That's a good idea. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much. Have a good one, everyone.

All right. Uh, next item is turf at the square on second and um during the last board meeting we voted or was defeated to have that done. We've got turf that's sitting in Pietone. Um, and maybe this should have been clarified a little bit, but we Excuse me. We have a contract that um we are going to have to pay the the installers at $38,766 if we don't move forward. Really, the change the only thing that needed to be approved was a change order of $47,450. That was a direct result of us moving the location from the center of the square to the south side because then we're removing fences, we're removing concrete, and we're adding some more turf. But what do we want to do, guys? I mean, we have to do something or we're going to be out the money. And

we've already signed the contract for 40,000, correct? 40 whatever $37,766 when we bought the when we bought the turf. We paid for that. We paid for that and we we did not pay for the installation because we didn't know when we were going to do it. We were withholding it. So that portion we're already committed to. Mhm. Um but we either have them So it's only 40,000 if we don't want to do the 40,000 80,000 that it looked like when we got the number. I mean, it looked like it was obviously I mean, it's double, so Right. Right. I know Mike couldn't be here this morning, but he did approach the owner of this business and they're going to sit down and talk about what they can do to lower that that cost.

Okay. Um, I guess that, you know, I'm all in favor of lowering the cost. I don't think that my feelings I feel as though that they're taking an opportunistic approach to our change, but we're kind of stuck. And it's either that or else we do nothing. We take the turf, put it in the rafters, and we pay $38,000 for them not to do anything with it. Is there only is there only one company that installs this type of turf? The problem is we have the contract with this company for for 38 for 38 38,766.

So we're going to owe them that if we go to another company that that's kind of where I feel like they're taking a little advantage of us with the change order. I I I'm not thrilled with that, but not a whole bunch we can do. Why don't we see what Mike finds out when he sits down and talks with him? the thing that so when we did this back how many years ago was this the original turf it's like seven or eight years ago now when we do this stuff do we get three bids on it or or do we just take the first one that comes No I think that all went out for bid I think that went out for bid I don't think we did get three bids I mean we don't always

that's not a mandatory thing so yeah but we have this last round we got two on this last round What's the company's name? Barry's talking. Synthetic turf. What is the name of the company? Synthetic. Synthetic turf. It's out of Pon, right? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of a niche market. There's not a lot of them available that are going to want to come to our town. I mean, just we're at their mercy, right? But, um, is Mike meeting with him in the near future? Do you know?

Yes, we met with him last week. Uh, I think they're going to try to tighten up a little bit on some of the demo that was planned. One of the big price increase is the fall zone under the zip line. They're going to install a material underneath the turf to make that all a safe fall zone for kids to play on that. So, that was a big hit. And he even said like it's, you know, he pays 40 bucks a square foot for the stuff and yada yada.

And that was expensive when we put it in before the the stuff. I mean, it it's a safety issue. The other option we could do is put a border around and put rubber mulch, but then what ends up happening is that rubber mulch is all over. You've got guys every day during the summer with blowers cleaning that and if that rubber mulch is all over it, it'll be a mess. Yep. And that part gets used a lot. Isn't there cork there or some type of a Yeah, that's Yeah, that's a um place rubber mulch is what that is. So, and that's what they're replacing. That's the big ad order because if you look at the far east side, there's a split scene and it's

I mean, we all think it's relatively new, but that park's going on 10 years old. Yeah, it it's starting to separate in other spots. It's just the wear and tear, right? I mean, everything's Yeah. Peggy and I looked at it and it was like, "All right, we're going to make this all beautiful and leave that." It It's It is a lot. There's no question about it. But the amount of use it gets is yeah, there's a lot of children, a lot of use. And again, all the events, I don't know. It's nice to have that look as nice as possible. I know it is costly, but I'd rather have that look nice and shiny and pay a little bit extra cuz that's when people go by, they're like, "Wow, that square is nice." And again, it gets all the usage. So, it's not like I'd rather have that than grass or if the kid was grass, I mean, they're going to tear that thing up quick.

It gets torn up extremely quick. Then you're gonna be dealing with the water fountain having mud in there. I mean, that'll be a problem. And when people want to know why we don't want golf carts parking on the turf or why we don't want kids leaving their bikes on the turf, well, this is a reason why. It's expensive. Correct. But, um, is everyone okay with Mike? Mike met with them already? Yeah. Last week. So, is it a reasonable expectation that we could hear something within the next two weeks when we

Any day now, I should hear something from you. We could put it back on the agenda for next committee meeting if we can and then put it back on the agenda. We we got to decide what we want to do. But I think we're kind of stuck and it's not a place where we want to be. But well, let's see what Mike has see what the numbers are with that. But again, I don't know. Again, in my opinion, I'm willing to pay a little bit more for that because of it's where it is and the usage, but I get I know we're watching it cost, but that to me is good cost in my mind. But yeah, we can see what the price drop is. Okay. Um, Square on second resurfacing.

Yeah, I put this on there. This is something Jim and I and Bruce have talked about. So, I we reached out to Bruce and told him to go ahead and start putting numbers together for what it would be to replace that. Um, they did some patching last year and it's it's just in an age where the patching no longer matches. So, if you look at it, it's it's pretty rough. Um, I think they're going to get prices on both stamped asphalt and stamped concrete to see what it would be. Just again to figure out what what we're looking at moneywise.

Yeah, I'd be interested to see the price on that. I I my experience or my my opinion wasn't overly impressed with the durability of the asphalt. I would rather see us if if the cost is similar to go to concrete there and if they I don't know even if we paint the Mantino logo on there or whatever, but it seemed like we're always patching that and it always every time they patch it doesn't look as nice.

I would my suggestion or opinion would be maybe shrinking the amount of stamps whatever we do. Maybe if we're going to do all Second Street, maybe just normal asphalt through Second Street, nothing through the alley and then just focus on the square itself just to reduce the price. The logo, yeah, that was tough. I mean, we we just had it redone there two years ago. And yeah, it's it's we're battling the elements here and everything's stacked against, you know, that area or that kind of product. So, the good news is it's such a popular place to be. It's the one of the greatest parks we have. People love it. We get huge crowds there. So, the wear and tear is showing from all the crowds. Yeah.

Yeah. Concrete concrete would last longer obviously, right? And be more sustainable, too. So, that's something we can keep in mind, too. Long-term cost of And I think the base for the asphalt is deeper than what you would require for concrete. So, it should just be the surface. We don't We shouldn't have to do anything with the base. That's good. So, that'll keep the cost a little bit lower. That's something that our I know it's a bigger project, but is that something that you guys could do in house or No. No, I would love to It was worth the question, right? That's a big That's a big time operation. Somebody marked this down. Jim said no, they can stain that. You know,

that's what I was saying. Like we could stand get the logo in there, but I just the asphalt, it just hasn't held up. And you know, we got dump we got garbage trucks going up and down. That that hurts it. and with all the activity, you know, that again part of the reason why when we have vendors that want to put stakes in our asphalt, we're like, "No, we can't do that." You know, that's I looked into it a couple years ago. There's companies that have these CNC mobile CNC machines that etch into concrete. I see. We could do something like that and then have to paint that in. Um there's there's a couple options out there if we wanted to try to recreate that center emblem again, you know. Otherwise,

I think that look is nice. I just don't like the durability. Let's get the prices and we can probably open that. Yeah. Can you guys get some prices so we know again we're dealing with budget issues. So, um hoping to have it for the public works meeting next next week.

Fair enough. Um All right. South Oak Public Works Building. Again, this is something that was defeated at the last one. Mike last night said that he his opinion has changed. Um with the deficit of the budget is this something that you guys are interested in or what are the thoughts of not wanting to potentially get rid of it? What what would you guys like to see us do with that building? Maybe rent it out. I don't know.

Okay. Have we all been to the building? I think that would maybe help too because I think when when Mike when he realized just how much work would have to go into that thing and that's why he's like we should just put it up. I think was when I talked to him was he just realized it wasn't it wasn't worth it from our end to like put so much money in to renovate uh was I think that's what changed and that's why when I went by the first time that's why I was in favor of it too because I don't I don't feel like there's anything for us to do on our end because it's going to cost so much to get it back to where we want it.

Well and I think maybe I heard wrong. I think maybe one of the things Mike was thinking was the same thing that we had thought about in the past, making it a community center for youth or some indoor facility type and it's just not conducive to that. The money would cost ridiculous amounts. But have Peggy, have you and have you guys both been out there at all? No, you haven't been out there. No, I think we we should go out there. I think it'd be a good idea and again we can revisit it the next committee meeting and see and and even by putting it up. It's not saying we're selling it. Let's see what it's it's allowing us to see what sort of money it could bring in if it

if maybe there's someone who just can't live without it and wants to pay us. We had an appraisal on that, didn't we? We got an appraisal on it. But that what did it appraise at? 170,000. 170,000. And I do have two individuals that have reached out and asked when it'll go up for bids. They're interested in it. And again, if the bid comes back and it's not what we are happy with, we don't have to sell it, right? But I guess it doesn't hurt to have the numbers is the way I'm thinking. But if I didn't know if you guys had a different idea for it. Well, that was my point, too. Again, at least let's put it out and see what the numbers are. And then of course if we feel like it's too low, we can always vote it down and say noact this time. So get an appraisal. Is that what you guys are saying? We already did an appraisal.

I did the appraisal. Yeah. We just wanted like what offers from other people that want to buy it. But if you guys want to check it out too before we can push it to the next committee and put it to the next committee, you guys get a chance to take a look at it and then go from there. We'll give Jim a call. Okay.

Um Maple Valley Emergency Access Road. So this is the uh basically half road on the west and north side of Maple Valley. It's a obviously was required by the village when they built that uh mobile home community. Um it's it's basically just half a road. There's curb and road on basically half of what would be required. It turns out that uh for some reason when they built the uh manufactured home community, that road was put in on property that actually u the owners to the north uh it's on their property was never dedicated to the village. I I really don't know why. I researched everything I could find on it. Um, but we've got people now starting to park mobile u motor homes on there and trucks and so it's it's something that we need to get ownership of so we can clean that up uh so that emergency personnel can get through on that road. Uh the owner of the property to the north that this is on obviously doesn't want to own it since it's not servicing his property. Um, so I I sent this to Joe and uh the key was that we needed to have them give us an an or a plat that shows that it's just a an emergency access road. So, we're not responsible for building out the other half of the road if that property to the north develops. Um, and as long as we've got that on there, it would still be their responsibility. But, um, this is also the road that the, uh, golf carts from Rock Creek use to get into town. That's another reason why he wants to get it switched over to the village. He does not want the responsibility of golf carts traveling on his private property, which is reasonable. So,

and that makes sense. I guess the question I have is the whole road, the entire road is not owned by the village at all. Correct. It's it's all on private property. It should have been deed to the park when it was developed. I have a feeling that maybe that entire parcel was one piece at the time, so they didn't care because the same owners owned the whole thing. Now they have two different owners and even though it services the manufactured home community, it's on the private property to the north. So that's why how long ago was that made it or created? Uh we talking here probably like 25 years ago before any of us were

2001. Yeah. But is that road that that section of road is not to village specifications. Correct? I believe well I'm not 100% sure but I think it was built that at least that half was built to our specifications. Okay. So if we except for I will say there there is not drainage in that road. So, if we accept it or we take that property on, we're going to put a recapture clause in there for the road improvements for future development because well, that's the key is if if anything develops to the north and the west of that road, they have to they would have to improve

recaptured, right? So, that was Joe's key is to make sure that we're not on the hook for that development. Okay. Are we talking about an exchange of money here? It no ownership. He's just Yeah. switching ownership to us and as long as we have that labeled as an emergency access road only, we're not responsible for improving it. Whoever develops would have to improve it. So, it doesn't go all the way to the next road. It stops. Correct. So, the golf carts that are using it now are driving through grass.

They're driving Well, there's a a gravel road there. Uh, and that's that's something I still have to work out with uh with Kerwick because that they are still technically driving across his private property to get to that end of the road. But he's less concerned about that as you know having them travel that whole distance on his property. I've been on that before. I've seen it. So I've biked out there and I want to bike. It gets used and I I think it's a good idea. I just want to make sure that we don't correct. We don't have except something cuz that stretch stretch of road will be expensive, right? Yes. I can see how a fire truck or something could get where it needed to go a lot faster. Yes.

And get water to a a fire. So, yeah, but that cost would be a lot a lot. Well, as long as we get all that stuff, then I think we're fine with that. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Uh, next thing, Rooter Park discussion. Um, this falls under the category of trying to do something that and I I think our goal as a board is always trying to get few more amenities for our residents. Doing it at the least potential cost. That park used to be used for soccer is no longer really used by anyone. Can't put a lot of structure in there because it's it's a um

flood plane flood plane. So, one of the ideas I had and kind of brought up was, you know, we we lost our golf course several years ago. What if we put a threehole chip and putt sort of deal in there and you know, we got turf remnant turf left from the square on second um that we could use or is it something that we could do inhouse with our public works? It's not going to be a true golf course, so expectations can't be at that level, but we mow the grass there anyways. Can we do something where residents can use it and it would get used by somebody? What about a chipping range?

Again, that's what I put put three holes with a like a par three chip similar to like KCC. Yeah, KCC's got that like free threehole thing out there if you're out there. something like that. I mean, it's not the best condition, but you know, it's good practice, so at least it's in it's it's walkable for most of the town to get there. That's kind of what I was thinking like, hey, it's it you it'd give a use of that park. The turf you mentioned is not conducive to being a green because it's shaggy and, you know, balls not going to roll across that turf very nicely. And again, I I don't know if we have the ability to

it might be good just to have to stop it. I don't think anyone I'll be honest with like we're golfers. I don't think anyone's gonna go out there and say let's practice putting here with that. But chipping and hitting irons I think that would be good. Like that's something anyone could do. What about driving? People are going to want to go out there and hit balls. Well, we're going to have to have signage that says yeah, no driving. Like we'll have to limit that. What's that kind of stuff? Was we have to put up any kind of net? Is that going to be close to houses? Again, I haven't I'm bringing it up. Yeah, this is something that us as a board are interested in. Then we can go back and start I think it's a great idea looking at design what we can do and I I would ask you know you and the mayor to have input because I don't know much about golf but

I have another question to bring up. Is there any way to make it accessible so that I could get on my golf cart and go there on my golf cart because I think it's accessible right now. Yeah, you can. You just got to go all the way down. You take all the way down close to Ace Hardware. Maybe one more down. You can you can jump across the other neighborhood and then you can get there. We aren't supposed to be crossing route 50 unless we're at a light inter direct direct cross of it. You can at an intersection. I that's not like division works too because you're not supposed to be on division, but you can do a direct cross across division. Chris, can you verify that? Yeah, that's why we put the bridge in down there so that the people in the manufactured home community can drive their golf carts into town. So, I know that, but we also had a rule that said that you had to cross only at a lighted intersection.

No, you can't because the lighted intersection, at least like uh County Highway 9, Third Street, you can't cross on it. You know, you can't cross that one. So, no, you can you can cross Route 50. You can cross County Highway 9. You just can't drive on. You're going to have to show me that in our rules because I'm sure I read that we could not cross Route 50 unless we were at a lighted intersection. Okay, Chris could look into it. I mean, I that's my intention is that people would be able to drive the golf cart right to it and utilize it, you know, but again, I like the idea. It's not something that I'm probably going to ever use, but it's

I'll use Well, I'll use or I'll send my kids there. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, they got a bunch of used usually 100 used golfers and then my team's about 20. Like, that's at least hopefully something they can go to Chip in town. There's a lot of people who'd like to save the money going to the golf course to hit their balls. And I don't have to drive the 10 minutes to go to the golf course and chip around if I just want to chip around. So, we good with um if you guys can take a look at it. I'll start. That's the only thing I would have think of for the houses right next to it cuz the god forbid we want to do anything with that. Yeah. Yeah. Replacing windows.

Take a look and see. And I mean the argument with that is if people was playing baseball out there, we don't have a net and we couldn't really require one. So we're not putting we're not putting a field. You know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. Like you take a look at it. You guys are the golf experts. But I think it'd be a good idea to provide an amenity that shouldn't cost us a bunch of money as long as our expectation isn't, you know, the the best of golf courses because it's not going to be. Maybe we should see what um what the citizens think as well or like we were doing talking about that yesterday, CJ getting different

Yeah, that could be part of the survey too that we could push out too of like and and with that I guess I'll say that when we go and ask the citizens what they want for every one person who's in favor there's going to be a person who's against you know I mean just or get ideas and it's this is a way of giving out giving an activity that is to a different demographic of our community that maybe is not being served. We could also form a committee of golfers in town who might want to help with this decision. Yeah. Um and help design it. I'm 100% in favor of it. I as long as the expectation is that it's not going to be a golf course like

you know it's not going to be a country club. Correct. It's, you know, it's going to be almost like a practice area. Yeah. So, we'll start moving forward with that. CJ, you have to keep in mind it does flood. That that's a flood plane that when that flood it is what you know I mean as long as we can. It's better than nothing. We can't build it up though cuz flood plane. Okay. Yeah. It's got to stay. I mean, we just had to just create a couple spots and maybe mow it shorter in a few areas or say I got about 20 minutes. All right. Why don't why don't we uh I'll adjourn my meeting the last two pieces or last three pieces we can move on to another committee meeting Chris way we can get through the other ones. So I'll accept a motion to adjurnn. I'll make that motion. Second it. All in favor?

I I All right. I will open up the planning and zoning committee meeting. Uh we all saw the meeting minutes from January 14th. Were there anyone that need to be changed or is it all good? So I'll take a motion to approve the plan zoning meeting minutes from January 14th. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. There's no public participation, correct? No. Okay. All right. First one on here looks like short-term rental license ordinance revisions.

Yeah. Provided everybody with a copy of the red line version from Joe Canar uh that shows the changes that the mayor is requesting. Well, I I went through again and actually I was meeting with Tiffany Farart for uh something different, but then I brought it to her uh was it too? It was not this much deletion. Uh when I talked to her about it again, I just wanted to get someone else to penny actually has it. She was pretty good with everything other than on 3253. Um, we just I just went through I said, "What are things on here that like aren't really needed or in her mind like is not as uh important probably." Uh, 3253 uh letter G. Uh, she said that's probably not needed. Total square footage or description of room. That's not necessarily a big thing. Or at least she said maybe just get rid of description of each room. Uh, kind of the same with H. I don't think we need H. I don't really care how they identify each room to a point. I don't think that matters um in any kind of way of like if they have five bedrooms or three, what does that um indicate to us?

I don't think we need 325 F either. I mean, I don't care where they advertise. True. Yeah. I mean, we're going to we're going to find that out anyway either uh with it. So, F honestly FG and H to me are not that relevant when they're applying. Everything else you said makes sense. I don't think we need C either. I mean, I'm I'm okay with not having C on there of people participating in the management of it. Okay. I mean, yeah, as long as we have the owner, you're right. That's fine, right? That's fine.

Um, and then obviously the license fee, we all agreed if we could do zero, let's do zero. I mean, that's no one's going to probably be against that. Uh, 3257 then that was the other kind of big area. uh like she told me uh Airbnbs don't give the address of the other person of the pe people staying at their place. They can't even see an image of them because of like discriminatory laws.

Uh was that so she said they'd only ever have the name and telephone um of the renter and known occupant, which I think would be enough in our minds of being able to find out who they are. And again, if we need that information or if we request that information, they can reach out to Airbnb and they can provide that to us, too. Um, with that, um, I don't know if B is really needed, if we need the vehicle license plate of a person. Were Were you 3257 that they have to keep 7B is the dates that they were occupied and renewed.

Oh. Oh, so sorry. There was two B's on mine. I have the old one. Sorry. Yep. That was already gone. Never mind. um 325C. I don't think we honestly need to care about what the total rent was. I mean, we're not charging the tax right now. So, I mean, if the mayor wants to charge $250 for a house, good for her. Like, why would why does that matter to us? If we're not taxing, I don't care. That's why I said I I don't think we need C. Uh we don't need to care about the price. Um E, she said damage the short term. That's more on their side if anything happens. that would be like to Airbnb for their insurance. So, I don't think we need that because again, that wouldn't really affect us at all. I don't think we need D either.

Or D. Again, I don't Again, that's on them for that. Well, the same way with F there. I mean, they're going to keep their properties clean. Which one's F? I think it's 325. 325. Are you on seven? All right.

You're on eight. I'm getting there. I'm on I'm on seven. 3257. Yeah. But I agree with that. And then honestly for 3258 C D sorry sorry C D E F G H and I I don't think we need like if they have the bed linens if you know what I mean like that I we don't we aren't we aren't running the business that's not on us to decide that's on the customer to decide was that kind of stuff. All we need to know uh for that is again making sure they're not doing it hourly which is I think that's what A and B pretty much say is like we aren't allowing them to rent out their house for an hour whatever that's 3258A correct yes 3258A that's why I want to keep

you want to keep that one in yes I and and she understood that like of like of course we don't want hourly 325 3258B also seems very similar to that um that's kind of same idea of like not allowing Again, the hourly kind of thing is how I read that one, too. Now, I'm I'm fine with and I think the mayor's concern, and I'm not putting words in the mayor's mouth, hopefully, but she I think one of the concerns was if someone checks out on Sunday, can someone else check back in Sunday night? I don't care about that. I care about they're renting it for three hours. That's what the And I think is that correct? Is that

Yes. And I think that allows for that description because it's not like the mayor can you can change the day of just like a hotel could. It's just we aren't allowing that person to just rent it for two hours afterwards kind of thing. That's how I read the language. It wasn't that they couldn't do that. It's just if they're when they're renting it has to be for a 24-hour period or for that kind of stuff. 3258 is crossed out but you're saying

well that's on that's on this suggestions not our actual current um thing we have. So I would like to keep a b and then it would be uh j k l n o p to the rest of them other than other than so from c to c to um is it I C to I to me I don't think that isn't important to us like J is important because again that way they have some kind of adequate off- streetet parking that's making sure that they're not kind of taking up that stuff. Um K, again, that's just saying if we ever had to request it, they would provide it. Um L, again, just giving the days of providing it. M's insurance. And then N, O, and P are all just kind of laws, just regular violation laws, just and again, all that would only be if we ever had a request, which I don't think.

So you're saying get rid of C through J I C E F C through I, right? H I C through I

So what you want I in or out? I you can get out of it in my mind. I I I think you might want Oh, I guess you know what? I'm sorry. I do have that still in. I apologize. That one I do have still in. And because that's You don't want someone renting in the Sorry. Yes. self storage place. You're right. We do want I That's not That's not what I meant. I'm sorry. Up to I. Yes, because you're right. I don't want someone renting like a Yeah. factory and then we're renting it for a house. So, sorry. C through H H because I don't even think like for like H I don't think Airbnb allows anyone to rent if they're under 25. You can rent to whoever you want to.

Yeah. I mean, I'm saying low, but like the platforms that most people use, Airbnb, stuff like that, they won't allow someone to rent if they aren't 25 when they're filling out like the form, that kind of stuff. I I wouldn't mind keeping H in there, but changing it to 18. Okay. just just because I mean all all of our VBO people we haven't had an issue with yet, but we get someone they want to rent it out, high school kid wants to have a party and the other person sees money, they could agree to it. So, you're wanting to keep it to 21 or

No, I think I think 18 I mean because if you're 18, you can go and get an apartment or a hotel room, right? Yeah. And you're capable of contract at that time. I wasn't going to say a word today, but I am going to say this. I would never rent to anybody 18. I know you wouldn't. And you have to be 21. I I So, do you want Do you want to leave it or do you want I mean the mayor Just telling you how I feel. I don't mind 21 either because that prevents that prevents This isn't This isn't for you, mayor. That that prevents like a 19year-old who has high school friends. I mean, again, I don't know. I mean, I you can't rent a car till you're 25. We already have these old weird laws anyway.

I was married at 18. Oh, my grandma was married at 16. So then that was then a difficult that's a difficult thing to world. I'm fine with lower to 18 or keep it 21. I don't that doesn't matter to you guys. I'm I'm fine with either 18 or 21, but I'd like to keep it in with an age no lower than 18. That's fine. So 18. That's fine. Is there an answer for 18 or 21? I think let's go with then. All right. Let's go with 18 if at the hotel room. Then it would be whatever the Airbnb's decision.

And again, we're not saying that they have to rent at 18. That's not our laws. Like if the mayor says, "Nope, that's that's their owner." It was just saying we're saying in our minds, yeah, that you can if you want to, but the owner of the house can do whatever they want to. They can always go above and beyond what we're saying. Okay. And that's all I had when I went through was uh Tiffany leaving Jay in. Mhm. Okay, I'll modify this and send it back out to the board. Um, and then we'll have it on the agenda for the next board meeting in March. Okay.

So, if you go to 3253 I Did you say in or out, CJ? Um, when I talked to Tiffany, she was fine with that. Keeping it in. Mhm. Okay. Cuz I was I was looking at that and I couldn't decipher how that's different from 325A. They're both requiring insurance. 325 325 3A or

325 8A. seems to say to be doing the same requirement as 3253. I think though that that's when they apply. 3253 is when they apply. They have to prove to us that they've paid it through. I think that would be maybe more for after. Okay. I don't think it hurts us. No, if we're keeping it in, I just Correct. I didn't want to strike it in one place and rec it seemed confusing.

Yeah. Any other thoughts or questions on that? Okay, perfect. All right. Uh, really quick, village growth discussion. We're obviously going to have to continue. Um, onward. Um, obviously we've been talking about this a lot um with stuff. Um, so the last couple weeks I've just again been brainstorming my own ideas of like how do we do this? What does this look like? What do we want? So obviously we're going to keep having these conversations as we're doing right now today. But then I thought like I need to go I need to meet with people outside of us that have other backgrounds opinions. So that's like for example why I met with Tiffany Parart. I'm trying to think I'm meet with some other business owners. I'm going to meet with the chamber. I'm actually meeting with Gina Lamore. Uh was that too just their opinions. What does it look like? I'm trying to talk to people of like we like what our town is but how can we grow it in a way where we don't feel like it's overshadowed. I mean, you ask my grandparents who've been here for 50 years, a thousand was small to them. Today, to me, 10,000 is small. I mean, it just is when you kind of look around um with stuff. But what can we do to kind of grow a little bit to maybe get a couple more businesses? And I'm not just saying chain restaurants, but attract small businesses, restaurants, things like that that want to come here uh with some numbers um to do that. So the number that I came up was in my mind and I think this would help hit a lot of like the qualifying things like 1,000 to 2,000 more people get us up to 11 to 12,000 from where we're at 9,300. It's not a huge grow, but then when you look at all these chain restaurants, they have their formulas. Usually it's right around 10 to 11,000 that they need a hit and then they're they'll be open to kind of looking

over what period of time CJ I would think in the next I that's the thing in the next to me three years three to five years I think would be it wouldn't feel like too much unless I again this is I'm just trying to I I don't even honestly throwing out ideas correctly. I think that's a number that would make us grow moderately and not feel like we're overwhelmed again on how much we can do that. I feel like that's a way to kind of do that. So my question is is what do you think we can do to grow to that? Because I've been on the board 20 years and our population I think last census changed by six people.

Yeah. Correct. I and I think the biggest thing six people over 10 years I think 10 years I think the biggest thing that we need to do is reach out to a national builder as we kind of talk again Kerwick I started to talk to car I've been talking to some trying to see what um what we can do to get their interest why and the the initial reaction someone's going to tell me is northwest Indiana they it's because of taxes And okay, that's that's one thing, but as we go is growing and the national builders are going there. How can we get them to have the same interest here?

Correct. And that's something I think as a board we have to be willing to they're going to want some incentives. Oh, and I think they're not going to come here. They're not going to come here without something. What are we willing to get? Well, that's what that's why I want to have those conversations because I I mean again I have no idea. I wouldn't talk to them like what do they want? Like what what incentives are they looking for in a way that then we could come back and talk of like things that we might be open to.

Chris, your experience, have you have you dealt with any national builders things that they commonly look for? They're going to probably look for no building permits. Um yeah, you know, again, our building permit fees I don't think are ridiculous, but um be honest with you, the the most expensive part of a residential building permit right now is the school impact fees. That's it's way more than what our permit fees are. So maybe that's something the school needs to consider. Would they be able to reduce those or suspend them for a while? That would help. and CJ that may be something as you're talking with them you know you're talking with them on a couple other things bring it up and say hey you know

I'm talking at least at least the heroes on the list too because I want to talk to superintendent of the school anyway about the gross idea of like what and I think they should be and again I'm saying this from a teacher they should be open of this idea because they know that the numbers are getting smaller too so there's there's two impact fees a land impact fee and a building impact fee um seeing that they're not planning on building any new buildings or you that they're even considering selling their land. You know, I don't know that they need those impact fees anymore, but I don't know what their debt is on the new buildings they've already built. So, maybe they don't have any debt.

Okay. So, maybe that's something that could go away that would help. Um the other thing is the minimums. You know, we have a 1350 foot for a single family home with a two-car garage. Um, sometimes I think um maybe smaller houses with a singlecar garage is appealing to young people and old people both. So maybe uh if it's going to be a project, the board could consider maybe changing those requirements.

I think over time we've all been, you know, we grew up with age, bigger houses, nicer houses, better quality, but that's what's happened in Asiggo. They do have I've noticed they've had smaller housing and um you know I used to think it was crazy to think about having a smaller house but now as I'm becoming an empty neester I'm thinking um I'd be perfectly content with the two-bedroom house right can we give anything I mean our planning commission what I mean what do they do they give us ideas we could I mean we could ask them to put that on their agenda to have a discussion for them I mean, why don't we start? Why don't we start there?

That was it, too. Yeah. I mean, that's I think I think that might not be a bad idea if we could get um our plan commission if they have a next committee meeting to look at re reviving giving us a recommendation of, you know, our building size requirements. And we're probably, even though when I first got on the board, I was fighting for the anti- monotony. Unfortunately, monotony is what big box builders build, right? It's going to be the same house 15 times. But

I think again when we get deeper in of like building too, it's the the broad appeal. I mean, I'll call it out. Stonegate, those houses sell like that like that like that. Like my parents had to put an offer day one. Like it was not like a thing. So like it's the mixture approach of do we need these single houses smaller plus maybe we try to build that too to again draw them in uh with that. So, I think we can be open to multiple. We don't have to just do one general thing, but maybe like half of it's that, half of it's this. Well, let's reach out to the planning commission. Let's get their input on all this and you know, go from there and we can all brainstorm. And yeah,

the other thing is the market has changed over the last 10 years and fewer and fewer people, especially young people don't want single family homes anymore. So rental projects with like but I mean they can't even afford a single family home. That's another thing too. It's that they can't afford it. All right. I'm sorry. I do have to go. Why don't you maybe do some research on we trying to attract like when I heard about the baseball thing eventually if the youngsters don't come in baseball program is going to die.

Well that's why I had this idea because of schools it's like I need as a teacher we need to pump our numbers up. And I think we have to be open to also um and something to think about this too. who will come here. Again, we are a very small town. Again, you can kind of picture what a small town is demographic wise, racially. If we do open this up, we could have some more diversity come in as long as it's we're at a time. I mean, it's 2026. I feel like hopefully we're more open-minded. But that's just something to be aware of, too. And if if we do get down the line here, that it's not necessarily the in our maybe in your mind the ideal person. It's it's people we want to just bring people into the town. Is that too? I think that's a good thought. Okay, I'm sorry. I gotta go. Are we adjourning then? We need to adjourn. Motion.

I'll make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Who first? All in favor? I awesome. All right. Have a great day, everybody. You too.