Common Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it is 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. We'll call the common council meeting to order. Let's stand alsisible with liberty and justice for all. are the minutes from our last meeting on April 28th. Uh the only change or the only correction I saw was youth council's name. Besides that, were there any other changes or corrections? Do I have a motion to approve with change?

Motion by Ted, second by Jen. Further discussion. All those in favor of the usual sign. It is unanimous of those present. We will open up the floor to any public comments. Public comments. Okay. Then we'll close the public comment period. Uh next up, uh I'm excited to recognize Dave Herren for his 50 years of service. Do you want to come on up? Okay. Okay. I got a proclamation to read.

Okay. So, whereas Dave Herren joined the fire service in Union Township, Indiana, and township for a year and his marriage to Deborah. They moved to Columbia City in 1976. 1975 and Dave was sought out by a member of the Columbia City Fire Department and was voted on to the department in April of 1976. I think that whereas through the years David has served the department in multiple capacities such as firefighter, captain, second assistant chief in your current role as safety officer. Not only has been an active member through his tenure here, but he's consistently in the top five for yearly run totals. And whereas Dave has been and continues to be a great example of servant leadership. Firefighting is the foundational backbone of the fire service and Dave exemplifies that in every way. His service goes beyond just firefighting as Dave has used his unique abilities outside of the fire service over the years to assist in any way possible. And whereas the Columbia City Fire Department was founded in 1877, making next year the 150th year of service to the public, Dave's tenure is the age of the department. The city owes Dave and his family a debt of gratitude for his selfless service. So now therefore, I Ryan Daniels as mayor of the city of Columbia City do hereby proclaim May 12th, 2026 as Dave Herren day in the city of Columbia City and encourage all residents of Columbia City to join us in honoring the impact Dave Herren has left on our community over the years. His dedication and service to Columbia City has certainly been felled by both his colleagues and

the residents of Columbia City and beyond. Congratulations Thank you guys. I know the chief wanted to be here.

Thank you guys. Okay. Next up is the BSN presentation. Come on up. I I'm sorry. No, I was just gonna say Parker normally does a slide presentation, but for time sake tonight, he said he's going to cut out 20 minutes.

Absolutely. Well, uh everybody, I I really appreciate you having me here tonight. My name is Parker Bright. I work for BSNA software systems. Um and I'm mostly here to answer questions, but I did want to take a minute or two uh to talk about the importance of this move uh to your city. Um you know, you guys have been Keystone customers for 30 close to 40 years and it's been a great product for you guys. Um and now it is the time to make a switch. Uh and this product will be the product that hopefully you will use over the next 20 to 30 years in this investment. Um and really with with the waved migrations right now, um we have seen a ton of our customers move this route. Um, not only because of the financial incentive, uh, but there's security, there's compliance, um, there's the ability to, uh, you know, open this up and truly decentralize a lot of the work out of Leslie's office. Um, and truly be one system for the entire city. Um, like I said, I I'm here to answer any questions if you guys have them. I I know you guys have seen a demo um looked at some proposals. Uh so if you have any questions, please let me know.

So um I don't know if you guys read my presentation, but we did have Parker and his team come in and wanted to get everybody in the room together. So as we got to looking at things, a lot of pieces that every department does and we do it manually and it's very rumb but I can tell you one of the big things for them to we don't have any way to track our inventory it was done and then Braxton has now moved into an Excel spreadsheet so he's got to go in and update it every single time they take something out of inventory So, one of the cool features that we would add on a different service that we have with Keystone is the inventory tracking and I know Sean's team can use it. Um actually we would replace um Adam's software and I kind of broke that out in the presentation as well because he tracks all inventory and all that good stuff in a separate software that we don't even know anything about. Um so I can tell you by moving to the cloud um the efficiencies will be incredible for the team. One of the things that I thought was And for Katie when she scans in invoices, it's automatically going to read that invoice and she's going to have to maybe plug in a couple little pieces. It's 99% accurate on the read. Is that right?

Well, so it's 100% accurate because you're double checking it. But it will give a confidence score of everything that is read through the system. And if it's green, good to go. No other further action. If it's yellow, please double check. If it's red, change it immediately.

And I I do I don't want to cut you off here, Leslie, but one important thing is, you know, as we're sitting here talking about the efficiencies that your office is going to gain. Um, the important thing to think about is the efficiency that the public is going to get out of this as well. Um, when it comes to business permits, when it comes to inspections, uh, licenses and all of that, and paying a utility bill, uh, we We will have portals for your residents to interact online and do those things from home in a more efficient manner than coming to the office or you know bogging people down with other tasks like physically being here. U so not only is this something that's going to be important internally, but it's going to look and feel great externally to your residents uh because now they're going to have options available to them that they did not have before. um are specifically when it comes to utility billing in our payment portal um you know currently with the provider that you guys use today um everything is next day so somebody can come in and make a payment today and they can call Leslie and said hey I just made my water bill payment for X amount and Leslie's response is hey that's great but I'm gonna have to wait till tomorrow to let you know if that 100% cleared and it's good to go with our system that happens in real time. So, she will automatically be able to see if that payment has hit and if it's good to go. Um, the other benefit to using us with that is uh if they set up a bank account or log in through their bank to make a payment, we are hitting that account in real time. So, you are not going to have the chargebacks, the NSFs, and the broken payments that you see. Uh, a lot of times, even when it comes to, you know, you've had a resident that, you know, put their card in and it takes money out each month. Uh if that card expires, we

are automatically replacing the new number and an expiration date in the back end. So Leslie and her team don't have to do that and there is no NSF transaction where you're getting charged. Um that's also a part of our payments is we don't charge for any NSF, PCI, posting fees, any of those things um that typically other vendors do so as well. Is this really a financial thing or how does that work with our current electric that system will still stay in place will still stay in place. We're not repl to to view those reads and be able to go in and shut off and off. But this is the billing side. So, we have all the payments. Sally will do payroll, which we have from Keystone, but we'll move that over to the cloud. All of

Payroll also comes with an employee self-service portal. Um so today if you guys track um you know CDLs or certifications uh if you you know I assume everybody gets a an electronic payub um and W2s and that such but this will become a repository for your employees to log in and get that stuff and track that stuff themselves instead of again putting that burden on hey I need you know my last two pay subs can you please print those out? Um, now it becomes or hey, I need last year's W2. Can I get that? It now becomes your employees can log on to that portal and help themselves.

So, and here's here's the other piece with it. So, that I think is cool because you know I don't like paper. Everybody will tell you that they don't like paper. Um, pretty much we have paperless with all invoicing. So, we can go in if I get an invoice I can save it into the system. the department heads will have access to the system. They'll get a notification that says, "Hey, you have an invoice that needs approved. They'll go in and approve it." It'll come back to me before I send it off. So, we're not going to be, "Hey, I forgot that MSF building. I'll bring that up to you later." I mean, I hate saying it, but we're probably going to see these guys a lot less in the office because they stop in to drop off bills and out the door they go. So, It's going to be a more streamlined process um for all of us and truly it's going to eliminate and you can probably speak to this and I don't mean to put on the spot but some feedback but I can tell you we spent hours since I've been here on the phone with issues and literally hours and really like I love working with Parker but um it's more of a burden to the team um because of the fact that more of their system, right? So they have more support on that side. So for us to get issues resolved, it's always a problem with our firewall.

Yeah. It's become very cumbersome for the team to get things fixed. I can tell you Heather couldn't receive payments for what, three days, four days. Yeah. So, that becomes an issue when she's a cashier, right? She's sitting there front face and oh, you got to hold on. I can't do this on my computer, so I've got to do it somewhere else. I'll be right back. Makes us look really unprofessional. And that's obviously not ladies are always out there online. We still get stacks of

it's a lot but I can tell you that's one of the pushes that the girls to do. Um Heather specifically right now is working on a project because invoice cloud charges $4.95 if you pay online with your checking account. We charge we that's free through our office. So I have her reaching out to residents and say, "Hey, you're signed up through our outside vendor. Come directly to us and it's not going to be a charge." So we're trying to be more proactive in that regard. Um and then additionally, hey, can we get you set up on paperless billing, which they charge for as well, um we do not. And that's the the seamlessness of being able to just email a bill and forego paper is not only more efficient, but it's going to the dollar it takes to send out that letter and if it gets delivered. We all know how delivery rates are right now uh in the post office. But I did want to say one thing. Um going back to Keystone, you know, Keystone was coded and created in 1989. Um so it's been a great product for a long time, but uh I don't believe that there are many things left operating in any city or town from 1989. outside of people, you know, no equipment, software, hardware, whatever it may be.

I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, but like I was saying, it was a great product, but this is what is going to lead you guys into the future. So the way that the the outward facing part works uh digitally does that automatically connect to our current posted website or does your portal connect to that or so when people log in they have to go through our so it's going to depend um they could depends on how they want to interact if they go straight to your website you'll have links to your website hey you want to pay utility bill click and it'll take you I'll take the

Yeah. or hey, you need to get a permit or you need a business license or whatever, it'll take you to the other portal. But if they look straight on their bill, they can just type in that URL. So it'll be easy for I mean they'll be able to connect A to B. Yes. That's how it is now. So when you go to the website, it automatically takes you to invoice your payment. Do they set up on a like a user account on that?

Yes. So everybody um When this gets introduced, they will get a bill say or not, it will be part of their bill. Hey, we are now using BSNA software. Here is your here's where to log in. This is the PIN number for your account and they'll log in with that PIN and then go from there. So, it's like a full enterprise system. Yes. Yes, sir. Something I wanted to ask about the safety and security.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um this we uh host this in Microsoft Azure. Um and we actually have two different data centers in the United States. Uh we've got one in Virginia and one in Arizona. Um we have to follow all of Microsoft's compliance um and rules and regulations with that. So, it is locked down pretty tight. Um the example that uh I currently use, you guys are in a little bit of a a different circumstance with Terry because I know Terry's on top of it. Uh but you guys have a server here in this building today and all of your data is sitting on that server. If someone for whatever reason were to click on a bad link, it there's protections in place and it's good, but if someone were to click on a bad link, it wouldn't take much to get into that data, lock you out, and then charge you to get that data back. Um, most cities and towns in Indiana don't have the level of protections on that server that you guys probably do. Um, whereas if you follow that same instance, same employee clicks that same link, well, your data is no longer physically here. It is hosted in Microsoft and so they cannot get to that data because it's not physically here. So, but we it follows ISO stock all of those things.

The other piece that we don't have right now is code. So Scott's doing everything on his own computer and right

so with this is another piece but it all flows together so everybody can see that information. So if Robinson pulls up and says hey somebody's been and Scott's on vacation. We don't know about it and Gary's not in and you know we can at least look to say oh well it looks like there was this is the issue we're going to be able to better help if all the way around again the efficiencies we haven't quite figured out back filling the gaps but I know that we started kind of knowing that this was my intention back position with help with theing I have a couple other ideas for money savings, but I don't want to say them aloud yet because he doesn't know about it. Um, but just just making sure that we're taking the right steps to put a system in place that's going to work for all of us. Um, and it's going to be a system that we're going to have for years. So, but my ask is we in the quote there are a couple pieces we decided that we did not need the human resource piece and was looking at the side anyways and the business licens before the end of the month. Um, we are not going to have to pay the87,110

of the migration fee. So, voice is the SNA is waving that fee. Um, but again, I can tell you talking to other treasurers around the state, this is the best thing that they've done. for their res.

And just as far as statistics of other people in the state, um we started selling this last year. Uh we got 20 people live um last year alone. Uh and then probably another 10 to 15 live this year. Um so we're probably looking at 35 people live. uh but well over a hundred that have signed up to move um and so we are trying to go as quickly as we can um to get those people installed. Uh I will also call out um as you guys are looking at the numbers there um when it comes to training and implementation that last line item budget you control the costs in implementation and training. um it is build for at the very end and it is built for what you use. So just because we give you all of those days listed doesn't mean you have to use them all. Um and actually Leslie and her team um can get out ahead of that. Uh and as soon as I know you guys are moving forwards and going to sign a contract, I can send you over to our training site and they can start training as soon as that contract is well going over our virtual training and then about two weeks before you go live, uh, we will release a pre-go live environment to you. And the more that you use that and get familiar with it and our trainers can step in and you're, you know, familiar, the more easy it is to be able to cut days out um, on training.

What's the transition period? Three months, six months? Uh, so typically, uh, yeah, over a year out. Okay. I mean, just all the data, I can only imagine how long it takes to just Yeah. So, typically somebody of your size, it would be a four to six month implementation, but we have run into backlog. Um, and we're scheduling about a year out.

Correct. Well, yeah, there's some things that will be removed from this. 197,910 that includes all the fees. the annual fees and because we pay in I think our renewal is in September. So we'll pay that renewal. Anything that's still left, they're going to program that and that'll go towards this new software system. What I just heard was that 67,000 of that if you will, it's kind of up to us when it comes to training. So it's probably not to exceed 1979.

Yes. It is a so our contract terms are they're evergreen contracts just because if we get into a situation like this and you don't accept or you deny or whatever and you could be without the system. So it renews every year but you've got a 90day I think it's 90day window every year to cancel if you decide you don't want to move forward. And also as a part of that your data is your data um and it is our responsibility uh to get that back to you in a meaningful way. So,

so it's a basically let's say a one time if you will 197 yearly it's the 33 or 90

it does not stay here it's hosted in Microsoft but you own your data but it's Arizona and Virginia. Virginia Microsoft

Yeah. Yep. Nope. Absolutely. That it is explicitly stated in our contract. Your name is your Hey Leslie, can you um remind us and I'm trying to flip through it here. I'm trying to locate it what the annual savings compared to what we're currently spending. Well, there's not a savings what we're currently spending. So we look at the figures we're at the new package annually be $91,520. And right now just around 20,000 21 I think.

Yeah. But I did kind of put in like Adam Systems $4,800. Okay. That must be the Yeah. So Adam Systems 48. I know we'll have some savings on the server end. Um I try to track some other known savings because we're not any longer.

I'm actually going to get rid of my because I'm not going to need it. And if I do, I can I can walk into another. But again, I try to backfill that too with the extra savings that I showed from 25 26 and what we know for 27. So what we've been able to save just in known cost right at the moment and those were just numbers will offset the difference. Okay. Well, I think that's what I was because I saw those numbers. It wouldffect your collection. Yeah. I mean, I think if we think about I think to answer your question a little bit more,

I think when you look at or think about the total operations of Leslie's office,

we're talking about change like it's it's going to be night and day from what they currently do. And you know, you probably saw the notes from some of her staff members and stuff, but I mean there has not been a weakense. There's that has gone by that I've not down there to the office and heard that there's an issue with but again a product that was that was made uh about five years after I was born um back turned 50 you know but but in all seriousness I know that there's been there's been a lot of work done by Lesie and by Terry and by Sally by lots individual fireheads as well of trying to figure out how do we become more nimble as a government number one and number two make sure that we are protecting our citizens and our customers and and but but really moving into the current century Yeah, I was just I just remember when I was reading through this but there was you hadulated some things. So that's

just trying to trying to help show that we're doing what we because we know I know that this is a big ask but it's a necessary ask in my opinion but I think if you speak with most people in the organization say that this is well I so speak so our company we did a transition like this about four years ago went to a full enterprise based offite server system and it totally revolutionized how we got things done efficiently and effectively So, I'm I'm in favor. I I was just because there is an expense to

So, are you requesting the council give approval tonight so that we can start the process knowing that we have a year to really get full implementation? Yes, because we have to give a yes or no before the end of the month. Otherwise, if we do, then we're going to have the migration. Who knows what that's going to be like this? Yeah, I'm in favor of moving forward further whatever you need. So, is that a motion to approve and not to exceed number of $197,910 for the migration system?

Yes. Okay. I hear a motion. Motion second. All those shall sign it is unanimous. I will get that proposal updated and send you a contract. Thank you guys. I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you very much. Okay. Okay. C1 for basically what I'm going to call the Verizon Plaza.

Yes. So that is for BR real estate LLC and they are again that's been going since 2018. So they have I think just a couple years left on that on that tax abatement. So any questions, comments, concerns? said he couldn't be here tonight, but he'd be happy to take questions, but again, the numbers

find him in compment. Yes. Okay. Motion by Tad. Second by Jennifer. Further discussion. All those in favorship of the usual sign. It is unanimous. Next up is ordinance 2026-12. Do I have a motion? Have a motion to read by title only by Dan by Jennifer. Further discussion all those favor usual sign it's unanimous. Please read ordinance 2026-12 by title only ordinance number 2026-12.

So this is what was in front of you last time. adjustments that Lesie is suggesting based on her conference and the state laws and things to that effect. Any questions, comments, concerns about this? Hearing none, do a motion to approve ordinance 2026-12 on second and final move. Second motion by Jennifer, second by Ted. Further discussion all sign of those present. Okay. comprehensive plan discussion.

Thank you and good evening everybody. It's great to be here. The city of Columbia City to talk to a lot of you folks again are probably seeing this presentation more than once. So I'll keep it brief this evening just so that we can get a good overview of the process and where we're at. But uh here we are. It's always a bittersweet moment for me kind of at the end of the process. We we come in the communities. We're here for a year. get to eat a lot of local restaurants and meet a lot of folks in these efforts. So, it's always great to have a complete plan, but at the end of the day, we're not going to be here as much. So, it's kind of sad for us. But, so we've had a great time working on this project. We're really happy to be here. Really happy to kind of go through very high level. U as the previous presentation said, I cut about 20 slides out of this so we keep it short. So, we're only going over 140 pages out of the 160 that are in the plan. just a little with that just my name is Matthew Ror for those I haven't had a whole lot of time to interact with yet through this process I am the planning and economic development director with a company named American structure point so I run all of our urban planning zoning assistance uh landscape architecture functions and then uh the other gentleman you see on the screen there who I regret to say kind of left us right he has a process but he was a major part of this major part of the work and then he decided I'm going to go live in Italy for 90 days so boohoo for uh he did do a lot of the work. So I at least wanted to have his face up there tonight. So he did a great job. Um quick agenda. Um we're just going to go through the plan structure, the future land use map. So sort of the major milestones of how this plan came together and then what are the bigger pieces in there. Um with that just to say a comprehensive plan um and I think here in Colombia City, it really means something. It's a vision document for the 20 next 20 years per se. That's our mindset when we draft these. But the idea really is what are we doing now to help get to that vision. And when we looked at the the previous plan, that one was implemented. A lot of those items got checked off the box. And so when we we got into this process, we said we want to go through and get a really good update, but we want to make

sure we stick with what's working and how things did get implemented. So that was a big focus for us as we went through that. And so we don't do this in a vacuum. Um, I'm not going to go through all the engagement summaries, but we definitely went to a lot of meetings. Uh, we did a a survey. We had about 850 responses, just a little under. Went to had steering committee meetings with a group group of local experts that were really helping us inform this plan, telling us what we're getting right, telling us what we're getting wrong. Um, I can attest to the fact this steering committee, if they didn't like something, they let us know. And that's what we want out of this process. In particular, the the board over there with the future land use map. We went through that a few times to make sure it represents what the city of Columbia City wants. It's not about us and being experts, quote unquote. I always love to say we're just here to help articulate your vision, but it's your vision. We're just help you to help assist with that. So, that that was a great part of this process. Really great uh had great attendance at those. Uh it seemed like we had full attendance or near full attention at everyone. I love seeing that. So, it just shows me how engaged and how active everybody was in the process. So in the front end we we go through a lot of engagement. We talk to the community. We have those initial steering committee meetings. And just a couple of examples of the sort of data we get out of that is what do you like most about living in Columbia City? What are some amenities and features uh that make it a good place to live? We want to capture the good things, not just what the challenges are because that all forms our 20-year vision. And so here's just a couple of examples of of those questions we asked on the survey. We were also out in the community uh coming to events with boards, not dissimilar from ones here, except a little more interactive. Uh, I like this one. We call it our budget flex exercise. We we give people what I like to say is a thousand dollars of my money. It's my money because I cut it out myself because it's monopoly at the end of the day. But they get to kind of pretend they're in your shoes for a minute and say if we, you know, not everything is free. Where do we want to prioritize spending? And so what we see and when we get to our strategy phase, it's all a result of all that. We summarize this.

One of the first things we do is we break all this down. a lot of data, a lot of information all comes through in this existing conditions report that all feeds the recommendations that are really the bulk of the plan. And so what that looks like, uh there's a couple things about this on this slide I want to highlight. One is uh we we changed the visual look to update it, but when you look at the table of contents that I've highlighted there, we've kept the original structure of the current 2015 plan, which was organized around people, places, and things. Uh those were the categories that bold out of that effort from 2015 and we heard through our engagement process a lot of those same themes and we wanted this to be an update and so we just kind of kept that structure was me and that was intentional because of all the great work that was done with it. So all the strategies all the accomplishments all the things that we pointed out are all they all fit into this people places things structure which is really worked well for Columbia City. So, just kind of skipping along along a little bit. Um, I mentioned the visuals here. You can kind of see what the old plan looked like. The current one very similar. Uh, but if you dig into it a little more, each chapter has a couple pieces we did add. Uh, what we updated in our process is we like to add what we've heard and what we've learned to each section. And that basically what we heard is what we what the community heard. What we learned is through the data. So, that these strategies you see on these boards here, they're really tied to data and things we heard. It's not just us pulling them out of thin air. So, we we like to recap that. And so, that that was a little bit of a difference from the current plan to the new one or an enhancement as we we like to call it. I mentioned this earlier and it's on these boards off to my left. A lot from the previous plan was accomplished. There's a lot of goals that were checked off the list. So, we said we want to honor that. We want to showcase that. We want everybody to know, hey, this plan did not sit on the shelf. uh it got implemented and it was working which is one of the reasons we preserved that structure. So we've highlighted that in there and we've basically talked about here's all these great goals that were already achieved.

Now we're building off of those in a lot of cases. One of the bigger ones was we wanted to update future land use. Uh we'll get into that in a little bit. Uh but basically in the places chapter we've added a new land use map. We've included more explanation on future land use categories. So when you look at the strategies, they're tied specifically back to that map. And uh they're showcased there with what we heard, what we learned. But you see here we have a goal statement. We want to promote safe quality neighborhoods with varying styles and densities. We've now put that into a future land use map to help with the current plan does have one. Uh we took it a little bit further in terms of the detail and really uh extending it past the city's current boundaries. Uh it's not an ETJ. It's not intended to be that. It's more it's what we call a planning area. But as US30 changes, as that, you know, the state implements its plans there, we did want to have a little bit broader brush in terms of how much area we looked at. And what you see there, all that kind of lighter green color, that's all a land. So, it's not like we proposed massive changes there. We just wanted to have some direction should any activity happen further outside the city's boundaries. The other thing you notice, and this is pretty typical, a land use map, has these colors. Those are intended to different land uses. But I want to highlight that's not zoning. Um, this map is just used to help inform decisions and inform policies, but nothing on that map means anybody's current zoning is changes. This is only if and when somebody does want to change the zoning, the plan commission and you folks have some direction to say yes, the community did agree, for instance, in those red colors, this is where we'd like to see more commercial development, retail offices, those sorts of things. Um, I won't go through all these, but resulted in pretty much a very similar amount. We added a couple, one of those I'll highlight on the next slide. Uh but everything from agricultural to low density, what we call single family development, where we think apartments

would go, that's kind of that mixed density retirement community, local business, downtown, preserving what's here, preserving what was great about 2015 plan, and really just adding to it or augmenting it as things have changed in the last 10 years. Uh, one thing that is new that was not in the 2015 plan is each one of those bullet points I mentioned on the previous slide now has what we call a character class description. So, in addition to just saying, hey, this is where we think uh medium density residential should go in this case. It's on the map. We've actually added some overview unit recommendations. So, primary, secondary uses, densities, building heights, things like that. So that you not just are thinking about where a land use goes, you're thinking about what it looks like. I like to describe this as if you're driving down the street. You know, an urban neighborhood feels a little different than an agricultural neighborhood. You know, where the buildings are located, how tall they are, how spread out they are. That's kind of what we're trying to achieve with this text. So everybody has a good idea of what should go there. It doesn't mean like if somebody came in for a development proposal, it has to conform to this. Uh but we're trying to provide just that general recommendation towards that. If you think about what we had on street recently of like looking at the actual character of the neighborhood instead of saying this zone says R1 or R2 or R3 instead what is the character of the neighborhood right so I think the additional cont said it better than me I should have turn.

Um, so we have the land use recommendations, we have people, places, things, and with each one the strategies. What we like to do as a firm is go a little further than that. What we call our implementation section is critical path strategies. And this is uh, and this was an exercise we did with our steering committee where we sort of put all the goals that came out of the plan and there's usually 40 to 50 in all those different pieces. We pull out the 10 to 15 we think are the ones we want to implement now. These are the ones we really think should we should get going on five years or less. So we we voted on those. We put them in there and then we don't just restate them in a table or kind of just say do this in the next five years. We like to provide very specific action items. This is kind of a chronological do this in this order step byep way to implement in this case critical path strategy number four which is to create a citywide gateway plan. And so there's the steps. Here's the way we would suggest you go about it. Uh partner agencies, budget items, timeline. It's really intended to be get this going, get it in action. U one of my senior planners uses an analogy I like to steal at this point where we like to get to the end of this process and kind of think of it as you got a car parked on a downhill slope. All you got to do is release the parking brake and it'll start rolling on its own. You don't you have to give it any more gas. That's that's what this whole process boils down to. Here's how we get to these implementation steps. I mentioned there's a number of these. There's 11 in this plan. I won't go into that much detail as I did on the previous slide here, but uh the ones that did bubble up to the surface that are this plan's implementation schedule is we want to encourage neighborhood beautifification uh through projects and partnering with the redevelopment commission, tree board, other agencies to enhance, you know, this could be landscaping, this could be murals. There's a lot of ways to implement this. working with uh the arts group and other folks to implement that. That was one that really became top top of the line for a lot of folks. Uh we want here here you go. There's a

second mention of the test kitchen.

Oh, of course. Couldn't see behind it. Two two test kitchen mentions tonight, but that that was a really great facility and we talked a lot about entrepreneurial efforts and getting more restaurants in town. So, we wanted to make sure we had something in here and that's such a great facility to emphasize and double down on that effort. We want to explore and identify sidewalks. We heard a lot about connectivity connectivity gaps. You know, places where not all the sidewalks are in the best shape or they don't exist. So, that's one uh create a citywide gateway plan. That was on the previous slide. We want to coordinate clean up brownfield sites as those are either known or get identified. There is grant money out there. So, let's figure out how to how to do that and get those sites back into active back back basically make them active again. That's a that's a big part of something the state's trying to accomplish right now. Want to work with the Columbia City Arts Commission to build programming focused on public arts. I know some of this is going on. The the few examples we came up with or ideas here is to turn this into a revolving art downtown for instance where there's new exhibits, there's new statues, artists can just basically plop these on designated areas for a season and then sell them, take them to somewhere else, that kind of thing. We like these programs to start thinking of themselves as a little evergreen because it gives you a chance or a reason to come back every year and see the new set of sculptures. Um, rounding out the critical path strategies, we want to promote and encourage medium density housing and single family housing. We heard this a lot uh just the need for all housing types, for our kids that maybe go to college and want to come back, for uh folks that are maybe retiring and on fixed incomes, and pretty much everything in between. So this this whole goal is about creating opportunities to make that happen. Uh with what's going on on US30, we talked about creating an overlay district. So this would be something you put in your zoning code that has extra standards in terms of aesthetics, landscaping, uh one that we're really concerned about back with just setback requirements in general, making sure there's enough room for those improvements to go in. So as

the, you know, the US30, the Indiana studies get more and more defined, we want to accommodate for that. That's a big one. U we want to imple the downtown revitalization plan uh by partnering with OKR and the main street groups to keep looking for funding to do that. You know, the downtown plan was completed before this effort. Uh so we wanted to tie to that and come up with ways to help fund some of those strategies. We want to highlight the region's rich tourism capacity by partnering with folks out in the county and the visitor center to say, "Hey, let's look at some of those cool things. We talked about the test kitchen earlier. Is there a way to tie that to farm to table? Is there a way to tie agricultural tourism and aggra business to what's going on here in the city itself? And finally, we want to create a gateway commercial district along SR9, uh, between Spencer Street and East Chicago. Uh, just part of that gateway signage, part of just brand recognition, part of, you know, showcasing, hey, we're here. We're we're we are Columbia City. So, we we want you to know that when you come through town and say, oh, that's a cool place. I need to come back. Uh, so with that, I'll kind of just see if there's any other comments, questions, can you know anything that that came up or any questions about the process for for instance? Anything else I can answer?

I'm excited that it's to this point. I know when I was council instruction. over the past 10 years. So I think it's a lot of thought but it's such I'm really proud of the boards over there that say goals accomplish all but it does a lot of things that you know were not just group but also high will

it was very exciting to Yes. Tick off the list, if you will. Right. And and uh so with this being a plan update, um the nice thing is is a part of this process was we went through and we said, "Okay, do we want to keep this plan? Do we not? Do we want to keep this this item? Do we not? Do we want to, you know, keep this strategy? Do we not?" And so some of those strategies got morphed. Some of those strategies stayed and some of those strategies were like, "Well, that was good in 2015, but is just not that's just not where we're at anymore.

And so I do really like the fact that this is an update that builds on the success. that builds on the plans that we have or had, if you will, for for Columbia City. Yeah.

Yes. I can I can attest to that for the mayor person. I've seen it.

Like gold. They were gold. Yes. I was say the good news there is I've negotiated really hard with Nathan, but we're going to turn over all the electric files so you guys can print new ones as needed. It was a very hard negotiation. He really worked hard. I tell you. Yes. Any other questions for Matt? If not, I'll I'll bring up the chat from the plan commission perspective. Thank you, Matt. Thank you.

So, from a procedural standpoint, um tonight you've got a resolution before you. Uh the plans are not adopted by ordinance. Uh so hopefully you can just adopt this resolution and we can make this to work. Do you want to talk about the plane commission's review and thoughts that they have?

Um, kind of goes without saying they send this to you with a favorable recommendation. Um, they have the option to send it to you without a recommendation, but that's pretty rare. They do not have an option to send it to you with an unfavorable recommendation like they do with resonings. Um because why with uh but anyway uh back to the point does come to you with paper recommendation from the plan commission from last week's meeting. Um again similar uh comments were made last week from the plan commission members. Uh we didn't held the public hearing. Didn't have any members of the public uh talk or even in attendance. um didn't really have any comments, additional comments once we opened it up for the budget review draft. So, if you do have any last minute changes, typos or anything, let us know. Be your last chance to make those final fixes. excited about the future. after it start like the format as I was reading through it. Here's where we're going.

I can just add that.

Yeah, there were some things that we took this opportunity that we knew were well, for example, the class descriptions. That was something that as we went through reszonings, we kind of struggled with commission to say well what exactly does meaning density mean? So now we have a better understanding of of what that could should look like. So there are other things that we're also feeling like there were missions that we added in some additional clarifications. It's not just a pure update. I have a note to myself just to ask for like the overlay district which is one of the critical test strategies. Um is that something that starts in the plane commission or does that start here?

Uh there are many ways that you can deal with it overlays as a zoning matter. Uh you can start with the council and then hand it off to the plan commission and then comes back to you. You can do an overlay. Uh it would be a little odd to in a nonzoning fashion, but in theory you could. Uh, but most typically it would be plan commission involvement and most of the heavy lifting would be with them. Any other questions for Nathan or Matt? Okay. Thank you. Thank you both. Uh, do I have a motion to read resolution 2026-15 by title only?

Motion by Jennifer, second by Dan. Further discussion. All those shall sign please read-5 resolution 2026-15 resolution. Any questions, comments, concerns regarding the resolution or the adoption, if you will of the comprehensive plan hearing? None. Do I have a motion to approve resolution 2026-15 on first and final reading?

Motion by Jennifer, second by Dan. Further discussion. All those favor by the usual sign. It is unanimous. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your work. Sorry I'm reading everything. So pass out. I know I'm going to get yelled at for that later. Do I have a motion to read ordinance26-14 by title by Jennifer discussion with the usual sign of those present please read ordinance

sorry this is So, well, I think our water superintendent should probably speak to it

here about it. So, what this ordinance does is gives water the right to actually go onto somebody's property and pothole and inspect to see if there is lead lines and then go in and replace lead lines. It just gives them We are running against some people that are not allowing us on their property or in their house. So, this just gives us the ability And the rationale behind that has to do with the fact that we're being mandated by the federal state government to address this. It's not something that we can say, "Oh, we're doing this for funies." No, we're mandated. We don't have a choice.

And this is this is an EPA or that they passed down. So, it's not something we just came up with that's being spread throughout the country. And I assume that's been shared with whoever is not allowing. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Okay. This is part we're going through. We're going through trying to get federal funding and there's different steps. This is just one of the 50 steps that we have to cross to get the federal funding. So hopefully we get through them all here soon. I know it's not fun, but again it's a mandate and it's just going to open their access to their

Well, but we could also hole meaning that suck some dirt out to find out what their what their actual line is. Again, I want to reiterate like we try to work with the homeowner first and foremost do it, but this is for those that are obsed. No, I don't think that's actually included in there.

But again, they would be

just to be real. Any questions? question on first reading

by Chad second by Dan further discussion all those show usual sign it is unanimous those present we'll move to second reading at the next meeting the next two things on the agenda are the next two the amphitheater stuff we are till the next meeting Marca and Chip and I had a great conversation with Lisa Lee our attorney today and there's some things we need to make sure that we have squared away. Honestly, we probably could have passed it tonight, but I didn't feel super comfortable and Mara will be here at the next meeting. Questions about it, she can answer those for you. So, nevertheless, let's go to department reports. Please keep them brief. I think they wereing Memorial Day commission also at last week's meeting approved a primary plan for new apartments near Countryside. Uh that's the first of several things they have to do but that gets the ball rolling. Uh last weekend I led historic tours in downtown uh which was attended by about 25 people or so. Want to give a shout out to Smith and Sons who were gracious enough to give a tour of their former body home as well. Had never looked at from an architectural standpoint. So that was really cool of them. Got lot ofud

questions. Thank you. just been working on trying to get the amphitheater going around and liquidating the jail. Other than that stuff, thank you, Matt. Get ready for Memorial Day and we have about 50 team.

Thank you, Sean. making preparations for the high school CTE building.

All right, started doing well. First Friday market went pretty smooth after minor issues. home. Medical question. Thank you.

Members item staffed pneumonia. Uh got a few ideas, additional things to test for and to try there. And then we have a new meeting with us on their progress and update them and talk with it. Our new hire starts the 18th and a very large mic. Thank you, Terry. Terry, thank you. question. Thank you.

US Bank of Fire

motion to for me to be able to move forward with US bank

if you look on your but under there's US bank US bank basically this gives the ability to finance as you well know has been working on financing the fire truck long term here um and she went and got multiple Facebook quotes if you will board of works um agreed with Lesie to pass on the recommendation of going uh for the financing of the fire truck. And so we'd like a utilizing US for the final sign. It is unanimous. Thank you for that. Anything else? Okay. A couple things for your information. Um, we did get uh bids in for Westgate subdivision today board of works. Uh, the bids ran from 1.69 million up to 2.14 million. It's a pretty decent gap. Uh, Mark Jesse took those bids. He's going to tabulate and figure out if everybody's on the straight and narrow, then bring it back to board. However, I think this is real close to what they were expecting, which is good. Maybe small. So, that's good. Um, a couple other things here. Next week, we have youth council going on on Thursday. On Wednesday, we're host the mayor's and commissioners caucus Indiana over at the aquatic center. And then, as a reminder, Monday the 25th, we are closed for Memorial Day. Invite you all to Memorial Day parade. America 250 stuff is happening where we're doing the lighting contest. Thanks to Jennifer. We're going to time capsule on July 4th and I think we've got we finally have a

plan of action for that and for Memorial Day we're hoping to have veterans banners up on Maine and 205. So that's kind of cool thing. So that's all I'm going to tell you right now. If you have questions

I will see was quick and got a little bit audience. Okay, we'll call the meeting. Thank you. How was that?