Town Council - Regular Meeting

7:00 stand to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, Mr. President. I may send you some comments. Yes, sir. I'd like to announce that Mr. Dow will be joining us electronically. He is visible and uh can be heard. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. First item up on the agenda is uh minutes from the November 19th meeting. Any questions or comments on those minutes?

Move to approve the minutes from 11:19. Motion by Mr. Gerald. Second. Second. Mr. Chadam. All in favor? Hi roll call vote. I'm sorry. Roll call vote. Brett Dow. I Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chadam. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries. 5. Any public comment? I've had no request to speak tonight. And while you're on the mode of voting, I'd like to make an amendment to the or agenda, I'd like to move item A down basically to the bottom because we were waiting on another document.

Okay. I will move to um modify the agenda to leave item A towards the bottom of towards the end of the meeting. Thank you. Sery second. Second, Mr. Chad. Brett D. Hi, Greg Herby. Hi, Chris Gerald. Hi, Michael Chadam. Hi, Dave. Hi. Thank you very Thank you. Anything else? Mr. Morgan. Yes, sir. Except on agenda. Then item B, sell property to obtain appraisal. Mr. Morgan, our chief.

So, I'll let Chief Duncan start. Um, we've got some properties that we'd like to sell, uh, and put up uh, get appraisals for, then put them up for auction, and then we've got some properties we'd like to get appraisals for and maybe look into purchasing. Good evening, uh, Mr. President, Councilman, uh, first I want to start off by saying I'd like to put 302 West Main up for auction. I believe uh it's in the best interest to preserve that corridor with our future planning and downsizing of that firehouse when we do build the new one. We won't need that piece of property. So, in the uh the efforts to please everyone involved aesthetically and personally, I'd like to have that place up for auction.

If we can we can do this all in one time. U the other piece of property that I'd like to put up for sale is 252 South Tennessee Street. This is a piece of property that we uh obtained I can't even tell you how many years ago. Uh there were two fires on the property. Uh finally the property set abandoned for so long that the town took the initiative to go ahead and clean it up and then it went up for tax sale. It didn't sell and then the town went ahead and took the deed to the property. Um there's really not much we can do with it. Uh, it's again, it's just it's a little piece of property. It's sitting between two residential homes on Tennessee. Um, so I'm sure somebody would like to have it and I'd like to get it back on the tax roles. You have my attention. Yes, sir.

Thank you. So, I know when I when I first got here, we were looking at building a big station out of Miles Farm. Uh, what you're looking at now is the data that we've been able to crunch over the last 5 years. You're looking at a fiveminute deployment model from each firehouse. So, in in yellow is the existing station 192 and in green is station 191. The uh purplish blue color is the actual prime location where we need to have station 192. I understand why it is where where it is now. Back then, the town was a lot different than it is now. Um I have my eye on a piece of property. The land owner is here. Um we we've come to an agreement on a on what he is asking for. Uh I don't know where you want to go from here. I want to buy a piece of property across the fairgrounds to relocate this firehouse in the future. Should we be able to tain money?

And we'll still have to do two appraisals on the property obviously. got my support. Obviously, the location of the previous I think we got it from the county. It was kind of worked at the time and now things are changing. So, if that's what you recommend, you're all right. And then the last piece of property we'd like to get appraisals on is 136 West Marian Street. Um, if you've been here for any length of time, it would have been Dr. Terry, Dr. Kirky's office. It's across from the old post office or now probation. Um it I think it housed Arcane Coffee for a while if I'm not mistaken. Um the reason we're looking at this piece of property is u with the events that we have on the square. Uh we'd like to maybe look at the possibility of building public restrooms so that we don't have to have uh portallets any longer for the events. So, um, that's the other piece of property we'd like to look at, um, trying to get a hold of if we can. So, what I'm seeking tonight obviously is, uh, council's approval to go ahead and get the four appraisals. Well, actually, eight appraisals. Yeah.

Any question? Two questions for Chief Dun or maybe Mr. Morgan on on just the the sale of the house. What's the process for selling? How do you how what what type of auction done? What's So, we've got two options. Um we get the two appraisals and then we could have legal counsel uh do the uh auction and it' be no different than what Lawson does. We could and we could have Lawson do the auction uh where they put a board up there and then they take bids and And is that pretty much what you do as well?

Yeah, normally the way we do is we advertise it and just it's not necessarily an auction. It is a single bid where you give us your best offer and then we get them all up and then we open them and then you see which one's the highest. But um if you want the auction method, I mean that's a way to get competition going that you get to generate more. So the two the two options single bed or auction if you had the option could you have a little cocktail hour before you're the council president I'll do what you

second question to uh chief dump I assume your thoughts proposal here have been reviewed and approved by your entire territory board our deployment model yes and we've had several discussions and we discussed it tonight and I told them that I coming uh to this meeting tonight and ask you for purchase that property. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. To approve to uh authorize town manager and fire chief to move forward with the appraisals for the intelligence property and purchase the properties as well. Thank you. Second motion, Mr. Irby. Second, Mr. Gerald. Roll call vote, please. Brad D. I. Greg Herby. I. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Cham. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries 5. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, ordinance 27205 as well.

Yes. This is the um 2026 salary ordinance for the town Danville employees and the fire territory employees as well. combined ordinance and I'm asking for approval. Okay, for this we need to suspend the rule. So motion to suspend the rules. So move second motion by Mr. Gerald. Second Mr. Chad roll call vote please. Brett Dow I. Greg Gerby I

Chris Gerald. Michael Chadam. Hi Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries 5. Motion to approve. I just have one quick question. What did we already do this? Are we changing it or is this the one for next year? We haven't done with that move to approve ordinance 27 2025. Second motion by Mr. Irby, second by Mr. Gerald. Roll call vote, please. Brett Dow I. Greg Irby. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chadam. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries 5. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, ordinance 27 202. No, ordinance 32 2025. Uh, Mr. Morgan, I'll be stepping in for M tonight. Um, before you is a uh an annexation ordinance. Um, it is for annexation of the property. Sorry. Located 223 South, 200 East. petitioner is Robert Lraange and this is up for a public hearing tonight. Open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to comment, please move forward.

Seeing no one, public hearing is closed. Thank you very much. Uh next up is ordinance uh 35 2025. Yes sir. This is a an ordinance for a supervoluntary annexation of the property located at 1433 10th Street and the petitioner is Carly Stewart. This is up for introduction only tonight. Any questions or comments on that?

Thank you. Item 36 or 36 2022. Mr. This is an ordinance for super voluntary annexation of the property located at 1103 South County Road 300 East. Uh the petitioner is Banyan Realy Group. This is up for introduction only tonight. Thank you, sir. That's 2025 storm water asset management.

Good evening. Uh what you have in front of you is basically a plan to inspect, assess, uh verify, location, the condition of culvert pipes that were originally in the county's jurisdiction and that was handed over to the town for for their uh maintenance. We we now take those on and there were two additional ones that we found that weren't on the original map. So I believe there's 36 35 or 36 total that we're going to look at. Um check for roadworthiness and that's what this is for. We also have GIS mapping in this agreement. So these locations will be added to our storm water map

question. What was the number you had? 30 something. Believe it's 35. And that's in addition to what we So originally was 33. We found two more that weren't, but we found several that were and there were some that weren't. So we had to verify that they were in the incorporated limits of town. So we come up with 35 total. I believe that's the number. My question is that is that the number that got added to our Yes, sir. responsibility because of the legislative change. That was what I meant. 35 of them. Yeah. What number are you talking about?

I I'm I don't want to freak you guys out, but we're looking at probably two to three million. I mean, it could be more than that because some of these structures are literally built in the 1920s and 1930s. They're 100% concrete. They don't have a bottom and they are on very high travel roads. So, you throw all that together and we've got a the number one thing we're doing with this is making sure for low gradings. If we have if we take those on to the town and a vehicle passes over that, if we don't have load ratings posted on the road and that fails, we could have some issues. Um, so it's important that we do this process to find out where we are to prioritize those ones that are in really bad condition. Maybe we get lucky and there's not any. But they're only going to assess the ones that are in poor condition for that low rating to try to keep the cost down because this is unexpected. This is not in my budget. This is not in next year's budget because this came in after we did all of our budget work. So this is just kind of a gotcha.

There's zero funding mechanism that came with this responsibility. So what the legislature did is the the counties pushed for clarification because there was some dispute as to whether or not small structures were the responsibility of municipalities or not. The legislature came in and they said we clarify the record. If a small structure is located within the corporate boundaries of the municipality, it is the responsibility of the municipality for the maintenance, care, upkeep, construction and all of that. no funding mechanism came in and it came on the heels of Seno one as well. So not only does no funding mechanism come in, they're taking funding away.

And if I remember correctly from discussion with Mr. Loftton earlier, the small structure spans a clear span of 20 or 22 feet or something like that. So that's that sounds like fairly large structure to me. But well,

that's the definition of the bridge for INDOT and IDM. So that's how they differentiated the two. But some of these structures, if I'll share pictures with everybody, when you see those pictures, you're going to say that's a bridge. It doesn't matter if it's 5t, 10 feet, or 20 feet if it's a bridge. But yeah, this is a big deal. A good thing is is we have a storm water utility. Um this may be a 20-year process. It just depends on what they come back and say the condition is, and we'll deal with it because we have to. What's the process of assessing each of those and and and putting a timeline on what's the urgency on is that a something for next year or 10 years out? No. What's the process?

The reality is is I kind of gave them a pretty strict guideline on getting this done. Um I said first quarter of 26 we need to have all this data so I can bring this back to you. They will put dollar amounts associated with these. So we will you know based on condition there's a lot of variables that go in here. Um, but we'll there'll be a number that I come back with you on and it might be sticker shock. It may not be. We just got to look at them once they're done. Basically, they go out and check them. I mean, I checked them with they started before the Thanksgiving break and it was really cold. I felt terrible because they're down in the water in a bridge that's got the wing walls that collapsed and they're literally inside the the flow line of the channel. So, from the first one that I saw, I'm like, well, that one right there is not going to rate very well. Roadworthiness is the biggest thing. So, we'll find out more. I think they've only assessed two or three so far. Um, there are some that are going to take more time than others because sometimes the repairs were done, they kind of mask and they hide things that are underneath. So, there may be some surprises when we go to tear them out. There there always is. This this, like I said, this this is a big deal and it's going to impact our rate payers heavily.

I recognize this requires both. There really isn't an option, is there? I would say no. We don't have one. It was laid in our lap and and we really didn't get any pre-warning for it either. Thank you. Um, I'd say the only thing for a motion I would ask or encourage is that we need to make Representative Thompson and Senator Clark aware of this and how it's impacting us. If I didn't even know about this, I don't know if they did if they knew that this was going to have as much of an impact on us. They didn't tell us. So, that's what I I think we got to do it. I also want to make sure we get a message to them saying, "Hey, did you know you did this to us?" And this is what it's the price tag is

I think when we you know and I I can share this I feel comfortable sharing this information. There was one specific pipe that was already scheduled to be repaired in 2025 and that was taken away the minute that this was heard about. They already had the funding for it and then that was removed and I felt that was kind of a low blow. You know, you already have funding for this project and you're going to rip it out since now it's the town's problem. That's one thing that bothers me, but at the end of the day, we've got to do what we got to do. And I'll make sure that we when we get those numbers, they're going to be shared.

Uh because we're also going to share them with the county and say, "Hey, we're taking not taking this on that there's going to be some large numbers before you guys." Yeah. Thank you. Motion. I'll move to approve the contract. Motion second. Second, Mr. Shadow. Roll call vote, please. Brett Dow. Hi. Greg. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi.

I back request to Mr. Lawson. So, this capital expenditure request um kind of goes back a little while. Matt had requested some funds through the uh bond, the geo bond, and we told the guys to go out and pick out something that they were going to be able to use. And as that went on, the price went up, but we also added some things to that to make that a multi-use piece of equipment. So, now the wastewater department, the storm water department, the street department can all use this. It's inevitable. We have a large back truck. This is a smaller truck. It's not small by any means, but it has all the equipment. So, we can hydro excavate. We can clean out catch basins. We can clean out manholes. So, it gives us the option every time we need like storm water department needed the back the back truck. They're out there working on the sanitary sewer system. So, timing is never good. This is a good purchase and it's multi- we can use this in a lot of different ways. It is more than the original price, but the other utilities are chipping in to help pay for that to set that cost to the water department. Guys did a really good job. Matt did too picking this piece of equipment out because it's going to help the town out for a long time.

Question, comment, discussion. Motion make a motion that we approve the back purchase. Mr. Chadam say second Mr. Gerald. All in favor? I vote. Brad D. I. Greg. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael China. Hi. Dave. Hi. Motion carries. 5. Next up. Another capital finish request.

Uh, good evening. Uh, this C is for a blower for the digesttors. The blower that we have is out of date. They don't even make it. make rebuild kits for it anymore. Uh it was there originally when I got there 16 years ago. So I'm not exactly sure how old it is, but it's time to replace it, start updating some things. Uh so it's $19,58.77. Uh they have one in stock, so it was kind of amazing that they actually had one. We have one in about a week. But that's what decision

question. What's the I mean I know that was there before you got there. Is that a good life expectancy? Yes, it is. I mean that's it served us well. It doesn't a thing we get 20 20 plus years out of piece of equipment. That's good. That's good. I think so. Move to approve the second. Second by Mr. Gur, please. Brett Dow. I Greg. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Shadow. Hi. Dave Potter. I motion carries 5. Thank you.

Thank you. come for you tonight with a letter of engagement uh from Stirwald W Youngs, particularly Graham Young's uh who's put in to be our 2026 uh legal counsel and Mr. Youngs is here if you have any questions for me.

Good evening. Graham Young's local resident and office down the street here. Happy to answer any questions tonight question discussion motion I do that I just do want to thank Jewel for what you've done for us. I think you're an excellent attorney. So just wanted that to be on the record. Uh, with that I'll make a motion to approve the engagement letter with store walls. Second motion by Mr. Herby, second by Mr. Chad. Brett Dow I Greg Herby. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chava. Hi.

Dave Potter. I motion carry 5. And now we're back to agenda item A. I believe we're still waiting on a printed document on that. We can we can discuss install if you'd like. Absolutely. I take the opportunity.

Um I apologize. We have a computer page. Um last month we presented for you um declaration for a um for Tri County machinery equipment. Uh wanted to give a little bit of background, introduce Gary C who's here, the owner of the company. Um he came to us late November with a great opportunity for a project. He's looking to diversify his company serving Caterpillar a lot has opportunity uh with the new product line with Alison Transmission. Would you please come up and explain what's going on in your world?

My name is Jerry Coff and I'm president of Track Machinimi. Uh we moved out here to Danville in 2011. Uh I' I've been a part of this company now for about 30 years. We started in 1997. So this uh this company is is over in Commerce Park 120 Commerce Park. We're a CNC manufacturing company. For those of you who don't know what that what that is, that's basically just machining with computers. Uh I currently have 22 CNC machines. We occupy 120 Commerce Drive, which is about 30,000 square ft. We're currently employing 38 people. Love being out here in Danville. We moved our company in 2011, late December, from the inner city somewhere over near the Park Fletcher area. Me being a westsider and an Avon resident for the last 31 years, I wanted to get out here in Hendricks County and I've been very grateful to all the support that I've gotten from community out here in Danville and the county in general. I want to see that continue to go. We as a company went through some uh ownership changes. My original partner passed away in October 23. We had a group of investors that came in that were personal friends of my ex-girlfriend's family that had interest. They were local businessmen, very predominant businessmen within the Indianapolis community. They came in, they uh bought my partner share. Along with that, I sold 25% of my share. I still stand as a single single shareholder of the company. what we're looking at and it's our business is evol business and it's usually a long sales

cycle. So we have been engaged with Caterpillar now for about 20 years I've been doing work for Caterpillar. They were really my only customer. When the new group came in, our overall objective and plan going forward, and that deal was consummated mid June of 23 was to grow the business from about $6 million of revenue over a 5year span to 10 to12 million revenues. By doing that, I've been devoting a majority of my time to diversification, going out and getting newer customers in a different mix of work. With that is going to come investment. We now have engaged with Allison's transmission over the last eight months. We have been given four different projects in order to quote for Allison's. These are projects that will begin doing prototyping in 2026. Contracts will begin in 2027 and Q1 and 28 and extend out for seven years. So that was the way in the door with Allison's. We just went through what they call a technical review with our entire engineering staff, procurement staff, planning staff. We did get approved and we're being awarded that work. This all happened within the last six weeks as far as are we going to get this opportunity. Since then, they have now sent me and and those four packages encompass 40 different SKUs. They now sent me 400 SKUs to quote Anisa's work that it's not future work, it's existing work. So what we have to demonstrate in order to become in Dean with this type of a package we're talking millions of dollars potential work over a period of time not going to happen tomorrow is we got to show our ability to expand, grow, and willingness to make capital

expenditure. That's what I'm here to ask for. It's late notice. We're under the gun. I got to move. Uh, but it's an opportunity that I think is going to be phenomenal for the community. It's going to bring future jobs. It's probably going to help me keep my job. So, I ask for your guys' support and help in this issue. Thank you.

With with that explanation of what K's been going through. He came to us in November scrambling. um he's going to have to purchase a $44,000 piece of machinery equipment as a result and hire four additional staff members. Um he has the machinery picked out, knows where it's coming from, but he has not purchased it yet. Um he's going to grow here um and expand. Um also going forward on this, we've been talking about uh tax abatements in future. Um I've taken a stab at putting together just a draft tax abatement agreement. So for every year going forward, we know what we're reporting on. just spells out what the report reporting requirements are going to be. Um, we're going to agree to 38 jobs salary that we're going to hire four new additional people. We're going to purchase 400,000 $44,000 piece of machinery and equipment. And every year there'll be reporting date on the SBA one to spell out when they're going to have to report that. So, um, alleviate any confusion like we've had in the past on tax. I said before I wanted to do this going forward, but I had to wait for a new project to come in to move forward to do it and that's what we're doing. And this will be the sevenyear tax abatement for the appreciation equipment. That was a confusion I didn't catch earlier. Standard is 10 years and depreciating equipment over seven years. It's going to be shorter.

Thank you. Question. Is this on the purchase of the equipment? Is this all on use or is there any incentive grants or anything that's being done to help? send us a grants for housing financing the equipment or I financing the equipment to that we will be going through basic I think the concern is I want to make sure are there other state incentives or grants other the concern is it is it actually $400,000 you're going to spend or did you already get 100,000 from the state

I can't speak we're trying to figure out and I didn't know about is we we were granted the Indiana readiness grant. So I will be utilizing $200,000 of that money towards investment this and then does that bring it down to 400 or does it make it $23,968

and that's assuming that the state actually comes through with the grant for what we're doing and what we had done. I have personally put up $100,000 and I have one other shareholder that's agreed to put up $300,000. We're going to pay cash for the machine. I will then submit that to the state for the readiness grant. But that once the machine gets delivered and installed, which wouldn't happen until probably the middle to end of February because it's a pretty long build cycle. this machine be built well before it's then we may go and find or go to pay and ask them to finance any other comments.

Okay, some thoughts. Yeah, I think um Gary, I think your business is exactly what Angel needs and what we should encourage him. Um, we need to continue to support businesses like yours that that come to our town that provide jobs for our people that pay property taxes at 3% rate. Obviously being selfish, that's kind of the things we're looking for, right? And that's um I think this this fits the bill. Now, there have been discussions about kind of overall general policy, not so much related to this, but just kind of our thoughts on abatements and when they're necessary, when they're not necessary. Um, and I think that's a discussion we should have at some point, but in regard to this specific project. Um, I think this is an excellent use of and it's just on the personal property and it's for seven years. So, I I just don't see much of an impact and I think it's going to add a lot of value.

Other comments? I agree.

Yeah, I'm going to agree with substantially everything that Mr. He said, "I I have to say that I I struggled with this one a bit." Um, I was totally unfamiliar with your company until this issue came up. So, as I told you earlier, I did a little research and certainly from all I could see, looks like a high quality company. It's certainly one that we love to have in Danville. Want to see you grow and would love to see more just like you. Having said that, I struggle a little bit with giving abatements on personal property that in my view just to support a growing successful growing business. So, I struggle with that. Having said that though, uh I'm I'm going to go back and and agree with Mr. Irby that that I think is one that that we need to do, but but it's not one that I got there easily. I have to know and I think we need to think about going forward what we do here. Um, I want to do everything to encourage and support businesses such as churches coming here. Uh, but I want to be cautious that we don't open the door that everybody gets an abatement on everything that comes along. So that's that the line we have to draw sometime comments

with that you you'll have to g a public hearing because the since this is the confirmatory resolution you have to have a public hearing on the abatement but the public talk and then close that question too so whatever if he does get this ready grant do these figures change down from the 404 to the This is still real money that's being paid. It doesn't take into account where he got the funding from.

Correct. So, so the what is being abated is the tax that is being assessed on the property. So, the property is still valued at the 44,000 and will be depreciated over the time, but so it'll roll off that way. But the amount of the the value of the machinery itself doesn't change.

And what are the personal property taxes on something like this? Is it I just don't know what the rates are on an actual dollar figure. I don't think we we run the calculator and everybody we use who's your energy has their property tax calculator and everybody we put in 4004 and it's it's off the number to us. Um that's everybody in the state uses who's your energy tax calculator. This is how we use it oversimplified.

Okay. With that uh open a public hearing. Anyone wishing to comment uh please go forward. Seeing none public hearing is closed. I would entertain a motion. Okay. And then one more on the uh resolution itself. It does talk about the tenure. Council Chad brought that up. So I move to amend the resolution first to make it reflect a seven-year abatement and then take action after the amendment. I will move to uh amendment confirmatory resolution 242025 to change the change it from a 10ear abatement to a seven motion by Mr. Herby

second by Mr. Gerald vote mobile please. Brad D. Hi. Greg Irby. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chadam. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries 50. Congratulations. Thank you. Now to approve the confirmatory resolution 2425. Second. Fred Dow. I Greg Gerby. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chadam. Hi Dave Potter. I car good luck. Thank you.

I believe we are down to staff and council comments. Mr.

Yes, sir. If I may address the council, you take liberty with some issues. Um, and I'm really kind of seeking if if at any point you want me to stop talking, you can tell me. Uh but there's been some issues on the internet uh it's my understanding like chatter pages uh that have come up that um I wanted to address uh in an open meeting uh to make sure that it was clear. Um one issue was about our street department and whether they uh received compensation for their work especially their overtime work. The fact is the over the street department does receive overtime. Uh it can be taken in either counttime or pay. It is the employees decision on what they choose to do. Uh but they are we've never asked an employee to work without being compensated for what they do. Um we are extremely grateful for the long hours that they put in to keep our roads safe. Um, but uh, and again, I'm not sure where it ever came from, but uh, we do pay our employees. Um, as far as roundabouts for the town of Danville, uh, there's only three that I'm aware of. Uh, there's one out at 200 East and, uh, Main Street. Uh, there's one at Campus Boulevard and there's one right outside this building. Those are the only three that I'm aware of. We've not built any others and right now we don't have big plans to build any others. Um there was a rumor that we buy expensive propane buses. Um I've looked at our insurance and our fleet management and we own no buses whatsoever, let alone propane ones. Um as far as athletic fields and parks funding, we do spend some money on parks

because we do believe that that's an important part of our community to be honest with you. uh we think is one of the highest use things that we have other than again maybe our water waste water and u the streets uh parks are very high and I think our our public and our citizens enjoy using them uh we believe investing in those uh opportunities for our community um the additional fields have actually eased congestion at Ellis Park and created more space for youth programs and we've actually entered into uh agreements with a lot of leagues to help build and fund these um facilities. So, we're not paying for them all on our own. We're help we've got help from the citizens to to build these things. Um fact is we do have water main breaks. It happens. Um this is an aging infrastructure. There's no doubt about it. Um but the uh temperature fluctuations sometimes the fire department has issues uh with when they're fighting a fire. Sorry, Rick. Um, but I got accused of it for 35 years, so it's your turn. Um, but, uh, those things happen and, uh, our water department uh, does an exceptional job of fixing those and fixing them rapidly uh, so that water can be uh, uh, put back into the system. But as far as tax dollars, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong, but most of that's actually done through utility rates, not tax dollars. So, uh, we don't spend tax dollars to fix those problems. We use that out of our utilities. So, um, our town limits can be viewed on Beacon. Uh, if people have a question on whether they can serve on a board or serve on a commission, um, if they look on Beacon, if they're not within our corporate limits, that pretty much tells them that we can't have them on our our

commissions and boards. Um, as far as the um, RDC is concerned, I know the president of the RDC is going is planning to address the issue uh, of the 20 West Main and so I'm going to leave that up to him uh, because I do believe that his response is probably going to be much more eloquent than mine is. U, so I was is there any questions about anything that I've addressed? I just have wanted to clarify on the overtime for all the personnel uh because I've got quite a bit of comments on on Facebook. So it it purely the employees option whether to take dollar compensation or time off and there's no pressure from from above to go either way. Purely their option

it they get the choice and there's a budget every year with an online light up for overtime. Yeah. Just wanted to clarify employee options. Yeah. The only other thing I have, um, I'd like to thank Lisa Tre, Brittany Mays, Abigail Mallerie, and Ellen Steinmets for all the beautiful decorations that you see here tonight. And they're going to be very upset with me that I didn't plug the lights on in front. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Lazy. Any comment from you? Well, Mark, thanks for the salary.

Mr. Carol, I want to thank Juel for all he's done. I've been on this council for almost seven years now. U I've learned a lot from you. um and you've never not taken a call or had a conversation with me and you've you've just been a a good help for me to learn and grow on this council. So, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you, Mery.

Um thank you, Mark, for addressing those issues. Um I think generally the one thing I would want to share to the public if you're listening is there are to bring these issues to us. you know, um, we want to fix them. If there are problems, um, we need to know about them. But there are ways to get that information, get those requests to us, the proper channels. Um, it's we can't govern off of Facebook chat. So, if you've got an actual concern and you want to address it with us, we're happy to have that discussion. I'd encourage you to come see us.

And I apologize, Mr. Herby. I didn't mean to bring that up that we have um report an issue on our website. They all of our emails on the website or how to contact us. Everything's there. Thank you. Yeah, that's all. Thanks again, Juel, for all.

Yeah, kind of reiterate the last two. Uh genuinely appreciate Juel and his effort um for the many years of service uh and dedication to the town. Um, and then just to wrap up, I I generally want to say thank you to not only the street department because I know there's other employees that pitch in from other departments, but greatly appreciate all the effort, the the time sacrifice with your family late evenings to clear the streets uh during these winter weather events um pushing the snow and then along with public safety again being on West Main especially on those events, the sirens come by non-stop uh all hours of the day and night. So, uh, I know you guys are all staying busy and just seriously wanted to say thank you all.

Um, kind of riding everybody else here, but wanted to thank Joel once again. Chris, I've learned a lot from you. I appreciate that, sir. Great resource. Um, kind of go back to some of Mark's comments that were made tonight. Um, I think at one time or another all of us up there have said we will put any of those guys up there up against anybody anybody out there and what they do for us cannot be measured. No matter what happens, it cannot be measured. from Barry to June police chief, Chief Duncan, Tony Aaron, all those guys in your crews. Um, and to have it kind of disheartens me to have citizens that were taking care of that these guys are out there taking care of in the middle of the night and other things. That's pretty disheartening to hear, but I get it. Um, but I kind of go with Greg, too. There are ways to address this. There's ways to reach out. I know I've had some conversations over past week or two sitting in a deer stand in Virginia. I'm getting phone calls like can you hold one minute? But uh yeah, there's ways to take care of this and I will tell you by vote for me being elected. I'll stand by my vote. Come come see me. I'll stand by my vote. I'll tell you why I did it. Reach out to me. I'll let you know. So, but thank you Mark for handling a lot of that um in your office and we'll thank you too.

Thank you.

Thank you. Uh I'm just going to uh basically endorse everything everyone else said and not repeat any of it. But I I I do appreciate all of it. Agree with all of it. The only thing that I would add would be uh for all of those that participated in any way in Christmas on the Square uh they deserve a gold star for it. Um, and that's everybody that drove off and putting it on. Maybe with the exception of whoever was in charge of weather. We might want to that role. Uh, but but a special gold star I think for for the streets department folks and everyone that worked with them. Uh, not only for what they did for the for the Christmas on the square, but also on the same weekend the adverse weather we had and every everybody being out out in the weather. So, uh, again, gold star for everybody involved in in Christmas on the square, but especially our our people that were out keeping our streets passable during the last few days.

And I've got one more shameless plug, if you don't mind. Sure. Um, I hope everybody will take time to go see Winterland. A lot of work from our parks department went into putting those displays together and it is stunning. Yeah, thank you. Good point. With that, we are ready for claim docket. Move to approve the claim docket in the amount of 1,68,62161. Second move to Irvy. Second by Mr. Journal. Roll call vote, please. Brad D. I. Greg. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion carries. 5. Thank you. And payroll docket. Move to approve the payroll docket. Second.

Motion by Mr. Gerald. Second by Mr. Chadam. Roll call vote please. Brett Dow I. Greg Irby. Hi. Chris Gerald. Hi. Michael Chadam. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion car 5. And motion to return. So move by Mr. Mr. Cheryl. I'm sorry. Second blank. Brett Dow. Hi. Greg Gregory. Hi. Hi. Michael. Hi. Dave Potter. Hi. Motion. Meeting adjourned.