County Council - Regular Meeting

Florida. Wow. Wouldn't dream of it.

I mean, this week goes down a touch, but they're saying, "Yeah, believe it or not, that that'll slow people down." Yeah. I hope that works out. It's nasty stuff with They keep changing it. We'll see. back. They ought to know by tomorrow a little bit. The same place or different that game the other night, huh?

Yeah. He would have had we were going to go back everybody to sign it. I don't know. You need to vote for everybody to sign it. What if we had this? This is um you on the 50 yard. I was just want you to look back and you know most of it was here for a park $700. Yeah. That's ridiculous. Well, Lancing's buddy Max went where you just have to look. He did. He go to really. He went down there or no ticket.

Found himself a ticket. Four guys down there. Yeah. Sun did the same thing. Could you go there and just quick and dirty? So, no plan, no ticket. Yeah. I mean, I'm pretty No parking place. I already asked said he would do it. We're going to check this. I was coming home these days. Well, I do shirt on and I kept passing people going the other way. They kept telling me, "You're going the wrong way. You're going You got more money than I got." Yeah.

You could go out to the celebration Saturday football stadium. Oh, yeah. Did you see him watching it in there when he ran that quarterback draw? Yeah. They let him in the stadium to watch a game. Yeah, I seen in Assembly Hall. Yeah. Yeah. Who was that? That they let the kids could go to the game. They went in Assembly Hall. They watched it over the big John. Yeah. That's cool. Pretty pretty incredible moments. Yeah. I was embarrassed to tell you how many times I fell asleep and had to rewind the game. But [laughter] I didn't have to do that. Oh man, I fell asleep five times. Had to rewind. I was flossing my teeth. It's like, "Oh my gosh, it's time to go to bed."

That That game did take a long time, didn't it? Think you added a minute. Not if you fall asleep and you just fast forward. [laughter] He's a neat kid. Might as well just watch the last minute of the game, right? He's a neat guy. That friend was a classic kid. Be a rich one, too. Yes, he is. My buddy's son made that. I saw that. He made it. That's pretty cool. Harris was somewhere at some kind of shop on Harris. I'll be there. That's pretty cool. Yeah. I like hands on snow. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You haven't had to make a whole lot of snow this year.

Yeah, we have. Oh god. Mother Nature's is good, but not quite as good as us. [clears throat] I'm losing my voice. It's five o'clock, so we'll call the meeting to order. If everyone will please rise, we'll start with the pledge of allegiance. I alsy [clears throat] justice for all.

Thank you. As a recipient of federal funds and in support of Don Countyy's efforts to ensure non-discrimination and equal access to all citizens, the county gather statistical data regarding participants in county activities. Therefore, we have provided a voluntary title six public involvement survey at this meeting. You are not required to complete the survey. However, the form is anonymous and will be used solely for the purpose of monitoring our compliance with title six and ADA. First order of business today is election of president and vice president for county council. Is there a nomination for president?

Nominate Liz Morris. I'll second that nomination. A motion for president made by Mark and seconded by Tim. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion passes. Thank you. Uh, we need a vice president as well. Is there a nomination for vice president? I'll nominate Tim D. Thank you. I'll second. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Motion passes. Congratulations, Tim. Thank you. Uh we have uh board appointments to make tonight and I think we can probably do all the citizen boards and single uh motion unless someone has a an objection to that. The ABC board uh Glenn Houston is has done this for a number of years. Mary Booker for Peter Boa Park board uh Rob Calvert. Uh the sewer district Jeff Bitner and then for the Aurora Library Jessica Robert Robinson. Is there a motion to approve those appointments? I'll make the motion to approve those appointments. Thank you. Thank you, Dennis. Any discussion? I'll second.

Gotcha. Thank you. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Motion passes. Appointment of county council boards. Um again, I think we can do as a single motion unless there's an objection to it. Uh they're basically reappoint. Solid Waste Tim Dah Greenale Economic Development Commission Dan Lansing Personal Advisory Committee Liz Morris and Dennis Krauss with Marcus first alternate Tim Disc alternate plan commission Dan Lensing Community Corrections Liz Morris Juvenile Advisory Board Liz Morris EMA council Mark Dole convention and visitors bureau Glenn Wright and redevelopment Dennis Krauss Jr. Jordan Hoffman, Doug Baker, and the Southeast Indiana Regional Plan Commission, Dennis Krauss. Is there a motion to approve those appointments?

So move. A second. Second. Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion passes. Now there is a form for uh SR Dennis's position SRE. I'm going to pass it down. signs it. Yeah. So, Dennis does not sign it. It looks like Okay. If Dan will start signing, then pass it back, we'll get that sign. Okay. You want him to sign it or not? Okay. Uh Liz,

um Kevin Turner, commissioner, and myself both serve on the Aurora Emergency Services Board. Okay. I don't know if that's something that has to be approved here or not. Um that's still an existing board. Okay. Is there a motion to reappoint Doug to the Aurora Services? Is it emergency services board? Yes. Their license. I'll make a motion. Thank you, Dan. Is there a second? Second. What's him? It's the Aurora Emergency Service Board, their life squad.

Any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. Motion passes. Okay. I don't think I don't know that you have to sign it. He does not have to sign it. There's eight. There's eight. Okay. Go ahead and sign on top. partial right there.

We previously been given the dates. We did that I think in November, but the only change was the May date be will be May 6. Okay. Everyone just sign this page and Dougl making sure he gets to comment. Sure. Um, next thing on the agenda is the auditor and we have minutes. Those were previously emailed to everyone. Is there any discussion about the minutes? If not, is there a motion to approve the minutes? I will.

Is there a second? Second. Doug, Doug, and Tim. We have a motion, a second for the approval of the minutes. Any discussion? If not, all those in favor signify by saying I. Motion passes. Hey, Connie, do you want to address the incumbrances? Yeah. Um, you all have a list there and it's just everything that was expounded from six. So things that were approved but weren't expended and being carried over.

Okay. I have some questions for the auditor. Does anyone else have any questions for the auditors? Do we need to approve them?

Would you like a motion to say that we've reviewed it? Okay. Make a motion to show that we review the incumbrances coming into 2026. Thank you, T. Is there a second? Thank you, Dennis. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion passes. If there's no other business, I will entertain. I got a couple questions. M. I know we've had a lot of citizens interest in some things that are going on here at the county. And I've watched some of the YouTube videos. The audio is fine, but the video the uh the video is fine, but the audio pretty well sucks from this building.

What's that? From this building. Yeah. When they have a commissioner meeting or something like that. And is there any way we could improve that or do something different on it? We tried to do it as cheap as we could like YouTube. You know, it's kind of a shame when you have a a citizen coming to a meeting and videotaping the meeting and their audio and video is better than what I I do the minutes off the the live stream. I didn't think it was that bad. I watched the commissioner's meeting. I didn't see any issues.

There was one meeting where we didn't have any videos, but that was a YouTube that we me. You know, I've had I've had people ask me about it, you know, cuz a lot of people can't get here at 5:00 in the evening or 9:00 in the morning, and they want to know what what's going on. I don't got a handy. What would we have to do to be able to do something better? I looked into jazz. Yeah, there's got to be another solution beside Jabs was crazy expensive. I remember you looked into that. But there's got to be another solution that we could consider.

There's got to be something that you know because a lot of people were watching the YouTube videos and I watched it that night and one of them. What's that? Uh what's Hines? What's the name of his company over there? You know who I'm talking about? Oh, good. In the back part of um back in Dash all the way at the end, he does some kind of audio. Last name's Hines. But is that something the commissioners would have to do, Jim, or what's that? If there's if we're going to have any improvement to an audio visual in here. I mean, we'd have to fund it, but as far as getting a I know video is fine, but I can't hear it.

Yeah. I think it's all about the person talking, too, because if if they're like kind of Danny Krauss kind of speaks a little softer, it's it's hard to hear. Me, I'm louder because I can't hear myself. So, I talk loud so I can hear myself. But I think, you know, we're providing a service to people and we have it on YouTube where they can watch it, but you're sitting there watching it thinking, "What the hell are they saying?" You know, I watched the one on the 10th at Dillsboro and I could see the people coming up, but I couldn't really hear what the discussion was. We had a problem too with the speakers too because we had to get a new um I don't know what you call it underneath bug feet. We had to get something new because the speaker was only working off of the laptop. Wasn't working off the micro events.

So there should be and I try it. You know, we're not audiovisisual. We did the best we can. It's pretty I'd be happy to look into it with you, Glenn. I don't disagree. I think the audio could be better. I think the audio could be a lot better and and see it would fail. But that's where we got this. Yeah. Let's you and I spend some time. We'll work on it together. I'll find out the name of that guy's company, Back Industrial. I know he does stuff like that. I don't know if he can help there. Sounds good. Thank you, gentlemen.

I uh I also received some calls during that TIFF uh resolution about the start time of the meetings and the commissioner's meetings as well. I believe the commissioners adjusted theirs their evening meeting to a 6:00 start. So, I did some research and found that uh I knew in Ohio County they they had a day and a night meeting. Some counties have both day meetings. So, I don't think we're out of line here in Don County with the way we're we're handling the council or the commissioner meetings. [clears throat]

Did you have something else? Yeah. Also had somebody call me and uh I understand we just had a deposition recently over the Dillsboro Emergency Unit and their question was why did we have to have two attorneys there? We had Andy there and we also had the attorney from Indianapolis. I have no idea. That doesn't really fall under our perfume.

But I mean that's an expense to the taxpayer. cuz you take a high dollar Indianapolis attorney plus Andy, you're probably somewhere between $500,000 an hour. And I'd just like to know why we had to have two attorneys. I don't have an answer for you. Maybe Mr. Thatcher could tell us. Andy is the first in the uh that particular part of the law. to be recommended after someone who had been once. So if he wasn't versed, he was that's why just arrived along with you then that's a freebie on him or

is that a freebie from him? He's just doing it or I don't think attorneys do freebies. I know they don't. Then that's my question. It was Andy's recommendation because he was not versed. But we as a council that we as a council approve a budget for the commissioners and the commissioners have legal expense as part of their budget. So if we need to review that at budget time when the commissioners present their budget that's in my opinion that's the role of this council is to discuss their budget at budget time.

I agree. But I think, you know, sometimes we need to break it down maybe and look a little finer at the expenses because I I can't see the purpose of having another attorney as long as it's not worse. I think we we defined the purpose that Andy wasn't qualified in that particular part of his law. So he felt it was necessary to bring somebody out. So why did he have to go with you? Well, he broke. So I mean He represents the county. I mean, I think it makes sense that our county attorney would be there so he would have awareness of what was being discussed.

I'd just like to know how much money it cost us myself. Did it cost us $1,000? Did it cost You can always look at his bill if he turns into Well, what about the Indianapolis attorney? Well, they turn their their paid, too. the office you look at all whenever they turn in a bill we pay that was a concern and I just expressed their concern so I thought well I'll find out and any any citizen can come in and look at anything they want to all okay

thank you Glenn is there any other discussion about anything I I just want to know um did I hear that there might be some movement on the 911. Uh there's legislation the at the state level. Yes, there's legislation. The chairman of the committee is saying the Heath bill is like it's a fiscal bill and should be bumped to next year. There's some push back and our state senator because it's Senate bill, Senate Bill 237 or whatever. But anyway, it's it's gone to homeland security and transportation. Our senator is in favor of it passing this year. Okay.

But the chairman is pushing back. So all I can say is I did speak to our state senator and he definitely is in favor of it and in favor of it passing this year because he knows how much our county and other counties need to have that raised. It's been a dollar forever. Yes. And the cost of services has not remained flat. So, Senator Maxwell is very much aware and very much in our corner and doing what he can to try to move it along. The committee chair ultimate has a decision whether or not that bill is heard or not.

We also had a lot of they had a lot of discussion going on about the the counties and the municipality shortfall from the the tax uh rebates, property tax changes of Senate Bill one too. So, but hopefully they come up with some kind of way to address that to to uh fix our woes there.

It's going to be a a bumpy ride throughout this session and um there's been some push back on the counties um 1.2 that's supposed to be allowed for lit and some of the cities are pushing back saying that the counties can get by with 7 and that they want the additional 0.5. So instead of 1.2, they would have 1.7. And most counties can't really make it on the 1.2. So it'll be an interesting and I'm sure very difficult session. So but a lot of it is I think they shot themselves in the foot with Senate Bill one from last year. A lot of those chickens are coming home to roost. Yeah.

Would it would it be to our benefit to reach out to the chairman with an email or a letter? You can, but I don't know that it would do any good. Something from the county as a whole. We can't. I know Senator Maxwell is aware. Liz and I have exchanged some emails and uh he is advocating for us. So, he's representing Duburn County with it with that. I don't think Senator Krider cares what Duburn County thinks. Okay.

I mean, I don't want to I shouldn't speak for him, but I don't know that our lobbying him. I mean, I think he would just like this be like, you know, land on your on your clothes or whatever, but I I just feel like Senator Krider is digging in his heels and doesn't want to deal with it and Senator Maxwell is pushing back. So, in a perfect world, it would happen, but I don't see there's there's a lot going on in a short session. So, yeah, but Crider's rationale is that he's considering it a fiscal bill. Senator Maxwell begs to differ. So anyway,

were they talking about cell phone charges on it, too, or just It's always been cell phones, too. It's landlines and cell phones have to be nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. Landlines almost the thing of the past pretty much. My neighbors still got one walked in. Nothing wrong with you. I don't You don't have one? I haven't for a long time. No other business. Um I'll entertain a motion to adjourn for tonight. Second. Second. Thank you. All those in favor for signify by saying I I

motion passes. Thank you everyone. Good luck. I'll see you in just I'll see you at LCD meeting before you go. Yeah. Next Thursday.