Common Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, we'll get started here. Thank you. Welcome. Today is Tuesday, January the 6, 2026. It's our first meeting of the year. Appreciate you being here. Uh we don't have a long agenda tonight, but we do have an important agenda uh tonight. But like with all of our meetings, we are streaming live on the city of Madison YouTube channel. archiving it there. And right now we will invite those who wish to stand and recite the Lord's Prayer followed by the pledge of allegiance. Then we'll get into tonight's business. Thank you.

Our father who art in heaven be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. May we have a roll call, please? Sure. Patrick Tabana here. Carla Krebs here. Lucy Datillo here. Josh Schaefer here. Joel Storm here. Jim Bartlett is absent. Josh [snorts] Wilbur here.

Thank you. Council, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from Tuesday, December 16th, 2025? If so, we'll entertain a motion to approve. I move to uh accept the minutes as presented. Seconded. Any discussion? Hear none. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Thank you. Um with regards to the election of President Pro tempmporary, uh I believe we have a Carla, we going to have a motion to extend that and uh retain you as the council president next

meeting. Mhm. I'm making a motion that we delay the vote um one more meeting and in that meantime I will continue as the president. I will second that motion. Any discussion? All in favor please say I. Any oppose? Thank you. Moving on. One of our favorite things to do uh as mayor and council is to swear in uh a mass and police department officer. So, I'll ask for Chief Munt to come forward and introduce our new Madison Police Department uh officer and prepare for swearing in.

Yes, thank you. Uh I want to introduce Sam Larzelier. Sam comes to us from uh northern Indiana. He's just completed 16 weeks of the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and he's now out on his FTO phase, his uh training phase. He'll be on that for four weeks. Then he'll be on his own. So Sam, and Sam's a veteran or active guard dude. Guard. Yes, sir. Eight years in National Guard. Thank you for your service.

All right. Would you like to invite your family up here with the Sam? I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana and discharge the duties of police city liability [applause] and

congratulations.

Thank you again. Surely. All right. Wow. Council, are there any reports, recommendations, or other business from standing or select committees of council? Hearing? Now, we'll move on to the next uh item of business, and it is board appointments. in your package. We're continuing to work through, you know, fulfilling the roster that's uh with outstanding vacancies or reappoints. And you'll see the board appointment recommendations for PACE, JCBT, Visit Madison, and one for the EDC. So, I would move that we would accept the four nominations. Um Tim Bartlett for PACE visit Madison and the board of tourism and Gail Spalding for the EDC.

Do we have a second? Seconded. Okay. Any discussion, comments, or questions? Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. All right. Um um Councilwoman Krebs, were there any public comments, Miss Mindy? Sorry, I should have reminded you. Did anyone out there sign up to speak today? Okay, no comments. Okay.

I do have a few updates to share with council and the community. Um, next week, a week from yesterday, we'll have the plan commission meeting for the in addition to some applications that are already on the agenda, there will be a public hearing that was advertised last week for the unified development ordinance that's, you know, been under under drafting for the past year. So, there will be a a public hearing and uh consideration of a proposed resolution by plan commission members. Uh the goal, as we've talked about before, is to have that go through the plan commission next week and then begin its adoption process with city council in February. Uh on your on your chairs, I believe was an advertisement. There are some out in the lobby for the owner occupied rehab housing program. We will have um uh public engagement sessions, two actually on Thursday. We are in the initial stages of the implementation of the food and beverage tax. So, I would just ask and remind all local businesses that's involved uh in the sale of food and beverages that the city adopted a 1% uh food and beverage tax that that went into effect January the 1st. So, please uh implement that. We've we've had a little bit of mixed results so far. Uh but as you're going across the community, I would just uh ask the businesses and anybody who's listening tonight or maybe reading the paper tomorrow, uh check your receipts and if uh if there's a a local business that is that has not implemented the food and beverage tax, let us know. We're going to do another outreach for them uh as we've been been doing throughout the course of the last several days. We did have some vandalism at Crystal Beach. I don't know if you saw that. I believe that uh chief is in uh MPD is

investigating that. Uh I wasn't aware who Lil Peep was until we saw the the painting on the pool, but there were some pretty pretty substantial vandalism at Crystal Beach that we're investigating. Um and very disappointed in the fact that uh that happened, but we will review our security footage and and rely on MPD for the investigation of that. Uh on the legislative front, I want to mention that um we've been actively working through the AIM legislative committee and with our state representative, state senator on the 2026 session. There are already over 500 bills filed. It's a very short session, but enormous amount of proposed legislation. We're following several uh key um key proposals very closely regarding Senate Bill one which is as you know last year we went through that the implementation of the property tax reform. There is some cleanup uh I think that the legislature is looking at uh for the implementation to help uh help local government. Road funding was a big one. As you know, we we're not awarded any CCMG. So, we are advocating that the state legislature um make a special allocation in 2026 for additional road funding dollars in the CCMG program. Uh I did see a bill that uh proposes that. We'll continue to monitor that because we have a asset management plan for our roads and and that uh program is is critical. And then uh there's some other bills with regard to zoning and municipal elections, but uh we're we're closely watching um over a dozen, but as I mentioned, there's over 500 that's been filed that's going through the committee process now. Um we do have some 2025 and 2026 budget cleanup matters that we're going to be bringing to you. Um we'll talk about those at the next meeting.

We're still working through those with the clerk's office and and um and with with uh Mindy on the budget review side. So, those are all my updates. If there's any council updates or questions, uh anybody I think there was anybody on the signup, but I'm happy to answer any questions. Otherwise, our next meeting will be Tuesday, January the 20th, the day after ML Martin Luther King Jr. Day on January the 19th. There are no questions, we can adjourn. Move to adjourn. Second that. Any discussion, comments or questions? All favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. Thanks everybody.