Planning & Zoning / Properties & Recreation Committees - Special Meeting

Seven o'clock, I'll open up this meeting of planning and zoning. First item on the agenda is approving the planning and zoning meeting minutes from August 12th, 2026.

Motion to approval.

Motion by Guske.

I'll second.

Second by Zimbleman. All in favor? Aye. Any against? Okay, there's no public participation. All right. First item. I know we talked about this. I don't know if we're just pushing this off, but I just wanted to ask again for the main street tree plan. I know at one point we thought we were going to try to do half and half. I don't know if we just want to push it off or. What we want to do, I mean, it's probably, again, too late to plant this season, I would assume. I've never planted that many trees at once, but I'd assume we've passed the deadline for planting this season anyway.

Actually, planning is better in the fall. It's the best time to plant. The problem that we have is, A, we have to do an RFP, then we have to go out for bid, and then we've got to work around Oktoberfest. I mean, if we're going to do it, we need to have it on the next agenda because, Jim, I...

There was a... I know you put together by HR green at $22,000 to facilitate the RFP. And that would, that cost would include the design for all three. I think we're going to try to do three phases, like 50 trees at a shot of some sort. So, yeah, I mean, uh, it was kind of almost on the agenda once there. I think it did good. I don't think we, they did get approved. So, Well, if we bring it back, it would be right now.

If we, if we don't do it just based upon what I'm looking at the trees down main street, when you go to put wires on, you're going to be picking up branches.

There's a few where you could see right now, especially in the heat that, uh, three quarters dead or spurs. So, uh, it's either that or we plan for the spring and get this all, ready to rock and roll and, and you know, address it like that. But I mean, this fall would be tough. I would say it's your month and a half from possibly getting started. That's could be right on the money. It depends on what kind of trees they pick and some trees do better in a spring dig as opposed to a fall dig.

So how do you feel? Are you, are you opposed to putting down the next agenda?

No. I mean, if you want to put it on there, go ahead.

Well,

You know the only thing I don't know how we concern is heaven, you know through the winter With Christmas coming up and putting the lights as a mess on Main Street If we wait to the fall or the summer if we spring if we don't do it this fall when and Again, I'm not an arborist.

But what I know of planning it's better in the fall than it is in the spring and so it would be ideal if we got them in this year. Plus it would, for the Christmas Santa would be much better, but we really can't, we wouldn't have time if something gets vetoed if we don't, we have to be in agreement.

Now are those trees super big or how big are they?

No, they would be two and a half inch. Two and a half inch base.

What's the height?

Any idea? 10 or 12, maybe 10 feet. They're going to be significantly smaller than what we have there for the most part.

Would they be able to hold lights, Jim?

Yeah. Like for Christmas? They'll be a lot smaller.

They'll be smaller. The effect is gone regardless because if you try putting them on here, you're going to be picking up branches. You're not going to be having lights. Christmas won't look very bright this year.

Um, and that is, I know we, again, it's been a minute since I've looked at all the numbers. It's about 130 trees, right? Is that what we've?

Yeah. 139 trees, something. Yeah. Something to that effect. And the list is growing a little bit too. There's a few more that we can go beyond that, but we're going to break it into three phases.

So it's like 50, 50, 50.

I think that's what our intent was because we don't have the money in the budget to just spend.

Okay. There was another thing I was thinking of. Have we ever thought about putting, you know, like a tree garden in the back, you know, putting trees out there, small ones, you know, that we could grow at Legacy through Legacy in the back part of it. You know, so like we used to have at the golf course, you know, where we had trees that we could. You know, if one of them had died on the course, we could put one in. I think, I don't know.

What do you guys think about that? It's a good idea to put some extras just where they're growing at the same rate.

Yeah.

But legacy probably wouldn't be the place we could do it because a remember we're in partnership with township. So anything that we want to do there, we'd have to ask them. We have to ask them. But, We probably have enough room over by the public works building, right? We've got some property that we could use out back, that we could keep 10, 15 trees growing just in the event we have that same scenario.

I think that's a good idea.

Because something's going to happen to cars. We've had it happen before. A car's busted a tree off and then all of a sudden you've got one that is smaller.

Not to be the bad news on it is if it's growing and then to try to pluck that tree out, it's going to have to be a bigger root ball. It could be a challenge to get it back in those same spots. But I'd say give it a shot. I think it wouldn't hurt. I don't know if there's a couple different methods we could do to try to keep it. Aren't we opening that up, those? Yeah, I don't know. He was kind of kicking around. They were going to look into that a little bit and maybe make that side bigger. I know that was something they talked about. Yeah, I mean, I'm good with that. See if there's a couple of nursery methods we could do to kind of keep those trees from when we dig out and put it in sand to kind of keep those roots from being too aggressive and just kind of, you know, keeping them in a ball there. So something we'd look into. Okay. That's a good one.

That 22,000 for that RFP is the plan for the entire phase. and all that kind of stuff. I know that was kind of the holdup, I feel like, for us last time, was the price of the RFP.

I think it was for the initial first phase and the complete design through the other three. So I think there might be some additional cost down the road for just kind of orchestrating the other phase, but it includes the entire plan.

Mayor, we were talking about the trees on Main Street, and if we wanted to do those this year, or what are your thoughts?

Where's the money for it?

Well, that's, again, something we'd have to talk about.

Plus, you want to put up the Christmas tree lights? You're better off leaving them up this fall.

I think the plan was like, we're going to do, if we could, 50 like right now, 50 maybe in the spring, and 50 in the next fall. We can build into the budget for next year for the rest of them. Try to work around that.

I would wait. Use the trees that are standing with their branches to put up your Christmas tree lights and do this in the spring.

So we're going to let it go until spring?

I guess we'll let it go until spring. OK. All right, next one. Lauren Stoffelberg reached out to me from Lush Vines. Obviously, they've been open now for I feel like almost a month. Maybe it hasn't been a full month yet with it. I don't know if you've been in there. It's kind of a great new place in town for that stuff. She reached out to me and was asking if we would consider a little bit earlier a gaming license for her location. So I went in last week, and she kind of walked me through her plans for the building. She actually bought the whole building, so she owns now the shop to the left and right of it, with that kind of stuff. It seems to be doing good, obviously, as any business. There's a lot of costs to start off with, especially the back part. It's kind of closed off right now because there is no insulation, and the air conditioning is broke, with that kind of stuff. So... What she was asking, and she understands our idea with the gaming and kind of having this policy, but if we could add it, it still would be a couple months before they would be able to get machines in, and then she could use those funds to help kind of expand the other parts of the business. I told her that I would definitely be open to it. It's kind of a unique situation in my mind. It's a different kind of location, one that we have, I think, This policy we have is more preventative against businesses that are not what we deem in our minds meant to have gaming as we allow restaurants and bars to kind of have us that stuff. So she's made a substantial investment in the community. I think, again, it's kind of a unique location that I'd be willing to make an exception for this one if we're open to it.

I think my opinion, like, I like what we were doing in the past, but honestly, I think we've already passed the licensing. I think she's got a license already for gaming.

She does.

So, I mean, I appreciate that she's come to us and has tried to adhere to what we said our policy was, but our first... When we passed that, we didn't restrict her at that time. So I think...

mean I don't know we have to do maybe she thought it was still I think it was I think it's good that she's trying to adhere to our policy and that's the sort of business owner that we want right yeah no okay great all right the next one same thing here I guess with the Main Street trees I know we had talked about handicapped parking spots a couple different times this year obviously our budgets kind of tight I think this is something we should probably look at Jim sent me designs a while ago the only one that honestly seems The most affordable and possible would be option A, which is possibly adding lanes across on Main Street. So I'll just send that out. And then when it comes to budget time next, I don't know, February or March, we can bring it back up and see if we want to add that in. Again, it would be roughly, though, $200,000. So that's adding a couple spots on there. But it's one to make sure that we address it and just kind of leave it out there.

The thing that I caution you is whatever we do on Main Street, you know we're going to have to do on Oak Street too because we've got physical therapy. We've got businesses that are on Oak Street as well.

It would be two. I think it's like one on this section of Maine and then one on the other one. Oh, you're talking about Oak Street.

Oak Street, yeah, because there's businesses there and the parking is identical. I don't disagree. I think that the cost option is cut out and put a ramp halfway through instead of having handicapped people try to come down, especially come wintertime. But

That's all I wanted to say about that. Same with this next one. I just emailed everybody the town survey. This is something that I presented at the Planning Commission meeting last meeting. Just wanted you guys to kind of look through and then next month I can bring it back up. This is something we still kind of want to do. I just kind of did some research, put a variety of random questions, nothing solidified. just my own thoughts. I'm having the planning commission do that too if they want to look over it and give me any ideas for other questions and then maybe this is something we can send out near the end of the year just to kind of get ideas on a variety of things from businesses to gross to stuff like that. I just feel like this might be a more efficient way to do it as we build up to what we want to look like in the future and take the best as we can get from that. Any questions on that?

You did email it to us?

I just did. Oh, today? I just did today, yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, this morning, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to kind of announce it here so you guys have it for like a month. And then I'll say a general discussion for yours, Trustee Guskey. So I'll make a motion to, or can I have a motion to adjourn the planning and zoning meeting?

I'll motion.

Motion by Zibbelman. Second. Second by Vaughn. All in favor?

Aye.

Any against?

Okay, properties and rec. First item is approval of minutes from August 12th, 2026. Any changes, deletions? I'll make that motion. Motion to approve by CJ.

I'll second.

Second by Zimbelman. All in favor?

Aye.

Okay. As I said earlier, when we sat down, I was going to jump around because some of the stuff we've touched base on yesterday, we can come back to it. So I'm going to go to the second item. protocol procedures for businesses requesting village personnel to assist in marketing promoting of their businesses, so I Think the police department has had a few videos with the well Which are kind of cute on social media, but it has opened up some other businesses have asked Well, how do I get? to do that. How do I get that on our police department's website, on our village stuff? And I think it's brought good PR for our police department. Chief, is that a fair statement? But if we're going to do it for one, we've got to be fair to all. So how do we go about doing that? What is our protocol? How do we do it? Because I've had a couple of businesses reach out to me And honestly, I said, I don't know. I don't know how we... I haven't... I asked you once upon a time, how did this happen? You said it just kind of organically happened. It's been a good thing. I think our police department has looked good, but how do we go about... How do we do it? Because I'll pick on, and Midtown Pub wasn't one who asked me, but if Midtown Pub wants to have one in promoting the business, how do we go about doing it? Because we've got to be fair to all, right?

I think we should talk to the village attorney and find out what he says about it first.

Yeah, we don't have a protocol. I mean, if we ask, we would judge it on a case-by-case basis, and they would ask me if they can do it. You know, obviously, if it was maybe alcohol-related, we wouldn't do it. But you're correct. We don't have a procedure right now.

I guess I'd like to see us have a protocol in writing because I don't like having the answer to other businesses in town that I don't know. I mean, it just doesn't look good for us, right?

Somebody in town asked me to be part of a video and it just didn't work out for my schedule. I think it's fun I think you know people enjoy it, but you could open a can of worms here and again.

I'm not saying it's a That it's bad. I mean I think the videos that that have been done were cute, and we're nice I just think that we need to have protocols of When we don't have it, we don't have a standard of telling people, no, I'm surprised Ashley hasn't been bombarded more than us, but I've had a couple businesses reach out.

That's really what the Chamber of Commerce is for, to promote the businesses. So let me talk to our attorney, Brian Miller, and see what kind of information he might have on it. Okay, we have somebody in the audience who has information.

Yeah.

Works for municipality.

I do and in that segment from economic development So my marketing coordinator, so if you look at our website village of money org under economic development We feature businesses and that we call them. Why money in fact we were filming one this morning for a fitness premiere and money so it started with we're featuring like various small businesses unique businesses like we started I think with Oh, there's a barbecue place. There's a guy that makes whiskey barrels, like Crow's Head Cooperage, what have you. So it just keeps growing. And then we're featuring another one, Historia Cafe. So it's one of the trustees. We'll film it, and they'll ask, so what's unique about your business? What do you do here? In Fitness Premier this morning, The corporate has taken over that location. So I'm going to talk to Mike Orwig and then Ebb, the guy that also runs this one, or kind of. And then so it's just a sit down and put it together. And it gets a lot of hits. And it also shows support that the village is working with local businesses. You're not going to feature every one of them, of course. do you have bigger businesses i mean i'm surprised like uh... the custom hot rod place here and that would be a great one to start my opinion and i know it has national and probably international recognition let's take a look at our website at bill jim on the dot org under economic development and is the white money series in fact i think it's a kind of a news flash at the bottom and you'll see what i'm talking about but uh... what's the what's the procedure what's your policy every business in monique it's No, we just kind of feature each one. I mean, there's no written protocol. No complaints, like, okay, why aren't you featuring mine?

Have you guys told anybody no yet?

No, not at all.

So that's the issue, right? Yeah. Is that we can't, because we like someone or dislike someone, say yes or no, because that's not fair. Right. And I'll toss out the big G word, right? Mm-hmm. We've promoted the well. What happened when Goshen comes and says that they want to run an ad and they would like to have us do a little vignette with it?

Well, I mean, it's not a paid-for thing, so it's not an ad. I know what you're saying. Well, it is paid for with taxpayer money.

Our officers are on duty. They're in our uniform. Again, I'm not opposed to it. I just want to have consistency. What's good for one is good for all and that we've got guidelines because I guarantee everyone sitting in this room that if Ashley comes in tomorrow with wanting to do a promotion for Goshen, someone's going to be screaming at her yeah yeah yeah we focus on small businesses so that's contentious issue it doesn't have to be so it does have a lawsuit mayor let's not get into an argument this morning this early yeah but i mean i think i think we need to be i i think we need to have a a guideline so this way ashley has guidance and we aren't picking and choosing who we're

Promoting we're gonna have that pick and choose but yeah, I mean you start with I mean There's only so much one or a few people can do because you're gonna have to have I don't know if you do videography or whatever and editing so you're gonna have to do that and you're gonna have the trustees and And again, we just say, okay, who would like to promote Historia Coffee? So one of our trustees did that. Or we have a new restaurant in town. Somebody else is female-owned, so one of our female trustees, the only one, is going to interview her. So it's just a whole list. I mean, you could have a list for the next three, four years, and it's growing. But not everyone is going to want a video done of their business either. So... Yeah, I mean, it's just something to support small local businesses that can't afford marketing. So that's what we do. I'm not opposed to it.

Why don't we see how many people reach out to us, you know?

We're going to have to market it, obviously, and say, hey, this is what we're putting together, a concept. You know, anyway, but that's my opinion.

Well, I would just like us to have guidelines, because I've had a couple reach out, and I think that we need to have guidelines set to, if we don't, We're just opening ourselves up to running amok.

Especially if we're involving the police. Like Al said, if a bar wants to involve us in police, I mean, that's just not a good look for us in that kind of capacity.

Rad rides, we want the police chasing us down the road with the hot rod.

I mean, again, you see where this could turn us out, right? And again, it's not... I think that the advertising was in good taste. It was done well. There's nothing, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it, but if we don't get ahead of it and put some guidelines in it, we will have an issue. Again, I think that we should refrain from, I think we should refrain from doing it until we have guidelines set for everyone to, We can play by the run the next meeting have an idea of what we want to kind of do or the concept of the plan I'll let you know what the village attorney thinks about it Okay All right Again going into procedures I'm skipping over some procedures for volunteer workers and temporary employment opportunities and Are we going to, and Peggy, I think it was brought up that you may have had someone that was gonna help out at Village Hall. Do we have anything? Is that person gonna help out? Didn't you have a friend that was gonna help when they were short staffing?

I have a friend. You do? And I've also talked to an organization that helps find managers and administrators. I would prefer that we get an interim in the administrative position. because there's gonna be an election in seven months, and we're gonna have new trustees, and I think we can pick somebody when that happens.

So we're not gonna have just someone show up on a Tuesday or Wednesday working. Okay, my misimpression from what I got.

No, I went up there, what was it, last week, and tried to help them out a little bit, take some of the, stress off of Darcy.

Okay. Um, next item on there is request by residents at these park. Um, as you guys know, there's been a pickleball, the pickleball league has been going on and I think it's been, pretty busy Tuesdays and Thursdays the park has been slammed people are utilizing it it was used all summer long one of the things that got brought up to myself and I know they're working on gathering petitions but I wanted to give a little bit of a heads up to the rest of the board they're gonna they're gonna they're asking that we consider lighting those courts and honestly i think it's not a bad idea um and i don't think it's going to be that expensive because there's electric when i was out there looking we've got poles all around if we could put the same sort of lights that are downward facing facing the sidewalks if they were facing inside the court, um, it would be advantageous. And I think our police might like that as well, that that area is lit up because sometimes it's easier for them to see what's going on inside those courts. If it was lit up then at nighttime and I see a lot of kids utilizing the park when it gets dark. Um, I think it'd be better if we could, especially in a time like now when it's getting dark earlier, maybe allow those parks to be used until 10 o'clock. No one's opposed to it. I'd like to see maybe, Jim, if you could get us some pricing as to what it is. It's not something that's going to happen today, but maybe a food for thought if it's not that terribly expensive. I talked to Eric Weber and asked him if he thought it would be expensive, and he didn't think it would, but...

I have two questions. How does that fit into our budget? And number two, how will it affect the neighbors? How will those neighbors on Rockne Drive feel about people hitting balls?

So again, I think that as far as how it fits in our budget, it's not something that's going to happen this year. I don't see how it would fall into this year's budget, right? We've got other issues. It's projects for moving forward. Um, as far as how it affects the neighbors, I would think that we would obviously want those lights shut off by nine 30, 10 o'clock. Um, when the park closes and it would be no different than what it is all summer long when it's light. It's just utilizing the park now.

I've never lived next to a pickleball court. Is it noisy with the balls hitting the ground?

No. I don't think so.

I don't know if they've ever complained that I know of.

Yeah, I mean, they would have that same argument than all summer long or everything else. Again, I wouldn't be looking at them playing night long I would think it's just to get them because right now like as they're running the league it about six o'clock it's starting to get dark well people aren't getting home from work they've been running from five to seven yeah six to eight six days but no match 530 to 730 cuz right dark why don't we get their opinions go to the door-to-door and see what

you know what they think about it as well, because they're the ones going to have to live next to them.

I live behind heritage park and those lights are on. Those lights can be on until 10 or I think sometimes later.

Is there anybody complained about them?

I love it. I love when the lights are on. I love hearing the kids. I love all the people back there. None of that stuff bothers me. The walking past right behind my house. I mean, I love seeing all that.

As long as we have a cutoff data,

those lights are big i feel like i mean it's just courteous yeah yes yes it's nice to get there and again i think downward lighting so this way it's not shining they can go around you know they can position and they need to go at the court so they're not like heritage they're they're huge and they don't i mean they shine in our house but i i mean i love it like i i doesn't bother me yeah but you like that kind of there's some people that yeah

Opinions and honestly, I'm not talking about all of the courts I'm talking about there's six that we the six new courts that are kind of really up against the Cypress I mean the real neighbor to that is is Harley Davidson, right and I mean to buy the pickleball courts The only neighbor affected by the lights would be like Adam Dotson after that Volleyball and all that so it's really a I got to just wait for people to use, utilize what we spent the money on. And, um, I think it also is from a public safety standpoint, a better opportunity for our police to be able to patrol it.

So what I like is when, when our pickleball league is done, here comes last time there was all these, all of that students coming to play our high school students out there. They come, that's when they like to come. You know, like after eight, they're out there. And they're playing pickleball.

And, you know, they're not. I'm not against it. I'm just saying. I'm not saying you are.

I'm just, I'm out there because we're on the league. I'm just saying what we've seen, you know, from being out there.

Sure. So, Jim, could you get some numbers? Because, I mean, this may be a pie in the sky and we, it may not even be feasible. Or it may be ridiculously cheap that we could. find sponsors for, too. I don't know the answer.

Probably not ridiculously cheap.

Well, I don't know. I mean, again, I'm not an electrician. I look at it and I see electric already running up the pole with one head facing the sidewalk. Could they put a head facing the other side and make it nice and easy? I don't know that answer. Nothing's cheap, though. I'm...

We ran conduit all the way around the park for additional lighting for all the courts. Volleyball, I think all of them have potential. I found a product. I'll see if I can email it, dig it up. I looked into it two years ago. I think it actually attaches to the fence. It's directional. It's like a line of lights and right on the top of the fence pointing down on the pickleball court. It seemed... Not a lot of light pollution, kind of really centered. Price tag, I can look it up and send it off to you guys. I thought it was a pretty interesting product. It's mainly for tennis and pickleball courts. That's the number one thing it goes for.

If you could get that in this way, we can make an educated decision. Next item is village spending procedures for supplies, etc. and Sheila's here, but she could probably speak to it a little bit more, but because we don't have a village administrator at the current time, I believe Chris had a village credit card, but right now if we need anything for village supplies, I don't believe anyone at the village hall has a credit card to go and get it if we need anything. Is that a fair statement? You got one, Jim, don't you? How do we want to do that? And I know the idea was, Peggy, I think you brought up or sent a thing with Darcy asking her to buy ice cream and it would have come out of her.

I wouldn't put it on the village charge.

Yeah, and that's great. I think that's a good thing, but our employees don't have that ability to do that. How do we want them to handle that right now? If you need supplies, how are we wanting them to do it? Because right now, if you need paper, toner, anything, there's no way of getting it. Is that correct, Sheila?

No, several of our vendors bill us.

Okay.

So it's not a problem across the board. It's just if we would run to a local store to make a purchase, which we don't have to do. We are just shopping locally.

Okay. So you guys can get that all taken care of? okay problem solved I guess we can go back into the status of vacated positions plans for running the village day-to-day I know we talked about this somewhat yesterday Do we want to approach this subject? Because everything else is about how we're going to hire people and bring people in. I know we had last night, we talked in executive session some. Do we want to revisit this publicly as to what we're going to do, how we're going to procedures? Are we going to post positions for administrator, for building inspector, for I don't know the actual title, Darcy receptionist.

As village president, I will be making appointments and I will talk to our village attorney about this and do it in the legal and correct way. So you don't need to worry about that.

Okay. So you're going to appoint all the positions? You're going to appoint Darcy's replacement?

I don't plan on appointing an administrator right now, maybe an interim, but anybody who leaves, yes, I will appoint people.

So Darcy's position is not an appointed position, it's a hired position.

Anybody in the Village Hall is appointed other than the department heads. I've already had some conversations with Brian Miller.

Not going to be a problem. Actually, it probably is because any appointments need board approval. That's a tough thing to get these days, isn't it? Not if we work together.

Really? Good to know.

Why don't we just, especially if it's not a department head, I mean, like a secretary, I mean, I don't care who they are. Like, why don't we just hire that out like we do in the past? I feel like that might open up the employment, too. It's not like we're having a surge.

I feel like...

I get the department heads for sure. I get the department heads building. So you have the right to appoint. But, like, a secretary, I feel like that's a job we could post, right? I mean...

I feel like they should all be posted. At the school, you have to post the job.

Once again, as mayor, that's how you get quality people. Once again, as mayor, I'm working together with a lawyer to make sure it's done correctly. So right now, it's not a problem, Joel.

Well, that also will cause more legal charges. It's costing us more to do that instead of just posting it.

We don't worry about legal charges. Hell, we're paying for two lawyers right now.

We're not paying for two, though.

I know, because we're paying for three. Oh, you're right.

We are paying for three, actually.

Yeah, three.

We're just trying to find a way to work forward. This is a battle we want to fight just to post a secretary position.

And as a question I do have, Sheila, why aren't we paying Vasselli?

It has not been board approved. It was on the agenda for the special committee meeting, and that meeting didn't have a quorum, and all the agenda items were never voted on.

So, Joel, maybe you can answer that. Why aren't we paying Vasselli?

Well, as I've told you, and I've told him, I think, three different times, we don't recognize him as our attorney. We did not approve him.

Well, then you are not recognizing the right I have as mayor to appoint somebody in an emergency situation because I dismissed Mr. Kankar. That's a problem.

You dismissed Mr. Kankar, and we overturned your dismissal.

Yeah, and I don't know why, because he's been here 23 years. He brought in a Chinese plant with no contracts, no safety guideline paperwork put in order. He did some village business on his private email, which was pointed out by the auditors, and that didn't seem to be a problem. He explained that. This computer was down? How about Tim Nugent's computer? Was his computer down too?

How about some FOIA information that hasn't been turned in either?

I'm not talking about FOIA and that. Yeah. I'm talking about lawyers right now. It goes both ways. There's some problems here.

There's a lot of problems here mayor and I've I've offered on several occasions to sit down and talk with you about it Yeah, and I've got that too And you are you are difficult to talk to because you really want to take charge of everything I do not want to take charge of everything I get my own opinions and I'm entitled to them as I've as I've told you though Unless we work together. We're not gonna get this.

I know I'm waiting for that to happen. I

I'd be glad to. You tell me when you'd like to sit down and talk. We can sit down and talk, but I will not talk with Mr. Miller anymore.

Can I ask how you found Mr. Miller or the Vasselli Law Firm?

Yes, through friends from another community.

Okay. Well, the last items I had were in regards to the staffing. Obviously, Mayor doesn't want to Work with the board on it. So is there any general discussion that we need to have?

Just again October fest is coming up. I know What do you call it emailed us out idea that we want to be part of it. Just make sure respond I just responded yesterday. I apologize for that I'm gonna throw it out there even though it's very tenacious right now. It's obviously our board if there's a way we can you know, I do good for the community off that, I center an idea of, and I don't even know if it's possible, and I'm not asking any of you to participate because this is a lot, but listen, people seem to be angry at us. We want to donate to charity. How do we find a way to do that? I offered myself to Ashley, and again, this is probably not possible, either put me in a dunk tank or raffle off a pie in the face for me, and I'll donate all the money to charity. People are angry, but let's try to do something good out of that, and why not use that for Harbor House or another organization? What's that, too? I think that could be a useful piece at Oktoberfest, too. I'm telling you right now, I could tell you 20 people that want to pie me in the face. Like, they'd probably pay good money to do that. And I'm not asking you guys to be part of that, but I'm just saying that I'm willing to at least put something in the line to at least get something good out of it, and then we can give it to charity.

Don't we do that twice a month already?

But now I want to do it. At least we can give money to charity for that. So that's just, I don't know.

Next time I'm bringing a pie.

Trying to find something to break the ice, I think, is what we've got to do in a way. So I just think just look at that at least, or we can do the videos. Like she said, too, there's, there's videos we can be doing part of to promote on Cobra Fest.

Obviously that's the biggest fun of the year for us because we did not hire a code enforcer last night. And I'm so sorry you couldn't be here, CJ, but that was a priority for us to get a code enforcer. He doesn't have a job anymore. Because when he found out you were going to vote for him.

I never said I was going to vote for him. I said I wanted to discuss. And I'm not against the guy. It was just more of the money. I don't know why he would do that without having a job lined up.

Because he was confident that you approved of him because you told him you did.

I did.

But he's only one person.

And I told him that I couldn't be at that meeting.

That's an alarming decision-making process, too, that you would quit or resign before that.

Because he had told me he would put in his two weeks once he's approved because he wanted to make sure.

That's what I was hoping. I asked him to do that, to wait until it actually passed. But that's unfortunate.

I think we're discussing that anyway at the next board meeting.

And there is no reason he could not have been appointed last night. It was pathetic. It was a simple action that would have made our village run smoother.

Anything else under general discussion if not a motion to adjourn Oh, go ahead Peggy.

I wanted to talk to the chief about the flat cameras and it let's do a little research on that because we had that lady last night that Seemed really concerned about it and stuff and I've been having some citizens come up to me You know about that. They are concerned about their privacy and that and I think we need to show them the good and

how they can help out, you know, getting... And I think, Chief, correct me if I'm wrong, but the benefit to the flock cameras, and I'm not saying her points, nobody wants their privacy taken away or people surveilling. I don't know that anybody is. I think you guys have plenty to do then to track where Bill Smith is driving, but the pro to the flock camera, at least the way that I understand it is, if there's a Reported stolen vehicle that enters into any of our village through any of those paths it automatically Sends an alert to the on-duty police officers computer screen that hey stolen vehicle is in your town and allows them to Move to that area. Is that an accurate statement chief?

Yes, that's just one of many pros to the system. Yes, I Support flock. Obviously, that's why we have it We've had it for years, but I understand both arguments. You're right. Privacy is a big concern. Is there potential for abuse? Yes. Just like with every tool the police have, whether it be tasers or anything else, there's a potential for abuse. That's why we have... 400 page policy manuals and federal and state laws that guide all that stuff so there's a lot of information out there on flock there's a lot of misinformation out there in flock so yeah maybe at some point in the future we should address that and bring up the pros and cons and what we do to protect people's privacy but it's a very very valuable tool there are many crimes that literally would go unsolved because flock is our primary lead in the investigation of it but You know, it's a community issue, a society issue. If they decide that tool the police should not use, we won't use it. But we will lose a very valuable tool that sometimes I don't think people recognize until you're the victim of a crime. And you realize, boy, the police just don't have the tools they need to solve that. Yeah, I'd be happy to.

It allows for us to respond to if there's an amber alert that happens to come into town.

Absolutely. We've had all these examples. I mean, we've had dementia patients that end up in town that drove off from somewhere in Indiana or out of state or some of our people and their plate gets put in the flock and we get located within minutes or hours. We use the example of a victim that's being stalked by an ex-boyfriend or husband, lives in town, the ex-boyfriend lives out of town, doesn't work here, doesn't live here, has no reason to be here. We can put his license plate in the system, and it will notify on-duty police officers as soon as he gets into town, which allows us to prevent a potential crime or protect victims better. I mean, it just goes on and on, the benefits of it. Just like anything else, are you giving up some privacy? Yes, I mean, I think we've all started getting used to that with phones and everything else. I don't know if it's any different than the cameras we use. Obviously, we have cameras all over town. Flock is basically a video camera. It just is good at, Photographing license plates it uses a reflective material. I'm not sure the science behind it, but it's basically just a video camera that records cars It doesn't record has no idea who's driving that car what you're doing But it just records the car and the license plate with a date and time that we can go back and look at later So drones we have cell phones that people are videoing everything pretty soon.

We'll all start wearing cameras on our chests like the police were

We're all over that, you're right. And I get the discussion about that, that we're a surveillance society and Big Brother, and I do get all that. And I want to protect people's privacy. It's kind of sad.

But I think that technology has changed, yeah. Since we've talked about Flock, everyone's cell phone today, this afternoon, will have every Facebook ad that is about Flock because it's listening to what we're talking about now. Agree with it, disagree with it. I mean, I like my privacy, but who has access to all the cameras? I mean, none of the trustees have access to your cameras, right? Just the police department, yeah. Just the police department? You don't have someone sitting there watching 24-7, right?

Nobody has time to sit and watch all the things that are going on in the village. It's just an investigative tool.

Joliet, Wilmington, they've all been abused out there. They don't have police officers to sit around and watch cameras either, but they've been abused. We love you guys. You do a great job, but my insurance company should have access to information. Where does that data go? Who has access to it besides you? How long is it stored?

We don't sell any of that information, correct? No, we don't.

Well, you don't know where that information goes.

Well, we know where our information goes. I mean, other people use flock cameras.

Everybody else has access to it, too.

Not our information, but they might have their own information.

You know, throw the Fourth Amendment out the window.

No, I understand your argument. I do. Go ahead. I have a question, Chief.

I wanted to ask you about, we had flock at the time that that one lady Mrs. Gates was being stopped. How come the camera didn't pick up the license plates? Am I wrong on that?

We didn't locate a vehicle behind her at that time. Had there been a vehicle behind her, we would have located that, but the video didn't show at the date and time that she picked up, there was a video behind her. That would have been a perfect example. That would have picked up that license plate.

Mr. Barnes wanted to say something.

Yeah, just a couple things. Compliment, I liked what was going on with collaboration between, I hate saying both sides, but you're on this side, you're on that side, whatever. I liked what was going on. It was friendly, and then it started turning a little bit ugly. But, you know, so I like what's going on. That's what board meetings should be, is collaboration friendly. And I know you have words of difference of opinions or whatever, and that's fine. But so compliments to how you guys were running the meeting at the beginning. So secondly, as far as like code enforcement, and Mayor, you talked about maybe an interim or what have you, and I think you kind of alluded to that last night. The concern is that... You know, I'm sure the attorney would tell you that not having a certified code enforcement person could open up the village for legal. So if somebody, you know, doesn't approve something and, you know, Jim's got his own stuff and his guys, that's not his job. I mean, he's doing it. I get it. But, you know, and then you're paying, I'm sure, probably two or three times more to the the outside firm that you were talking about last night. You're going to pay more money and they're going to do it when they can as opposed to having somebody living here and that's his full-time job. Then as far as, okay, where are we getting the money? I think Todd Crockett talked about it last night. You were talking about giving $35,000 to a charitable organization. On top of the other 30, I think that you're paying or that you're paying Crystal Rock. I think you want 60, right? Is that the ? We weren't talking about giving 35,000 to . No, no. I'm saying that I think the rock was making 35 and then the other. Well, yes, you were. I mean, not you, but it was talked about giving $35,000 to Harbor House, so we're just talking about budgeting. The other thing is your $1.6 million in deficit, so it's another 60 grand. you know, to protect yourself and then to keep people building other, otherwise you're going to hold projects up. We are holding projects up. Right.

Do you have a process in Monique or wherever you're at, uh, hiring?

Yeah, it was for positions. Do you post positions? We have an HR. That's what I was going to ask. So to your point, does Mantino have an HR manager? No. Okay. Surprising. Ours does. But yeah, so it's posted. Yeah.

Our HR is handled by, Our village administrative assistant basically handles about six different jobs that most villages have separate people for.

Right. Yeah, which is surprising for as big as it is. But anyway, so to Annette's point, yeah, it's posted. It's been done efficiently. Yeah. You're kind of in a crunch, but that's why I said if you post or appoint somebody interim, you can do that to get somebody in so that... He's been doing it for four years. Thanks.

Thank you.

All right. Motion to adjourn. I'll make that motion. Motion by Boudreau.

I'll second.

Second by.