Town Council - Regular Meeting

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Can everybody turn on their microphones, please? and we'll start off with the 2026 budget, the 1782 notice and love the appeal. Ryan,

yeah, I'm going to walk you guys through this and talk a little bit. I know I sent you guys a quick email this afternoon. Um, and I know I sent you an email earlier this week when uh we found out the bad news. So, um, the town had uh applied for a growth a three-year growth levy appeal uh which we are allowed by law to do. Uh so as you guys are aware you approved us to submit that growth levy. We actually did two appeals. We did a growth levy. We did an annexation levy. Um and while we had heard news that the DGF was not looking upon those positively uh they are going away at the end of this year. So Senate enrolled act one eliminated the ability to do it. And so, uh, we expected that we may not get the whole thing or, uh, that maybe they would be tough on us about submitting documents to support our position, but we were a little surprised when we received notice on New Year's Eve at 4:07 p.m. that our appeal was denied. Uh, we submitted this appeal in October and so typically they turn it around really quick. Uh, this time they did not. Um so certainly that was disappointing. Uh the majority of the appeal that we provided uh was in support of uh public safety and hiring police officers. Uh there were a couple of other expenses in there as well. Um just as a result of growth uh increased attorneys fees. Uh some equipment to upfit some of the police vehicles. Um our insurance increases which you you know we talked about in November. uh and then some of the payraises as well for staff. So, um we were disappointed in that. We were approved for a portion of the annexation appeal and so uh we will get some additional levy relief for that. I did want to talk about that just a little bit because um they didn't

wholeheartedly not approve the annexation appeal. There were two ordinances that we had adopted in December and so we submitted those because they were actually approved in 2025 but they said well they don't really become effective until 2026 and so you can apply for those next year but so they cut that out and both of those were two sizable annexations. So they chopped that dollar amount out and then they kind of started then they said, "Okay, well you basically qualified for $54,000, but then they went through all the different revenue sources," which is not what we do as you guys are aware when we do a fiscal plan. We assume based on those annexations what the property taxes impacts would be and how we would provide services to those areas. So, we don't necessarily go in and do a calculation of, well, we're going to get excise tax and we're going to get lit and we're going to get little pieces of this, but that's what the DGF did. They went in and said, and they slowly dwindled the number down to the $11,000 that they eventually ended up granting us. Um, now they did say that we'd get 11,000 this year and we get 7,000 next year and we could apply for those other two annexations next year. So, we will get some of the annexation appeal that we um that we were hoping for. And so, um after a lot of discussions this week, obviously, I I got on the on the phone. Well, Julie and I spoke on New Year's Eve. Um of course, nobody was working until the 5th, so I wasn't really able to have any conversations with people. uh had some conversations with our financial adviser, had some conversations with our town attorney and uh had some discussions with my staff and my department heads as well and uh kind of tried to work up what we think the most appropriate plan moving forward would be. And so that's really what I think we're here tonight is to walk through this and I'll answer some of your guys'

questions. But uh what we kind of finally arrived at is we think our best option is uh in the information it does allow that we can make a rebuttal uh to the DGF regarding our 1782. So what what we would actually like to do is uh basically reject the 1782 and provide a rebuttal to the DLGF and ask them to reconsider a portion of the growth levy. Um now we think it's uh we think there are some of the expenses which we've dropped out and said hey these are expenses that we can um could pay cash for that are not reoccurring expenses. And so we've tried to ultra focus on the things that are reoccurring expenses. And so I guess I didn't mention that. I know you guys know it, but if anyone's watching, the reason they denied the appeal was simply because they said we had too much cash in the bank. And so the challenge with that is one what I just mentioned. Um cash in the bank does not support reoccurring expenses. So eventually, if we continue to do that, we would be broke because we'd eventually spend down all of that cash and we'd have no money in the bank and we wouldn't be able to operate. So, uh, that very premise of you have cash, [clears throat] uh, we don't believe is sound financial planning, which is what the guidance our financial adviserss and your staff have tried to have you do. And, and honestly, the town council has been really good about having a financial plan and and how we move forward. Uh the other component of that is um cash is misleading and we have this discussion when we talk about the budget every year. Um three things typically happen every year. One, we project revenue. When we project revenue, we're typically conservative about it. And I'll use Mike

Tully for example on a building permits. We assume, again, I'm going to make up some numbers because I don't know what the exact numbers are, but we may assume we're going to bring in $250,000 worth of building permit revenue in a year. Well, we set that conservatively because if we only bring in 150, then that reduces our fund balance and we have to cut our budget. So, normally we have a pretty conservative number there. But if Mike Tully brings in $350,000, then our fund balance goes up by $100,000. But that all goes into the calculation then into your following year. So that's one issue. We're conservative in our in our evaluations. Uh the second issue, as you guys know, is that we don't spend 100% of our budget every year, which again, we try to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars. If there are things we don't need to do, we don't do them. Or sometimes we have issues where like this year we had three vacancies in the police department. So that causes us to underspend the budget. Well, when we underspend the budget, that also grows our fund balance. The third thing is incredibly ironic, which is that Julie Locer has done a fantastic job investing our money. And so you guys have heard Julie talk about this that she's earned over a million dollars in interest income this year. Well, that wasn't always the case. One, and two, we don't budget that money because we can't think that we're going to get that forever. And so at some point that's going to cease and it's going to go away. And I think if if you guys saw in the rebuttal and response that we prepared um in 2024 we brought in $110,000 and in 2025 Julie brought in like a,23,000. Well that's $1.1 million that our fund balance went up. [clears throat] And so the DGF making a decision solely based on the fact of well you have a fund balance. We feel like that is is poor and against what the town council and

our financial adviserss have recommended us to do and how we should really operate. So, uh the reality is even if we have a healthy fund balance at this point, it's not going to always be that way. And as we continue to grow and experience those things, that number will come down. The other thing that I I don't I didn't mention in my email, but uh Greg brought it up to me when we were just talking a minute ago was if you guys remember when we did our bond when for the civic center, one of the things that the rating agencies always ask for us is they want to see what our fund balance is and they want us to show that we have a growing fund balance every year. We talk about this when you guys do your um your resolution to transfer money to the rainy day fund. we say yes we want to move some but we want that fund balance to continue growing. So what the rating agencies are telling us and how we're evaluated for our bond rating is exactly the opposite of what the position the DGF is taking. So uh again it it feels very frustrating that it's a lose-lose situation for us that if we try to be good sound financial planners and being good stewards of taxpayer dollars the DGF is is holding that against us. So, um I think that's a summary of it. I I guess the one other thing I'll mention, again, this is this is in my in our rebuttal. Um we feel strongly that the decision on whether we hire police officers and whether the tax rate goes up is a decision that should be made by elected officials, not by um the DGF or apologize. is I know I'm a bureaucrat too, so I'm not trying to offend anybody, but bureaucrats at the state shouldn't be deciding what's in the best interest of the residents of Avon. That's you, the five of you are elected to do that. And so, uh, that's your guys' decision to make to weigh that out against the impact of asking for that

growth appeal and the risk of not hiring more police officers and providing public safety in our community. So again, we we feel like that's not their decision to make and that should be a decision that's reserved for for all of you, which you guys did make. And so why are they why do they have the authority to trump what you guys think is in the best interest of our community? So um I think those are our arguments in our rebuttal. Um again, the resolution uh that I've laid out for you guys, um I know it's not on your agenda tonight, but we only we have till January 14th to submit it. So, if if you guys pass the resolution tonight, we will get everything put together and submitted to the DGF tomorrow. There is a deadline that eventually the the DGF has to approve everybody's 1782s. So, we expect we would get a response back relatively quickly. Uh hopefully within the week. Um, I would still tell you that um, based on what they've done, the other thing they did when they approved the 1782 is they did not cut our budget. So they our our budget last year was 9,50,000 and we submitted this year for a 10,200,000 budget. They still approved us at a 10,200,000 budget. And so I would advise you and recommend to you that if they do submit back and still reject it that we still accept the 1782 at the 10 million2 and then over the next six months the five of you have the decision of what do we want to do? Do we want to hire those police officers? Do we want to spend the cash balance? Do we want to look at other areas to cut? And then we don't have to be put in a time crunch to say tonight what are we going to cut if we want to do this? I don't think we need to do that tonight. I don't think that'd be good decision-making on your guys'

part. So, except the 1782, if they come back that way and then we move on, it again, it probably continues to be in your guys' court to then finally make the decisions on what cuts to make or if you still want to hire those officers or if you want if you're willing to reduce the fund balance. um those decisions. I think if we get through this 1782 issue, we give you guys more time to kind of deal with that and again make a good decision based on all the information. So that's all I've got. I'm I'm happy to answer any questions. I know you guys probably have questions and anyone wants to vent, feel free to vent. I did it several times over the last week. So

you only gave us 30 minutes. You used up 15. I know. Well, that was my that was my plan. Steve, I'll ask you, you're going through a hiring process right now. How many openings do we currently have? So, from 2025, two [snorts]

and then we're looking for these next three then. Yes.

Have we exhausted that list of names then from the recent? So we had a process in the beginning of 2025 which we did exhaust. Um the new process started in November and we are only to officer number six on that list. The list is looking excellent and so um I'll be talking a little bit about that um during our briefing uh from the police department. Um but um we have a lot of laterals and like the first nine officers. Um we look like we have our first three officers that uh we've already given an offer to one officer and uh we will be uh meeting with the merit board next Monday uh to get approval to offer employment to two more officers. Again, all three are laterals. So, uh, makes it a lot easier for us to get that going.

I know in the past it's always been

you workman's comp injuries, retirements, the you exhaust your list and there's just a number of things and we can never get all of them filled. Now, we're the opposite with the lateral moves and everything. It's making it a whole lot easier. So, I think we need those funds now to fill those positions. It's it's a very healthy list. Again, we're at number six with a total of 29 people that are on this list. Um we've already started the backgrounds even beyond the number six person who's I believe they'll get an offer tendered to them. U number seven is a lateral from IMPD. He's looking good. We'll probably get an offer. Number eight and nine are not laterals, but they are um just starting their backgrounds. So I think we have our top n

that's amazing it for us it really is because normally on average when um after you get down through the process of you know interviews tests everything once you get to the backgrounds typically somewhere about one in seven people pass the background so to be able to hire six in the top nine I've never seen Mhm. Yeah, it's it's a really good book. So, they would just have to then go through the our personal department's training right along and things like that. They don't have to go back to EIA because they're lateral

the laterals. Uh so, one of them uh is an out of state. Uh so, we already looked into what it's going to take. He has to provide some paperwork to us that will provide some training. Um but beyond that, um what he'll have to do is um since he's coming to us from Louisiana, uh criminal law, traffic law, um he'll have to like qualify with firearm academy, um he'll have to do an interview, uh with the member of the LP. Uh, so there's a couple little loops, but um, compared to someone who has to go to the academy and go through like a full field training process, full field training process academy approximately one year, um, this guy will probably be working here in about three to four months.

Awesome. Everyone else working. So Dan, have you had input in this? Yeah. Yeah, we I was working the second though, just for the record. Uh and um yes, [clears throat] sorry.

So yeah, Ryan reached out to me and uh we talked about you have a couple different options, but so really you have three decisions. You had the [clears throat] ordinary budget order, the 1782, then two denies of the excess levy appeal. So, um, so I was involved in trying to look at that, analyze what options are easier, which options are most likely a good result. Um, I kind of stay out of the Craig and Ryan like where the money should go part of it and more to that, but yes. And I feel comfortable with the recommendation.

Did did the G DGF give any um [snorts] like guidance um either prior to this? Have they if your fund balance is 20% over your budget or did they give any feedback on this and say your fund balance was too high by 2%. There any extra detail just nope sorry you got too much cash.

No that that was in the denial. It literally just said you have a sufficient fund balance. That's it. We did find back in August of last year when they made a ruling that they were going to allow the appeals, they did have something in there in a six-page document where it said that they may deny appeals if you have sufficient cash. and it said they believe sufficient cash is 20% of your um of your budget, but they said they would allow rebuttal, which is why we've specifically used the language to say we're going to we're going to do a rebuttal because we don't agree with that. And as you guys know, 20% if we held 20% in cash, we'd be holding off on doing all kinds of things in our budget. I mean, we'd burn through $2 million, which is 20%. We'd burn through $2 million in one and a half months probably. There's no way we could operate with a fund balance that low. So, again, I don't know where the 20% came from. That's not what your financial advisors recommended. And that's your financial advisor recommended. Some I think it's $3 million was the minimum for us that we passed, which is still above the low. And again, if you remember when Greg came in with that resolution, Greg said, "We expect you to be way above this. This is a minimum." And so there was that information in there. But again,

no details on you by this one. Yeah. Were we the only um local government that got hit with this type of denial? This just feels so odd that so I'm I'm trying to wrap my mind on why why why were we picked why were we

well and that's what that's what we don't know and and that's why I kind of said in the resolution it specifically says that we felt like their decision was arbitrary because they didn't give any justification for it. Um but I can tell you and the people that I've talked to uh Greg said about half of his clients were denied. He said about the other half, they got something but did not get what they asked for. But

like it may be guidance that the DGF is receiving to tighten up on what budget you approve. I think that's what we that's what we think the case is is is that there was potentially a directive to them to either not approve them or to make sure that if they did approve them that they did not increase the people people's tax rate. And so our denial resulted in a reduction in our tax rate which means we had greater growth than our appeal. And so not giving us our appeal actually makes the tax rate go down. So, it could be that. It could have been that the guidance was they don't want um people's tax rates to go up. But I also talked to the town of Danville. Danville did a half a million dollar growth levy appeal and got all half million. Um I talked to the Washington Township trustee and they got their fire appeal. They also did a township appeal and the township appeal was denied.

So I don't know that same reason. He didn't say that. And so I told him our situation and he didn't say that was why they got denied. If I remember the township doesn't carry a large fund balance,

Don, I know it's been a few years, but kind of correct me if I'm wrong. I remember from a few meetings the township talked about that they don't carry large fund balances for long periods of time. They do. All right, forgive What we did was we would start out the first of the budget and end at the end with high balance because we weren't collecting tax dollars until June and December in order to get away from having to do the tall that we reason we did that because the portion of township was the last tax in Hers County still having a new talk and we wanted to get away from that we save a little bit taxpayer money by time to do that. And so now what we would do is build our cash palaces up starting out the mountain the first January one and then end the same way. So

fair enough. I I obviously remembered that wrong. Yeah. I might just say too that I mean I don't think this has I I I don't know that uh I wouldn't want you to feel like it has anything to do with like they singled you out. Sure.

I mean I'm going to I'll tell you two two facts and then you can connect the dots. One is that a year ago the legislature phased out excess levy appeals for growth altogether. So you you know there is that's a policy statement. We're we're not going to continue to give excess levies on the three of growth. Uh but the phase out begins this year, you know, this year. So how those were going to be handled in 25 appeals. The deal Jeff spoke openly about that and said, "Don't get your hopes up for a three-year growth excess levy appeal in 2025." So that was not a secret. Has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with the town of Avon. that that was a matter of policy. The state legislature took it away and they're obviously that was going to influence 25 decisions. The second thing is the there is within the three-year growth excess levy appeal a mathematical equation you have to satisfy to show that you are even eligible for the the excess levy appeal. So you have to show you are growing by whatever formula the DLJF gives you. And in the past if you could do that you usually got something uh either all you asked for or or substantial portion. But that's really not what the statute says. The statute says that even if you can show that you are growing fast enough, uh the DLGF must make a determination as to whether uh the excess levy appeal is necessary in order to um for the town in our case to provide essential government services. See, the second part of that test is very subjective and that's where that really is the basis of this denial. Not that we aren't

growing fast enough, but very simply, maybe for the first time in a long time, the DLGF started applying the second part of that um test in a little more stringent manner because they said, well, look, we we they didn't say they didn't really say you have too much cash on hand. They said, uh, we believe that they we believe you can hire the three police officers and these other things that you want with your own money because you've got over, you know, you're projecting to have over 11 million in the bank. It, you know, it's the Reader Digest version to say that you had too much in cash balances, but it goes back to that test of, well, it's not like they're really not going to have a police department if they don't get the sex levy. And on the annexation appeal, the standard is slightly different, but it it says you have to have annexations and then you have to convince us that this excess levy appeal is reasonably necessary. Again, pretty broad and subjective. And I do I just think that you saw the deal Jeff more stringently apply the second half of that rule. I disagree because in their denial letter they show resolution 24-9 and they use that as our minimum balances and they broke it all out and put it in there and [clears throat] they showed what our balance was as of 123124 and our estimate at 123125 to that target balance. Well, that was anywhere a target of 3 million to 10,393 to 11,125. It may have been subjective, but they looked at that data and you just do simple math. Minus it and you've got $7 million of excess cash to put in police office,

but they never did that before. That's my point. They never done that before. And that's always been true,

right? But my point is one size does not fit all. They don't look at Avon as a community that's what now 30 years old and we've started crawling and now we're walking and some days we get to run a little bit and we're always trying to catch up. They don't take into consideration what has happened in our legislature the last year to two years where they're coming out and saying you each local community needs to fund their own growth. This is a one time. We've done this before. Ryan, what was it? 2003 when the council at that time denied or said we are not going to submit an excess levy appeal and once we don't this is over. It's gone. We can't add this to our ne to that balance as we go down the road. And infinity that's millions and millions of dollars. So I I don't get this. I mean, I I look at this and I'm like, "Okay, I I agree. Let's see here. We can pull out number three, number four, number five, number six." And but if we're going to do anything, at the very bottom of our letterhead, we say Avon is a safe community. What we're asking for are police officers to keep our community safe. I I I don't get it. I mean, they're putting everybody in the same box, in the same corner, and it's across the board. This is what we're going to do. And so, I don't think we should be timid about going to bat and doing our appeal because this once this levy is gone, we can't add it. So, we lose year after year after year. [clears throat] And who knows what this next legislative session

will be. They forced us to do a wheel tax. And if we didn't do a will tax, we wouldn't get community crossing grant money. Maybe forced us, threatened us, suggested it, whatever word you want to use. We're playing their game, but they don't talk to each other. One says do this, the other one's doing the exact opposite, and that puts us in the middle, and then we get the rift, the fallout from our constituents. So, I might be off here, but I think at the end of the day, we're trying to play by the rules and they keep changing the rules. And we're only worried about Avon, Indiana. I could care less about anybody else. We got police officers that want to make lateral moves to come here. There's got to be a heck of a reason why they're doing that.

As you can tell, I'm not real happy about it. We're not happy about it, but it sounds like this is the next step from that we need to take since we aren't happy about it. So, any other comments or you're going to need us to add it to the agenda tonight? Say we need to suspend the rules, right? Yeah, that's what if if you are comfortable [clears throat] with that approach, that would be my request that you amend the agenda tonight as the agenda and then vote on the resolution so that we can attach that with our denial of the current 7D2 and offer our rebuttal and response. I mean, because technically our budget's not approved yet, right? It is, but I had 14 days to submit yes or no. It is or it isn't. Yeah,

they turned this down, but they approved our budget. this was part of our budget that they turned down. That doesn't make any sense either.

They approved our budget, but want us to spend down our fund balance. So, they're saying if you need that money, go ahead. You have the right to use that money. We'll accept the budget, but we're not giving you the funds for that portion of your budget. I think the other thing we have to do outside of this and maybe it's a lesson learned is when they compared it to our when they showed that illustration of the different fund balances. We need to we need to raise that. It really worked against us. We're following we're trying to be fiscally conservative for our community and they're holding that against us. What? That doesn't make any sense.

Which is odd because the state of Indiana tries to be fiscally responsible compared to states across the nation, too. So, and they have a $2 billion fund balance. So, yeah, the very thing they're criticizing, they do the same exact thing. So, right. I think [clears throat] if that's how they're going to use it, but that's not for them. Well, when you adopted that, you did that because you had a bond coming up and you wanted to show you had some policy and you know that Greg your actual policy when you followed and and actually your your budget you adopt

you really have said this past year that you got a $9 million minimum balance, right? And that you want to have ever increasing. So Greg makes a very good point is you probably should revisit that policy. Who knew that could be used against you but they did? I think it's a good point. Well, and the flip side of that is do we make it so high there is no wiggle room, but then we fall below it. Now you're going to have someone pointing your finger at, well, you fell below that minimum requirement that you created. Well, we fell below it because our government's holding it against us and we can't get our excess levy appeal. I would just remind you, Greg, I think the same thing.

If you were here, you you you can always um you can always modify that resolution. If you had changing uh tides and you needed to raise or lower that a little bit, you can there's no limit as how many times you can adopt a resolution like that. But I do think Greg caught something that I noticed, which is it goes to what you said about the playing rules. Fine. If that's how you're going to play that game, then we hear you. We'll uh we'll make sure you understand that how you guys really look at the budget is that you should slowly and gradually increase your um your cash on hand as you grow in terms of total budget that that's only a prudent thing to do. But and on that same thing as Greg always says when you go in and get a bond you want to increase your rainy day fund. So what are we doing? We're increasing our rainy day fund. They're holding it against us. But when we go get a bond, the bond market goes, "Hey, you guys are doing a great job."

It's like, come on. Someone's got to communicate to each other. All right, I'm done. Okay, we'll move on to 2026 boards and commission discussion.

Yeah, I'll just real quick, I just wanted to walk you guys through this and that you should have something in your packets. Um, and I know a couple of you were in this week and so I had shared the list with you. So again, just to help make things a little smoother when we actually get to the council meeting and for you guys to make the appointments, I just wanted to just kind of briefly walk through this um, and make sure you guys kind of understood what's in front of you during the council meeting tonight. And so you have two different spreadsheets. Uh, the first one you have has green and yellow on it that kind of looks like this. That is our current boards and our current makeup. So, if someone on there is listed in green, that means they are current sitting person, but their term is up. But if it's green, it means that they're willing to continue serving. So, if you guys want to maintain continuity, you have the option to reappoint anybody who's in green. I do not ask people who are already sitting on boards to resubmit applications. So then you also have a blue list that looks like this. So if you either don't want to appoint someone in green or if you find one that's in yellow, that means the person does not want to be reappointed and you're going to need to get someone off of this blue list. So these are the people who've then applied on the blue list. So for example, if we're looking at the stormwater board of directors, you have a yellow one. Kurt Fuller doesn't want to be reappointed. So, you guys will need to go to your stormwater board of directors. And you had two people who said they were interested in serving on the stormwater board of directors. So, that's kind of how it works going forward. Um, I did want to mention, um, [snorts] one of them, the when we get down to the fire appeal board,

um, Jeff Stton was appointed four years ago, but we don't really know who he is. We don't have a contact information for him. We've not been able to get a hold of him. So, we believe he needs to be replaced, but you will also notice on your blue list, you don't have anyone who applied for the fire appeal board, but there was someone with good qualifications in our here. So, so I had asked Levi, the fire marshal, he had helped us put together these people in the first place. Um, when we originally created the fire appeal board, if he had any suggestions, so he was working on somebody. But if you guys think there's someone in there who qualifies, that's great. in person.

Okay. So, if if there is somebody then you can appoint that or if you want to wait and not make that appointment tonight. Um we could wait on um Oh, okay. Um you could wait if you want. I don't know. We would have to make sure he he would be a business rep, too. So, I'm not sure what that means. And then I know Dan, did you have a chance to look up yet the two member party? We did not yet. Okay. And there is a question just on the fire appeal board. Dawn pointed out to me that it says no more than two members can be of the same political party, but there's five people. But there's five people. So we don't we think it should either be three or that it may not be needed at all.

Um we've not tracked the political affiliation of the other people. So, I think there's some belief that maybe it's not actually required and sometimes the spreadsheet changes and we may have taken a board off and putting one on and maybe the miss the information doesn't match. But I have asked Dan and Anna to look into that and so they're going to confirm that for us. So really in summary, if we do nothing with the redevelopment and the plant commission, there's only four people we need to replace

essentially. Yes, that's correct. Um, would it be an appropriate time just to since we got through that topic and we allowed 15 minutes and took three, could you just briefly ask or discuss when Greg and I met today, he brought up something and I think it's worth bringing up and sharing and maybe having a little conversation about, but Greg, do you mind if I share? Um he he said that maybe we should consider some of these liaison boards that we sit on or that we're assigned and maybe discuss what kind of value we get out of that versus our time and energy commitments. Um so if anybody has an opinion one way or another on that. I know when Greg brought up the subject today.

Well, I think the the thing here is is I try to look at what's what's the value add it. I use the example when I went to the library board, they go, "What are you doing here? No one's ever come to our meetings. Why are you coming here?" And I think the the example was is when we were working with the township trying to look at consolidation or coming together as one, we wanted everybody to kind of be seen, heard, and provide any maybe dialogue or any questions that may have come up at the end of the day. So what's the value added on the library board? I'm not sure there is. And I did that and I think you're on it now. and we go to the township board meeting and it's it's around their schedule. It's at 3:00 in the afternoon. Well, if somebody's the liaison and they work till 5:00, they'll never get there. So, at at the end of the I'm not sure unless somebody else has a a better reason, we do we we don't really need all these liaison on these different boards. A because there's no value added or B we don't even attend them anyhow. So that was my whole point.

I think some of us don't attend them because there is no value added. If you've attended those meetings beginning at the redevelopment authority and the redevelopment commission it's pretty cut and dry. Mhm. Well, even if you go to a county commissioner meeting or a county council meeting, the question you ask is how many other municipalities are there? Probably none. None. I can tell you because I go to the And they know who we are, but then what's the interaction? There is none. Unless we want something. And so again, I I value everybody's time and their commitment. And that's that's my comment

after Greg brought that up and I started thinking about the boards that I sat on. There's you know sometimes you don't know the value that it brings until you need to ask someone for something and then if they have seen you at those meetings then you know you might have a better relationship or they might say instead of saying you guys don't come to anything unless you're got your hand out or looking for something but I think that we've I mean I've been here six years so we've we've been doing we've been attending and doing this for that amount of time and do we feel like it's brought us anything when we have had to go ask um for help or guidance or assistance on something. And with that said, if the decision gets made that we may not need these liaons, it doesn't mean that if we individually want to go and attend these meetings, there's nothing to stop us from going and attending these meetings. It just wouldn't be [cough and clears throat] a set day and a set time for people. I don't know.

Well, I'll give you two examples. when we were doing 100 South and we went out, you and I went out to the county and we got chastised. Oh yeah.

By the county commissioners who said you should go to the county council first. So we go to the county council first and they go, "What are you doing here? [clears throat] It's the county commissioners." So here we are stuck in the middle again getting beat up and at the end of the day they decided that they were going to give us what they wanted to give us not the [snorts] calculation that we had done to their fair share per lineal foot. The other example is when we relinquished 267, which is now Avon Avenue, and because we're going to use those funds for a bridge, the county is under that jurisdiction. They got our what, 13, 14, whatever million dollars. When we asked for our money, they gave us all but a million dollars.

They didn't help us there either. So, if anything, we've been shortch changed twice. And I can remember the other time when Tom Klene was even the manager and we went to the county council and stood in front of him for something. They didn't give it a minute thought it on turning us down for what we were asking for at that time. Ryan, I believe you were there, too, but um I I so I I just don't know. And um it it caused me to reflect on my personal experience. So, if anyone else has any,

I mean, I I've certainly struggled to make it to all of my liaison meetings. A lot more time commitment than I have to offer sometimes. Um, and and I agree. I don't know that there's a lot that we're especially some of them like parks and police. I mean, our staff does a good job of updating us on what's going on in those departments. Anyway, um I don't know that I've ever gotten anything out of that meeting that I didn't also get in an email or in a department update or you know, multiple other places.

Um and you know, like Greg said, the chamber, he's a chamber member and on the board, so he's there and can report back on chamber. So, I don't I don't know. I mean, I can see it both ways and it's going to come up. So, I just thought maybe it could be talked about during this few minutes that we had here, too. So,

yeah, I don't want to sound like sour grapes, but I mean, we're trying we're trying our best to create relationships and doesn't matter if one community is doing it or not. We we know we're trying, but at the end of the day, what does that relationship get us? So, Other comments or suggest or if not we'll move on. Um amending the planning fees. Linda.

Okay. So if you can start with the last page of this package.

Is that the senior page? Larger print. [laughter] [cough]

So, [clears throat] uh, the first column there and the colored column is our current fees, and I've listed out several communities after that. Sometimes it's hard to compare apples to apples because they do their fees differently, but I I did the best I could with that. And the last column, as you see there, is Indianapolis, and that's where I came from. So, those are the fees that I was used to before I came here. Um, so of course when I got here I thought the fees were were fairly low. Um, I come from a a directive that we were given in in Indianapolis that the what the task that we're charged with completing is taking petitions through a process, a zoning petition, a variance petition, [snorts] a plat petition, all of those types of things that go through our processes that the people that are requesting them should be the ones paying for it and not the community members. not tax dollars going towards that. Now, does planning have a benefit to the overall community? Of course, we do. And then that we do have some te taxpayer money going towards it for our comp plan and for other things that we do for our community members. But that all in all these fees should be paid for by the people requesting or by the entities requesting it. So then I did if you go to the next page before that where it says staff time computation uh listed out the steps and the things we do with each case that comes in and did an estimate of how much it costs our department to process a petition or an application. And you'll see that being over $2,000 and that's on the low end because the the amount of the rate we did at $50 an hour doesn't quite

cover either of us on on benefits and all that. So that number doesn't um the the fees that we have don't come anywhere close to um meeting that number. The next column where it has average fee of 2025, I literally listed out every fee we took in in 2025. And that was the average numbers, $815. And you'll see that that equals out to 37% of of what we estimate the cost to be. Now, of course, the cost for some cases are more and some are less, but it's just an average cost of what we think it should be. So then the sheet, the next sheet before that is my proposal for an amendment to the to the fees. Uh Paul and I went through and and did a lot of thinking of how much time it really costs us to look at each of these types of cases. Um, you'll notice the the biggest bump is on waivers and that $25 for a waiver was really low and the amount of time that we put into a waiver, that's when they're really looking at going against the ordinance and that's when we bring in the fire department and the police and and it takes a lot of time and and effort. So,

is that waiver a waiver requested by the petitioner or staff says you should get a waiver or not come next week? Is that what you're talking about delaying the meeting or continuing them?

That's if they filed and didn't realize at the time that they needed a waiver. And in our review, we said, "Oh, you don't meet the standard here. You have a choice to get a waiver or fix your plans to not need a waiver." So, we never request the waiver. We just point out that one is needed. So, these are the numbers we've landed on um for your fees. And then if you go back to the to the one before that, I've averaged out if I took those same fees that were filed in 2025 and and change the fees to my proposal for 2026, we would get to about an 85% of the cost. um to process one of those petitions. Um comparing to the other communities, we are we would fall kind of in the Caramel Fischers area of these fees. We wouldn't be uh as close to our immediate communities. Um we'd be closer to Caramel and Fischers, not as high as Indianapolis. Karma looks a little off because they their fee is not as high as of a base fee, but their per fee gets the fee is much higher than what our proposal would be

and their waiverss are much higher. I'm looking at here. So, yes. Um, but Ryan, when I spoke with you about this this week, you had said that we really can't compare to other municipalities. We have to look at what our actual costs are in house. The end over here is slow death. Okay. knows that already too. But again, you [laughter] you guys always ask like how does it compare? We can't set our fee based on how it compares. So that's why Linda did an analysis of what it actually cost us.

But our assumption was you guys were so going to say how does it compare. So we're giving that to you just as educational information. It is not how we're making a decision about setting our fees. That's correct. That's correct. [laughter] Thank you. So again, that's really just you guys. So you can see we're not setting it based on the proposed numbers I came up with were based on our cost and not based on other communities. Correct. Yeah. I mean, you've detailed that out. So I just wanted to make sure because that was a question I asked and I wanted to make sure it got said public. We're still only collecting 85% of our cost. That's correct. [laughter]

But we can't make money on it. Yeah, that's to that point of that we're really not if there is a case that actually requires less work. If we charged 100% there could be some cases where we're actually charging them more than what it costs. So again, we think the prudent thing to be is not be at 100% but also not to be at 37%. Because that's entirely too low. So I think that's our compromise and I think like what Linda said, you know, there is a benefit to the entire community when there is development. So to expect a particular developer to pay.

So do this one step further. Compare this new rate proposal to 24 revenue. What would it have been if we would have had these new rates? I did not look at 24 revenue, [laughter] but I can provide that. How many cases you had? I'm sorry. Do you know how many cases you had? [sighs and snorts] I probably similar to 25, but I don't. Well, it's going to be at least 50% more because you're only 37 to8 is what we would have collected. So, let's just say 30 cases. That means $30,000.

Well, and that's what we need to do. And not only what Linda's doing here, but all of our departments need to look at how do we adjust our revenue stream. Yeah. So, Linda is kind of leading the way. The building department is going through the same exercise and they will also be bringing through their modification of the building fees. We haven't changed those in a long time either. So this is is part of our goal is to bring those. Steve has Steve has already adjusted some of his and has kind of ongoing been amending some of his fees. So if Linda does this and then um the building does that that when we will looked at all of our our fees

parks and we're we're also you guys have given us guidance. We're also looking at adjusting all of our fines and fees. Anna's been working on that and that's been handed out to all the department heads. So we're all reviewing that too. So we're going to come back. We still have fees that are $25. It should probably be $250. We're not fees, fines that, you know, they're still the same fines we put in place in 1998 when we came to town. They never changed. So, we're working on that, too. So, you guys will see that over the next couple of months, too.

Well, and the fines are $25. If it happens again, it goes to $30. If it happens again, it goes to $50. There's no reason for people to want to be concerned about it. Mhm. goes from 25 to 125 to 500 to a,000. Now you start getting their attention. Thank you, Linda. Great job, Linda. Thank you. If you guys are comfortable with what Linda's done, the next step will be for us to put this into an ordinance and we'll introduce it. you'd like to talk about that in front of you at your January 22nd meeting and then you guys

and we can go retroactive to any case that we are currently looking at. [laughter] That would be nice. Um last uh we've got discussion of well this has becoming a city I think I think Brian are you going to take this or Dan or who Dan passed out something.

Um yeah you guys have some information passed out information. Um I also just provided you guys some general information. I'm not not sure what you guys want on the discussion on becoming a city, but um just in order for you guys to have that conversation if you want to have it, I provided you uh the Indiana code citation and then I also gave you guys just the reorganization statute. Again, I know most of you have seen that in the past, but I provided that as well. Um but not sure where you want to take that conversation or it's really more of a legal issue. So, I'd probably defer to Dan or if you guys have specific questions about that, let us know, please.

Yes. And what I've done is you received a memo in 2022 on this topic. This uh summary you have before you now been refreshed just a little bit. There are no statutory changes since 2022. So, basically outlines the procedure, but you'll see on page two key differences between town and city models. We added that just to give you information about what that would mean. The role of the council obviously changes dramatic uh between a a town and a city and then it's not in the materials but I would also note that under the Indian law if you transitioned you would be a third class um city because you have less than 34,000 residents in your last denial census which would be 2020. um your effective date if [snorts] you did it as fast as you could to be 2028. So when you have your uh census in 2030, you might be over 34 and then you would transition to a secondass city. So that's how population affects your actual classification. Dan, what are the differences if we go from one class to another? What's that get us? Uh it it basically there there are some differences subtle differences but uh mainly it authorizes uh bigger another layer of supervision among departments. So for example uh although the mayor has great latitude to structure the administration however he or she would want. Uh different positions are allowed in a secondass city that aren't allowed in a third

class city. um including over public war o over uh public safety. The legal department looks different. There's some subtle changes. Uh that's mainly what it's about. Uh the clerk treasures position can be a little different as you go from third to sec second to third to second. So there are changes like that. Um that's really what most of the changes are about allowing for a more sophisticated government, more positions within that um structure. [clears throat]

Is there an estimate of the cost that we would incur to go through this exercise? Uh well, you um you will you you would you would incur a cost if you have a special election from you'll be charged by the county for that. Um so often they will um try to make [clears throat] sure it goes through the general election, but if you don't have general election, you could go special election. Uh it isn't it's just a ballot question. On the um legal side though, you you at some point in time before after the election have to come up with an ordinance of how you'd be structured as a city. Obviously, you're going to have some cost developing all of that. And then you're going to have to look at all of your ordinances that say town and like you we Ann and I were just looking for the fire protection appeals board and guess what we found? you know, you've got a whole chapter on what your agencies are and who appoints who and all that would change. So, you would have to rewrite most of your town code. So, that's expensive. It would not be it would not be without expense

at $255 an hour. That would be expensive. Yes, it would. And and then you also have another uh your highest paid official would be your mayor, I I would guess. And you're going to have um so yeah, you wouldn't you wouldn't do it to save money. That's definitely not why you would do it. It costs more money. Are there financial benefits once we become a city that we would be getting differently than we are now?

No, there may be benefits, but they're not they're not uh it's not like you get more money from the state if you're doing that. There, you know, there are people different points of view about what the benefits are, but those aren't really legal questions. So, I mean, if we went through this, we would have to really put the pros and the cons. You're going to hear the general public say, "Why?" So, we're going to say, "Well, this is why." Well, then they say, "Well, why not leave it? What's wrong? If it's not broken, why are you trying to fix it?" So, because our friends in the north are going through this right now, they're getting some of those same questions. Bill, you have any input? Well, I'm trying to find on here why you think it would um be 2028. What what's the timeline that puts us there?

Yeah, it's because under the current process, the ballot question, yes or no, become a city, the fastest you could do that would be 2026. Then if that's approved in 2026, then you have to have the first city elections in 2027 would be as fast as you could do that. so that those persons who were elected for the first city offices could not take office until January of 28. Okay, that help.

Can you give us a a ballpark figure of what you think the cost would be to do this? Well, to get through the transition is not that expensive, but then once you become a city, like I said, the rewriting of your code, I mean, I figure it's I figured it would be $50,000 to rewrite your uh to get through the whole thing, I would say $50,000. Yeah. And again, every department last year about our budget for elected officials getting pay and you're talking about adding an incredibly expensive elected official.

Well, that's why we were doing this was to ask, you know, what this would be and it may or may not be an incredibly expensive official depending upon what the salary is set at,

I think. or or it could be depending upon what people did. Is there is there any benefits for what the state does downtown for cities versus towns? I don't think that's so much of a legal question. I mean, there's some who would say, um, you know, mayors are better known by legislators. Um, now my clients who are mayors might say, well, that hasn't helped me much. They may know who I am, but I'm not sure I'm doing any better than you are. Um there are some people would say that uh a mayor being the point person for economic development can be an effective way to handle that. But but for in in Hendris County where you have h you have uh towns only. It's unique towns only. I think the the real issue is what you see on page two, which is um you know, are you willing to concentrate that much power in one person and all of that power comes from would come from the town council and it is a it is dramatic. We represent cities and towns and counties. So I see this and the role of a city council in a third class city is much different than your role. Much different. You appoint employees. If under a city model, the mayor appoints everyone. And it's not unusual when a new mayor is elected. If you don't believe me, ask around. new mayor's elected, the existing uh department heads get a notice that says, "I'll expect your

resignations on December 31st, you know, and I'll make my own appointments." So, towns under your model tend to be very secure and stable and it's a diff the model is a diffused power structure. Five of you share power. The truth is the president of the council only has the like three thing does three things that the rest of you don't do. One is sign documents, one is run a meeting and then appoint the police chief under your model system. Don doesn't have very many um benefits really. So you have a, you know, a kind of a shared

Yeah. a a shared power system where in a city with a mayor or in a town with a mayor like Zansville, which was done through consolidation, um, it's significantly different. It would be significantly different for you. Now, if that's, like I said, if that's what you want to do, but I I make some of that I make note of some of that page, too, just so you consider how big that change would be. I think the one thing for me that I think about is you know they like our terms are divided up so that we don't have a whole new slate each time. So, I think one thing that um worries me would be what if the mayor left and the you know and then he terminated his second person, you know, because they won their own person and then also you've got your council that's voting trying to make good decisions and yet it can end up being vetoed by the mayor if the mayor just so you really have five people discussing it and trying to make decisions, but you got one person that can veto. So, I don't those are the things that scare me. Um, but I don't I I've written on the front here pros and cons. So, I'd like to figure out more, I guess, get my education and see I look at it is is it going to how how is it going to make us better than what we are today [clears throat] and we need to articulate that and if we can't articulate that then there's no reason to make that change and if we can then we should give it serious consideration. Yeah, pros and cons.

I think that was well said.

I' I've lived under both of the community about this size. It does fall upon one individual to make a city I want to say great but operationally great. Uhhuh. And if you don't have one of those, it's not pretty. Yeah. you it could make or break you in during the timing of a of a just one term even could there could be consequences but if you get a good one

I don't you know I'd say pros and cons but and I think the only authority then the council has is financial I'm not sure how far that goes doesn't think we're doing a good job so who knows that's a That's a valid point as well given what we've heard. But anyway,

the council would retain you, you know, just like you currently do, you would retain some appointment power on boards and commissions. So like currently the town council president makes certain appointments to boards and commissions and you as a group make certain commissions like 3221. So that would remain the council does have some appointment power on boards and commissions, not employees though. That's the difference. And otherwise you are the fiscal body. You would remain the fiscal body. So you do the budget and then also you are the legislative body but as Dawn noted subject to the veto power. And also I would note uh the veto power relates to all ordinances, orders and even resolutions. Like resolutions those aren't laws. We don't think about that. But the the city a city council can't even pass a resolution unless the mayor agrees. So so it's really different. But you so you'd have the power of appointment fiscal body legislative power subject to the veto power is the best summary.

Um moving on to I guess five. Are there any other topics anybody wants to talk about? I have three things I mean on this city. If if you want to we can put it on our strategic session and have more conversation or if we've had enough that's fine. Um I've met with a developer at 100 South and Ronald Reagan Parkway and I think they want to come to a a future work session and have a conversation. I think you've met with them. I've met with them. That's one. And then one thing that I would like to see on a future work session is we have land that is certain zonings now, which means anybody can come and put whatever that zoning says they can put build on it. And I've often said we should do this. And I've often been told no, we don't or we can't change the zoning. But what we can do is list the prohibitive uses on that zoning. And so I would like to put that on a work session or even a strategic session about adding the prohibitive uses to wherever these parcels are located because what we're ending up with now is I've said it a hundred times, our only resource is land and once they build on it, it's gone. So now we have a 10acre park pocket at at Avon Avenue 150. We've got that strip on a on Rockville Road with five, seven acres. We've got other pocket areas where we have it and some of that is zoned a certain zoning and we may not like it but they can put it

there. So shame on us. So, I'm not advocating changing the zoning. I'm advocating putting the pre the prohibitive uses on that parcel before anybody brings something to the council. Dan, chime in. [laughter] I'm taking notes. Okay. That's one approach that doesn't bother me nearly as much as Got it. So, I don't know if that's something Linda and Paul can work on.

So, good. I just want to make sure I understand. So, we've had this conversation before about you're not asking to downzone it. You're not saying So, if it's a commercially zoned property, you're saying you want to attach exceptions, restrictions to that commercial zoning. as again as an example if it was prohibitive uses

or unprohibitive use whatever word you want to use. It's like we somebody comes to the plan commission and they want to the wall location and they got two out buildings or out lots and we put in there you cannot put the XYZ on those lots. That's I'm going to put XYZ on this lot right here that no one's looking to buy yet because as it sits today, they could put a gas station there. They could put a grocery store there. They could put a a daycare there. They could put something there that we may not want, but we can't do anything about it unless we put prohibitive uses. So, they still got to come to us to get the proper approvals, right? But I think it puts maybe an extra quiver in our arrow.

So, so let me clarify. Are you asking if there's an existing C2 zoning, again I'm just using C2 as an example, you want to retroactively go back and prohibit uses on that or are you saying as going forward when someone brings a zoning for a C2 use that you want to provide prohibited uses when someone brings it forward? I don't think we can go retroactive. Okay. For one, good. That's what but we can put it on starting today. Today that piece of land no one has any interest in. We're putting those prohibitive uses attaching it to that zoning.

But that's really retro you're making that's really retroactive. It's an existing zoning. You can do that on an existing zoning. But if it's currently already zoned that way, if you're trying to prohibit a use, that's what Dan's going to tell you you cannot do. Well, we got to figure out a way because there's things going on it that we don't want on it.

Can I piggy back on that? [clears throat] One thing that that Paul and I often get in discussion about is our commercial three commercial districts and where things are permitted and they're not per in this district, they are in this one. That doesn't make sense. So maybe what we can offer to you go through our permitted use list and maybe offer where changes to the whole works might be appropriate or if you're looking specifically on US 36 where we could add a bit of use in the overlay but not parse by parcel. Either way that's fine.

I think that is probably a better way to address it. So, let's go into our ordinance, which is what she's saying. Go into the ordinance, modify what uses are allowed in, for example, a C1, a C2, and a C3, and make a clearer line on where those are appropriate versus project or location. Exactly. Yes. There are uses specifically that you're interested in. We don't want this in. No, maybe we look at more separation. this many feet of a residential or this many feet of another one of those businesses. Those are the types of things we can work with. That's fine.

I think we need to do that. That's my opinion. I don't know about you guys, but that's my opinion. I like that idea better than touch our zoning. Well, I'm not the expert. I'm just the guy bringing the here's the issue. What's the solution? And I agree with that. There are some things that we internally talk about all the time. That's all I had. Anyone else? Anything? If not, we'll go ahead and adjourn.

to order. And uh please join us and rise for the pledgece 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.

Julie, roll call, please. Robert Pope, present. Bill Holland, present. Greg [clears throat] Susan, present. Don Laden, present. Jason Pucket, present. Moving on to consent agenda. Any discussion or questions on that? Make a motion that we approve the consent agenda, including the check register for January 8th, 2026, and the approval of the minutes for the December 18th, 2025 meeting as presented. Second. Thank you, Juligan. Jason Bucket, four. Greg Zusen, four. Don Lden, four. Robert Pope, four. Bill Holland, four.

Right. [clears throat] Next is the uh first of two public comment sessions. The public may comment on um the agenda that is not part of a public hearing tonight or any specific matter within the cur council's jurisdiction. If you do want to come forward, please make sure that the microphone green light is on and state your name and address. No one coming forward. We'll close the first of the two public comment sessions and move on with department updates. Steve

Steve Moore, public works director. Uh first thing I want to talk about is the 2026 uh CCMG. We are working with our engineer HWC on getting final plans to get that out to bid. Um, some other communities have got theirs out to bid too soon during the holidays and and contractors weren't liking that, so they weren't getting good bids. So, we're we feel like we're in in a good position to get the best bids possible. Uh, 100 North and Raceway uh utility relocations are going on now. There'll be some more happening yet this month. Uh, AES and their the underground bank was going to be going in here hopefully by the end of the month. So, making progress there. Um, 900 East and Angelina roundabout, uh, the punch list is done now and, uh, nothing but compliments from people on that one. So, pretty happy about that. The, uh, Dan Jones widening phase three, we still have utilities being relocated. um still planning on going to construction in April of this year for the the road and the um pipe and all that. But yeah, we and just today there was a a closure on Dan Jones. Uh it was a gas line that got hit. Wasn't us. It was one of the utilities uh hit an unmarked gas line and closed the road for I don't know three four hours.

Um Daniel's riding widening phase four. They're about 40% uh done with plans on that. Um sidewalks and trails, we're putting out quotes regularly. We just sent some out today. Uh we're going to uh connect some trails uh by Zach Spees on Dr. Charles Nelson both sides of the road. Uh there's gaps in the trail. We're going to we're going to fill those in and complete those. Also, Zach is at 36. We're going to connect the trail there along 36. There's a a gap where there's a a little valley. We do that. And there's a bunch of sidewalks around town that we're we got a quote out to uh do some repairs and some ramp replacements. Um see, we've got uh our reports for the month. Uh MS4 inspections. Drew and Eli completed 79 inspections, no fines. Betsy collected $34,000 in permit fees for 21 permits. She also collected 15,240 in accident reimbursement. Uh Kat and Eli conducted 15 rightaway inspections. Eli installed 21 signs, including the [clears throat] uh Dr. Charles Elsa sign that got knocked down at the new roundabout.

Any questions? Thank you.

So, thank you. Linda Albraham, planning director. I will start with the BCA that's going to be they're meeting on 120. Um they will be hearing a variance of use for the rise development to add personal services. And then we have a new user for the Swenson's drive-in. It is called Mo Bettas. If you haven't heard of that, it's a Hawaiian um restaurant. Um, they will be getting a special exception for a drive-thru. They will be hearing of special exception for the drive-thru. Um, the plan commission will be meeting on 126. We have five cases on that agenda. Parkplace Crossing, which has been on the agenda for a while for good reasons, but it is uh an office development um on ParkPlace Boulevard, the Walmart Neighborhood Market on South Avon Avenue, the Avon Retail Shops, which is two retail buildings uh east of Ronald Reagan, the former Lazaro property. Uh the Mobetta's DPR is coming through and then the zoning for the gatherings which you'll hear the introduction later tonight. Um other department news, we've been working on the fee increase that you saw earlier tonight. Uh we are working on doing all of our fi file scanning. Uh the planning department has the privilege of not just having 30 years of documents, but we have all the inherited documents from the county on all developments before Avon was Avon. So our police basement is quite full of all of those old documents. So they will be getting scanned. Um they're going to be picked up next week. So we're excited about that and to not take any paper with us uh when we leave this building. [snorts]

And then finally, I'm working on um using our I work system, which is our permit software, and um doing planning submitts and online submitts and fee payment for planning cases, which has not been the case as of yet. So, we're excited about these changes. Happy to answer any questions.

I don't think so. Thank you. Steve. All right. Steve Barton, deputy chief of investigations with the police department. Uh so, quick update on the hiring process. So, it started November 1st. All the testing is complete. Uh the list now consists of 29 uh people uh looking for employment. Uh detectives are starting to go through the list now doing the backgrounds. Um on the 22nd of December, uh an offer uh final conditional offer was given to a person uh he's a lateral uh coming from uh Louisiana. And so uh he accepted the offer and now he's going through the Perf testing. Um, next Monday on the 12th, uh, we are going to, uh, go in front of the, uh, board to, uh, put two more people up for conditional offer. Uh, both of them are, uh, going to be lateral employments, uh, with the state of Indiana. So, um, we'll see how that goes. Um, we have three officers that graduated from the academy uh, this past December um, on the 17th. uh they are back here with the PD and they are going to be starting their field training here uh next week. Um one of those officers um that just graduated uh he's with the air Indiana Air National Guard and he was just recently activated. Um so we want to thank him for his service. Um so we going to be losing him for I think we're looking at about 10 months, 11 months. Um but he's going to be serving our country during that time. So, um, want to thank him for doing that. And then, um, we want to congratulate one of our detectives. He just had his first baby earlier this week. So, um, he's excited about that. Our office is excited about that as well for him. So, and then, um, last thing is

going to be that we had a successful, uh, AED deployment. Um, and this AED was acquired from, uh, Gan Rank um, from Duke Energy. Be happy to entertain any questions. Thank you. Julie, do you have anything?

I do. Um, currently I'm working this week on actually closing 2025. Um, getting all of our POS ready, balance in the books for 2025 so I can start my annual financial report. Um, we did have a payroll this week. So, now that our payroll is done technically now for 2025, um we're working this month to issue 1099s, 1098s, W2s, closing the books, and starting the annual financial report. So, we have a lot going on in January and February, and I have a C set up for me and Calvin back there. So, that's about it. [clears throat]

Thank you, Ryan. Are you speaking on any departments? I will I'll maybe just speak real briefly on behalf of the parks department. Shelby apologized. She had a family conflict tonight. So, um she did, as you guys are aware, she's had a vacancy for about a year. Um and she has filled that. So, she filled it with actually an employee from within. So, uh she will be fully staffed now. Um, also we wanted to congratulate, I don't, you guys may not have noticed it yet, but our sports department uh exceeded their million-dollar goal for revenue. And so, uh, they actually exceeded it in November. So, I haven't seen what their end of December looks like, but uh, I know that everyone was kind of watching that, wondering if if they'd make it to that. And so, uh, they did make that as well. Um, I know we did just take down all of our Christmas decorations. So, thank you to the maintenance staff uh for all that work. It was a lot of work to put it up. It's also a lot of work to take it down. They were fortunate to get some some decent weather at least this week to be able to get it all down before it gets cold again. So, uh that's what she asked me to share with you guys.

Anything from Mike Tullley? Um I don't have anything from Mike. Um, I think you should have actually I think it's in it's going to go out with my weekly report. I have his monthly statistics that he always provides. So when I send out my uh weekly report to you guys next week, you'll get that from Mike. Thanks. Next is council comment and liaison reports. I have nothing. I have nothing. Nothing for me. Keep going. You can tell we [clears throat] were all on holiday. [laughter] Okay. Nothing for me. So, um

I'd like to make a motion that we suspend our rules and add an item to the agenda. That item being the approval of resolution 2026-03. Second. Okay. So, amended. Do we want to add that down at the bottom at the as the very last item, but just show it. Um the agenda is amended to cover that. Okay. to vote on that. Okay. Next is new vote on vote. Let me roll call. Yeah. Do you want to do that? Okay. To add it. Okay. So, this is a motion by Jason to add the resolution to the agenda. We'll do and second by Greg Zusen. Bill Holland four. Greg Zusen, four. Dunlen, four. Robert Pope, four. Jason Pucket, four.

Okay. All right. Next is uh new business, election of the council officers. I'll make [clears throat] a motion that we uh nominate Don Lden as council president. Second. Julie, roll call, please. If there's no other nominations, uh Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen, against. Don Lden, four. Robert Pope against Jason Pucket four.

Next would be election of the vice president. I move we uh nominate Jason for vice president. I'll second. Okay. Jason Pucket four. Don Lden four. Greg Zusen against. Robert Pope against. Bill Holland four. [clears throat]

Next is the town attorney 2026 engagement letter. You got your board appointment. Oh, I'm sorry. [clears throat] [snorts]

Okay. We talked about that and in the work session should be a quick um task this time. on the redevelopment commission board. There are three that are council president nominations and I will um just nominate Bob Culler, Dave Kaufman, and Bill Reid and renew them um in their positions. The next two would be town council nominations. Um, I move we appoint Steve Eisenbarth and John Hanks to the redevelopment commission. Second,

Julie. Oh, okay. [clears throat] John Hanks. So, we have Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen, four. Robert Pope, four. Don Lden four. Jason Pucket four.

Um, next is the plan commission board and those are two council appointments but they have to be co-extensive with the government office. So two from the redevelopment. There are two that want to renew. Is there any discussion on those two [clears throat] remaining or any other nominations? I'll make a motion to nominate uh Dave Kaufman and Bill Reid to the plan commission. Second.

I have to like I have to write down here what you write the names. Okay. We'll work together. [laughter] Robert Pope four. Bill Holland four. Greg Zusen, four, Don Lden, four, Jason [clears throat] Bucket, four. Next is the BCA, and there's one renewing or one that's expired. Uh, that's Annman. Um, so we'll go ahead and just renominate her. Uh, next would be Stormwater Board. We have C Kurt Fuller who has moved away. Is that correct, Steve? Are you still here? Yeah.

Do we have to vote on Annman or not? John, that's a council president one.

Um, so we have Kurt Fuller. Um, who has moved away. So, I was thinking, um, Chad Higgins based on the applications and things that we had. And Ryan, I was confused. economic development. You have it highlighted in green kind of indicating that the term was up, but it says 2026. So,

yeah. So, the economic development commission's a little unusual because their terms run till February 1st. So, his term expires February 1st of 2026. Okay. So, you still do need to reappoint that position. It wouldn't be effective until after February 1st, [clears throat] though. Okay. So, Steve will continue serving

until February. Okay. And that is a full council recommendation. So, [clears throat] is there a nomination in the resumes? There was a Patrick Jackson that showed some interest. He's in the township. But there's not a requirement that that position's in the town. Okay. Or there is a Shelby

Faring. I don't want to butcher her name. Farthing is currently in the Boone County Economic Development Corporation. Prior to that, the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. that might be a nice fit. Yeah, I had kind of thought of her under uh for the retiring Harold Heiser too because of her connections with development. We'll just wait for a nomination. I put the her there too. Yeah.

On both of them. Can she do both? redevelopment authority meets once a year, twice.

Well, so they they are meeting a little more frequently right now because of the civic center project. So they are meeting monthly, but they're relatively non strenuous meetings and the EDC typically only meets two or three times a year as well. So both of those boards don't necessarily require a lot of work. So I think they could be managed by a singular person in both of those roles if you guys were comfortable with that. Well, we're right now we're doing economic development [clears throat] board. So, let's just focus on that one and then we'll get down to the other one. Is that Shelby Farthing that you were mentioning, Greg?

Yeah, she's on the like he said the Boone County Economic Development Board. So, did you make a motion? Great. I just was throwing out names. If you need a motion, I'll make a motion to put Shelby Far Farthing on the Economic Development Board. I'll second. Julie, roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Robert Pope, four. Craig Susan, four. Jason Pucket, four. Don Lden, four.

Okay. Parks Advisory Council. Um there's four openings and three have said that they want to come back. One had was non-responding. Um I had looked at Candace Florence or Alicia Reeves. I believe they both say that they're real involved in parks and uh traveling to parks around the state and it's a passion of theirs and things like that. So, I don't know. Does anyone else have recommendations for that board?

Ryan, my question is on the three incumbents, what is their attendance record? Do we know? Uh, all three of them are actually very good on attendance. Okay. I'm in agreement with the two names that Don mentioned. Those are the names I had written down, but I didn't know if we wanted to rotate off anybody else that's an incumbent or not. So, who was your other one besides Alicia? Uh, Candace.

Yeah. Um she she's participated in run walks across Hendricks County. She um travels she's mom of a toddler. She's [clears throat] um in public health and um public health and wellness. So she's um an outdoors parks person here. She says that she does what she can um in her community. She wants to support health, vitality, and inclusivity. There's no further discussion. I'll make a motion. I'll make a motion that we um take Nick Stefani, uh Jonathan Demon, Steve uh Shasher, and Candace Florence for the parks advisory council.

Second. Roll call, please. Jason Pucket, four. Tom Laden, four. Robert Pope, four. Greg Susan, four. Bill Holland, four. All right. Next is fire appeals board. Um, we have one who had not responded back and that's an election by the council, full council. Again, my recommendation would be that J. Cole Ritter. I think with his background, he really stood out to me. Um, that's the same one I have now.

Anyone have anyone differently or I He has over 20 years of fire experience in commercial properties putting in sprinkler systems. So, I think he'd be amply qualified to sit on our fires appeal board. I'll make a motion that we appoint um JCole Ritter and Steve Shasher to the fire appeals board. Second. Right. Julie Roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Jason Pucket, four. Greg Susan, four. Robert Pope, four. Don Laden,

four. Next is the recreation impact fee appeal board and that's a council president um nomination. So, I think we'll just leave it at Kathy Sturm since she said that she was willing to remain on that committee and then we move on to the redevelopment authority to our council president appointments. And then we have Harold Heheiser who is not renewing his position on the board. So, as council president, well, all three are council president. So, we'll go ahead and show Bob Culler still on the board replacing Harold Heiser. We'll put that Shelby Farthing and uh John Hanks. We move on down to basically our liaison things, right? Um or Ryan, do you want to go ahead on the tax abatement committee and name someone to replace John Taylor or that I mean that's a council thing. Do you have a recommendation?

I'd recommend. It does say until replaced and and I'll be bringing a contract for John to continue as a consultant. So, he could still continue to serve in that role if you guys are okay with that. If you have someone else you want to serve or if a council member would like to do it, you're you're welcome to fill that or you could leave it for now and do it later if you guys wanted to as well. Discussion on that one. [clears throat] I'm fine to leave it. Okay. Leave it open, you mean? Or leave it for John or Leave it for John.

Okay. So, we'll need a motion, I guess, because it's a council appointment. You wouldn't have to do a motion because it's he's appointed until replaced. So unless you want to replace him, he would continue to serve. Okay, great.

Um the municipal facilities corp is an independent. Um do I know we had some discussion in the work session before the meeting about liaison positions. So before we go through this exercise here, do what is the feeling of the council on that topic? Uh I'm willing to stop doing that.

I'm fine with that as well. I gave you my opinion earlier. So, do we need to make a motion if we aren't going to do liaison reports? No, it's solely at Dawn's discretion. You guys are appointed. If Don appoints you, if she doesn't appoint you, then they don't exist. Okay. Well, it says appointed by [snorts] town council. So I think we all used to decide what positions continue as a planning and building seeing them on the plan commission. Okay. And not include the township or annexation.

Okay. Anyone else want to serve on a specific board if we're not having requirements? Sorry, what was that? I said I was asking if there was anyone else that wanted to speak up and say they were [clears throat] still be representing a board even though it would not be an assignment at that point. I don't mind still doing the um recycling district or attending the county commissioners meetings just so we know what's going on. They run somewhat parallel ones at 7 in the morning, drainage board in between and then commissioners. So I can do that since I'm there.

So John, just to help out a little bit. So, I apologize. I did not highlight the other positions. Those are town council appointments and they're one-year appointments. So, we would want to do redo those. Those are not liaons. Okay. But then when you get down to your elected office and and the liaison, those are all appointed by the president. But you do the dispatch board, the Hendricks County Recycling District, um the Hendricks County Economic Development Partnership, the IRTC policy and technical. Um I need you to redo those at least. Okay. So on the Citizens Water Advisory Board, Ryan, you you

Yeah, I'm I'm willing to continue serving if the town council wants me to do that. That's fine. I'll make a motion to um extend Ryan Cannon as the Citizens Water Advisory Board. appointee. Do we just want to run through them since they're all very many changes? However you guys want to do it. Okay. [clears throat] Question. Do we need backups for any of those? We have backups on the ones IRTC policy and IRTC technical committees.

Um that's actually required by the bylaws of the IRTC policy and technical committees. Um your other ones you don't need to have backups. Um, you can appoint backups if you want, but I I don't think any of those are necessary. Um, I think you can. John has not been going to the Chamber of Commerce. I've been going to the chamber chamber of commerce. So, if you want to just plug me there. Um, I also attend the SERA meetings. Uh, but I do think it'd be good. If I can't attend, it should probably be an elected official being the council president. So, I would recommend you appoint Dawn as the backup if for some reason I can't go. uh that she could go for on my behalf

because of John's uh sort of transition here. Are you still okay with him or recommending him for HCEDP for the for the HCDP board? I think so. That that's one of the things I had identified that if if he can he's got a relationship there and for him to continue doing that I think they only meet once a month or something. So it's not a big time commitment or anything for

Yeah. or once a quarter or something like that. So yeah. Uh, I make a motion of the following. Uh, for the Citizens Watery Advisory Board, uh, to nominate Ryan Cannon, dispatch board to nominate me, Robert Pope, the Hendrickers County Recycling District Board to nominate Don Lden. The HCEDP board nominate John Taylor. The RTC policy committee to nominate Ryan Cannon. The IRTC technical committee, Steve Moore. Uh the backups for those the IRTC policy committee to be Steve Moore, the technical committee backup to be Katon Olsen. Unless Steve, where you at? You got a change? That's good.

Um the chamber of commerce to nominate Ryan Cannon. Uh and the certain meetings, Ryan Cannon and Don Lden. Second. Second, please. Robert Pope four. Bill Holland, four. Greg Zusen, four. Don Laden, four. Jason Pucket, four. Okay. So, Greg, we'll show you on planning and building. And uh what other one did you say? That was it.

Okay. Planning and building. And then I'll still do the um county commissioners. Is there anyone else that wants to commit themselves to any Ryan, you do the collaboration group. Yeah, I do the collaboration. Take that off. You do collaboration group anymore, right? Do we have any annexation going on? I don't I don't but I want to. So, if you and Don would continue to help me with those, you guys have helped me for the last couple years with that. If you're willing to continue to work with me on that, I'd appreciate it. We'll be on an as needed basis. As needed basis. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. So, that leaves Steve, you've got public works covered for us. You'll be reporting back on that anyway, right? Yes. We have the school board, library, parks, police. I'll I'll take over police and attend merit board meetings.

Okay. Um, so no, so no library, no parks, no school, no WCCD.

Well, I think with you on the collaboration board, your you report back on the library and um the school. Well, library and school. I agree. Yep. And public works. We know where to find Steve. Yep. We know where to find Shelby. Okay. The only one that that leaves out there is WCCD. And well, Bill Calich is sitting by doing nothing. Yes, you can. You want to do the [laughter] WCCD? So funny. Okay. It'll be soon enough.

Um, then we have the security committee. Those are council president. I say that we if it's okay. Um, Robert, do you still want to be the council person on that one? Actually, not. I would recommend that the council president be that person if the items are of a secure nature. Okay. If I'm asked to fill that role, I I will, but as I spun that, help spin that up and the ethos of it, I would recommend that sits with the council president. Okay. All right. So, add me to that one. [clears throat] Um, so just for Julie, that would be the only change. Whoever's taking those notes over there, Ryan. Got it.

Continuity of operation. That's been um Chief Stops. It's been Jason Porter for the fire department, Steve Moore, Mike Tully, and then I've been on that. I I if someone else wants to sit on that, you're welcome to do it. It's basically if there's a catastrophic event that happens in the town, a um a CSX major spill, a tornado takes out the town, um you know, something catastrophic that um it is the process in which we get together and make sure that the town functions still continue. So, if I'm going to be on the other one, I mean, I can remain on that one, but if someone else wants their opportunity at it, I'm okay with that, too. Nobody's raising their hand. I guess it's

No, I would say that that is probably best. You know, we worked last year and so at this point, there's really there wouldn't be much work to do because there is has been updated. So, okay. All right. I'll be a busy girl. So, there's no changes on that one. I think we made it through that part. We did. Excellent job. Uh, moving on. Town attorney engagement letter. Dam

I think for the 24th time I have a engagement letter there for you. It's basically the same terms except for hourly rate which would increase from 245 to 255. That is the u best municipal rate that we offer our clients. So we'll offer it to you as well. We appreciate the uh opportunity to serve you and I'll be happy to answer any questions. No questions. But it was pointed out to me by a very studious person that uh there is an error on the second paragraph. It says for 2025 Greg Greg told me Yeah, Greg pointed it out. He he told me referring to Greg speak. Okay, we'll correct it. Yeah, sure. Okay. So, our copy online here still shows that. So,

so as amended, I'll make the motion to approve his his agreement with the town for 2026 at $255 an hour. Second. Thank you, Julie. Roll call, please. Robert Pope, four. Greg Susan, four. Bill Holland, four. [clears throat] Don Laden, four. Jason Pucket, four. And Dan, I want to say I appreciate everything you and Anna do for us. So, thank you. What? Okay. I made that change. Oh, okay. Thank you. Um, we have the INDOT CCCMG agreement.

I'll I'll just do this. As you guys know, anytime uh we get funding from INDOT, they make us sign an agreement. Uh Steve had previously reported to you guys that we were awarded 999,000 and some change uh for our paving. And so this is just the agreement which lays out the terms. It's the typical contract for CCMG. And so we do recommend approval. Uh and then I'm authorized to sign it and we docu sign it and then that kind of starts the process. Steve then bids it and then submits an invoice. We get a PO and then they basically give us the money. So this is kind of the first step to get the funds working towards our bank [clears throat] account.

My only question is to [snorts] Steve. What was the you've identified the areas that we're going to make these improvements to? What's the criteria? How do they qualify for these funds? Are they in that bad a condition? So, we invested in an asset management uh software.

And so, we utilize that software to help identify the best practices for uh maintenance. And so, we do different things for maintenance. We do the crack se ceiling. We do the reclamite. We do um uh thin overlays. We did we do reconstructions. We do skip patching. This program identifies the areas that are best served for um the maintenance. Uh we have limited dollars. It projects how much uh we can get done with the money that we have. But also for a fun thing, I think we showed it to you at one time. You know, if we had unlimited funds, what would we be able to do? So, uh, the software chooses it for us. And it's just based on, uh, traffic, um, traffic condition, um, and, um, uh, what the composition is, the age of the road, that kind of thing. So, bunch of factors.

I just want to say thank you. I always say this money will not last forever, and we need to use every dollar we can that's available to us. So, thank you. Okay. I move we adopt the INDOT CCMG agreement as presented. Second. Jay roll call please. Thank you. Bill Holland four. Greg Susan four. Don Lden four. Jason Bucket four. Robert Pope four.

Next is the zoning introduction for the gatherings lot two. Good evening. For the record, my name is David Gilman. I'm a zoning consultant in Indianapolis. My address is 211 South Ritter Avenue 46219. I represent Churchyard LLC. My client uh acquired a piece of property um known as the Gatherings. It is um 8397 to 8403 which um is located on the south side of US 36. It's about a quarter of a mile east of Jones Road. If you um know the area of this site long ago when I was around in Hendricks County, this was started out as 84 lumber properties industrial. Um and then uh about 2007 Fry Electronics acquired the property and then how Fry made some improvements to the buildings and there are three of them. There's one building up front facing 36 on lot one. There were two buildings directly behind it on lot two. Um my client the property about three or four years ago and now um the buildings are are constructed designed for multi-tenant commercial uses occupied the front lot that's already zone C2 however back number two which is the subject of my zoning that I'll bring to the plan commission next month is still I2 and what we were asking um the council to consider the plan commission to approve is to allow us to go ahead and resone that in C2. So the uses are compatible with the zoning and the master plan use plan for this area does

recommend commercial uses. So to get this property in alignment legally those commercial uses questions

any questions or discussion makes sense. Little housekeeping. Yeah. I make a motion we approve ZA25-3 the gatherings lock. It's an introduction though, but keep that thought. [laughter] You'll see me on the plan commission. Thank you. Thank you. Uh, next is resolution 2026-01. Guys, here we start again. Declaratory resolution for project lift personal property.

Yeah, we may take these two together. Um really they're they're they both kind of go together as you guys are are aware. Uh we had previously approved a tax abatement for uh Reagan Logistics. And so the building has been sitting vacant for a couple of years. Uh we are welcome or we are excited to welcome uh Heistister Yale who is going to fill that building. And so as as part of our economic development package that we offered to them, um we had offered uh to so there's a couple things here and that's why you have two resolutions. Uh we had previously approved a real property tax abatement. Um but since no one was in there, we didn't do a personal property tax abatement. So the second resolution is for the personal property tax. The first one is for the real property tax or or vice versa. Sorry, I apologize. you can read them on the agenda. I'm just talking, so sorry. Um, and so a couple things on the reel that I wanted to mention because it may not have been clear. One of the things we did commit to, uh, the personal property is pretty straightforward. It's a traditional abatement. Um, they did ask for amended abatement. So, that's what you'll notice in the in the second resolution that it's an amending or and acknowledging and affirming the economic development area for that. And so they're asking for an amended schedule on that. Um it is in your packets. I uploaded it. It was a little confusing in the original application because there was a request for a 10-year traditional abatement on new investment and then they asked on the already made investment to have an amended schedule. So uh on the new piece that I uploaded and when you guys see it when it gets to the confirmatory resolution, it is actually technically like three abatements. So, it's the personal property, it's the 70% on the amended, and then it's on the new investment. It's just a traditional 10-year

abatement. And so, I know Heistister Yale is here, and Alexis and Kitty Culp are here from CRM, and they're going to do a little bit of an introduction for you guys as well and answer questions.

Yeah, thank you. Um, for the record, Alexis Souer, I'm a director with KSM Location Advisors. Um, and we've had the opportunity to work with High Street since early last year. Um right, it's 2026. Um as they evaluated the potential relocation of their facility that currently exists in Danville, Illinois, um and throughout that process, um it became very evident uh that that Avon was going to continue to rise to the top. Um, so much of that is due in part to the fact that there was a large facility that that was vacant. Um, and that was going to be able to be pretty um, easily and immediately improved and get up and running operationally um, for this group. Um, additionally, you know, it was um, this particular project was more than just about picking up and and coming across the state line. This is going to be a project that for Heistister Gale materials handling is really going to be a flagship operation for them as it relates to how they train and serve their customer base out of this facility. Um, in combination with the the vacant facility itself, um, I also give props to Ryan, to John Taylor, to Hendrickx County Economic Development Partnership being very creative um, being very aggressive um, in in attracting this group um, through the use of economic incentives. So, for that uh, for that support um, of course, barring your guys' approval this evening and as we'll move to a confirming hearing in February, um, very much appreciated. But you don't want to hear from me. You want to hear from Tom Hashimoto who is the director of parts operation for Heistister Gale. He and his wife have made the trip here from Danville this evening. So want to give him a little bit of time at the microphone as well and here for any questions that you that you have. Thank you.

Um good evening. Uh Tom Ashimoto. Um I'm in charge of the parts operation in Danville, Illinois. And basically uh like Alexis mentioned um we had uh we outgrew our facility uh in Danville. Um 40 plus years of operation. We took over the manufacturing facility which uh Heistister we left to go down to Berea and that building or that empty building facility u became our uh parts operation home. Uh as you can imagine parts operation now is higher uh high ceiling ceiling requirements. We are um in Danville hodge podge of a warehouse ceiling heights and very difficult to operate. So we were in uh search of a new new home. Uh we're taking this opportunity to actually because of the space constraint that we had in Danville, we had to have uh receiving and packaging operation in uh two separate locations. One in Buchanan, Michigan and one in Peoria. So we are consolidating those operation into one. So not only we're moving the parts operation from Danville, we're looking to move parts u packaging receiving operation from Michigan as well as from Poria. So consolidating that operation actually those two operation out is outsourced 3PL and and our goal is to consolidate that operation into one. So bringing uh our in-house uh associates uh back to Hooser Indiana, right? And um just to give you a background of how um

the High Street is a global um material handling company. Uh we man manufacture forklift the material handling uh equipment throughout the world. Uh again, Berea, Greenville, North Carolina. um one in uh China, Na Megan uh and as um in the Netherlands and Brazil. So we have a global footprint and the parts of the operation in Danville oper uh support the this half of the hemisphere basically we manage the North America, Central Latin America, supporting Brazil but we do export as well. So what we what you will see is not only distribution parts within the North America will be exporting parts out to those supporting countries as well to support the parts uh that are needed for those um for those operation so globally. So, we're very excited uh excited uh as far as um moving and consolidating the operation, improving the uh customer service um uh to our uh to our dealers. And one of the critical point that I want to make is that with a parts operation and we're being a material handling company, we wanted to showcase our equipment within the parts operation. That's what we do. Yale techn lift technologies is um we provide equipment uh material handling equipment to many different types of uh parts operation distribution centers and we were not able to do that in our existing building. Uh so we're excited to showcase our equipment within the

warehouse bring in customers. So uh another aspect of this is to bring customers in dealers in to this facility. We're looking to create a um auditorium so that we would have a uh showcase uh presentation of our equipment to our uh customer and then actually physically going out into the warehouse showcasing our equipment. So that's our plan. Uh we're bringing in uh again um 350 um associates. Now some are some are going to be relocating from those uh from Danville, but many because of the 70 milei distance, we are uh will most likely have to look for a new hire here in Avon area. Matter of fact, we have started it already. So that's uh that's the activity and we are very excited as uh Alexis mentioned my wife is here uh prior to this meeting uh we uh we tour the facility we we tour the area we've done it several times but we're very excited to uh be moving to Avon and uh looking uh for a long-term relationship with all of you. Thank you.

You have a question. So when do you think you will begin occupying the space?

Uh actually the space itself um we we are already in process of moving some of those 3PL uh operations. Now granted uh building is not we're not ready for true operation yet but um we have the opportunity to start moving slowmoving parts that are not um basically uh very slow uh low volume parts. So we have already started occupying that area. U unfortunately we're having to use the associates from the Danville area. our uh some of our office staff are here on on a daily basis uh to support the unloading of those parts. So we have started that the true uh actual operation and consolidation of the operation um actually started. Uh again um the Peoria location we we have already closed down and some of that operation is in Danville right now waiting for the warehouse to be ready. So that that is uh taking place. the um Buchanan Michigan facility will uh transition between February and March. So we are in process of within this month uh looking to hire uh the warehouse associates first and then um beginning in uh Q Q2 Q3 uh we will try uh have some of the warehouse uh office operation associates moving here. Uh if they uh decide not to move uh we'll be uh looking for replacement uh locally. the actual office uh office is being designed and built uh right now with the working with the architect deck and

that's the auditorium and all that uh that should be completed Q uh Q3 Q4 of this year. So our goal is to completely move into this facility within 26. Okay. So that that is our goal as far as the transitional phases of uh of this operation. Well, welcome Avon. Thank you. Any other questions? I have a couple questions. First of all, thank you. Um, you know, when you build a spec building, you're excited to build a spec building, but you don't know who's going to be in it. And then you come along High Street Yale and it's like, wow. Yeah.

You're you're very fortunate to find the size of just to give you an idea hodgepodge of about some of that. I hate to mention this, but some of those parts were stored outside and we're having to clean and you know process make sure that you know customer and because of that we're looking for again the ceiling height uh has to do a lot right 700,000 square feet but 36 foot clear

right so with that we we can go vert vertically and horizontally. So, we're not looking to utilize um we're probably going to be and we're looking for a very aggressive plan to grow into building. [snorts] Basically, what we're looking at is utilizing the space that's available, floor space right now. And then as we grow, we will build up.

Well, and if you would let your employees know they're welcome here in Avon as well. So, anybody that wants to come with you, we'll do whatever we can to assist. I did have two questions. I don't know if Alexis wants to answer this or if you want to answer this, but on your It's easy. I will answer. [laughter] Well, if you defer to Alexa, then I caught you. But [laughter] okay. When you you're asking for, and this is on the personal property side, you're asking for a 10-year abatement, but within your documentation, you show that your expected life is 3 to seven years. And so my question is, if it's only going to last, we'll say, seven years, why do you need a 10-year abatement?

[laughter] No, that's a great question. Um, so, um, as you guys are likely aware, this property does sit in a tiff district. Um, we know there have been lots of changes legislatively with all things, uh, related to property tax here in Indiana. Um, so the 30% floor will remain intact for personal property at this facility. So tax liability will remain um, above and beyond, right, the useful life um, that we're estimating for this equipment. Full disclosure, I gave her this heads up early on, so she was able to [laughter] the the other question I have then is regarding the real estate side. Sure.

And that abatement, and Ryan, you kind of covered it, but you're asking to go back to an original 10-year abatement. That bond's been sold to an investor. I don't believe I can tell you that we can do that. We need the investor to say, "Yes, we're okay with that." And I believe you said you had documents.

Yes. Yeah. No, that's that's a great catch. And again, kudos to your to your economic development staff and and Ryan as town manager. Um we yeah, kind of at the tail end of 25 there. Um had this exact conversation. Um had discussions with the bond holder. Um had discussions with the town's financial consultant. um made sure we crossed those tees, dotted those eyes so that the existing bond holder is is very well aware of the request that's being made in terms of the abatement amendment and we're going to get something in writing. We did that exactly, Greg. So we we had a meeting with them as Alexis said and we had them sign a what was it called? Consent. Consent to modification. Yeah. Okay.

And that was just as a reminder that was DRG. And so we did meet with them. we shared actually the cash flow and everything and that we were still going to have sufficient funds to pay off the bond and so DRG said they had no objection to it and signed the document for us. That was my only question and Heather James helped us as well. Yeah. Okay.

I do like to make one more comment. our commitment to uh here location Avon um not only we you know we were looking for a long-term lease uh agreement with the uh landlord right and our intent is to stay our our go uh again um when we were going through the search uh search for this facility we're not looking for a short-term uh type of investment Right. So that's another reason we were looking for a growth opportunity. Uh not only we have room to grow within the within the facility, but we were looking to lock in a long term. So that that is our commitment.

Okay. Thank you. That's good to hear. I think it's important to, you know, we always look when we do our economic development, we want to be unique. We want to be different. We don't want to be like our neighbors. And so you complement what we're trying to do and hopefully we can complement what you're trying to do. Appreciate that. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll make a motion, if there's no other comments, to approve resolution 2026-01 and resolution 2026-2 as presented with the modification that Ryan will provide us regarding the consent of the bond holder. Second.

[clears throat] Is there anything? Yeah. Julie, roll call, please. Robert Pope, just for clarification, this motion is for both 26 20261 and 20262. Yes. Four. Jason Pucket. Four. Don Laden. Four. Bill Holland. Four. Greg Zusen four. Great. Final reading of ordinance 2025-36 adopting the amended internal controls policy.

Can we remember we uh Jason made the motion to add 20263. So could we do that resolution first before we move on to the ordinance? Let's do that. That is the

Yeah, this is the um ordinant resolution 20263 uh authorizing the rebuttal and request to reconsider a petition uh to appeal for an increase above the maximum levy. So, as we discussed in our work session, um the DLGF denied our growth levy appeal uh even though we met the criteria. And so, uh, we've met with our financial adviserss. We've consulted our legal team. Um, and we believe the best path forward is to provide a rebuttal and a request for them to reconsider. We've slightly modified that request. Our original request was 825,000. Uh, we've reduced that to 505,000 and we're going to provide them some additional information in hopes that they will actually reconsider uh their position and uh, affirm that. and we are uh rejecting the 1782 that they provided. Um and so we will reject that and submit this uh rebuttal and reconsideration and then we'll see what happens from there. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. The discussion pretty well took place in the work session. So, I make a motion that we approve resolution 2026-03 authorizing rebuttal and request to consider petition to appeal for an increase above the maximum levy as presented. I'll second. Roll call, please. Bill Holland, four. Len, four. Jason Pucket, four. Greg Susan, four. Robert Pope, four. Okay, going back to the final reading for ordinance 2025-36 adopting the amended amended internal controls.

Yes, this ordinance would uh make uh two amendments to your internal controls policy. The first would be to uh provide regulation for a by money fund. Uh which um of course you will see an ordinance later if there is such a fund created but to the extent there is this would establish the internal controls for the use of that and those funds. And then um secondly, it would also um adopt uh an internal controls that would uh deal with funds uh for uh from projects financed by financed by bonds. So this is uh would be in response to uh new guidance of the state board of accounts on um oversight of those use of those funds to make sure they're used properly. This internal control would be applicable to all to not only yourselves but also all of your boards and commissions. This is second reading and I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Discussion questions. I move we adopt ordinance 2025-36 adopting amended internal controls policy as presented. Second. Roll call, please. Greg Zusen, four. Bill Holland, four. Robert Pope, four. Jason Pucket four, Don Lden four,

legal council report. Dan, just want to say that in the first quarter is a really busy time. We'll be doing training of all your boards and commissions and also later doing training with you uh regarding risk management and other matters. So that will keep us uh pretty busy. And then I also just wanted to let you know since Anna Cone is such an important part of our team that on January 1 she became a shareholder and director of our fur. Congratulations. [laughter] So we're gonna get more for less.

Okay. Next is public comment. Nobody. All right. Next is council comment. Okay. Next is council calendar.

Uh your next meeting is January 22nd. Um I would like to ask um there may be potentially a need for an executive session before that meeting. I'm I need to look into it some more and get back to you guys, but I'm curious if if we needed to do that, would you guys be available at 5:30 or 6 on the 22nd before that meeting if we decide it's needed? Again, I don't need you to schedule it yet. I'll I'm I'll get back to you guys and probably have a conversation with you about what it's for. Okay. I can't find my I can make it. The only thing that I can see is that's leadership Hendricks County. Oh, is that Leadership Hendrickx County?

And that starts at 5:30, but we'll get there [snorts] and you have to leave 30 minutes later, so doesn't matter. And I also heard um a strategic session mentioned a couple times. So, is that something we want to schedule for January or do we want to do that?

Normally, we look so at the end of January, we normally get like a three-week span. So, the last couple of years we've done it like the first weekend in February because then we have a an extra week in there. So, Don, maybe if if you guys are all willing to do it, I would recommend we do it every year. I think we ought to do a strategic session about what our goals are for 2026. And so, I think that would be the good time, but I can work with you, Don, and and try to pick a date and then confirm with everybody. Okay, that's all I have for calendar. Okay. Meeting adjourned.