Board of Public Works and Safety and Common Council - Regular Meeting

Very good. Does that mean we're ready? Good evening and welcome to today's May 11th Board of Public Works meeting. Um, do we have on plane? Okay. All right, we're going to be doing uh roll call votes again this evening, so bear with us. Um we call roll call, please. Call here.

Wow, that's a lot. I remember. Oh, here

I entertain a motion to approve the minutes from our last meeting, please. Second. Have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. Call, yes. Agar, yes. Builder, yes. Borrow, yes. Listenberger, yes. All right, jumping in. Donnie, anything this evening? Not tonight, John. Very good, Dan.

Go ahead. Evening. Um tonight um I bring before the board um a request for dedication of the public infrastructure for Monomony Heights. Monomin Heights is located right across the street from Monomin Elementary School. You can see the parking lot of the elementary school and that map there down towards the bottom. And that curved road is Discovery Road. And the two streets that we are dedicating tonight are Notc Court and Chestnut Circle. Um so they want us to take over maintenance for all the asphalt pavement, concrete curb, concrete sidewalk, street lighting, public water main, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer. within the rideway and easements as depicted in the Asville engineering drawings. Um, if you want to scroll, Kyle's my visual effects uh coordinator here. So, this is the water man. Um, it makes a loop from Discovery to uh believe that's Elm Street going north and south. If you want to scroll up back to the sanitary sewer, that's what the sanitary sewer looks like. And there are some easements that sanitary sewer is um traversing. And all the highlighted green parts are what we are taking over for maintenance.

If you want to scroll back up to the road actually is the storm sewer. The next slide there's the storm sore network that we are taking over. So they are keeping um the maintenance on the basin and are responsible for keeping its upkeep. and the outlet pipes that go into that basin. If we can go back to the streets, please. Uh, Knock Court is 265 ft long and it's about 34 ft wide and Chestnut Circle is 225 ft long and 34t wide as well. Um the engineer uh Robbie Mlullen is here if you have any questions. Otherwise, I'd like to uh make the recommendation to accept the public infrastructure.

You you Dan, you've inspected this yourself and you found everything to be compliant. You you've inspected this as well and you found everything to be in compliance. Yes, that's correct. It's nice to see some see that palpate filled up. I'll make a motion to approve the request. Second. Okay, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion on this? Hearing none. Roll call vote, please. Paul, yes. Edgar, yes. Milner, yes. Maro, yes. Listen, yes.

Thank you. That's all from me. Good night. Thank you, Dan. Yes,

that's a public hearing for the bank at 405 Park Street. Public hearing. Second. It's Well, it's not. Remember, it's not a public hearing. It's an evidentiary hearing. Uh so uh you'll hear testimony from Dennis and from anyone with an interest in the property if they choose, but it's not open to the public. Okay. This property was brought to my attendance by the Wait a minute. So we still have to open up for a hearing or no? Yeah, you should just document. So let's do that. And

you got a motion in a second. Any further discussion on that? Yeah. Uh, roll call vote, please. Golf, yes. Ecker, yes. Milner, yes. Maro, yes. Menburgger, yes. Okay. Okay. This brought my to my attention by Marsh County Department.

Gentleman was living in there. Reported that was his address and as stated in the last meeting, there was no basically no living He was sleeping in a bedroom. There was no water utilities to the house. Had no kitchen. Um, from what they reported, deficating a bucket. Um, so I issued an emergency vacate order, contacted the property owner. He actually has his representative here tonight. He informed me the gentleman was told that he could store stuff in the house. He was not to live in the house. Apparently, he took it upon himself to live in the house.

Okay. If you want to hear from the owner's representative, she is here. So, um, you going to explain what your action you want to take is going to be? Apparently, they did tell the gentleman he did have to move out. Okay. I wanted it boarded up to make sure this didn't happen again. I'll let them speak. Okay. Come on up. If you state your name and address, please. Hello. My name is Sharon Oedo. I live at 800 Lake Avenue and I am the daughter of Benjamin.

Okay. Welcome. Um, so with this regarding this property, we bought it a while back. It is as we bought it. We've only replaced the roof of the property and we got a permit for that. The gentleman at the time wanted somewhere to store his belongings cuz he had no home at the time. My father told me that he let him put his stuff inside the house. Yeah. But we under we did have no no knowledge of him living in the house. Good. Yeah.

Um we don't have an issue um with like vacating the property. He already moved out. That's fine. Just the boarding up the property. The windows are intact. The doors are intact. We can always lock the doors and close all the make sure the windows are locked to make sure no one comes in. But boarding it up could damage the exterior of the property, the windows and the trim. So, we just didn't want that to happen and see if we can get away with not boarding it up. Um, my question would be Jeff is actually probably gonna up here. This is just for a vacate, right? Okay. I was going to say,

so the the order to vacate the Dennis issue just requires that the occupant uh vacate the premises until repairs are made to remediate the the problems. Uh, your options tonight are to affirm the order, resend the order, or modify the order, but you cannot make it more strict than what was originally issued. So, if Dennis does feel in the future that it's necessary to board it up, he'll have to issue a separate order for that. Your options tonight are just regarding the uh order to vacate.

Okay. I'll make a motion to affirm the order. Okay. Second. Do we do that during this hearing or do we close the hearing first? You can do it now. Okay. All right. We have a motion and a second. So, you understand the boarding up is not part of this order. So, you can talk later about that. But, uh any uh further discussion? I do have one question though, if I may. It looks like this was transferred to you folks in 2022. Yes. And nothing's been done to the home since ownership.

Um it was um there was some legal legal issue in the matter of the selling of the property that we had went to court for. Eventually we did get the property. So it was in like a standstill for 2 years. So we hadn't been able to work on it. Finances and what's not wrapped up with the law in the court. Okay. Thank you. Any further discussion? Okay. Roll call vote, please. Yes. Becker, yes. Miller, yes. Maro, Burger, yes.

Okay. Um, while we're on the subject, I did issue a separate board up order and that is reason Ben close out that issue. Do we have to close the hearing? Does he matter? No, you you took a final action because it's not a public hearing. You don't have to do official. So now this is a different matter.

This is a different matter. I did order a board up order. Ben, when he came in and signed for the order, he did tell me he was going to make sure the guy was out. He was going to make sure that it was all locked up. He wanted permission not to board it up. And I said, I don't know. We're I'm going to leave that up to the board because how do I know this isn't going to happen again? So, I won't say that as she stated, they did put a new roof on it and they did take uh I believe one tree out. I think they took one tree out of the property, maybe two. Um, are your intentions to start working on it here shortly or

um in the future? Yes. But as of right now, we don't have a current timeline on we just don't want to put any further damage on the property. Yeah. But the longer it sits without any activity on the home risks further damage. Yeah. So that's a concern that we have or I have anyway on the property especially since you've taken clean ownership since 24 and here it is two years later and there's been none

no activity at all and that that just to me raises a lot of concerns for maintaining the quality of the home. So I don't know what we can do on that but I think it's something that needs to be out out in front. Dennis has made us aware of it and I think it's a legitimate concern and from a safety perspective as well.

Yeah, I think back on the uh um property by the conservation clubhouse. Uh you know, we we confronted the same issue there and people and other people ended up getting back back in there. No, doors can be broken, windows can be broken. Uh so that would be my my concern without boarding it up. Still feel pretty strongly about it.

I still say board it up. That's my personal belief in it. But my only other recourse would be if we get any report of any broken windows, somebody entering the property unlawfully, it gets boarded up. No questions asked. So one infraction you one infraction. Understandable. So we would need to you'd have to change your work order or your I would have to modify the order. Anybody want to give him I make a motion to allow him to do that or I'll make that motion and I'll second it.

All right. We have a motion in a second to amend your order to include I guess uh one infraction of anything then we're going to demand it to be done immediately I suppose. Yeah. Okay. Uh any other questions? Roll call vote please. Oh. Yes. Yes. Milner. Yes. Maro. Yes. Yes. Very good. All right. Thanks. That's all I have. That's it. Oh, you guys have him. Did you want to ask him anything? Usually you do.

Uh yes. Um as far as the uh the fines that we vote two weeks ago on the Red Rock property, have those been paid? They have not. No, they have until Friday to pay those before they're turned over for a leak. Thank you. And they they fully understand that. Correct, Lyn? Who knows? I mean, we've obviously communicated. They got they got the letter. Yeah. Dennis, I hate to bring this one up, but the home on Hillrest that's been under construction for several years.

What can we do to move that forward? to get them get that have them get that completed. He has a he has a viable permit. Is that an open-ended date though? No. So his first permit expired. Okay. And he came in paid for a new permit started his work on it. Right. Which gives him two more years. How many years? Two years. to what is the current when would that the current permit expire? Not now. Right now.

Okay. It's one that we I feel we need this. It's in a neighborhood that quite frankly there's some pro people are taking care of their properties and this is a clear example not being completed. And there's a couple other things I can always talk to you about but this one has been going on over three years now. And I think that uh that's plenty long enough. Whatever we can do to move that forward, I would I would greatly appreciate it. It's been just just about three years. What's that? Been just about three years. Just ever ever since we had the first problem and the police department was involved in with the previous Well, that was that was before me.

I know. I know. But it's just been an it's been an ongoing issue and uh I I think it's time to bring it home

Yeah. I was thinking on that a little bit. I got some thoughts later. Get it done. Get her done.

Okay. All right. Next up, Chief H. Good evening. Uh, I do have one agenda item, but I want to cover a couple other things real quick. Uh, just so you know, uh, we're moving along with our class A uniforms. We have another fitting on a Wednesday to hopefully get the rest of the department uh, measured and fitted and then we can place our order on that um, at the latest. It should be towards the end of this week. So, appreciate that again that we're able to do that. Um the other thing is I want to uh take time and acknowledge a promotion within the department. Um if John would stand. Uh John Lkins uh was promoted to captain with the fire department. Um so he's showed some real leadership and dedication. He has been a leader on um previous jobs and uh we just appreciate the help that he's given to us. his uh

his captain position will give him leadership skills and authority within shift as well as the fire ground operations. So, We are going to swear in Taylor McVoy tonight. Uh very proud of her and she is um kind of I guess proved our CTE program uh worthy. uh she's she was in our very first fire class that the CTE class or CT program provided and then went on to the EMT class the next year and was able to uh receive both her certifications both fire and EMT uh first time through and she uh then applied with our department and she's been doing very well for us. So, uh, she's getting to follow in her father's footsteps, a retired, uh, Southbend firefighter. So, I think there's a little pride that goes along with that also. Um,

this is awesome. It is.

Let's get some We got Raise your right hand and repeat after me. I, Taylor McFoy, I Taylor McFoy, do solemnly swear do so sorry that I will support the Constitution of the United States that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana and the Constitution of the State of Indiana and that I will to the best of my abilities that I will to the best of my abilities faithfully and impartially faithfully and impartially discharge my duties discharge my duties as a firefighter EMT as a firefighter EMT of the city of Plymouth Indiana of the city of Indiana. According to the law according to the law. So help me God. So help me God.

Congratulations. probably. Hey, before you go, I need you to sign those, please.

Yeah, I'll get it to Kathy.

Pictures are not very good. You got a good one that Jamie can use. Sure. Which one do you want? That's all I had for tonight. Does anybody else have anything for me? Do you want to talk about the fundraiser? Should we? Um, so it's a week from Saturday, right? Yeah, I believe. So, I'm not I'm not even sure the times on that. So, uh, yeah. Starts at 8, I believe, on March 23rd. 8 a.m. breakfast at the firehouse.

Yeah. So, 8 a.m. Yeah, all the proceeds will go to uh help Jim and Dar with the bills that they've been inquiring. So, every little bit helps and we appreciate anything that anybody can help with it. So, um May 23rd, 8:00 a.m. to what again? I think it's 11. Probably 11. And it's usually you guys usually have really good breakfast. So, it's it's we like to think so. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thanks. Very good. Chief John is not here. Have you got anything for us this evening, Matt? Nothing tonight, your honor.

Okay. Um I do have Tim Bittinger in the house who is sitting in from the street department. Thanks for being here. Uh do you have anything seen? Very good. Thank you for being here. Um Mike Collins, I had nothing tonight. Very good. I don't know if Mike Kite is online or not. I don't believe so. Okay. And then Bill Sheileely, your honor. Thank you. Very good. City attorney. Nothing tonight, your honor. Thank you. When anything this evening? Okay.

Okay. We have a request from Anna Corbett with the Kuanas Club to close Becknel Drive from Randolph Street to Fryman Shelter beginning at 8 a.m. on Saturday, June 6 for a kids obstacle course event. Anna is here to speak on the event.

It's not the whole street. I only eat half. Answer is no. Well, that's okay with me. I don't care. No. Um I don't need the whole street. I just need half. We'll cone it and cuz we don't want to make the pickle ballers mad. So we only need half the road. They got to get to their pickle course. Yes, sir. Yeah. We'll make it motion we approve twice. Second. All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote, please. Call, yes. Eer, yes. Miller, yes. Maro, yes. Listenberger. Yes, I know I'm not the right club.

Thank you. Thank All right, moving on down to uh entertain a motion to approve our claims. May our packet second. Have a motion. Second. Second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. Call. Yes. Ecker. Yes. Mner, yes. Maro, yes. Rosenberger, yes. And acceptance of communications. Move to accept the communications in our packet. Second. Motion in a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none, roll call vote, please. Paul, yes. Ecker, yes. Milner, yes. Maro, yes. Listen, yes. And number 10.

Motion to adjourn. Very good. Thank you. Wow. We got through a lot of

We were chit chatting. Okay. I'd like to call to order the um May 11, 2026 common council meeting. Uh Blinda, would you lead us in a prayer, please?

Please pray with me. Dear Lord God, we come to you this evening with the joy in our hearts and we're so grateful for this lovely weather we've had and appreciate the newness of life that is all around us. We thank you for our wonderful city and we thank you for everybody who has so eagerly just come to the aid of one of us who is in need and we're just so appreciative of your hand in all of it. We just know that we continue to uplift and pray for them and and ask for your healing and um give them what they need and bless this community because of what they're doing and that their oneness and purpose. We thank you for our opportunity to serve and our learning to know how to get along and to ask the questions and to uh make decisions with with information that that is correct. We ask that you continue to bless us as we serve all those who uh meet the needs of this community in any way, shape, or form. We ask you especially bless them right now. We lift up anyone who has any special concern or need or they're they're needing to know that you especially are with them or are giving them what they need, although they may not even know what they need. We just are especially also grateful for our new firefighter that is coming into our our our community. We thank you for all these wonderful things that uh are around us and we ask you to be with us as we continue this work of this community and this meeting tonight. These things we ask in your name. Amen.

Amen. Thank you. Join me in the pledge of allegiance, please. of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Okay. Roll calls, please. Paul here. Eer here. Paul here. Ecker here. Miller here. Maro here. That's the murderer here. Star here. Sorry. All right. The crowd will have pinned out. Yeah. Um, report people. I entertain a motion to approve our minutes from the last meeting, please. I so move that we approve the minutes. I have a motion. Second. And second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. Call. Yes. Ecker.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Milner. Yes. Maro. Yes. Star. Yes. Okay. Anything from the board this evening? Yes. Okay.

I have a couple things. Um it's been a long time since we been working on that uh issue of the point and it's lovely to see that it's gone and u it took a lot of time and a lot of effort to get that done and I appreciate that it that it is no longer an eyesore and that we are and move forward with that and I think it's a great thing that that when Dennis does make a a letter send a letter to someone that needs to be um notified that they need to do some work. It does work. It doesn't always take months and months and months. So, I appreciate that one on North Michigan Street. And the final thing, I just wanted to say how much I appreciated the mayor's prayer breakfast this uh last week. It was very meaningful and um I I was just very touched with the message.

It was It was really nice. It really was. So, thank you. Oh, um, Pastor Hass, if I'm saying it correctly, did a wonderful job. I was introduced him and all that. I was saying Pastor H and it's not that. So, I messed up, but it's Pastor Hass, I think. So, okay. Anything else? See, Randy? Yes. I just curious. So, when will like when will we see the ebike lease bikes? How do you have anybody uh scheduled to be on those?

Good evening. Um yeah, so our primary rider that is our school resource officer, Steve Dele. Um he enjoys riding that bike, so you'll see it very often uh once school's out of session. Um outside of that, we're kind of closing out some a few different things, but but now that the weather gets warm, I think they were out last weekend a little bit though. Somebody was. Yeah, one of them. I believe somebody told me they saw him.

I just curious question. Is there any strategy from the department on uh checking the the health parts uh for proper tags and signage and um I know there's been some discussion and you have been here in past meetings that they've been on the greenway. They uh there have been individuals, not me, that said they've seen them that that weren't properly uh tagged with, you know, signage and and our registration.

Yeah. So, we push that out to our officers to keep an eye on that, you know, reminding them of the golf cart regulation. Obviously, over the winter time, you hardly see a golf cart out, even though people do drive them in the winter time. Um but now that uh it's getting warmer out, the ebike will definitely help. Um and then when we start our park patrol session, we'll have an officer in the evening assigned to the park. And then with our school resource officers coming back to patrol, we'll have some additional resources there that can, you know, obviously be an extra eye out on the street and be on patrol um really during the uh morning daytime hours. So I think that will help in both those regards. Okay. Thank you. Okay. All right. Moving on. Um, new business. Okay. First item. You have several more CF1s. I think this is the last of them,

correct? Okay. So, if you'd like, we can pull out any individual one and discuss it or you can approve them all together if you prefer. Kayla just give me the nod on her knowledge catch anything on that. I would vote that we pass all those CF. One motion second. Hey, we have a motion in a second. Any further discussion? Hearing none. Roll call vote. Call yes. Ecker. Yes. Yes. Loganer. Yes. Milner? Yes. Maro? Yes. Star? Yes.

Okay. The next item is PC 2026. It's a certified proposal to amend the official zoning map for the city of Plymouth. Um that came from the plan commission. However, the applicant reached out today and has withdrawn that application. So, there's no need to take action on that. Um and then the next item is for the treasur. I'll let her take that. All right, we have seven donations for you to accept this evening. Three in the amount of $1,000 each. One from KB Gourmet Group, one from USI Consultants, and one from Troyer Group. All to be used for the mayor's summer of music. One in the amount of $500 from Interior Credit Union to be used for the tractor show. One in the amount of $300 $300 from Wild Rose Moon to be used for the tree committee. One in the amount of $50 from Bertha Blue for the police department with no designation as to what the funds should be used for. and one in the amount of $1,250 from Essential Wellness Solutions to be used for the police vehicle sponsorship. I'm asking if you wish to accept the donations with the restricted terms, conditions, and purposes attached to the donations. If so, the donations will be receded into the monetary gift fund.

So moved. Second. Motion in a second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. Yes. Ecker. Yes. Crackwell. Yes. Longer. Yes. Milner? Yes. Maro? Yes. Stark? Yes. I got a question. Yes, sir. Curiosity than anything, but uh I've understood that the mayor's month of music is self-sustaining with donations, but that pretty good budget money isn't used. Is that correct? For the most part. Yes. So in in the event that uh we collect more donations

then it stays then it stays in the monetary gift fund to continue on. Okay. Although last year there was not enough collected so the overage was paid out of the promotion of the city fund. Thank you. Once you're included yeah that's good. Not wearing my brace today so it's getting better.

Okay. Well that's good. Okay, there are a couple of ordinances on first reading tonight. Ordinance number 2026-2259, an ordinance to amend the city of Plymouth building code to require emergency key boxes. That is for first reading unless you have any questions. It requires no action. And then ordinance number 2026-2260, an ordinance regarding permit and application fees for the city of Plymouth. Also on first reading, I will just comment on this that um this was a a joint effort. Um city plan director Ty Adley and building commissioner Dennis Manuel and I believe that uh deputy clerk treasurer Kyle Williams was involved in this. What they've tried to do is um determine exactly what it costs the city to process those various applications that are listed there and uh set the fees to correspond to the actual cost of processing those. Again, that's first reading. So unless you have questions, it does not require any action. I've also looked into that just because of my history with the building stuff and it's in comparison to what I see. So,

okay. Okay. Next is resolution number 2026-1200 uh city of Plymouth Internal Controls Policy. And if you have any questions on this, I'll direct them to Lynn because this is her work. I'll just read what what uh was changed here. So in resolution 2026-1200 there are some updates in receipts dispersements payroll procedures EMS receipts building commissioner along with adding penny phase out procedure.

These internal controls are reviewed annually to ensure the procedures are up to date and accurate. and the receipts. It was updated to include marking marking bills $5 or greater uh with a fraud prevention marker to ensure that there is no fraud fraudulent money coming in. In dispersements, um if the signature stamp is used for the clerk, treasurer or the mayor, it will be initialed by who is using the signature stamp. In the payroll procedures, a sick note form procedure was added. The EMS receipts uh it was updated to remove Acimemed and Acummed Group as we as it now transitioned to EMSMC as our EMS billing provider. In the building commissioner receipts, it was updated to remove PACE payments and replaced with Govwell and Govwell settlement as our provider for credit card payments for building permits and contractor fees. In addition, the penny phase out section was added. Does anybody have any questions in regards to the internal controls? Good.

Thank you. So, this is a resolution. I make a motion we pass resolution 2026-1200. Second. Motion and second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. Call. Yes. Agar. Yes. Crapo. Yes. Longer. Yes. Builder. Yes. Maro. Yes. Star. Yes.

Okay. Next is resolution number 2026-1201. A resolution of the common council of the city of Plymouth to approve the application of Rosio Himeay and Himemes's Grocery LLC for a commercial revitalization rebate program grant. Don't. Yes. Not here. I would make a motion to table this request until representatives all second. I have a motion and a second. Any further discussion? Roll call vote, please. To table. Call. Yes. Ecker. Yes. Yes. Yes. Ward. Yes. Maro, yes. Sir,

yes. Okay. Do we move into other business? One. Marshall County update. I do not have an update right now other than I know that uh we are very very close to a decision on hiring the first full-time employee. Otherwise, I will have You told us that two weeks ago. It's closer closer. They're down to my understanding is they interviewed the final two candidates and they are preparing to make an offer to one of them. Oh, it is closer. For sure. Now we have it's it's a process. I was I was always told uh hire slow, fire fast. So I think they're working very slowly on the hiring process.

Otherwise uh I should have more of an update after the next board meeting at your next meeting. Any update on the comprehensive plan? Briefly. Just a quick update on the comprehensive plan. Uh we have received the copies of plan update from the Ball State uh students. So we'll be going through that, making any final touches and preparing it uh to go to planning commission here in the near meetings and then it'll be coming in front of you for adoption. Thank you.

Thanks T. Privilege of the Tim. You got anything this evening? No. Aren't you glad you came? Yeah. Okay. Well, first one for years. See you next. See you at the next one. All right. Acceptance of communications. Move to accept communications. We have a motion. Second. Have a second. Roll call vote, please. Yes. Ecker. Yes. Wall. Yes. Longer. Yes. Milner? Yes. Maro? Yes. Star. Yes. Motion to adjourn. Very good. Go ahead. Okay. Hey D, where are you?