Common Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening everyone. Welcome to the December 2nd, 2025 city council meeting. We're streaming live on city mass and YouTube channel and archiving our meetings there. Um like with our prior meetings, we'll invite you to stand and recite the Lord's Prayer followed by the pledge of allegiance and we'll get into tonight's business. Thank you. Our Father who in heaven be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you everyone. Clerk, may we have a roll call, please? Sure. Patrick Tavanau here. Carla Krebs here. Lucy Dillo here. Josh Schaefer here. Joel Storm absent. Joel Storm's present by Oh, he's on electronic. Okay. Uh Jim Bartlett here. And Josh Wilbur here. Thank you. Uh before I get into the agenda, I just ask, are there any students here tonight from either Madison, Southwestern, Shaw? Oh, yeah. All right. Well, I want to welcome you. I didn't get a chance to come out and say hello earlier, but welcome to city council meeting. Tonight's going to be a very special meeting. giving you a Constitution in the United States.

Uh we like to say hello to our students who are in the audience on our council meetings because what you get to see is your government uh working for you and uh I believe that there's no better form of government than your local government. And here you have representatives from all across the city and all five of our districts and two at large plus our click treasurer and the mayor's office and several members of our staff are here tonight as well as members of our board of public works and our uh city mass police department merit board are here. So I want to welcome everybody here tonight and thank you for being here. Uh oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I miss you? you want to.

There we go. Thank you. And now we can move on with the agenda. Sorry for that interruption. Council, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from the November 18th meeting? If so, we'll entertain a motion to approve. I move that we approve the meetings from the the minutes from the previous meeting.

I second. Josh and I second. All right. All you Carla. Any discussion? Hear none. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you. Well, what makes tonight special for all of us here is the swearing in ceremony for our city of Madison Police Department chief of police, as well as something unique, I think, in Madison Police Department's history, which is also a swearing in of the of two assistant chiefs of police who will work uh beside Chief Munt in pursuing um public safety for the city of Madison. So, at this time, I'd like to invite Rick Munt up to take his oath of office and his family. He'd like he'd like to come.

Come on, family.

Yeah. Chief, you've been through this a few times. Tonight's special because I know we did swearing in just a few weeks ago, but I'm very proud to make this a permanent appointment as our chief of police. So, please raise your right hand. I

swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana. I will faithfully and diligently discharge the duties as police department. Get you to sign right there, Rick. That's all right. Final touch. Please take time after tonight's meeting and when we post the uh announcement, look at their resumes. Collectively, I think they have between five and six decades of law enforcement experience all serving the city of Madison. I think that's remarkable.

I believe his in-laws should come up, too. I swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Indiana. I will faithfully and impartially diligently discharge the duties

as assistant chief police department to the best of my ability. sign right there. Yep. Thanks, sir.

Thank you, And look at here.

I Ricky Harrison

that I will support the Constitution of the United States. and constitutional state of Indiana and diligently discharge the duties as chief of the city police department. Get your sign right there.

Thank you all so much for serving our community. Mr. Mayor, yes. If I may, I have a brief statement I'd like to read from uh Dave Adams, president of the Police Merit Board. Okay. As president of the board, we all agree and are excited to promote Rick Muntz to chief police chief and detective sergeant Ricky Harris and Detective Sergeant Kyle Cutshaw to our major positions. All three have stepped up to lead our police force team and boost our morale from within. Thank you.

Thank Councilman and uh thank you Dave for his remarks. This is a unique time for Madison because as we continue to focus and prioritize public safety, you know, having two assistant uh chiefs supporting Chief Munt and focusing on investigative as well as patrol and administrative resources, I think is going to bring even more of their experience to the betterment of our community and certainly to the professionalism and experience and training of our uh other officers who are doing fantastic job. So, I'm very excited about what the future holds. And Rick, thank you. And Rick and Kyle, thank you all so much for uh stepping up. Moving on to the less exciting part of our agenda.

Now, do we want to allow those families that need to be somewhere else? They're they're all welcome to leave or stay for the exciting part. So, well, you know, they have kids, so I just wanted them I didn't want them to feel bad that they needed to leave. We're going to go through the business portion of our agenda and the swearing in parts completed. If you'd like to stay, you're welcome to. Same thing with our board of public works and mayor board members. Thank you all for being here. All students though have to stay I think to get full credit don't they till the end of I

think we have two resolutions on the agenda tonight um and are these on yeah just two resolutions so it's resolution number 2025-19C a resolution of the common council of the city of Madison Indiana transferring certain appropriations and revenue between different funds. And then we also have 2025-20C and that is also is that an ordinance or resolution? Both resolutions. Okay. This one is titled Yeah. And same I made the same error on this one. It says ordinance in the body, but it's a resolution.

Yep. It's okay. U same thing. a resolution of the common council of city mass and Indiana transferring certain appropriations from uh between different funds. I think we can take both of them up at the same time.

Okay, I can talk about both of them. 19c um is obviously moving money into the FICA perf line in the common council budget. That's where all of these funds will move into. That's where we take FICAR for all of our police officers, you guys, BPW members, our paid fire members. If we hire someone midyear something, we need a place to take it. That's where it goes. So, um this the amount of that is a combination of an error on my part and not budgeting enough in FICA perf, but also um just changes throughout the year, you know, with people moving around. This is probably not going to be enough. I'll probably have one more for you at the next meeting, but I'll we'll have a better idea of what the final number are. We have three payrolls left. And on 20C, uh these are pretty straightforward as well, just moving money to where we need it. The top line I want to point out to you on the county tax transfer into the opioid unrestricted fund, that is an updated number for you. The original one I think was 8,300 or 8,400. Um the backstory on that opioid transfer is we receive opioid money in two tranches. We get restricted, we get unrestricted. They need to be deposited in in the correct fund. And it was discovered um I think later in the year this year that those deposits have been reversed. But in the meantime, we had spent funds from the unrestricted fund. So we need to correct that in getting the deposits back in the right place. we need to correct this amount to get the unrestricted fund corrected and out of a negative state and get the deposit where it needs to be. So that's what that is. Happy to take any questions on any of these.

And you say there's three payrolls and one more board of public works meeting where we'll process claims and then after that there won't be any additional. So we're going to cut off other than those are contractually. Yes, correct. We're going to cut off just regular bill pay on the 9th. Okay.

That will give clerk's office time to get everything entered. We'll have time to review the remaining funds so I will be able to prepare transfers for council for the 16th. And then anything um that's contractual or appropriated for we can go ahead and turn in after that. I'd just like to jump in and just um publicly thank Mindy again for going through all these numbers. It's very cumbersome, less so this year. It's a little easier this year than it was last year trying to catch up all the bank wrecks at the same time. But I I thank you for your help and Meline and her and I had a conversation this afternoon about deadlines and how we enforce those and and try to help stick with just one more meeting. No,

I think we're in good shape. Yeah. Do we have a motion to approve uh resolution 2025 19 C and 20 C? I'll move that we approve resolutions 202519 C and 202520C. I'll second that. Okay. Any questions or comments? Any questions or comments from the audience? Seeing hearing none, do roll call. Sure. Patrick Teau, yes. Carla Krebs, yes. Lucy Datillo, yes. Josh Schaefer, yes. Joel Storm, yes. Jim Bartlett, yes. Josh Wilmer,

yes.

Thank you, council. Thank you, council. And we'll move on to the uh other parts of our agenda. Council, are there any reports, recommendations, or other business from standing or select committees of city council? Hearing none, we'll move on. We have two other matters to discuss tonight. We've invited uh our code enforcement officer, DNA, to give a presentation to council on vacant and abandoned structures update. We did a similar presentation to board of public works a couple of weeks ago and we want to update council on our activities since adop since adopting this ordinance back in May I think. Welcome Dewey.

Thank you Mr. Mayor. Council, good to see you again. Everyone, how are you? Happy holidays. Yes. Uh per our per the ordinance, I am required to report to the board of public works on a quarterly basis and I'm bringing that report to you here tonight as well. So um we've got a few um data points to talk about and then really it's a it's a picture show of what we're trying to accomplish. Okay, Mindy, you can probably see this better in your packets, but this map is a is a visual representation of uh where in the city we've identified vacant andor abandoned structures that have been both sent a notice of determination and that will be receiving a notice of determination. Roughly 50 53 54 I believe it is uh at this point. So that's just a visual representation in the city really just about everywhere. Um you can see downtown has the concentration of course but okay Mindy some data points here. Um got Joel in the way so I can't

can't see that Joel

you got to make it here brother. Um so the first part here is what's required of me to report. Um you can see here bullet point number one uh the number of structures uh which have uh paid a registration fee. There have been 32 that um uh properties that u have registered and none of those to this point have paid a registration fee. Uh the number of properties uh the number of voluntary property applications where the owner voluntarily registered is eight. So that's that's that's a good sign. That's positive. Um, secondary letters are being sent out to all the cases who have not yet uh have have not yet uh where fees have not yet been paid, excuse me. And of the eight, I have received four abatement plans from owners to this point, but I'm actively talking to the other four about abatement plans and the other required documents that that we uh need. Excuse me. All right. some other pertinent data. Uh 32 cases have been open. One case is actually a duplicate that I missed. Uh 21 cases remain to be sent. Notice of determination. Eight cases have voluntarily registered as I mentioned. 24 of those cases have been registered by staff or 24 have been registered by staff and then I expect by uh the year end that the remaining notices of determination will go out. Okay. These are very difficult to see here. Packets probably better. This is a representation of those who the properties that have received notice of determination. Um some notes on the side there. The green are the voluntary registrations. The yellow is is a duplication that I missed. Mindy,

this uh spreadsheet is the remaining uh 20 plus that that will receive notice of determination over the next month or so. All right. From this point on, it's really bunch of picture shows these are the kind of properties that that we're looking at. Um you can see here 631 Broadway Street right at the foot of Broadway and and Fifth. Okay, Mindy, if you have questions on these or something, just stop me along the way. 420 Broadway Street near the fountain. This is a we consider both an unsafe structure and vacant and abandoned um up near the the marathon on top of the hill on on Craigmont. What's the local what do you Jazzies? Chazzies. Is that what we call it? Yeah. Okay, Mindy. Uh 320 McIntyre Street, uh down west end of town, just over the bridge, just south of Main Street. Um 608 West Third Street. Um this is a little tucked away actually. Jefferson Street is a dead end. If you cross over the creek there off of 421, um you can see the pillar on the left hand side. Again, this is possibly unsafe, but it's been vacant for some time. This is actually in the Oakill neighborhood. Um 2824 Bernard Place. It's a culde-sac in in um in the Oakill neighborhood. Uh this recently came on probably 6 months ago. Um was back there checking out a nuisance case. You can see the the overgrowth and whatnot. So, They have to be. Yeah,

that's what this this batch is on uninhabited.

Yes, this the vacant and abandoned registry is is right. It has to be uninhabited. Unsafe is a different story. We have some properties that are unsafe that folks are actually living in. Uh 1831 Clifty Drive would be near uh Imperial Pools going out of town, Dr. Brit's office out that way. This is a structure just about to the the Marathon on Craigmont as you head up the hill there. This structure is also not far from the the Marathon. Actually, right next to it. Next couple are on Jefferson Street on not the dead well it's the dead end on both ends I guess right there but this is right at the bridge as you cross over Crooked Creek. Uh and this property is right next door to that 1132 West 2nd will be down near the um water treatment plant not far from there. You can see the roofing there. Um, this is not far from us right here on Popler Street. Um, could be a beautiful home, just not not maintained. Uh, this also is kind of tucked away if you're headed out of town on um, State Road 56 on the left hand side, right before you get to city limits, there's a driveway up, and it's it's hard for me to get a good picture of it, but I I think we did okay with that. Uh yeah, this is in bad shape as well. Another property on West Third Street. Uh not far from Craigmont and the intersection of Craigmont and Third.

Uh this is Alenbach just to the north of East or I guess it would be the east of East Street. East of East Street as you're headed up Dugan Hollow. Uh, Chief Scutter used to former Chief Scutter used to point this out to me all the time. Why I hadn't taken care of it yet. All right, Mindy. Um, we're familiar with this. We've we've presented this home a number of times. Uh, both unsafe. This is 709 Elm Street. Uh, west end of town, Main Street. This is East Street near the church at the bottom of the uh Mayor, you told me a school used to be next to this or something. There was a Catholic

still there. Okay. Across the street. Okay. It's a community center now. I see. Gotcha. 319 Craigmont is just to the south of Main Street, uh near the the red pepperoni and that down on west end of town. What's that? Okay. Um, I've shared this or presented this home with you as well. This is uh 307 Hendricks, which is kind of what the cross streets are here. It's up on top of the hill though. It's like street.

Yes, that's right. Ross and Mouser, that area. Yep. 804 East 2nd Street just uh just as you're headed uh just about to the uh the bridge road on the right hand side 801 Jerry Lane. Um if you're at the American Legion looking across the highway, you could probably see this. Um although you wouldn't unless you're on Jerry Lane, you probably wouldn't wouldn't recognize it. There's a what's the can do maintenance businesses near this, right? 208 Lincoln Avenue, not far from Lydia Milton, just down the hill on the back side. So Third Street. Um that is Lydia Milton, right on the west end of town, right just down the hill from that. This is 313 right by the old jail 13 313 wall walnut, excuse me. Um, uh, you can see some of the the siding is in trouble. This has been vacant now for probably this was actually brought to me by the prosecutor's office next door next door to it. Um, but it's been vacant for six months. I think the water's been off a year at this point. Almost there, I promise. Okay. Some some good news. some success here. Um, these are the voluntary registrations that we've gotten so far. Um, that is 713 Elm Street, I believe it is. Mindy 7-Eleven. I apologize. 7-Eleven Main Street. Joel's in the way again. Uh, 921 Walnut. I do know that address.

They have registered. You can see the success here. Uh 8:19 West 2nd Street by the power station down that way. Uh much better looking at this point. Mindy, here's a success. I you probably would know hadn't noticed this. Uh there was a you can see the hole in the left hand side of of the left picture there in the roof. Uh we've got full registration on this. Work has begun. Um we're really excited to get this get this back where it needs to be. This was our very first registration, very first letter that it went out. Um, you can see the difference uh in the lefthand picture and and the right what it looks like today. This is right across from uh Butler Family Dentistry and uh First Financial Bank on the corner there. Um so this is this is you know where we're going the success we want to see. do something.

Julie, it's been a few months since we did the ordinance, so refresh my memory. If if they voluntarily register, they're able to avoid and have an abatement plan, they can avoid the registration fee. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. But if they do not, then the registration fee applies. That's correct. Yes. And is there when you I don't know how often you visit these places, but do you have the ability to to go enter these homes uh to make sure that there's no one, you know, living in the these vacant places? Because I know they're supposed to be vacant, but that doesn't mean people won't go to get in them, right?

Oh, understood. Yeah. No, I do not have the authority to go inside. we can obtain and if it's through this or the unsafe structures ordinance um I believe an inspection warrant correct we can I was just going to say the first letter also um you're reaching out to the owner of the property for an inspection if they uh refuse then you can go get an inspection warrant but you can't just automatically enter the property yeah well

and you can only get that inspection warrant You can only get that inspection warrant on the unsafe aspect. You cannot get that. We don't have the ability to do that because of a vacant or abandoned. Now, I guess if we had some fear of of safety or something like that, which you could have with vacant and abandoned% because I'm sure that if you saw signs that there was looks like there's presence of someone in supposed to be a vacant and abandoned home, that would be that would be unsafe, right?

Yeah. And well, and I think if you recall, I think we've got the our definitions in the vacant and abandoned uh you know, deal with no water um you know, certain things like that. So we can see, you know, certain electricity, you know, we've got certain signs we can point to for vacant and abandoned. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome.

Add that. It's probably no surprise that there's been very little cooperation in this program. And this is a chronic problem for every council person here in every one of their districts and across the city. It's chronic issue for I know we have um Jed here from our historic board. It's a chronic issue for those who want to preserve our community too because what you're seeing here is a chronic problem with demolition by neglect as perhaps the future of some of these properties. And you know we worked really hard on this ordinance uh when we adopted it. I just want to uh read the legislative findings as to why we did this. And if you'll just uh give me a minute for this, but vacant deteriorated structures contribute to blight, cause a decrease in property values, discourage neighbors from making improvements to properties. Structures that remain boarded up for an extended period of time also exert a obliding influence and contribute to the decline of the neighborhoods by decreasing property values, discouraging persons from moving into the neighborhood and encouraging persons to move out. Vacant structures often continue to deteriorate to the point that demolition of the structure is required, thereby decreasing available housing in a community and further contributing to the decline of the neighborhood. The blighting influence of vacant deteriorated structures adversely affects tax revenues of local government. General Assembly finds that vacant deteriorated structures create a serious and substantial problem in urban areas and our public nuisances. In recognition of the problems created in a community by vacant structures, the general assembly finds that vigorous and disciplined action should be taken to ensure the proper maintenance and repair of vacant structures encourages local governments to adopt maintenance and repair standards, which we did in our ordinance that were appropriate for the

community in accordance with this chapter and other statutes. Uh it's taken a lot of work and this is in you know combination with the efforts that Brian and Dwey are doing with regards to continued nuisances and unsafe structures across our community, abandoned vehicles. It's uh it takes a lot of resources to work with property owners and in many instances do the work uh outside of the property ownership participation. unfortunately, but we're making a difference. Even even in the infancy of this program, this ordinance, there's some success stories. And with better engagement with the property owners, will we will turn around uh these neighborhoods, and we'll make more housing available, and we'll uh eliminate blight, increase property values, and contribute to the higher quality of life that we're all striving for in Madison and and particularly in downtown Madison where there's a concentration of these properties. But we have to keep persevering. Uh property owners are not in many instances voluntarily following uh the ordinance or even responding and that's going to require um more code enforcement participation and and legal avenues which we'll take. Any questions for Dewey on the presentation? You're welcome.

Happy holidays to you, dude. Thank you. Yeah, very much.

Okay. Thank you. Moving on. Back to my agenda. Uh, council on your packet is also a committee roster and board appointment recommendations. But if you want to p uh pull up the board appointment recommendations, I've listed for you the recent appointments and mostly reappoints that I have made that will be in the updated roster. And then there are five reappoints that I'm asking council to approve tonight. These are for historic district board review and public arts commissions. They are meoral appointments with council consent. And then council, you have three on the agenda tonight for approval for PACE and JCBT. So, I'll start with the recommendations of um the three historic district board review members and two public arts commission members as noted in your package and would ask for we can do these separately. Uh if we could ask if I could get a motion to approve the mayor's recommendations for these five appointments. We can do them all together. I

I would do mine and then we'll come back and do yours. Yeah. I move that we accept the nominations as presented. I'll second the motion. Okay. Any discussion, comments, or questions? Hearing none. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Thank you. And council, you have three tonight. One for Pace and JCBT. I would move we uh nominate Laura Lawson to the PACE committee and Matt Chandler, Matt Chandler and Reie Stefins to the JCBT. I second that.

Any discussion? Comments or questions? Hear none. All in favor, please say I. I. Any opposed? Thank you, council. Those are the mayor oral appointments. There's still a few more uh to do and we'll continue to work on the roster and we'll bring some more for both uh mayor appointments and council appointments at the next meeting. We do not have any bills on second reading. So now we'll uh madam uh president we'll go to public comments for sign up.

Sandy Palmer, do you have any questions or public comments? I don't know. Sandy Palmer, 105 East Third Street. Sometimes I forget that. Um, I just want to bring up an issue because we have such cold weather. Uh, and I'm not speaking on behalf of the Salvation Army. I just volunteer there sometimes for the warming shelter or whatever we call it. The only way that operates is that they get like six people a night to work it. uh three people from 7:00 p.m. to 1:00 am and three people from 1:00 am to 7 a.m. Um tonight there would not have been a shelter except the lady that's been doing it volunteered again to work the 1 to 7 shift and this is her third or fourth night in a row. So if we have a really cold winter like it looks like we might be having um they're going to run out of volunteers. I know that I work it, but I don't work it very often cuz it's it's hard. I mean, it's not hard to do. It's just hard to stay awake um to be there. And there's not a huge number of people and I don't know why the people are there and there's lots of reasons, but I do it because I live in a nice warm house and I don't want to wake up someday and read that somebody died because they froze to death. Um, and I don't think we want that as a city. So, I don't know what you can do, but if there's anything the city can do to help, uh, I'm sure the Salvation Army would be looking for more volunteers because it's a, uh, I'm afraid if it becomes a cold winter, um, people are just going to wear out. So, thank you.

Thank you. On on that note, I was at Salvation Armory earlier today and we're really grateful for volunteers who are working the shelter as Sy's um bringing up and uh we've been calling for more volunteers over the course of the last 5 years that we've been operating under anou at Salvation Army in the city of Madison. Just a few weeks ago, there was a uh um kind of a homeless um conversation across the community that kindest Jefferson County and IvyTech hosted and the lack of volunteers was brought up there as well. There's lots of conversations across the community about homelessness and um but not very many volunteers when it comes to supporting Salvation Army. Uh but we need to continue to give them our support. city Madison does, the church community does. Dave Adams is a remarkable volunteer across our community with Salvation Army. There is a pool of about 40 volunteers at Salvation Army do who are trained have gone through the training to support the shelter operations. And um I think they're actually doing much better uh this year uh so far than in prior years. So I'm grateful for again for all the volunteers and we could definitely use more. Uh when I was talking to Andy earlier today, they they were open I believe six or seven nights in the month of November and um they've been open for three or four nights in a row now. But you're right, it is going to wear on people who are the regular volunteers and we need to, you know, draw from a broader pool. So, thanks for bringing that up, Sandy.

Anything else? Anybody else on council have anything to talk about before I public comments make? No, that's it. Sy's the only one. Well, I I know that you all walked in after we did the sign up. Oh, you're here for Ricky. Okay, gotcha. I didn't see him hiding over there. Is this your son? Yeah.

We're very proud of him and I know you are too. as we are for our chief and also for detective major assistant chief Kutchaw. He's got a long title. Thank you for being here. Um if there are no other public comments, mayor's comments, just a couple of announcements. Tomorrow we will have a local officials workshop here in council chambers uh for a uh overview by our uh planning consultant Amy Williams with Taylor Curer Williams and that there's been a steering committee that's been working for the past 10 or 11 months on modernizing the city's zoning ordinances and combining its ordinance which was last seriously drafted maybe in 2016 and as well as the subdivision regul populations which were last adopted in 1997. So, tomorrow we'll have a group of individuals here getting uh an overview uh as we begin the adoption process. There'll be a public meeting and open house at Crystal Beach's Hunter Hall uh next week, December the 9th. So, we invite you to that. Uh clerk treasury did not announce, but our 2026 budget's been fully adopted and approved by DGF. So, I want to thank Shirley and Mindy for all the work that they did uh in responding to the 1782. Any remarks on the 2026?

Thank you. Congratulations. It's all done. And um we are also hosting on Thursday, yep, Thursday, a homeowner occupied rehab program overview in partnership with CERSY, which is a southern Indiana uh regional planning commission. So, if you are interested in joining the city of Madison and Serpy at a public engagement meeting to discuss the need for an owner occupied rehab housing program, come to city hall. This has been publicized. There are two sessions, one at 10:00 a.m., one at 5:30 p.m. And lastly, I'll mention that the plans are out for bid on the uh Welch Park and the bid opening will be December the 18th right here. So, we hope that we get really good bids on that. It's going to be an exciting uh renovation of a of a great park on our riverfront. And I'll ask council, anything else that you'd like to add? If not, our next meeting is and our last meeting of the year is Tuesday, December the 16th. Motion to adjurnn. If there is no other business,

so moved. Seconded. All in favor, please say I. I. Any oppose? Thank you. Kids are on to our delay. Oh, kids. Two hour delay. That's why everybody's phone's ringing. Did you hear that, Ellie? You get a twoour sleep in tomorrow again.