Common Council - Regular Meeting

Oh, [Music] heat. Hey. Hey. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Laughter] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh [Music] yeah. [Music]

Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music] Oh, [Music] hey. [Music] [Laughter] [Music] Heat. Heat. [Music]

Heat. Heat. [Music] [Music] All right, please come in. Please come in. Uh feel free to take a seat. I mean, you can stand if you want, but for now, I'll ask you to um please uh join me in saying the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands nationy for all. Pastor Parnell, would you mind uh leading us in the prayer?

Shall we pray? Our heavenly father, we thank you for this evening. We thank you for the opportunity we have to gather here tonight and take care of the city's business. Father, we pray for our police officers, our firefighters, for their safety, and all the residents of the city of Portage. We ask for wisdom and our counsel this evening. And then Father, also tonight, our hearts are concerned and still burdened for those who were the victims there in Minnesota of the shooting last week. We pray for the parents of those children who lost loved ones and those who were injured. We ask for comfort that only you can give through the power of your Holy Spirit. This we pray in the name of Jesus our Lord. Amen. Amen.

Did everyone have a chance to look at the minutes? And I believe we have two sets of minutes if I was reading things right. You're right. I'm so sorry. I mean, I see everybody, but we do need a roll call. You're right. Uh, if you could do it. Absolutely. Councilwoman Alvarez. Councilwoman Weidenbach here. Councilwoman Hurst here. Counciloman Parnell here. Councilwoman Vazquez here. Councilwoman Amler here. Councilman Zilly here. Now I'll ask if everyone had the chance to look at the minutes. Were there any corrections or things or motions related to them?

I will make a motion to approve last month's minutes. Actually, there's two sets of minutes. one from the 5th and one from the 19th. So, I will make a motion to approve both. Thank you. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I was not present, so no. Do you want to abstain?

There we go. I should have I I should I I'll be in the future looking out for you there. Thanks. There's no way you could have known what happened. I understand. No, I appreciate it. I've done the same thing. Communications, uh, correspondence, announcements from the mayor. Um, many things are going on. Um, for the sake of time for this meeting, I will, um, pass by my, uh, communications and correspondence, but I will turn it over for the clerk treasur's report. Liz, I think you also had an announcement on top of the report.

Okay. And my report is my staff and I will have been continu continuing to work with the mayor and department heads at our weekly finance meetings and we are focusing on staying within the 2025 budget and working towards the a balanced budget for 2026 with the effects of we have do have our challenges in front of us besides the mayor myself and the the council also um microphone.

Oh, okay. Sorry. Can you hear me now?

Okay. I do have a conflict of interest disclosure statement from Andy Malleta dated June 3rd that was not presented at the last council meeting. So, I just wanted to let the council be aware of it that he is the executive director over the Portage EDC and he is also um a realtor with Macaui Bennett and Commercial Advantage just in case there's any type of conflict he wanted to make this was make sure this was on file. And then I also have correspondence from Paint the Town Red. It's called Max. It's Make a Kid Smile. And it's a nonprofit located in Northwest Indiana that provides personal care and comfort items for local foster children in need. They focus on personal care items to children after removal from their homes to ensure they have what they need while they're transitioning into a new place into a new placement. They provide everything from clothing to furniture to help keep them comfortable in their placements and continue to provide for foster children while they transition to their permanent placements, whether at home or with foster parents. In the end, our goal is to help the Department of Child Services, DCS, ensure our foster children have what they need. It's one of their biggest um fundraisers. October 17th, 2025. And they're asking for donations. They have sponsors. Um I have a sponsor sheet if anybody is interested. And also they also um are asking for attendance. It's $115 per person and it will it there'll

be an open bar. Beer and wine will be served, appetizers, dinner, and a silent auction raffle. Again, this is their only big fundraiser for the year to um help these children with their placement when they do get play taken out out of their home and into foster care. So, if anybody's interested, they can see me afterwards. Liz, yes.

Where is this and what time? Okay. It's going to be at um at the Aberdine Ball Manor Ballroom on October 17 17, 2025 and it's going to start at six o'clock. Any other questions? Thank you. I don't believe we have unfinished business other than second reading of ordinances. That'll happen later. That'll get us to introduction of ordinances. We have um ordinance number 2539, disposition of abandoned property police department. I'm going to ask if um Gina, would you be willing to read this one? After you do, I'll invite the police chief to speak a little bit about it.

This is ordinance 2539, an ordinance amending chapter 54 of the code of ordinances of the city of Portage, Indiana to add article 8 establishing procedures for the custody and disposition of unclaimed property and money in the possession of the Portage Police Department. make this noted that it's been read. I think that's good. Chief, do you just want to explain what this is? I'm sure we'll probably be voting on this um either tonight or in the next, you know, meeting.

Yeah. So, um in the course of our duties, we come into contact with abandoned property. Um you name it, we've probably collected it. Um there's different ways that we get it. Um could be something that somebody finds that they turn into us. Um could be a theft case in which we were able to prosecute um based on a certain theft. We believe they probably were involved in other thefts, but we never find a victim. Um nobody ever comes forward. Um and then they obviously don't claim that property as their own. Um you'd be amazed at how many people have things in their vehicle and suddenly they don't know anything about it once we ask them where it came from. Um, so I could go on and on about different things that we've got, but um, over the years we have collected a lot of things which basically um is just clogging up our our evidence storage right now. Um, so this this wouldn't be criminal case type stuff. This is just um basically uh lost abandoned property. So, if we're able to determine who the owner is, we, you know, we make attempts to get it returned by reaching out to them um different ways or more often than not um this stuff just sits in there. So, we've got a couple issues. One is just a storage um issue. We're running out of room for actual criminal type stuff that we need to evidence and things that we need to keep for criminal cases. Um there's also stuff in there that could be used by the city um by different departments that no one's claiming. It's just sitting in there. We've got things that have been in there for eight, nine years at this point that are just sitting. Um there's also the option through the uh through the ordinance. It gives a couple different options that the city can use. It can be sold at auction. Um there's an Indiana code that references money. So it basically lays out the different um things that can be done with the the

items instead of just sitting in there. And I think we set it at uh a minimum of six months. Um you know, generally if we don't find an owner within six months, it's probably not going to happen. Um so again, I think it's it's beneficial to the city um in multiple ways, but it also is going to help us with a major storage space issue. Um and you know, at this point, we're keeping it till to what end? Just infinity right now. we have no there's nothing really that is dictating when we can get rid of it. So it's just staying there until until we come up with something. So um I think this is a is a really good way to handle that. Um as we went through we also contacted other departments different uh other municipalities and this is pretty much in line with what a lot of uh other places are doing. So that's pretty much the thousand foot view of it. And chief, so the money that you would gain from the public auctions, is there a dedicated line item that you're looking at having the money go to or is it um something that's just going to go back into the city's general fund?

Right now, I believe everything at the city auction goes into the general fund. This ordinance does not address where the funds would go. When I drafted it, I assumed that at the budget time or the council would direct where that would go and at this point in time, this ordinance is drafted does not state otherwise. So, it would go to the city's general fund. Thank you. I mean, I'd love to talk to you about that at a later date. Any other question? Any other questions for the chief? How do you determine as to what's going to be auctioned off or what's going to be donated or what have you.

So, uh, with this ordinance, I think what we would do is we would take a look and see if there's a use within the city. Um, like we've got tools there that were I want to say they they were from a theft, but again, they were stuff that were in there that we couldn't tie to our theft. Nobody came forward, so they've just been sitting in there. Um, things like that. I guarantee that we have a use within the city for the the different, you know, jobs that are being done. And um so something like that we you know we would probably reach out to different city departments and see if anybody could use something like that first. Um if there's a you know a monetary value that's worthwhile to um the city for a city auction I think we'd go that route. If it's you know uh hygiene things like we get those blankets things like that those we could just we could donate. Um, I think it would just be honestly what you know each each item looking at each item and seeing what what the the most value is and what we could what we could do with them. So,

and chief, when you do decide to have an auction, do we have um a auctioneer in mind or is that something to be addressed later? We have a city auction every every year. Once once a year, is it twice? Is it once a year? Um, we don't handle that. Um, basically we we get they get in touch with us, let us know that there's an auction and then we provide the things that we are sending the auction whether it's cars or whatnot. So I I don't have anything to do with the city auction other than providing the uh you know list of the items. So somebody in the city's doing that. Thank you. It's not us. All right. Well, thank you so much, Chief.

Okay. Thank you. That'll get us to ordinance 2540. Amending the salary ordinance. Um, Councilman Pardell, would you mind reading that one for us, sir? Salary ordinance, budget year 2025, ordinance 25-40, an ordinance established in the amount of salaries and compensation be paid to all appointed employees and officers of the city of Portage, Porter County, Indiana for the year 2025. Um, I noticed that the addition would be the general counsel of 148,000 per year beginning December the 1st. And then I believe the record is read that it was. Yeah, most definitely. Let the record reflect that it's been read in its entirety. Please.

I don't know how important it is that we say that, but it's definitely a tradition. Um Dan, would you like to come up uh just briefly? So, this is the uh first reading of what will, you know, take two readings for us to amend the salary ordinance. But I just want to be as transparent as I can. It's always tricky when you're creating a position and at the same time you have someone in mind, but we need to work with the council for approval.

Um, I know that we touched on this issue a bit at the last meeting. Um, going into it, it's going to be very important to me that, you know, I'm able to work with you guys. I know that attorney mcclair has volunteered to assist with this process, too, of giving you guys some time to meet either one-on-one or groups as you see it with Dan because ultimately he's going to be the city's attorney if this ordinance passes. And it was noted that this would have start on December 1st. That doesn't mean that that's the exact hire date, but it would be the earliest that a date could be that gets hired. But Dan, I want to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself again and just take any questions that we have so that this is done in a public setting, you know.

Yeah. Uh good evening, uh mayor, clerk, treasurer, uh members of the city council. Uh again, I am Dan Bartniki. I was before you uh during the special session uh in August and uh I think the discussion really is um as portage grows and as SE1 starts to uh affect city budgets, one of the things that has occurred to many is that there needs to be certainty in legal expenses. And so bringing on a full-time counsel uh allows us to have certainty when we're looking at city expenses and budgeting for an attorney position. One of the other things to think about is also how available are attorneys right now when they're working on a contract basis. Portage has been absolutely blessed with excellent attorneys up to this point, but the simple fact of the matter is you can't get legal counsel 247. you know, there's always going to be that meeting. Um, in talking with some of the department heads, one of the things that was mentioned to me was, "Hey, Dan, sometimes I just need someone to look over an email before I send it." Having a full-time counsel on deck is something that would would uh would be achieved by this position. Um, a little bit of my background for those of you who weren't here last time. Uh, I currently am the deputy director of administration for the United States Railroad Retirement Board. That is a federal position. It's a nationwide federal agency. Prior to that, I was the uh councel to the chairman of the agency. I've been the senior attorney at the agency and a general attorney at the agency. I was a Marine Corps judge advocate back in the day. You probably caught that when I said having an attorney on deck. That's just kind of that's that's C language. Um, prior prior to that, I also worked um in private law firms for uh the city of Gary, city of Hammond, city of Hbert,

Sherville, Hobo uh doing different uh commission work and things like that. I've done ambulance collection. I've done trials. Um, and I've also written full federal regulations which um I I dare to say are fairly uh fairly complex and I think it would be good training to draft ordinances for all of you. So um with that I'll just open it up to any questions to discuss whatever's on your mind. So, Dan, um, besides the mayor's office and the council, what other boards has it been determined that you would also be representing?

Well, at this time, there hasn't been any specific uh, discussions to get too in the weeds because um, getting some sort of guidance and approval from the city council tonight really kicks off that process. So, we want to be efficient as we're thinking about this. So if the council supports this and wants to move forward, then we start having all the meetings and putting the position together. So there's been some there's been some conversations that are just preliminary, but you know, some of the things that, you know, I think of off the top of my head would be really starting to look at, you know, debt collection for the city, ordinance enforcement, uh, being available to department heads. At this time all the discussion has been that independent commissions like for instance the redevelopment commission that attorney would remain as is. This is this is an attorney for the inner workings and the day-to-day operations of the city.

I could give you my general like thoughts of what I'd like it to be. But it's important that it's not just my, you know, general thoughts because it's not the mayor's attorney. It's not the mayor's general counsel. It's the city's general counsel. And I know there have been points in the city's history where there have been legal issues between a mayor and a council or between different city boards and each other. This is being created intentionally as an a-olitical or at the very least a a as in noncontroversial position. There might be situations where we'll need to have attorneys in the future, but this is done as you said it perfectly, a way to get legal services done now that we currently cannot do or have been not been able to prioritize and also contain the legal budget. There are certain things in municipal government where it's easy to look at the budget at the end of the year from where you passed it and where it finishes. Sometimes when something's over budget, that's on me or it's on Liz. It's never on Liz. I'm just saying. But or sometimes it's on certain circ now sometimes sometimes circumstances happen where things cost more and we can't control it. We can't control how many times people are going to get arrested at certain times of the day through the year that we are able to completely follow where police overtime is going to go. We don't always know how many fires are going to happen. And no matter how much I pray, and I do pray a lot, I've never been able to get it to only snow between 8:30 and 3. I say that because there are certain financial expenses in the city where when you do a budget where you whether it's for police and fire, overtime, whether it's for um street plowing, sometimes you're never going to necessarily get it right. And sometimes when you have a surplus, I'm waiting for the day we have a surplus when it comes to snow plowing, but that's not because we did anything to make it not snow at a bad time, if you will. Legal is a

challenge because to some extent we have control over legal, but where we have control over legal in our budget, that usually leads to us cutting important legal things that really should be done from code enforcement and unsafe building hearings, which again, that's something that we choose to do. You know, that's something that we also can choose not to do or put off. Not that we've ever intentionally put off, but we could be a lot more robust if we know that we have a full-time council working on matters like that. To Dan's point, there's a lot of things where it would be really nice to email an attorney about everything before I send it. Um, sometimes Mr. Ross, you know, contacts me and I'm like, "Man, I sure would like an attorney to review what I write, but that's not a fair bill for the taxpayer. So, I just send you my emails without attorney review. I promise." But all that said and done, I I won't do that even with dad. I'm just giving an example. But then there's things with legal that we can't control. Sometimes people sue the city and sometimes that's a tort claim based on an injury. Sometimes it's a lawsuit without merit. Sometimes we have things that we're working on that are completely things we need to do as a city, but they need a legal opinion and that adds up to our, you know, legal bills. Um, I say that because this is an attempt even though a city general counsel would be, I believe, by definition the highest paid person in the city. It would actually be something that would go a long way in allowing our legal flexibility to increase and get our budget contained. And it's a lot easier, too. At the end of the day, we can look at the police department, the street department, and I'm not picking on either of you guys. There are certain line items where if something's over budget, we know that you had some control over it. or if they're under budget, we know that you deserve a great deal of credit for finishing under budget. Legal is very challenging because it's hard to define what's necessary and what's not. I think this is a great step in the direction. To answer your question, Victoria, just for myself, I would see this as a

ideally in my perfect world a consolidation of all of our legal for everything except for the redevelopment commission and the utilities. In my mind, the redevelopment commission and the utilities, they have their own sources of revenue. They benefit from having their own legal counsel. But even there, in talking with you guys, talking with Tracy, talking with Tom, that could be something that we look at together if we can save more money by balancing that out or if it's something to look at down the road. But to see it that way, I see it as the legal service of the civil city to start would be my vision there.

Okay. So then with that all being said, um the 148,000 is just a salary. It doesn't include the benefits. So with the benefits, it would be 212,000 I understand with the um you know the trust tax and the health benefits and such. And then if your vision is including all the other departments and the departments are budgeting their budget line item for each department, are they then contributing to the um budget line for the attorney then? Are they into it?

So right now when you have different legal categories in the budget for each department, we would be merging those together into the legal department to create one legal budget at least for the civil side of the city. I think that is something that we'll definitely discuss when we do the budget, but it sounds like common sense to me that we would have one legal budget if one general counsel is handling the city. Kind of like how, you know, sometimes each department has their own category for small repairs, but then there's other things like, you know, emails and parts of it where we almost would be well, we'd be losing money if we had them all spread out between departments because we'd lose the bulk potential of them. And so as an employee then moving forward, he would then also be entitled to longevity. And at what point would longevity kick in for him?

Liz, would you be able to answer that? At three years. Three years. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

I I'll give an explanation for the price of um even though we're like you said 148,000 is what the salary would be with the benefits. It does go up to 212. But just to give you an example, last year we paid $26,000 out of our general fund just for attorneys and that didn't include benefits or anything. Wasn't in house and he wasn't available 247 like the in-house attorney would be. And I know Austin couldn't get a hold of him a couple times. I couldn't get a hold of him. We struggled to get ordinances done on time. And I think this would be a great benefit for both the clerk treasur's office and the um city council plus the mayors and um also you know after going to clerk treasurer school and talking to other clerk treasures mis mun most municipalities our size do have an in-house attorney. I in fact I talked to probably 10 of them and three or four of them were our size and all three of them had um in-house attorneys. And then not to assume anything since this is all brand new. Um and just for clarification then you would also handle any workman compensation claims that may be and work closely with HR on those types of cases.

I I think that would definitely be the plan. Okay. Thank you. Sure.

And like I say, this is something I want to involve all of you guys in but in a very transparent way. you know, for us to be able to meet and create this together because again, I know a lot of cities our size have in-house council. I understand that if every other city jumped off a bridge, we wouldn't necessarily do that. Some people think cities are being pushed off a bridge right now in Indiana. But I think that Dan is a huge blessing in his availability to our city. And I know some of you guys have gotten to meet him a little bit already, but I think that this is a really big process between now and our next meeting to, I believe, create what a real in-house legal department will look like for the city. And one final question, just because it's a perfect in a perfect world, it's never a perfect world, but and we always have good attorneys on standby for a backup, but if in the event something were to come up that you couldn't meet a certain requirement, case handing it off to somebody else, you would be handing it off to maybe another attorney that we already have or would you have the um or I guess this is a question for the mayor. would he be then finding an associate to take over in his steed for any appearances?

So, we wouldn't be starting with another like in-house associate because we're trying to be really lean with the budget, especially going into next year. But, as noted, we have other attorneys who have worked with the city and certainly their contracts, which are task contracts, are available. So, if Dan was using vacation time and we had, we would figure out who would be the person on call if we needed something. I'm guessing it might be hypothetically Scott Mccclair and I'm only saying since we since probably more than hypothetically but

since since uh Liz had mentioned we you know have to wait on certain things deadlines ordinances and stuff that there would ball would continue to roll forward then. Yeah, I know. The hope is to get as much done as possible because when when you're on site, I mean, I've been I've been inhouse with my agency for 18 years. And so when you're there all the time, you you know when the deadlines are and it's just a whole different mindset. It's a completely different mindset. And so the goal is to not have to wait on those things because there's not that divorce case, there's not that bankruptcy case that is also occupying my mind. It's all portage all the time. And uh my my final comment because it's a matter of public record so I'll say it. Um with the federal agency um I am a general schedule GS15 step 10. Um my current federal salary is 195 not counting benefits. So I am willing to come to the city of Portage for a roughly $50,000 discount. Um because I am excited by what is happening here. Um I see what's going on. I I was able to do some work over the past two years with the city and as the more and more I see and the more I I I see the city growing, I think it would be an excellent situation to get into and having also met many members of the council and the department heads, uh this is where I want to be. So, I just wanted to also make sure everybody understood that.

Oh, well, I was saving the best for last. I mean, that's that's how I roll. I would also say something Liz and I are both looking forward to is we have offices that somebody tried to ask me and I don't know if you liked the comparison or not because you know someone asked because they didn't understand where they're like so who's the boss and I'm like well it's kind of like the sheriff and the coroner you know we have relation there might be better government offices to compare but they are separately elected offices you and I both have you know our people what I think has been great about what's come together with this is we have strived I believe and it's not always easy to find ways to bridge you know our offices to make sure that we're in communication that's reliable to make sure that we're able to work together but it can be tough because you are doing really big things downstairs I'm doing really big things upstairs it can sometimes be a challenge for us to catch up with each other and I know sometimes you come up with the solution for a problem I come up with the solution for a problem not trying to give inside baseball but it might take us a day or two to meet now it's like darn it we We we have a positive disagreement over what's the solution for this problem. I see that in-house council working for the whole city is a great example of a bridge between our department. Someone who is necessarily working for us both. And I think that we want to extend that to make sure that he's also working for the legislative body of our city.

Absolutely. And very well said, Austin. Very well said. We do get along 99% of the time. You and I are spirited, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I appreciate that. Me, too. One day we'll do like the job trade swap show, but I mean, I think that both people upstairs and downstairs will go a little crazy if we did. But any other questions? All right. Well, thank you so much, Dan. Thank you.

That'll get us to ordinance um 2541 amending the animal ordinance. For those who are here, this is the one about um the pigs and livestock. It's not the cat one. We'll get to that. But um uh Victoria, would you mind reading that one for us?

Absolutely. Ordinance 25-41, an ordinance amending chapter 10 of the Portage Code of Ordinances to establish a companion animal appeal process for certain animals otherwise defined as livestock. Let the record reflect the or the ordinance has been read in its entirety. So, I suppose I can take this one because I don't ne Well, yeah. Julie, would you like to come up just to say a thing or

Okay, cool. Just I just wanted If you don't know her, Julie Furry is one of our amazing animal control officers and this past week, she brought a situation. Sometimes circumstances happen where you have to figure things out pretty quick. To put it really simply, um we have a number of residents and I don't want to say we catch them every day because we don't catch them every day and catch is not the right word. We have people who keep animals in the city and sometimes people have an animal as a pet and then they find out maybe a year or two later that that animal's not allowed in the city of Portage and that creates complications for our animal control. It creates a lot of heartache for everybody because sometimes an animal might be being kept in somebody's house and it's not an appropriate situation. Other times it might be, you know, very appropriate, but not according to our rules. Our portage city code defines livestock and makes it very clear that livestock are only to be allowed on land that is zoned for agricultural land. We don't have any agriculturally exclusively zoned land in our city. And so effectively what that means is we have a livestock ban in our city. A couple years ago, the city created regulations to allow for chickens. I don't know if we were following the Louisiana route where chickens are considered a separate kind of animal or if that's just an exception. I I I've done deep dives into this code and it's it's it's something the way you think about it. What this ordinance is is it's a proposal to allow for um a resident of our city, I suppose a property owner, but a resident who has um a desire to have an animal that is considered livestock by our code, but which they believe to be a household pet and per standards within the ordinance, they believe it meets those to be able to be an appropriate household pet. They can come to the board of works with an application. I think that most people know that the situation that kind of rocked the community this week was about

a pig and a rather cute pig, I would say, named Peppa. But the truth is, ever since I've become mayor, we've had people that have come wanting goats, um, miniature horses, um, pigs. And the one of the big challenges I think it played a role in making the chicken legalization in our city so complicated for some time is it's very hard to write a one-sizefitsall ordinance when it comes to animals that are in some cases considered livestock. And when I say in some cases I mean they are livestock rather than trying to create an ordinance for every type of animal. Under what circumstances can you have goats? Under what circumstances could you have pigs? And I won't really add any other examples because ultimately so many of that so much of that comes down to different um factors. And so what I believe we have with this ordinance is a way for people to well for the city to maintain a livestock ban when it comes to any animals that would be otherwise kept in the city for a commercial, a breeding or an agricultural purpose, but allows them for a household family pet purpose. And Julie, I just want to know if you had anything you'd like to say to add to that because you did fantastic this week. It was kind of an unexpected, stressful situation. I just want to talk about how much you're appreciated.

Um, I mean, not not really. I mean, my concern would be more so for the animals, just making sure that they're being cared for properly. Um, that would be my my concern, that they're well taken care of and they're not causing an issue. A lot of people don't realize what like pigs how how smart they are, how much care they need. And I mean they do transmit diseases. So that would be something that we would have to be concerned about is the diseases they transmit.

Attorney Mccclure, I wasn't sure if you were able to highlight anything in particular about this. I just thought that the criteria for the board to consider was very well conceived. I think it puts the board of works in a position that if we have a unique situation where one of these livestock pets, uh, whether it's an offshoot or really a companion animal, it allows the board of works to take those up on a case-byase basis to keep the initial livestock ban appropriate, but to allow for there to be a niche due process to allow for someone who has taken um a livestock animal or a relation to a livestock animal that's now technically being used as a companion pet allows that to have a method before the board of works to make that determination. I think the way the statute or the potential ordinance was written was attempt to give the board of works some guidance of the type of things that I believe the city is ultimately attempting to uh not allow. So again, I think the border works would be able to ascertain whether or not an animal's being uh cared for correctly, whether it's a potbelly pig or something along those range. I think that's the appropriate board that's meeting every two weeks that can handle that.

Are there any questions? I have a question because when there are complaints about animals, many times they reach us as a as a council person. So we have no decision or how is this to determine as to what is livestock, what is safe, what's not.

So right now our city co our city code defines what livestock is and it says livestock is not allowed anywhere. Uh that's our city code right now. I don't believe anybody on the city council currently contributed to that wording, you know, that language, those rules. But so much as the city council as an entity created those rules, that's what the city council has passed um for our ordinance. I understand why the intention was. I believe that that rule goes back to at least 1983. Um there was a desire not to have commercial farming with animals, not to have breeding of livestock happening in our city. The challenge comes is that I would say this is just speaking as me. I think that the livestock ban for agric agricultural purposes I think continues to be very appropriate in our city. I don't think that it's great to have a farm of 10 pigs in your neighbor's backyard and all that comes with that. But if someone has a potbelly pig or those tiny little like Yorkysized pigs and it's living in the house and it's not causing a disturbance, I think that that could be something that could be appropriate for a family to have. I know some people want to talk about goats. I know there's people that have brought up miniature horses or I'm sorry, like the little tiny ones that are like, you know, like little Sebastian. If you guys watch parks and wreck and being in government, I'm sure you've watched it. But uh it's very hard to write a code that creates an exception that creates a rule for every exception. The best way I would say it is that I feel like our city code is best when we have strict set rules. When you believe that rules can have exceptions, it's usually the board of works that's the one that's going to define that exception. Um I would say that the board of works is the appropriate body here if you guys believe that exceptions can be made. But I think that for this is not a statement against me or you guys or any of us. If we were trying to let's just use the

example legalize certain types of pigs that can get very complicated. What different rules do you want to have in what circumstances versus allowing it to be a special permit you know issued by a body that can get more into the case by case basis of things. So to your question of what to do if a resident calls about a perceived ordinance violation, if it pertains to animals, I would direct them first to animal control. We are the only city in Porter County with animal control. Our officers are excellent and the stories that I hear from the chief, the assistant chief, from Julie, from her partner, blas. They are incredible what they do. But I would say that when people have concerns, definitely direct them to animal control. Not everybody realizes that Portage is the only city in Porter County with an animal control. Um, I even had somebody this year who explained to me a bad circumstance they had with animal control. And when I asked them questions, well, it happened when they were living in another city in the county. They were referring to their experience with county animal control. Ours is really special and I think that they do a great job to answer your question.

Mayor, I'd like to make a motion to suspend the rules for this one. Second. So, we have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I. I didn't hear. I think I'll I'll call for I don't I think everyone voted yes in case any opposed. Okay. The rules have been suspended. Motion to adopt. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

Thank you guys. That passes. So, if anybody here is watching this who is interested in having a pet that is um currently considered livestock or I should say will always be considered livestock but that you believe could be used solely as a pet. I would urge you not to rush out and buy it yet because you still need permission from the city's board of works. But if you need, you can reach out to the city and find out how to get your petition on the board of works agenda. And thank you. All right. I'm not sure if llamas are livestock in our code, but we'll find out.

All right. So, that gets us to um second reading ordinance 2535 amending chapter 10, trapneuter return for feral cats. Scott, does this need to be reread by account? Uh Penny, would you mind doing that for us? Ordinance 2535, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 10 of the Portage Municipal Code to establish a trap neuter return TNR program for feral cats. Uh, let it be known that this ordinance has been read in its entirety. Thank you so much. I'm going to start by asking if our assistant chief, uh, Ted Ulac, would you mind coming up? And I believe there's another gentleman you might call at some point, but whenever you're ready or if you feel the need.

Sure. I know we have a packed house tonight. I'm guessing a lot of it's for cats. So, I'd really just come up to have them ask questions if they have questions about the ordinance since it's already been If you're comfortable with that specific questions, if you're comfortable with that, that would be wonderful. If anybody would like to come and ask any questions, what I would ask you to do is come up and ask your questions. I'll write them down and then after everyone has finished, Ted, do you want it to be that when everyone's done, we go back to them or would you rather? Sure. Whatever. Whatever. I'll ask you to come up, ask your questions. I'll make some notes and then I'll read them back to Ted. And I promise if you ask it, I'll ask it back to him at the end. Okay, come on up if you would like.

Hello. Um my my quick question is okay I read part of the proposal on the how to do the trap release and neuter and I was seeing something in there about the colonies like cat colonies and I didn't quite understand what it was how it was worded as a cat colony. I didn't understand that. So could I get some clarification on that please? Absolutely. Thank you so much for coming up. And after everyone else has asked theirs, if there's other questions, I'll bring them all up back to Ted. So, thank you. And that's a great question. Glad to learn they're called that, too.

All right. Well, then Ted, I think the floor is yours. Okay. So, so simply put, and I believe we've already briefed the council, so you mind if I speak to these folks? Go ahead. If you would you like me to help you turn that around? Oh, I'm comfortable. Can you all hear me?

All right. So, so basically what we're doing here is the police department gets involved from the get-go on this thing because we identified a problem. We have a feral cat problem in the city. So, from a public health and safety standpoint, we're worried about transmittable diseases. Okay. So, we reached out, we researched the data and we found that the best way to tackle this problem is through a trap neutering release program. We also realized that there's a lot of people that have a vested interest in this and like to do these kind of things on their own. So, we didn't want to prohibit everybody from doing this, but we wanted to start our own program so we can go to hot spots within the city. Is everybody tracking? Everybody sees where I'm at? Okay. Well, those of you that are involved in the trap, neuter, and release operation on your own understand that this is all about resources, right? So you get X amount of living things and they need certain amounts of shelter, certain amounts of water, and certain amounts of food. So why do we prohibit in this ordinance people from just feeding stray cats? Well, because we're bolstering those resources. Yellowstone Park doesn't say don't feed the bears because they're worried you're going to get eaten. They say don't feed the bears because you're going to hurt the bears. You're supplementing that. you're adding resources that when the tourists are gone now the bears get sick or the bears get hungry. Okay. So, we don't want to add resources unless it's through a TNR program. So, to your point, what's a colony? A colony is whether it's one or more cats. That's the way the the um ordinance reads is it's a feral colony. It's a colony of cats instead of a colony of people somewhere. It's a colony of cats that the person that wants to do their own TNR program will actively try to trap, neuter, and release with these animals and then take care of them. Then you can continue feeding.

And what that does is it lets nature take it course its course without breeding upon breeding upon breeding upon breeding. So it's a very humane way to solve a very dangerous problem. Does anybody else have any questions? Does everybody understand what I said? council. Was that uh answered? Did that make sense? Ted, one of the things I believe I understand and I'm not just asking it to be like, you know, koi or to, you know, keep it going, make sure I understand it, right? If we one of the things that was always fascinating to me is that when somebody feeds a cat in their backyard, somehow that cat can't keep a secret. There's there's more cats the next day.

There's no secret in the feline world. I don't know how they communicate, but to put it really simply, one of the complaints that we get to go back to Gina's point, when people call animal control or when people are trying to figure out what to do, if there's someone, I'm not trying to pick on anybody, but if there's someone in a neighborhood who's out in their backyard who's got a bunch of bowls and they're feeding and every time they feed, we get claims brought to us about 15 20, you know, cats coming to a place. Two things I think you articulate real well is one that's contributing like artificial resources that bolsters the population in that area. I know that people have brought up regarding the first part of this ordinance that I think caught attention which is that unless you're doing TNR and you're part of the TNR program, you're not able to feed the feral cats, right?

Somebody said, won't they starve? To put it really simply, well, no, they a feral cat is a wild animal. It's going to hunt. it's going to distribute to the area where it and its I guess its relatives, its friends are going to be able to sustain. But so much as colonies exist out in the let's call it the wild, you might have a colony in one area of our city, a colony in another area of our city, and they are kind of not exactly self-contained, but if the cats have enough resources where they are, they're not necessarily going to find each other. But one of the most important parts of TNR, all three are important. The trap, the neuter, the return,

but the importance of returning to the same place that you got them because what you're doing is you're not creating a vacancy in that colony for another cat to come in and then possibly bring the rest somewhere else that that territory grows. Is did I articulate that well or is there

Absolutely. You don't want to create a void and extra resources where another new body will move in. So, and and frankly, that's the danger of adop of adoption. So, sometimes uh and that that's why our ordinance specifically separates feral cats from community cats. Community cats are something different. And if you guys read the ordinance closely, you'll you'll see the difference. A community cat, if it's not owned by anybody, can be taken and adopted. Um but that's not a feral cat. Who pays for the new Is this okay, Mayor? I believe that's okay. This is a sensitive issue with so many good people. I I'm I'm kind of comfortable.

Is there going to be assistance in traffic?

So, what what we're going to do on on the animal control side of things, and that's a great question, is we are going to gather data, and this is how you have to do these things. You have to do them with science. We've all got emotions. I am like an animal lover. My wife and I had a rehabilitation permit. We were we were re rehabbing baby raccoons and my my kids got to understand all these different things and how important our kindness can be to keep to to replenish these things. Okay. So, so I get it, but I can't think with that part of my brain. I have to think with with the part of my brain that looks at the data. So what the data says is that we're going to have certain hot spots in the city that um for some reason or another we're going to have to have our attention to. So the assistance that we're going to give is we are going to have our own program where we go and hit these hot spots and we will choose those spots by the data. How many cats, what we're seeing. Um, we we're going as far in our program as we have a tattoo gun for their ear so we can log what what we're doing. So if we track a cat somewhere else. So I I don't want to talk all night. These everybody has a lot of stuff to do. So but I can answer to answer the question is if someone chooses to have their own TNR program, that's on you. If you want to do that, go ahead and do that. Um, if you if you don't want to do that and you can't afford to do that, that's fine, too. If you have a feral cat problem in our in your neighborhood and can't afford or choose not to do that, let us know and we'll we'll we'll we'll gather that within our data and we'll do our own in that area and uh cooperate with you. Does that mean that you're out of the picture after that? No. Because the the feral cat colony according to the ordinance still has to be maintained. So once we help you on that end with the trap, neuter, and release part, then you'll still be able to maintain that if that's something you're willing to do.

Speaking as the mayor, I'll I'll address you, but speaking as the mayor, my hope is that in time, now it's tough because well, not tough. The interesting thing about a feral cat population in a city, I mean, there are factors that make it grow even with good TNR going on. if people are abandoning cats or if things happen that bring in new ones to the community. But that aside, there actually is a possibility that within three to five years, maybe I'm being optimistic, we might not have any feral cats in our city because really each time that you capture a feral cat, that's a big goal. I'm not trying to claim that that's the number. I think you guys know that. But to put it really simply, the goal is that by identifying these colonies, and that's why it's so important, whether it's someone who's registering themselves as a colony caretaker and putting a colony on our radar, or whether it's our own program through the city that's identifying the colonies and documenting them. We're able to monitor things like the size of the colony. Is it growing? Is it shrinking? And at some point, I don't know if the term is deletion. At some point, is the colony extinct? Because the last cat has passed and nobody was left to, you know, reproduce. That's ultimately the goal when it comes to reducing the feral cat population. And then to Ted's point, it's very important that we start with this ordinance that limits feeding of stray and feral cats to people who are doing a TNR program on their own while the city does our own. I would love in time to grow resources that we could build some good community partnerships, but I think where we are right now, we need to start with the basics of this ordinance, at least for this year. And I think that the police have and the animal control have really taught me the importance of starting that way.

To to the mayor's point and simply put, the ordinance is written because we can't solve this. We identified a problem and we can't solve it without you. You meaning the community. People are going to have to stop just feeding these feral cats. And and we realize that we need you. So, if you choose to have a TNR program, if you follow those simple rules, and those of you that do it know these rules are in place and they're good rules, then we can work together in that way where we support one another. Maybe not financially, but we're still supporting one another. Um, and that's why, frankly, there's a there's a a a spanky part in that ordinance that if if you want to go off on your own and you don't want to follow the rules and you're just putting out bags of food for any feral cat population and you're not contributing to a TNR program, then there's going to be a fine associated because now instead of us working together, someone's act actually working against us and we can't have that either. Does that make good sense to everybody?

Question. Yeah, go ahead. I'm Jennifer with Cat Rescue Reportage. I just have a couple just a couple quick questions. So, when you guys trap your cats through the CNR program, is there somebody like checking the traps often? Yes, if we if we do a a TNR program, that will be a basic assignment. We have two animal control officers who at certain parts of day their shifts overlap. They're very rarely alone. So, someone will check that those traps several times. People aware if they're going to do TNR on their own, the cats get very injured when they get in. So, people need to be aware of that. We will not. We're doing this to be humane. Exactly. Okay. Good. Thank you.

Um, as of right now, we have last year's budget uh last year's budget talks allowed us to have a little bit of money to get this program set up. We have money. We've Matt met with Matt from SNIP. We have some funds and we've negotiated some operating costs through there. So, right now we have enough to get started and we do have some plans for fundraising. I'm unaware of that, but if you'd like to meet with someone from our animal control department, maybe let them know. I don't I'm not I'm not super familiar with

that. That's awesome. If you would reach out maybe to someone from our animal control department. I don't want to take that information here and now because before I leave the room, I'm going to forget it. I'm being honest with you. So, if you can please reach out, I would be very grateful because I'd like to hear about that. And that answered some of the questions I had as far as where does the funding come from this for the vaccines, getting them air tagged and so forth. We've we've worked out a deal where we're able to do some and can you talk to them about the conversation that you and I had, Matt? I I can.

Matt, would you mind coming up to speak to the microphone? And as you do, that helps me. And Gina, the money is in the budget that the council approved for 2025 for the trap, neuter, and return program. You guys approved the budget prior to this ordinance, and I appreciate it. But that's where the financial responsibility of our police department, which is second to none, and working with a gentleman like Matt is so key.

Mayor, clerk, treasurer, council, thank you. uh assistant chief uh and I had several meetings over the past um couple of years in regards to not only the challenge uh that the city and many cities face with um feral cat populations which he's already addressed. Uh but ultimately it comes down to timing uh as far as veterinary partners to perform the work. Um, initially my wife and I have a spay and neuter business that we were operating out of a 44 foot coach bus that was parked at the Humane Society of Hobert for roughly three and a half years. Um, after about 25,000 surgeries, we were fortunate enough to find a location here in Portage uh in the Americ. So, we were very happy to um celebrate uh a recent one-y year anniversary. And in the past year, uh in our new location, we've performed roughly 7,800 surgeries uh for cats and dogs. Um now, we do have a uh second crew that goes to Southbend uh every Monday to do a largescale TNR program for a private um 501c3 group. Now, we've also talked about kind of what that looks like, whether it's the um the trapping, the coordination, the transport, um the recovery, and of course the release. And those are all details that while they're important, um can't really get put into motion without the um ordinance, so to speak, uh allowing the police department animal control to not only address and identify again the under uh undermining issues which are

the addition of resources to um whatever LO location uh may be. So at the end of it, what we're hoping for is when this passes, some of the more fine-tuned things such as um pet friendly service license plates, fundraising, um volunteers, there's a coalition of the willing um in the room, let alone within the community, um to help wherever they they can. Um and I think that this is a an outstanding step uh not only for our community but for our county which um frankly is quite quite behind um as far as animal welfare uh can be concerned. Now, just one thing I I I will mention uh in my time here is that uh other cities such as Elcart uh one in particular um has done something that starts off as a well-intended um ordinance to limit residents or individuals from feeding, but then they also stop it right there and say there's no TNR allowed. So, a a big kudos to the department for making that uh clarification that this is something that that can and should happen. Uh and in regards to the the funds, um again, as as mayor mentioned, they they have already been allocated. Um but as far as moving forward, uh there would be some fundraising efforts similar to the uh the K9 uh unit in in town. um as well as again you'd be surprised what kind of comes out of the woodworks from individuals who are willing to help but might not be able to do 100% of it. So whether again that that the transport some can't do the transport but they have a couple extra bucks some you know and and so filling

in those gaps um will certainly be possible um again through a community effort but it I believe it all starts here with this ordinance getting passed. Thank you so much.

One more thing and a little bit more direct because I think you asked a very pointed question. Right now we have uh money set aside to to handle the surgery portion that we've negotiated. There's also vouchers out there available that we're negotiating now on vouchers. You know, I'm speaking out of line here. I'm just giving you an example. Maybe a one for one. We pay for one, we get a voucher for one. We pay, you know, something. We're working to get some vouchers, too, through some other through some other outlets. The work's not going to stop. The ins and the outs of it and and the only I can say is that we're doing this the portage way. We identified a problem. We reached out to our community. We gathered the data and found out the appropriate way to handle the problem. And we're dealing with the problem. We're not going to ignore it. We're not going to just brush it under the rug. We're presenting something to you to solve a problem.

Any questions? Thank you very much for that info. It is a start. I know there are people who say that more needs to be done and I agree, but we have to start where we can and we need to start within the appropriate constraints of a local government and I think it's a powerful start that has room to grow um as this takes off. Any other questions um or any relevant motions to this matter? Make a motion to adopt. Second. We have a motion and we have a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I.

I. I wish I could have voted, but I'm just the mayor. So, I just want to stress my support. And uh to those who are here, who have met with me before on this issue, thank you guys for your persistence and thank you for your partnership. I appreciate it. That gets us to ordinance 2536, amending chapter 58, enforcement of park rules by Portage Police. Uh Melissa, would you mind reading that one for us? Yeah, Ted, this is kind of your meeting. Sorry, I have a DJ Gillette tonight, but I appreciate you.

Ordinance 25-36, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 58. God bless you. Chapter 58 of the Portage Municipal Code to authorize enforcement of park rules by Portage Police Department. Let the record reflect. It's been read in its entirety. Assistant Chief, you got the floor.

This one's a whole lot simpler than the last one. So, the chief of police tasked me with uh finding a solution to a problem, and that problem was um we had a bunch of stuff going on in our parks that shouldn't have been going on. Well, if there's not a specific ordinance for a specific problem, what do my young cops do, right? They can't make something up. They So, basically, people get upset, things that are done wrong, and it can't happen. So we move on and we find out that new things keep happening and so you can't make enough rules to catch up with the things that are going wrong. So what we did was we drafted an ordinance that said when the park board establishes rules and post those rules at a park, don't violate the rules because we're going to enforce the rules that are posted at the park. So it gives us one ordinance that we can deal with any rule that's broken in the park and that way the police don't have to keep chasing different problems, different different laws. It makes again we're addressing a problem with a simple solution that lets us fix the problem.

I think to put it maybe another way, although I agree with everything you said, sometimes the things that people do to cause mischief in the park are fads. So, it's hard to keep up with them. Uh, we could come to the council to try to make something not allowed at the park and then by the time it gets passed, uh, that thing's not cool anymore anyway. Not to ever, not to say it ever was cool, but so much as there's people that think it's cool to do something bad. This allows flexibility for our park board to make rules in more real time that have the effect of our police being able to force them by ordinance.

Does this include the trails as well? post that we can sign and again the creativity is amazing and this way we can keep up with it. Thank you. Are there any other questions? Okay to make a motion to adopt. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

Thank you all. That gets us to ordinance um 2537 amending chapter 46 adding article 6 titled transient occupancy safety standards for hotels motel. Um Councilman Zilly would you mind reading that one for us? Ordinance number 25-37, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Portage, Indiana, amending chapter 46, Portage Municipal Code to add article uh six titled transient occupancy standards for hotels and motel. Let the record reflect this has been read in full.

I'm going to ask if our fire chief could come up or if you're comfortable. So this began and uh I still might have Ted on call because even though this is primarily a fire and code enforcement issue, Ted has firefighter in his in his veins too. So Chief, are you prepared to talk on this a bit?

Sure. Uh so the essence of this is to uh help the health and safety of our hotels. Currently um we have people living longterm in the hotels. That's not what they're designed for. um when someone moves in there, they accumulate a lot of things. Uh the rooms are designed for um short-term usage, not lots of stuff. The fire suppression systems within the hotel rooms are meant to suppress fire for rapid exit. Um you know, look in your house, I know my house, I accumulate a lot of things. So, um when they live in there, those things accumulate. And so this just helps us um with the health and safety to um to curb a lot of the long-term living in uh hotels and motel that aren't designed for long-term residents.

If it's all right to ask attorney uh just a couple things real quick. One is that u my understanding is that this ordinance is already reflective of state statute, but this is a way for the local municipality to be involved in the is enforcement the right word? I just want to make sure I'm explaining the legal basis correctly.

Yeah, the legal basis is coming out of uh as the chief stated it's from a health and safety standpoint. I mean, the zoning districts, the planning process, the plan commission, the BCA, the planning department are all lined up on a given use. This is a temporary short-term use. So, that's what invokes the city's uh fire and health uh powers, and this is an attempt to make sure that if we have it being long-term, we've addressed those concerns at the plan or the BZA or by staff. and if they haven't that would the buildings are being used as they were designed permitted for.

One of the things I know I was asked about especially when people I think that generally speaking everybody looked through the minimum fire safety standards. I mean I don't think anyone's opposed to being within 75 ft of a fire extinguisher. But the question was brought to me um at points today. I think that because sometimes word of mouth can travel and then people read things a certain way. They said, "Does this mean that someone can only stay in a hotel for 30 days?" No, it means that you can stay in a hotel room for 30 days because a hotel is designed to be a transitory spot and that's designed to be in the form of a hotel unit. So, someone does have the ability to move, but that movement is actually very important to the chief's point to make sure that you're not having things, I guess you would say, I think the longer you live in some in a place, the more you start keeping things, you know, wherever they might be. And that's I believe the fire department's experience when dealing with hotels. Is that correct?

Correct. And then also, you know, if you're living in a hotel, then you have to have a way to cook your food and bringing in hot plates, which that room is not designed for. Um, again, the long-term uh hotels have that built into it along with the code and the protection systems that deal with hot plates, cooking surfaces, what have you. Uh, these rooms do not have that. And so it just creates a bigger danger for for us and for the the safety of the community as well.

Something that I appreciate this ordinance does as well is it creates circumstances where if there is a situation where either a fine or just is inappropriate or there's other circumstances, you have the ability to peel that and get permissions for things from the um board of works, which you'll remember from earlier, that's the body that's been, you know, assigned for the um the animals, you know, what have you. And as noted by our attorney, this is a zoning matter because hotels are zoned for a particular purpose. We do have other types of zoning like extended stay. We have types like um apartments and things, but at the end of the day, it is important that we're making sure our hotels are operating as hotels. This is not to stop anyone from staying in their favorite hotel for a long time, but treating it as a hotel while they're in there, I think, is really paramount. So, how does somebody know? How how would you know that somebody has extended to day 31? Is it something that the um building owner is accountable for doing or is it being reported by other people? And is it something that you then have the ability to remove that person right then and there versus as um let's say like if it was an evict eviction process or something, it wouldn't go to that extreme,

right? So there will be a uh a register that the the hotel owners are required to maintain. Um we can do spot inspections whenever we would like to look at their um guest log. Thank you. Their guest log. Um and then it wouldn't be to the point where we would evict the the resident. We would then find the the hotel owner. What about who checks the rooms to see if there's not hot plates or what have you? Is it the maid service or if they don't have maid service, who does like a spot inspection like you said?

Well, I the spot inspection is not the room, right? The spot inspection is we're saying how many days to live in in a certain period based upon the design. So, I don't think this is set up for the fire department on a standard procedure to go out, check the guest log, and then go check every room or the rooms in question. It's the guest log itself that the fire department, I'm assuming on an SOP, we'll add be going around checking those. If they have an issue, they can go spot check that.

And it would be the hotels wanting to be in compliance with this. So to your point, if somebody is going through the checkout process, even if they're checking out and then getting another room in a hotel, that's the opportunity for the hotel to identify things that shouldn't be there, such as the hot plate example. So theoretically, there's nothing stopping a person on day 30 from just moving to a different hotel room. That is correct. And we also are not intending for there to be something to stop somebody. I do see some hands, and I am comfortable, of course, with bringing people. What do you mind if I start with you guys though?

Because they're not for whatever reason they are not able to secure um consistent housing or permanent housing. How is the fire department going to handle that kind of situation?

Well, to start and we want to be really careful because I'll I'll let Mr. Mccclure say something. We are not always necessarily going to know if somebody is changing rooms in a hotel because they want to be staying in a hotel for I don't want to say a bad reason. That's not the right word. Someone who's on a hardship and is staying in a hotel and the hotel is following this ordinance by having someone change rooms and you know every 30 or whenever they want to make a change within the time frame days. That could be someone going through a hardship but it could be somebody like uh could be a guy who has traveled to our city. he doesn't for whatever reason want to stay at one of our extended stay hotels. So he's not he's not booking for that long time or she and that person is choosing to stay in a hotel but they are working they're employed they're just following the rules as they go. So to your question, it's a good question because I imagine what you're asking is how can we identify people in the community who need help? And I think that similar to how do I I won't compare it to anything. I don't necessarily see the fire department as catching that. But that's where for us another part of this process that kind of comes along with it is us having a more robust relationship with our hotels. I don't want to speak too highly, too low because sometimes we've had when it came, we've been dealing with hotels in the city for a while now and in my case about a year and going on nine months. Sometimes people tell you that they are trying to make things better in the hotel and then it doesn't appear that they are. Sometimes they tell you that they're trying to make it better and they are trying but there's other complications. I can't make that into an ordinance. But as we keep developing relationships with um hotel owners and management, my hope would be helping people who need help and want help that that could come through that relationship. If that makes sense.

It does to a certain point, but I I can't help but imagine that if spot inspections are done on a monthly basis and and someone from the fire department identifies a name that consistently appears in the different rooms but consistently over a period of time. Um I that would indicate that either a situation like you said someone who's working locally but doesn't want to isn't necessarily moving here just is staying in the hotel and changing changing rooms so they can stay. But if we if and I would say when there is a an individual or a family who's identified as being in a hardship situation um is there a plan in place or is there a plan for a plan in place for identifying those people and then helping them to connect with people who can help case manage them getting resources for housing and

so I would I would love to do that and I I happen to know who you are and it's Good to see you. It's good to see you, too. Whether this ordinance passes or not, but I hope it does because again, it's primarily an ordinance for fire safety where we're able.

Oh, yeah. And as much as we're able to. Sometimes we can't do as much as we'd want to do within what the state statute allows a city to do, but we're trying to do what we can. But, I mean, I would be happy to work with you and your organization and any other organization on a plan for that. I don't think that this ordinance can prevent that kind of partnership from happening. I think if anything, it gives us a tool that we can use and a reason to build even more of a relationship with these hotel owners and managers that we want to do. I think our police chief wants to speak. Yeah. So,

oh, I'll let the attorney speak first. I think we also have to keep in mind the ordinance is written in a way it the human component is real and that's the part you're talking about but from the city's health and safety standpoint really at the core of this is to ensure the people in hardship are staying somewhere that is safe. So the other side of the equation is if we find out one or more of our local establishments are more along the lines of 60 90day stays then that's the city's ability to go to them and say this is more of an extended stay. We need these modifications and then this isn't part of your situation. We have extended stays available. So this is also about making underlying product being used is safe for the family who's using it. And I would tell you that I don't have to be a fireman, but if you put three or four or more people in one of those rooms, each person you add, each person's stuff you add, you are exponentially raising the problem. We definitely want those people in extended state where it's designed properly.

So there's the human side and the planning product side of things. The only thing I would push back on that though instead of transitioning them to extended stay situation would be to to transition them into a a stable housing situation which is I'm if those possibilities exist of course but at the base level if someone's staying somewhere in the city we want it to be safe however many people are there that's Goal number one. Goal number two is when you start getting into the the more human aspect attempt to solve the issue

because when you go from a hotel situation to an extended stay situation, even if that family is working, the price increase for that can put price them out of being able to stay in an extended stay when you're talking what about 717 to $75 in a hotel and an extended stay can be $200 or more. And that can definitely be part of it, but that's where we get to the limit of where are we as a city, our first responsibility is the fire safety code compliance. Because no matter what, if someone is staying in a hotel for a prolonged period of time because of a hard situation, the last thing we want is for them to be in an unsafe hotel because that

agree with completely and I support the I support the ordinance uh 100% because safety you're you're exactly right. safety is primary. But I think that to your point, there is so much more that needs to be done. And I don't want to compare it to other ordinances we've done. But what I will say is that it's very important that we start where we can because sometimes you need to get to that first level for the second level to become more clear. I want to let our chief speak, but then I'll call on you, Mr. Johnson. Oh, you're good. Okay. Oh, well, thank you, Mike.

Yeah. So, I don't I don't as the attorney said, I don't think it really has any bearing on the the ordinance, but I did want to answer the concern just, you know, as a as a community um concern. So, as most of you guys are aware now, we did hire our police social worker. Uh time flies, so maybe it's been a month or six weeks or so. Um she's already worked several hundred cases. Um she's available to any of the city departments. So, in a situation like this, um I would assume that if the fire department came into contact with somebody that they felt was um in need, that'd probably be their first call. Um I know chief was going to talk about it, but I figured since she's housed out of our department, I'd come up and talk. So, she's already out networking uh throughout the county, different places. Like I said, um there's there's some cases that she's already been involved in that have, you know, if you follow the social media, you've seen some stuff that's been going on in our city. she's already involved in that. So, we do have um a resource there, which we didn't have before. It was we didn't there was resources in the community, but we didn't have the connector. Now, we've got somebody to be the connector for us. So, um the other thing I'll say is that a lot of these hotels that we found that people were staying at for long periods of time were charging 75 $80 a night. Um so, you know, these people are paying 24 $2,500 a month to stay there. Um seems like there's probably they could get into than the hotel if I'm being honest. But um

well the and I apologize for interrupting again but this is important stuff. There are some challenges to that. often um people who are staying in those places, they may have a job where they can afford more, but because they're having to pay those prices, they don't have the opportunity to save up enough money to have first last month's rent, security deposit, or they have challenges with uh yeah, previous evictions, criminal criminal convictions, or they've lost an identification, and because they can't establish residency, they cannot obtain identification. Um there are a lot of challenges, a lot of obstacles. Could we maybe uh close that door or Thank you.

Um there's a lot of obstacles. There's a lot of obstacles to folks being able to um get get into uh stable housing, right? That maybe it's not a matter of necessarily money monthto month, but you know, securing enough to get into housing. And then there's also the availability of affordable housing, which as we know in Porter County as a whole is We're very very limited in our affordable housing in B County.

Feel free to stand or sit. Sorry. But what I will say is that some of these things are things that we're able to move to and work on because we have resources like a social worker in the police department. And that's also why the goal with this ordinance is not to make it impossible or even difficult. I don't want to say to live in a hotel, but the goal is not to make it impossible if that is someone's best option. But so much as we can make it safer, we can. And so much as we can make it safer by requiring hotels to act like hotels, we can and we should. One of the things, and I appreciate the professionalism of our police chief and our fire chief always, and I'm going to be as professional as I can. I just want to be careful how I say it. We have found some tragic things happening in hotels before I was mayor, while I've been mayor. What's unfortunate is how much we find out because something leads to a 911 call. The goal is to set up circumstances where we can be checking things and solving problems before it comes to a tragic call or a very scary call. So I I can promise you this is not we do this and everything stops and that's all we need. But I think it is an important step within what the city can do to be able to get other balls rolling. And I appreciate you being here tonight.

I think the the whole one of the purposes of the ordinance I can be a firefighter. I'm gonna go ahead and talk for him.

Yeah. Uh I mean, we we want to have it be a safe place to stay for not only the people who are having housing issues, but the people who are traveling. And we can attest to, as the mayor said, some things that we've seen where, you know, you can barely get inside a door because you've got what you would find in a normal person's home is now in a space, you know, the size of that desk. And you know that that's we've got to we've got to be able to address that too because again not only are we concerned about the people that are having the housing crisis but we've also got you know thousands of people that are staying in the city you know with the highways and so we need to make sure it's safe for them too. So but I I I think I again you know if you want to um get together afterward we can get you our social workers information but um we've now got an outlet that we never had before to try to try to work on some of this stuff. Okay, you can be chief again.

If I can add to that, I'm Jason. Brian, executive director for family support county. We specialize in working with homeless families. And one of the things I was going to suggest is that we would consider working with the hotels as well as to try to bring some wraparound case management services. I think that's the key component to this because I don't think people realize that homelessness is more than just shelter. It's it's a multi- facet complex situation that has to be addressed to the core. So if we can provide some assistance the professionals can provide some assistance to the families as well as the hotels by providing social work by providing those case management meetings to ensure that these individuals are are safe in those places but also to make sure that they're working on budgets and getting their jobs and finding affordable housing with our landlord engagement programs. I think there's so much more that could be built off of that. So, I thank you for clarifying that if they're in a room for 30 days that they're not going to be booted onto the street because that's a concern because where do they go after that and how do they get the the care after that? We're going to go to the trustes office and we're already jam-packed already as it is, right?

And there are Oh, that's okay. So, if we could just figure out a way how we can work with these hotels and provide some wraparound case management services, I think that would just add to helping to support your your your administration, your as well as the families as well as the Portage Township Trustes Office. Um, you have my my my organization, Family Promise, you have Gabriel's Horn, and of course, Daybreak. We can all try to figure out how we can bring together our resources to help our

I apologize that I started to say something that, you know, interrupted. That was not my intention. So, I'm sorry about that. One of the things that's happened leading up to this has been conversations with different hotel owners and managers. And sometimes it's amazing because you think you know an owner and then you find out it's like a video game. there's like a double secret owner, you know, on the top. But we've already been building relationships already. And beside not just with the social worker, we've talked about having a a positive increase of police, you know, presence within the hotels. And that's something we've worked with with the chief. I think that being able to have you guys involved with that, too, could go a very long way. And I can tell you that in our conversations leading up to this, we have a lot of cooperation. We have challenges, but we have room for cooperation with the hotels in our city. I believe there are 13, if I got the number right, and um I know how active you guys are. So, I'd be really thrilled to have you part of that process as we go. Similar to again, like I say, sometimes we got to get to a spot where we can start to get the city in the door. But once you get the city in the door, I think you can also get organizations that can go above and beyond what a city can do in there. The last thing I'll say is I think the ordinance gives the hotels the incentive to try to partner with us and to contact us. If somebody's if there's no ordinance and there's really no then you're depending on the good nature of somebody to say, "Hey, I've had this person stay in here. Maybe they need help. There's good people in the world, but sometimes you need something to facilitate that." If you don't want to violate the ordinance, then it's, you know, again, it's not about necessarily punishing people, but then maybe that's we get the phone call of, "Hey, we've had these people in here a while." Whereas without the ordinance, you know, we may never never even know unless we go there for a police or a fire call. So,

all right. With that, I'm going to thank you guys for your Are there any other questions or comments from the council? I would just like to thank both of you for doing what you do. I'll call I'll talk to you. I can let you because I let other people on this one. Yeah, I have a I think at this point we Well, we've talked, but go ahead. Say something. If you could say it from here, that would be fine.

Yeah, I would like to just say it from here. Um, I lived in a motel at Hampton in for four months straight because my house flooded. Now, this isn't concern what they're talking about, but I have experience. I met you at the housing with Gabriel Sworn and Promise and I appreciate I know about the caring place. I have had homeless family live in motel because people on the street paid for that. Now in that case they might be signed under somebody else's name. My two granddaughters worked at motel and got to live there because they were homeless and they traded their service for the motel. Are they signed in as a resident? Did they stay there for 30 days or more? How are you going to police that?

So these people that have a fund, they might put somebody temporarily in a house because there's no promise are doing it with just cause. I lived with a microwave in a refrigerator, but that's not going to stop one of their people after they leave monitoring them from carrying in a hot plate. So, we can't answer everything, but Oh, sorry.

I just want to give you a little background of why I don't feel they have not got enough staff. when I was in the motel and then the next year I was in days in holidaying out here for two and a half months my house again unfortunately but the same thing happened there that happened over Hampton because they have one person at the desk once I got the nickname hall monitor because I was on the second floor and I heard everything I saw people in the back door that weren't registered for one. And I'm going to kind of leave it at that because that's my basic point. They they don't have enough staff to get the people speeding through the town, let alone I appreciate what they want to do and I think it's a legitimate cause, but trans get on Facebook, come on the street, maybe they made a mess at one hotel and they get some other person to feel badly for them and check them in somewhere else. So again, it's kind of a difficult thing to monitor and track.

Thank you. Those are two very good motels. Sure. I was treated well. My situation goes beyond the 30 days. I understand that and I and I apolog and your experience is important and I'll just family members going to meetings such as his and um Clancy and him and a group of people. I went to that and I just want to say and if you let me because we do need to get back to this. So, thank you for sharing. But what I that's all I have to say. Oh, absolutely. And again, we understand that there are good people caught up in different situations,

but even there, and I want to respect your story and your experience,

but the thing that's important to note is in circumstances where someone needs to stay longer and it's not possible to switch from one room to another, this ordinance has room for the hotel to come forward and bring it to an entity like the board of works to get resolved because some of the story you shared and I appreciate it, but some of the elements in it could have been solved. I don't want to dare say better, but things could have been solved another way if there had been a city component to get in and check what's going on with the hotels. The goal is not to punish anyone in a hard time. It's not to punish anyone who is a guest. It's to hold hotels accountable for acting like hotels. And when a hotel is not, we have to have some discipline when there's a circumstance going on that merits it. And if we discover a circumstance that needs to be addressed, but it's not exactly disciplinary in that way, it gets us so that we can build these partnerships and get you to people who can help. And that's what I think is key. And I think that our police chief hit the nail on the head. Without this ordinance, we don't have a starting point where the city can direct. And it's not just our portage police. In fact, although the ordinance allows the police department to be one of the entities that I don't want to say polices, but checks on this, the primary responsibility is our fire department through our full-time fire marshal and anybody that he deputizes as well as agents from the building department. So, it's not one department focused on this. The goal is to get the city in the door and I do believe it's an appropriate way in that door. Are there any other questions or comments from our council? And if not, is there a motion on this matter?

This would be a motion to a motion to approve um ordinance 2537. It's been read. I will make a motion to approve ordinance 25-37. I will second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I.

Any opposed? That's passed. And then that'll get us to ordinance um 2538, an ordinance amending chapter 38 of the municipal code regarding city ambulance services. Oh, come on up, Chief. So what this ordinance does is it kind of modernizes the ambulance billing. Uh the first part reflects a little bit it's not actual change but modernizes it or brings it to the current fee structure that we have. Uh the ordinance originally written has a 6% increase annually. So those number changes just reflect those numbers. Those are the current numbers of which we build. After that, uh what a lot of people don't realize is the ambulance itself, whether it's the uh disposable items, the ambulance CS, all that equipment that goes along with that, that doesn't come out of taxpayer money. That comes out of what is recouped from the billing portion of the ambulance. So 10% of that currently goes into the fire equipment fund and that's what is footing a lot of the equipment. All this equipment is uh set for every seven to eight years it has to go into FDA uh recompliance and so we had to be creative on looking at billing. Uh the ordinance as it is written does not allow us to bill certain things that we are allowed to bill insurance companies. When the original ordinance was written, you could only bill if you transported somebody. Period. End of story. If you transport somebody, you could you could bill that. So um in cases where uh a kid falls and breaks his arm, we come in,

put a splint on them, and we put a $150, $200 splint on them. mom shows up and says, "I'll take him to the hospital. We're not just going to yank the splint off and let him have a new arm." Right? So, we needed means of recuperating things that we already provide uh to the public. Also, another item in there is when somebody's having a psychological emergency, police department, and the fire department's called out. Um, we currently are not able to bill that towards the patient's insurance uh because they are considered to be under police custody and under police custody without an ordinance we would technically have to bill the police department in order to recoup that fund instead of the insurance. This allows us to bill the insurance. Um so this is just allowing us to bill properly the services that we're providing and able to provide uh with that and also with the increase in revenue uh it gives some of that back towards that fire equipment fund.

Are there any questions? Is this billing for all insuranceances Medicare, Medicaid and your commercial? Yes. So the only one that uh is Medicaid specifically is is transport only. Uh so a lot of this stuff will not apply towards Medicaid only. This is looking more at if you have Medicare advantage uh or I'm sorry u Medicaid Medicare uh specifically Medicare advantage uh will bill this. Medicaid will bill this. uh your private insuranceances will also uh uh pay for these services.

What about the cases when a resident falls and they can't get up and you guys have to go and assist? Are they still being charged or how does that work?

Uh currently there is no fee structure for charging uh residential lift assist. Now, we do have cases where we are called to assisted living in the city where they will allow the resident to lay on the floor and not assist them off the floor um because they are they consider themselves assisted living, not assisted lifting. And so that has been an increased issue that we've dealt with. This does allow it has a line in there to charge the facility for not lifting up the resident that they're already paying for. Thank you.

These are often tough things to talk about, but I appreciate the professionalism and the way that you've been able to bring it up to us. Are there any other questions from the city council on this matter? I can make a I'd like to make a motion to adopt. Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Thank you.

Gets us to resolution 2515 authorizing the clerk treasurer to do transfers.

I'll explain that. So 2515 we're I'm going to be I'm asking permission to transfer from fund 2209 local option income tax 310 sanitation under landfill fees $27,812 into fund 6602 sanitation into trash and recycling into op operating supplies $27,812 and this is to pay for garbage toers that were ordered for the new um construction that's currently going on and some of them already been given out. So,

I had a question on this and Randy, you might remember this from a couple um years ago. Mr. Reed, coming up. What did we ever determine on whether or not we could charge developers and in essence new homeowners on newly built homes on purchasing their totters? We've been actually talking and discussing that type of situation with our new communities that are developing new homes and everything and and charging some type of uh fee for their initial totes. So, okay. Yeah, I know we explored a couple years ago and it didn't go anywhere. Yeah,

we're exploring it now and it might go somewhere hopefully by either the next meeting or the following if you guys like it, but that's actively something that we're discussing. So, I almost wondered if you could see into the future and you were gearing us up for it. No, it's just we we've talked about it before and is adding it on as part of the building permit process just like tap on fees and everything else you Yeah, we have so many limited totes right now and this was a order back in I believe uh March that we placed and those totes are pretty much all gone for the new homes that are going on.

And the new homes are getting only one tote. Uh, no. They under the current ordinance right now it's they get two up to two. We only offer them one, but when they do ask for that second one, they do they do get it. So, we can't tell them no to the second under the current ordinance, but we can show them one and see if they figure out, but a lot of them do. I will say that we are going to be bringing this to you guys pretty soon. just not ready at this meeting as far as that matter goes, but it needs to be looked at and I think voted on. But anyway,

I'll make a motion to approve resolution 2515. Second. We have a motion and a second. A second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Thank you.

Resolution 2516 authorizing the clerk treasurer to do transfers. I'm asking for permission to transfer from fund 1101 which is our general department um zero our department of 002 the clerk treasur's office personal services and wages the deputy wages of $347,000 and $347,211 from employee benefits two 200,4 243,926 $6.77 for a total of $591,127.88. Two, the sew sewage operating fund 6201 for personal services and wages. The deputy wages of $347,211. Employee benefits $243,926.77 for a total transfer of 500591,127.88. And what this is doing is we are transferring um there are currently six employees in the clerk treasur's office being paid out of utility funds and we are trans were we created a line items for those six employees to be um paid directly from the um utility budget and they will be taken out of the clerk treasures budget as of next year. actually current they will be now once we get this um ordinance approved or this resolution approved.

It's not actually a change in the amount of money being spent for this year, but I think it's a more appropriate way to document it and I appreciate the fact that it got found as a more appropriate way to be able to document that. Absolutely. Thank you. I will make a motion to approve resolution 25-16. Second. Second. We have a motion. Who seconded that, please?

We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I.

All right. Reports from city officials. Tracy, I believe you wanted to come up because you had something to announce or talk about or hope it was something good because announce is probably not the Well, good evening. Um, so it's going to be really quick. I just wanted to announce that one of my employees is having his 20th anniversary. Um, John Gasner on September 7th will have a 25th 20th anniversary and on September 16th he will be retiring. Um, I know they're watching right now. I know him and his wife are my biggest cheer squad. So they're watching right now. I just want to say we're not going to be able to fit fill his shoes. He was a one is a wonderful employee and I'm happy he's going to have a great retirement. Um so I just wanted to share that with everyone.

Thank you so much. Thank you. It's always good hearing the exciting news. Do we have any uh reports from standing committees? I would like to speak on behalf of the park department. Um they're starting the haunted hay ride adi admissions the fall coming which is sad. Um and they are going to be starting on the pickle ball at Woodland Park which is super exciting. It's pretty cool. Any other committees? When is the budget committee going to start meeting? Just curious.

So Liz and I we've talked about basically our schedule for the budget as far as where we need it approved by. And Liz, I believe you have some recommended dates. Or maybe I'm off on that. I apologize. There were dates given when we last met that would have been good. I don't know if they were recommended. I'm sorry. The recommended dates are the first um Tuesday in September and then the third Tuesday in September to have the budget finalized by the I'm sorry, October. Um we had set the 26th up for basically to get everything together. So I don't know when I think Colin's asking about the bud budget committee for the council

by ordinance the mayor needs to present the budget first to the budget committee before it is presented for first reading at the city council and so ideally we would need something before the first week of October. Absolutely. So I would say just looking at account I think we we came up with like the 26th of September for to get the budget that's our working presentable deadline to have that there with us. So I'm just looking at a calendar right now. I apologize.

Well, we're going to have a council meeting October 7th. I'm just trying to figure out when we're going to have budget adoption meetings. I would wonder as far as bringing it to the budget committee for review. I know that last year I think that the meeting went pretty well. I mean if you want to do something on if you want to book it September 29th or 30th or that first week of October uh minus the Tuesday that comes on the 7th. So let me rephrase that. September 29th through um October 3rd. Although I never recommend having a public meeting on a Friday unless there's an absolute

To be clear, I'm just asking when the budget committee's meeting. I'm not I'm not on the budget committee, so you're not scheduling with me. I'm just asking like when is the budget No, when is the budget committee going to meet? That would be Who's the budget committee? Oh, I know it's you, but Okay. Hi, Spy. So, I think um didn't we agree to the 26th to be done with the department heads and then Austin? All of our stuff would be finished up. So, talking to Victoria, 29th through the 2nd. Is there something that would work for the committee? Um, we'll be looking at the 29th. The 29th would definitely work for me. I know it would work for Liz based on our schedule.

And so, that would be with Bob on the 29th October of September, Monday. Yeah. And then Ferdinand is also touch base. Colin, I apologize for thinking you were on the budget committee. Used to be I was just asking because six less than 60 days, so just curious. All right, so that gets us for the budget committee on the 29th. We got the 7th and then we said the 21st. Okay, that'll be at 6 PM as well. 6 p.m. as well. Got it. You write that down and we'll make sure that we get it on there. I sure will.

All right. Do we have any other standing committees? Ways and means, anything like that? No. So, all right. Petitions or monstrouses and public input. Anybody like to come up to speak? Would you like to come up and say it at the microphone or would you like I mean, I can hear you and I can repeat it, but

I know I can, but there's people watching online, so Anyway, I'm from United Way. We got a new program. We just got funding from Department of Labor. It's called Youth Build. So, I work with out of school youth that's 16 to 24 that's drop out. So, if you know anybody that's dropped out, they unemployed. We're going to help them get their high school diploma. They can go into construction or CNA. Two good fields. So, we're going to put them through the training. Then, we're going to put them in a job so they can be self-sufficient. So you go on United Way website, go to youth bill and you can go on there and apply. So look to hear from uh some more that come to the next month or so because we're already in our first cohort. We're getting ready to go to our second cohort probably in October or November.

What's your name? Freya. Thank you. I want to say I have spoke to people who have done those and to see how it's changed their lives. It's amazing. Thank you so much. Anyone else? Oh, would you like to come back up? If you could come up to the microphone, though.

It's real quick. There's a a suicide awareness walk in Chesterton. It's out of the darkness and I believe it's on September 21st from 12:00 I think is registration. You can look it up. It's called Out of the Dark. in Chesterton. I think it's important that maybe that be um announced in the portage community as a city next to Chesterton and I would like to see the growth of it in the city in the future. That'd be wonderful. We'll do our best to get the word out. Thank you. It's very close to

Thank you so much. And because we're a city here, I think it we should Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else? Or is there a motion to adjurnn? Motion to motion to adjurnn. I was say I don't know if there's a motion. Yeah. So, we have a motion to adjourn. Do we have a second? Second. We have a motion and a second. All in favor, please signify by saying I. I. I don't vote. I'm sorry. I just want to I I can't vote. Liz can't motion. What do we do? [Applause] [Music]