Common Council - Regular Meeting

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

I don't know.

I just want to . How are you? Can I get in there? Hey guys, how's it going? You guys stay in that truck.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, May 26th, 2026 meeting of the Martinsville Common Council. The meeting is hereby called to order.

This time I would like to invite Pastor Rick Bailey from Liberty Christian Church to come forward to offer tonight's invocation. So if you would please stand and then remain standing for our Pledge of Allegiance.

So tonight, as I pray for the council, I wanted to include the youth and the violence that we've seen here recently. I have teenagers, and so in our prayer I'm going to pray for the youth as well. So, Heavenly Father, We come before you tonight to acknowledge that you are the source of all wisdom, order, and life. And we recognize your throne is established in righteousness and justice. And we invite your presence and your holy influence into this chamber. We ask that your will be done in our city, and not just in the policies we discuss or the decisions made here, but in the hearts of people who call Martinsville home. And we humbly ask that you guide the minds of this council tonight, granting them clarity, compassion, and a spirit of unity as they serve our community. And Father, our hearts are heavy regarding the recent violence involving our youth, and we grieve the loss the safety of the brokenness that would lead a young person to believe that gun violence is an option. And we lift up the youth of Martinsville to you. We pray that you would break the chains of hopelessness, anger, and confusion that cloud their hearts. We ask that you replace those feelings with a vision of purpose and a deep respect for the sanctity of life and the knowledge that they are made in your image. And Holy Spirit, we invite you to move through our schools, our homes, and our streets and bring conviction where there is darkness and bring healing where there is hurt. We pray for our families, our law enforcement, and our leaders, and may all be empowered to build a culture where youth are nurtured, protected, and guided toward goodness rather than violence. And we submit our plans tonight and our desires to your sovereign will and believing that you are the only one who can transform a city. May the words of our mouths and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, our rock and our redeemer. In Jesus' name, amen.

to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty

At this time, Mrs. Williams, you can please call roll.

John Badger.

Present.

Jonathan Collier. Present. Bill Decker II. Present. Josh Farron. Susie Lips. Present. Ben Mahan. Present. Ann Miller. Present. We have a quorum. Thank you.

Prior to tonight's meeting, you each received minutes from the Monday, May 11th meeting. Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes? I believe we accept the minutes.

Second.

Motion made and seconded to approve the minutes as presented this evening. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion passes. Likewise, you were given copies of the claims to review prior to tonight's meeting. Are there any comments regarding any of the claims?

I make a motion we approve the claims as presented.

Second.

Motion made and seconded to approve the claims as presented this evening. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, none. Motion carries. This time I would like to ask Police Chief Ryan Manley to come forward.

Good evening, council. It's our second year doing this. We have a nomination at the police department. We have Chief Lang starting the last year for an Officer of the Year. We tasked the supervisors with selecting and nominating one individual from their shift that they believe is the Martinsville Officer of the Year. This can go on stats. It can go on based on how they interact. It can go on accolades. It can go on training. So we're here tonight to publicly announce our 2025 Officer of the Year. Again, this is our second year doing this. It's a rigorous process. The individual that was nominated tonight, or that is going to be recognized tonight, was actually nominated by two shift supervisors. This individual worked on two different shifts throughout 2025, and when we asked for the nominations, his name came up twice. And actually, both sergeants used almost the exact same verbiage. They noted that this officer was extremely professional, exceptionally courteous, and relentlessly proactive. Things that you want to hear about our police department, right? So I'd like to bring up Officer Joseph Musgrove. Come up here, Joe. You've been selected as the Martinsville Police Department 25th. Joe's been in law enforcement for, I believe, six years. He's a true leader on the street. No matter how tough the shift, Whatever he faces, he's always got a smile on his face. He's always trying to make others around him lift their spirits. So we're very appreciative of Joe's personality. He sets a phenomenal example on how we expect our officers to treat each other. We're proud to have him here. Is your family here with us, Joe? My wife's here. Hello. Thank you to you. Thank you for sharing Joe with us. I know from my personal experience with my wife, there's a lot of worry, a lot of fear, a lot of unknowns, and a lot of those holidays, dinners, those types of things. So we appreciate you sharing Joe with us. Lastly, Joe, we'd like to thank you for your dedication and your positive spirit as you represent our core values every day. On behalf of the department and the city of Martinsville, I congratulate you on making an Officer of the Year for 2025 with our department. Congratulations.

We need to conduct a public hearing this evening, so therefore, without objection, the council will be in recess for the purpose of conducting a public hearing. The public hearing is on Ordinance 2026-1915, Amendment to Chapter 78, Vehicle Stopping, Standing, and Parking. So at this time, Mr. Coffey.

Thank you. This is a public hearing on Ordinance 2026-1915. I'm going to bring up the Deputy Police Chief, Mr. Brown, this evening to discuss how this came about, why we're here tonight to ask you to amend the Municipal Code to add Section 78-184 in regards to parking.

Thank you. If I talk too much, let me know. This was a work in progress. We've been working very closely with Mr. Dale Coffey and Judge Bill here. I've got to give credit to Sergeant Phil Hammonds. He's helped us out a ton as well with this. And this kind of started off... actually by accident. So we ended up writing a city ordinance violation to somebody, and I think we all realized when we wrote that we didn't know where that citation went. We didn't know how it was supposed to be handled, how it was supposed to be paid, which presented a problem. We know that city ordinance violations are important to the city to make sure that we're held accountable, and we just didn't have a way to do that. So when we walked through it, we realized that not only our ticket books for city ordinances was outdated, the prices were outdated, it didn't reflect the proper city ordinances that were updated when the city did it. So we were behind and we knew that it was something that we were having a problem with and we needed to solve. So we took it upon ourselves to break it down, and it seemed like we joke about it. Every single problem that we solved, there was two other problems that we had created, or we realized that there was problems that we had to fix, down to how we write our tickets and how the court receives them. So what we did, and I can pass this out, I only have one copy, where we end up reaching out to somebody after we got it all organized and we found a way to keep things very simple in writing these city ordinance violations, along with making sure that it's easily paid. And also, most of the stuff that's on these city ordinances, what we need to take into consideration, I'll talk about it a little bit more, is a lot of these are IC codes or state violations that we can write. I know myself and Chief Manley here talks about it. We hate citing people a $150 ticket for a corporate violation or something that we feel we wouldn't be okay with paying. I know we would be okay, but a $150 ticket will impact a lot of lives and may not turn the lights on. So no, that doesn't mean that we can't hold people accountable. So this is the solution to that. Are you guys okay with if I pass this around so you guys can see it? Now this is just a rough copy of it. We still have some edits that we found when we received it. But it'll show pricing, which is the exact reflection of what our current ordinance is. And so during that, we realized that the two biggest ordinance violations that we would write or either we need to modify them, or they weren't in our current city ordinance. So that's what I'm here today to kind of present and to talk about. One of the biggest ones was parking on sidewalks. The city has spent a significant amount of money installing and improving sidewalks throughout the city, and we need to ensure these sidewalks last as long as possible. I know Mr. McDonough here is taking that to heart, and we appreciate it, and the mayor, it's looking great. The sidewalks are intended to provide a safe walking path for pedestrians, children, and individuals with disabilities. Vehicles parking on sidewalks creates a safety hazard. How? It forces pedestrians to walk on the road to walk around these cars. It can cause permanent damage to the concrete. These sidewalks aren't meant for vehicle traffic. It also increases enforcement for these sidewalk parking violations. It will help protect the pedestrians safely, but it will also make sure that we're not writing a $150 ticket to these guys that are parking on sidewalks. Another one that we wanted to incorporate was or modify is parking against the flow of traffic. That's come up here recently with a lot of the businesses. Vehicles parked against the flow of traffic are also creating unnecessary safety concerns for both pedestrians and drivers. Visibility issues and vehicles pulling improperly into traffic also increases the risk of accidents when roads are unsafe. Addressing these violations, amending or adding, will help improve overall traffic flow and public safety throughout the city. Something I touched on earlier is when appropriate, officers are going to be encouraged to utilize these city ordinances as enforcement. Instead of the city or the ICE $150 tickets. And why is that? It's a lower fee for the citizens. It simplifies enforcement processing for officers. And then one of the bigger ones too is the revenue remains in the city rather than it goes to the state. We used to kind of joke around that we would write a $150 ticket and see $3 of it. I don't know that exact amount now, but if we do do a city ordinance violation, it's cheaper for the individual receiving it, it's easier for the officers, and we as a city also see that money a lot more. And then it also improves local accountability and compliance. Again, the new ticket book that's being passed around, that's a final draft that hasn't been approved yet. Simplifies citation issuance, makes payment processing easier for recipients, reduces confusion on how to pay it, because we have all that outlined. and then also allows officers to issue citations without needing a computer. As it stands now, we have to have a computer to issue any citation, so we can't just walk this square and find parking problems. We have to drive up, cause a traffic issue, write a citation, and then go from there. These changes are intended to create a more efficient and user-friendly process while continuing to promote public safety and protect the city's infrastructure. Do you guys have any questions about anything in regards to the ticket book or the process that we worked on or any of the additions that we have?

It brings a smile to my face. I see you've kind of done with the prosecutor's office, the criminal law book, our most common laws in Forest and Timor County. They put that together for the officers. This is the common citations we use. This replaces the old blue book. And so I would say from the old dog's stance, this would be good to get out on our website and make some public announcements on it, because I can take you back to about 38 years ago when we decided to enforce that. parking on the sidewalk and parking in the wrong direction. And that little blue book, if I'm not mistaken, is a $3 fine. So it was a great way to catch their attention and not give them the state fine. And so when they issued that and ordered out that night, we had an officer that was upset about it. And he went through that evening and wrote out three ticket book pulls. The mayor's office got quite the phone calls the next morning, and there were several people that brought in 300 pennies to put in that little envelope to pay that ticket. So it's great. This is God because I see your city ordinances, the violations, the vaping and everything on there that takes care of everything. It's awesome. I like it. But like I said, I just put your public service announcements out there to let people know that it's coming. good job because that's the more issues we've the city administration's last several invested especially this administration on the sidewalks and people understand that the sidewalks are not made for the depth of parking like a driveway and it's easily to damage them with the vehicles so I'm glad to see this yeah and we appreciate it could have done it without you know the names that name mentioned earlier

yeah it's uh we do have we still have some work to do um i was talking to the clerk and he said that when i think there's going to be some adjustments to the city website our goal once we get this established as well which i didn't mention is to make the ability to pay online too so what they'll be able to do is they'll just be able to type in that city or the ut team what we would call it you type that in it'll be inputted and then you can just pay online so i know from experience we In the past when we wrote them, we wrote about 60% of them would pay. So we're hoping that that number would go up with ease. And then obviously we're trying to make it a little easier for everybody to deal with.

I have a quick question. So the golf carts, is that just on the sidewalk or is that- It's a good question.

So that's always so big, right? So there's probably 10 to 12 different golf cart violations that could be signable or there's rules that we had to go on. So the best way that we did, or the best way to do this was is we left, there's a number or a line underneath that and that section there, what officers are gonna be responsible for is if it was a golf cart violation, they need to check golf cart and then they need to make sure for the simplicity when it goes to court, that that number is matching specifically what that golf cart violation was, whether that's traveling on the wrong road, right? So that number will be written on the ticket, so they know exactly what it is. Then there's also a little section for a description, just a brief description of, you know, not insured or wrong road or not stopping, whatever. It can be all written on that citation. We just try to simplify it the best we could on there. Does that make sense?

Yeah. What are the rules and regulations for all golf carts?

Oh, goodness. There's so many, and I'll have to look it up on the city.

very easily accessible they've made it great to where it's one of the first tabs you can click on and it pops right up very accessible can we make sure the united states postal service gets a copy of

Yes, so again that's going to be specific to the ICU.

So that's just a brief description. So it's I believe is it unsafe burning?

Unlawful. Unlawful. Okay. So there's a definition. So that's just the title of that IC code. Our officers are going to be responsible for looking that up to make sure that that unlawful burning meets that violation. Okay? So that's just a quick, like, oh, this is it. We can check it, and then we can move forward. In other words, if we're not the burn barrel, and they don't have a grade over the burning yet, that's your open burn.

I have a question for Dale. Do we need to specify exemptions for emergency vehicles, things of that nature, in the official line of duty inside of this?

You don't need to do that inside this particular ordinance because in a state of emergency or something like that, law enforcement responding to a call, emergency call, then these ordinances would not apply.

Yes, I believe so that that's under the bicycle so

That's a whole nother, remember what I said, no problem when there's two other ones. Moving violations is something we're working on currently with bicycles. Yes, that is currently an IC code violation that we can cite so we can still enforce it, but we're currently in the process of working on seeing how we can transition that into an ordinance violation without breaking some rules.

Thank you. No problem.

Any other questions?

Thank you, Deputy Chief. No problem. Any comments from anyone on public tonight? If not, we'll have the public hearing close on Ordinance 2026-1915. The council will reconvene. Under new businesses, we have the first reading of Ordinance 2026-1915, amendment to chapter 78, vehicle stopping, standing, and parking. Mr. Coffin, you want to explain the options this evening?

Yeah. So this is your first reading introduction to the ordinance. Unless there's unanimous consent to spin the rules, this will be placed on the agenda in two weeks for second reading and consideration.

Now, Council, I have a quick question in regards to the Section 78-184, Paragraph A. Do we need to throw an amendment in to include parking on the sidewalk? Because nowhere in there I was able to find sidewalks stated specifically.

Yeah, we have a separate traffic section already in our municipal code about parking on sidewalks okay so this was one that we just didn't have a clear definition of parking against the flow of traffic or on the wrong side of the street okay thank you okay so this will be on the agenda of the next meeting for the second reading we also have first reading coordinates 2026-1916 rezoning the property mr coffee So you have before you tonight 2026-1916. This is for rezoning the property commonly located at 2009 Burton Lane here in Martinsville. This came before the plan commission at its April 28, 2026 meeting. It was recommended by the plan commission that the city council rezone this property from its current zoning of B1 to R2. And the plan is to convert this back to residential with possibly a duplex. So that's what you have before you tonight. I believe we have Mr. Britton here on behalf of the applicant for any questions you may have. And I think the applicant's also here as well for your consideration.

Any questions? Again, this is just the first reading on this. If there are no questions or comments, we'll place it on the next meeting agenda for the second reading. Next item is the first reading of ordinance 2026-1917. Rezoning of some property. Mr. Coffin.

Come on up. We have a representative from the app here this evening. So, we'll go ahead and let him talk and introduce us. This again also was on the April 28, 2026 plan commission docket. It did receive a favorable recommendation to the city council for rezoning. Mr. Boucher, go ahead.

FOR THE RECORD, MY NAME IS KEVIN BUCKHEIGHT. I'M A LAND PLANNER WITH THE LAW FIRM CREEK DEVOLT IN THEIR CARMEL, INDIANA OFFICE. YOU PROBABLY GOT ALL THIS INFORMATION IN FRONT OF YOU. FOR THE SAKE OF TIME TONIGHT, I WOULD SIMPLY ASK FOR YOUR APPROVAL OF THIS AND IF POSSIBLE SUSPEND THEIR RULES SO THAT WE CAN MOVE ON WITH THE NEXT STEPS THAT NEED TO FOLLOW SO THIS SITE CAN BE DEVELOPED. WE'LL BE AVAILABLE FOR ANY QUESTIONS.

Was, was any signage put out in regards to this for the public?

It was before the Planning Commission and they generally put a sign on the actual location, the real estate that has a little yellow sign that says it's for consideration. It was also in the newspaper and joining landowners did get notified pursuant to our ordinance.

I just don't remember seeing any signage. And one of my constituents also wrote that up. We didn't see any signage.

Which, what's the address? What's the property?

The address, there are two parcels at the southeast corner. The north parcel does not have a address because there's nothing constructed on it. The south parcel is 1139 South Ohio Street. So it's the southeast corner of the intersection of Ohio and South Streets. It's the corner there for bare feet.

Okay.

So what's the nearest business?

The nearest business is probably the industry to the east. Four bare feet. Four bare feet. And then not too far to the east on South Street, there are more businesses there. South on Ohio Street, you're just a handful of blocks from the commercial area that leads into the interchange with I-69.

understanding you're going to take the corner lot and then take the house to the south and tear it down. Is that correct?

That is correct. The other two components of this whole project that the Planning Commission considered was one, to take lot three, the north lot, out of the four barefoot. minor subdivision plot so that it can be incorporated into a new minor plot with the other lot, create one new legal description, one whole complete parcel for the development of Green Credit Union.

Cleaner description. So, again, this is just the first reading. The gentleman has asked for you to suspend the rules. We only do that if you deem it's an emergency to do so. If you don't deem that necessary, then the second reading would be on our next meeting, which is June 8th. Is that correct, Matt? Correct. June 8th.

Councilman Lewis, did you have a question? I'm sorry, I couldn't understand.

No, I was just asking for clarity of which property. I thought I knew who used to live there, so.

I have maps if you want to look at them. Excuse me. Would a map help? No, he talked. OK. Could I see the map, please?

Yes.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Dale, on this property here, if we're going business, there's a question. Do we have, is the frontage good for entrance and exit area? It's right there at that corner. And when you turn to go eastbound, you're in that turn lane. going on to South Street as well as Colbert Feet. And South Street, you're just right there as you're coming up on there. Do we have any plans or how that's going to work with whatever being put there?

You may have a, be passing out there. The, the, the plaque was a separate action at the Planning Commission that obviously it's just the Planning Commission's site on the plaque. But the plaque did show the, the drawing here with the layout where they look at the entrances, comings and goings onto what street. So hopefully that will answer your question.

And for clarification, this is for a duplex, potential duplex? No.

So you have one entrance on Ohio Street, one entrance on South Street, in and out both directions?

Yes, sir. That's a preliminary plan. That was, the ordinance was taken into consideration in drafting that plan. It'll be refined as we get to that final exhibit office.

I personally, not that I'm against it, I think I'd like to go to second reading because I'd just like to look at it a little more because on South Street I just worry about the the traffic flow there of being able to left and right crossing your lanes there. I just want to take a look at that setback in Ohio Street, South Street.

So the general consensus is let's put this on the agenda for June 8th. Okay.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Next, we have the second reading in consideration of ordinance 2026-1914, repealing chapter 18, peddlers, solicitors, and transient merchants.

Mr. Coffey. This is your second reading. We introduced this two weeks ago. This was at the request of the council to repeal the current ordinance as it's no longer applicable for our city. So that's what you have for you tonight for a second reading and consideration of a vote.

motion I make a motion that we accept the ordinance number 2026 dash 1914 for repealing the peddler solicitors and transit merchants yeah we gotcha yeah motion made seconded to

Repel Chapter 18 with Ordinance 2026-1914. All in favor say aye. Aye.

Opposed, no. Motion carries. Can I ask a question real quick now? Will the city somewhere or another let people know that if they do not want peddlers, they should get a sign posted on their front door, back door, wherever it's most likely needed?

I'll work with Mr. Porter to see if I can say that. Okay. Mr. Williams, are you prepared to do the tax payments since Mr. Merida?

Sure. What you have before you is a consideration of compliance and statement of benefits. Mr. Merida is in favor of it. The retreat at Mineral Springs, it is on your paperwork in front of you. And so he is in favor, so we're asking for your approval. I can list the address as 110 West Washington Street, 110 North Main Street, and 265 West Harrison Street.

And Mr. Coffey, I'm going to assume we have to take each one of these individuals? That's correct.

I make a motion that we approve consideration of compliance statement of benefits for 110 West Washington Street. Second.

I make a motion to approve the statement of benefits for 110 West Washington. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed no. Motion carries.

I make a motion we can approve the compliance statement of benefits for 110 North Main Street. Second.

Motion made, seconded approving benefits for 110 North Main Street. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, no. Motion carries.

I make a motion we approve compliance statement of benefits for 265 West Harrison Street. Second.

Motion made and seconded to approve the statement of benefits for 265 West Harrison Street. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, none. Motion carries. Judge Terrell.

Thank you.

All right. The court has in front of you tonight a request for appropriation of funds for the new audio recording system that the court is hoping to use. Right now we use a handheld tape recorder And as you can imagine, that gets a little difficult. We are way behind with the times as far as uploading transcripts and things like that. So we've sought out a couple different companies. And the one that seems to be the most reasonable for, as you would say, the most bang for your buck is WSI Technologies. And I've got a representative here with me. We have talked back and forth with Christy about what she can offer us, and we are trying to be reasonable in our request. There is an opportunity for us to at some point use, basically what it does is it uses the equipment we already have, which is what we were really trying to find somebody to help us do, use the microphones you have here, the speakers, the sound system, and just kind of integrate that. And so Christy was able to get us a much Reduced rate using the equipment we have for us to get cloud storage for all of our court reporting pursuant to Indiana code We have to well the trial rule we have to have our records audibly recorded and held and the Indiana judicial retention schedule requires us to have our Cases retained for anywhere from 3 to 20 years as you can imagine We've got some people who still have outstanding tickets from like the 80s back in boxes there And so if we don't resolve a case we have to hold the whole record Until it gets resolved So this would be a great way for us to do that and not have to back load our computer by a bunch of external hard drives to have the full audio of bench trials and everything and The county has used this system before and the great thing about this system is we've talked to Andy Merida and he can help us get it set up where there's one step between us taking the audio from here and getting it to a cloud-based system. The more expensive route was a direct-to-cloud system that was about $10,000. We opted to not do that. We're fully capable of adding one extra step to save a significant amount of money. But as you can see on your quote here, there is an annual fee. of $2,200 and that would be required for three years and then we will own the software. But the whole quote amount is this 4834 at the bottom of this quote you have in your packet and then we will have to pay Mr. Ferguson $300 the person who implemented this system so that we can kind of integrate them all I'm gonna let Christy kind of talk to you. She's the expert here But ultimately I think we have to have this pursuant to the code we tried to be reasonable and talk to other folks this seems to be the best option and and we're asking that it come from the record perpetuation fund. This record fund is funds that the court already generates and we, it's fully funded by the court and it's for the purpose of keeping records. That is the entire basis for why we have that fund. It can supplement salaries, it can do some of those things and we do believe it does in fact supplement some of our salaries, but the main purpose is that it would be used for case management and storage. And if you want to write that code site down, it's Indiana Code 33-37-5-2. That establishes the fund. And then town court or city court clerk has the ability to use that fund for things such as this.

So Kristi, you can add to what I missed. Thank you. So I represent WSI Technologies. I'm from Indianapolis. My dad started his company in 1977. when tapes were prevalent and used everywhere in law enforcement, 911 courts. Our company handles 280 out of the 300 trial courts in the state of Indiana, including city courts such as Mooresville, Bloomington, all of the city courts around Marion County. We handle the 911 for Morgan County. We have our technology. You may be familiar with IRECORD for law enforcement for police interrogation. And so we would love to welcome you into our court market customer. We did put together one quote. Amy called and wanted to know what it would take to put in this type of technology, which has been out for 20 years now. So Judge Grace has been doing a great job with tape recorders, especially as a new judge, and knows that there are better ways to do things. So I came on site, took a look at what was already in the room, and we can use these microphones because those were ones that I quoted originally. So we spoke with your computer person or your AV person, had a phone call with him and asked him if we could use these. And the plan is, is to, you have a mixer down there in the rack to the left of you, sir. And we'll come out of that and we'll go into our equipment and then Judge can record from software that will be on her computer. There is a free playback software that she'll be able to use. And then we've also had conversations with your city IT person about storing all these for her so she can get rid of the tapes. Any questions?

Would the court still have access to the storage and software if the maintenance wasn't continued?

Oh, yes. It's yours. Okay. Yeah. And I talked to your IT person to see where it'll be stored on your network. We do have an option for cloud storage, so it can be stored in the cloud. So it's stored on our network? Yeah. And then we'll talk, because when he and I spoke, we talked about, I think he has a cloud plan where he maybe sends it to the cloud after a certain period of time. So we talked about keeping our eye on that, keep it here for a while, and then move it off, and then the court will have the ability to access it. No charge to us.

So that was my concern, was that we had a second place for storage for the backup purposes.

Yeah, I mean, it's taken care of that for us. I mean, I couldn't be intent with that for everything. It would eventually be on the cloud. It's just, if we want it direct to cloud, that's a $10,000 ask. And I believe it's that per year. rather than $2,200 per year. So Andy said it was no big issue to take that extra step to save that amount of money. Obviously, that would probably be easier. And I think there's a couple other things that come with that software package. But for the volume we're doing right now, trying to be conscientious of the dollars, I think we can make this one work.

And our offsite is a secure location then? I'm sorry? The offsite? Yes. Yes.

And only core staff has access to that for sewage code. and so i think the total is 50 well 51 34 76 that we're asking for again that fund is already supposed to be used for these type of things and i don't have the current dollar with me today stacy there's like 165 plus thousand dollars in there so we're not we're not sure on that for this type of a request so

judge cheryl thank you for your due diligence with finding someone you know less expensive my only question is um mr coffee was this not supposed to have been sent out like for a bid

Now, the dollar amount is under $25,000, so it clearly is under that. And then, like the judge said, they have money in their fund that they would like to use for that. So the requirements were not triggered to put out for bid.

I would know and Amy can speak to that. We've talked, she talked to three or four people and that's why she's here tonight too. If you have interest in hearing what those quotes were. There was one that was maybe a little cheaper but it didn't offer the cloud storage. So for us that's really a non-starter because of time what we're already doing. And then there was another one that was more expensive. But she can speak to those if you would like to hear from her. We have three or four in the file just in case you ever wanted to see. We didn't just

bigger money and quite great if i didn't know christina for this sounds like you've sourced the best points we've papered on as far as just trying to get other options too so would there be any savings or benefits to paying instead of doing it for three years paying it all up at once i mean would you save any money by not so there is a there is that option there is a

There's an option called a perpetual license, which means that you own that license. And that is about $3,600 a flat fee. And then you pay it one time. But it doesn't come with updates for software, for version updates. So if you do the subscription, it comes with every single update that you would need. This company was also recently acquired by Tyler Technologies for 280 million. And Tyler Technologies is the company that has the Odyssey case management that the court uses. So once that has upgrades, The recording software can be upgraded in tandem without you having to pay extra. You don't even have to go through our company for support. That fee even includes help desk included at $2,100 a year through the corporate recording company FTR, which help desk is who we use for all of our core questions.

So the fact that Tyler just acquired that company is huge for us because Tyler's how you look up people on my case and how you do all that.

so will the updates continue after the three years or at the end of three years you can own it and then you could pay a fee i don't know what that will be my guess is it's going to be around 800 a year to continue that or you can continue to do the subscription but who knows what will be in three years so we can go for three years and then re-evaluate, see what the court wants to do. Maybe there's something different. Maybe there's something better. I don't know that there would be, but maybe there's something within Odyssey then at that point where you can just record within Odyssey. But we'll see. But at least this will get rid of tapes. And if you want to use it, I don't know if the council wants to use it, but we could probably set it up in a way where it would be available to you to use as well. And what it does is it does multi-channel recording. So all these microphones, the courts need multi-channel recording so all the microphones are on a separate channel instead of everything coming through together in one recording. So if Judge Grace wants to hear what the witness is saying, she can pull up free software in her office, press play, click the witness button, and it filters out all the other microphones so she can hear exactly what the witness is saying. So we could set that up for you too if you wanted to use it.

this will help our boards with transcription and things like that you can pay for automatic transcription that's not part of the software that we're using but at some point if we end up i mean we have a couple bench trials every single week it seems if some point our volume gets to the point we're having more than two or three bench trials and people are asking for their transcripts we'll already be able to go to christy and say hey we need transcripts rather than paying a person to sit there and type it's going to be generated on this type of software so it just allows us to have keep up with the times and work more efficiently in the future. Again, we're not asking for that subscription today, but it gives us the opportunity should we need it.

Do you know how much that subscription would look like if we were to do that as well?

Yeah. So $3,600 a year. And then I have one. I have a customer. I was actually up in Hamilton County, and they were typing all the city council, all the minutes verbatim, and I said, why? And they said, I don't know, just because that's what we do, we type them all verbatim. So they were able to use that technology to automatically generate verbatim proceedings from the whole City Council of Chambers. Then they used fancy Microsoft Copilot and they took their, they were so excited when they called me, they took their recording and put it in Microsoft Copilot and automatically put it in the right format for their minutes and they were done. So there are some things that the City Council can do if you need to.

Can you explain to them? Because they may be interested in why we took off that $10,000. That's the one I was looking at.

So the $10,000, that one, it's not a separate recording license. It includes the real-time transcript. It includes the recording technology. The court would go to www. They'd have their own website that they go to. It's not a website. It's your website. It's part of FTR, which stands for For the Record. They would click record. just as if you were recording something with your phone. And then it records. We still have all the microphones in the courtroom that we would use. We have the mixers that we would use. And it starts recording it automatically to the cloud. So it's no longer down here. You can back it up down here if you wanted to. But then the transcript is automatically generated at the same time, real time. So if you had other people who you wanted to be able to listen real time, prosecutor's office, anybody else who wanted to listen in live, we could do that. They could follow along real time with a verbatim transcript as the recording's going on right here. And it even would allow you to have court anywhere else if you had to with little portable microphones if we had to do that.

and you can see we're not asking for that no but that might be something to consider if the council would ever want something like that we can do a one-stop shop and save the city some money by using this system so just for your consideration in the future if it becomes for something you know if we haven't transcribed these or anything like that it might be worth it in the future but it's nice to just get started with kind of a more basic plan and see what we need as we go but tonight you're asking for 51 34 76 yes correct yes how much again

GREG BRUDNICKI 5,134.76.

JENNA HALIGAS I'll make the motion to approve the additional appropriation of 5,134.76 for the city court recording system.

GREG BRUDNICKI Jonathan Collier will second.

Motion made and seconded to approve for the additional appropriation for the city court recording system, which will be $4,834.76 for WSI technology and $300 for Brad Ferguson. And then that will include a $2,200 per year for the next two year maintenance fee. Subscription. Subscription for the system. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed no. Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Any comments from the council this evening?

I again would like to thank the street department for cleaning up all those branches that we had, when was it, a week ago, 10 days ago, we had all those branches that came down. Thank you very much for all that cleanup. I know it was a lot, a lot, a lot of broken branches.

I have a quick one. Today I had to travel outside of Martinsville and use roundabouts, which I do not like, I will admit. I got honked at two different times in two different roundabouts. But why I'm saying all that is because to me it was rude of the people that travel through them all the time at high speeds to know where they're going, and I didn't know where I was going. But we have the same problem downtown without roundabouts. People trying to back out of angled parking spaces and people rushing up to a red light and not letting them out. It doesn't take that long to let someone get out in front of you to go to a red light where you're going to wait anyway. If we just ask the citizens of Martinsville to be patient, be courteous, and allow other people to get out of parking spaces because someone behind them may want to use the parking spot. It is becoming empty. observation.

The President I would like to say that I do have reservations about weed control, but I will say the roundabout looks nice with the mulch and the flowers and trees put in there. And in case anyone else was wondering, I inquired about the trees. I was a little concerned about those trees being planted by the concrete for roots to bust it up as it grows. But my understanding those trees are designed their roots go down and not out. So I would like to say it does look nice.

Did the problem get resolved at the transfer station with the emergency?

Mr. Dunn, on our transfer station, maybe Friday before it gets fixed? Maybe next week.

What was the issue specifically? The main cylinder blew. It blew? Any comments from the public to see

If not, due to a just discovered conflict, today we are moving the budget workshop that was scheduled for Saturday the 20th to Saturday, June 13th, 8 o'clock here in the council chambers. Again, the workshop is open to the public, but no public comment will be received during The workshop. Next regular meeting is Monday, June 8th, 2026, 7 o'clock here in the chambers. We are adjourned.

Mack, have you already sent out the, on an email, have you sent out an invite on that? Have you already sent out an invite on that date? I'll email it.

Okay, okay. I'll wait on that. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Fill me in on the fiasco Sunday. Come meet people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.