Boc - Regular Meeting

Thank you everyone for coming this evening. This is the Miami County Council Tuesday, September 16th, 700 p.m. at the Miami County Courthouse. If we could start off with um prayer or if if we have Councilman Sailors, please start us in prayer and then follow with the pledge of allegiance.

Father God, thank you for everyone's here tonight. Heavenly Father, Lord, may we have your wisdom, your insight, and your direction, Father, to um go about business here, heavenly father. And I ask the blessing for everyone in the county in Jesus name. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Next on the agenda, I have the August 19, 2025 minutes. Do I have a motion to approve? Motion. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Any questions? If not, please vote. I I I I. Right. Motion carried. Next on the agenda is items for council action. This is the resolution and request of EVO exhibits for tax abatement 7 years at 60%. And I have Brook Robertson here from economic development to talk about that. And I know she handed everybody out all the information. Everything caught it. Thank you.

This is an abatement request from Evo Exhibits. Evo Exhibits is located out at the North Miami Industrial Park. Um I think a few of you have had the chance to tour that before. Um just a little history about that um company. They moved here um during the pandemic in 2020. Their owner had he was located in out one of the suburbs of Chicago, northwest suburbs of Chicago. had a nice offer on his building at the time and um wanted to move. So, he started looking for a building regionally and he found the building here and moved everything down here during the pandemic. Uh going through his file, Evo's file, you guys approved an abatement for him in 2021 for some equipment they purchased. So, that was a personal property abatement and at that time they had 14 employees. Um, if you look at your paperwork this time, they have 48 employees. So, they definitely increased their employees. Um, what they do is they make and assemble and deconstruct um exhibits for trade shows, large trade shows. So, they go around the country and they set up those big exhibits, then they pack them back up um and store them on site. uh they're building uh I think it's 1,200 square foot yes 1,200 square foot structure um because they need more room for number one for storage but number two they have a large space inside the building that they use to set up these displays and take them down so that they can make sure all the pieces are there um that they know how to set it up and tear it down before they go to one of these um exhibits um or trade shows and make sure they have other pieces and everything. So, there's a lot to it. Um, so ever since he's been here, he's

wanted more space. Um, but as you can realize during the pandemic, trade shows stopped. So, his business basically stopped. No one was traveling. No one was doing any of those kind of things. So, that's why he took the time to move the business that year. Um, so it's taken a couple years for trade shows to ramp back up and for businesses to start sending people to those. So, he's busier than he's ever been now. um and is finally um capable and willing to make the investment on a new space. So, it is an investment of $398,000 for a 12,000 12,000 square foot structure that he'll be adding on where he's at now. And he does have, I believe, 10 acres is what he owns right there in that industrial park. So, he has plenty of room to do that.

Um we did meet with the incentive committee. um a couple weeks ago, I think it was now, a couple Fridays ago. Um and what we would recommend um obviously up to your approval would be uh 60% abatement each year for a period of seven years. And this is real estate. So um it shouldn't go down every year to go up. So that's why we recommended the 60% for seven years. Any questions for Brook? So this is this is performance-based as well, right? So this is they would they would pay it if they meet the qualifications, then there would be a check issued back for that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is an abatement.

It's an abatement. So abatement, not a reimbursement. So they get the discount on their tax bill as long as they're compliant. They still have to do all the compliance reporting. So there's still an annual compliance that they have. It's still annual compliance. And we look at the amount of investment and we look at their employment numbers. Is this is this in the city limits or outside of city limits? It's outside of city. It's just north of the sheriff's department. How many employees are going to have?

They'll be they're at 48 right now. So when they get more room, they're going to try to add a few more and plus more they travel because they send local guys out to go install these. So they also work very closely with Guyire the mover. They keep Guyire very busy as well. So the 40 employees this the conditions of this is just to maintain staffing. It's not to add

and their oh sorry their average salary it's thrown off a little bit because they have some engineers that throw off the salary amount a little bit but their average salary is 73,825 and their average hourly weights 30 hour hourly rate excuse me is $35. So they they pay pretty well as well. Contact person on the paper. That's not the owner. That's not that's their accountant. Marge is their accountant. All their paperwork. Kent Jean is the owner. Did you Did you tour out there when we toured? You didn't. You pronounce that that was last name.

Uh I think it's Sakamano. Marge Sakamano. That is She's in Chicago. Well, we pay 35 an hour, not 20. No, that's their minimum. So, their average wage is 35, but their engineers throw that off a little bit. So, some of their laborers are at $20 an hour. Any question? Do I have a motion to uh approve the resolution request for a seven-year 60% tax abatement for EO exhibits 398,000? Motion second.

Second. Great. If there aren't any other questions, please vote. I I I I I motion to carry. Thank you. Thanks, Brad. Uh next on the agenda is appropriations, transfers, and we don't have any tonight. So, uh, next on the agenda is request for audience and we have Miami County Highway Department. We have Janice Hughes and Carrie Warl here to talk about I know one of them is talk about the W bash road completion and explanation and I believe there's something else. Okay, great. Good evening.

Sure. I'm just want to give you some more numbers what roads we've done and what we're doing this year. So we've been doing a lot of conversion from gravel to chip seal and we've done like 9.9 miles this year at the north end and 5.3 miles at the south. So that's 15.2 miles that we converted from gravel to. So, and that being said, you got to do it three different three times on that one lot. So, it kind of it's like 44 miles, but it's only really 15. But, and the cost for that would be the total cost to get all of them down was like 824,000. That's an estimate. I mean, it's not exact. So then the chip and seal program we done eight miles4 up north six down south and the cost of doing 14.4 four miles like 193,000. Then I don't know if anybody knows we wrote where we lay more on the outside to make them more smooth before we chip and seal them because just chip and ceiling don't get it. I mean and this worked out pretty good and we've done we're not quite done yet. We were going to do 6.1 north 6.3 south was 12.4 mile. That's roughly cost of 996,000. And I know there's been a couple people ask, why don't you just go ahead and pay? But by 2 in, you're still looking the difference about $43,000 mile.

It'd be cheaper on the chip seal than the pavement, but you're still having to add stone to them roads plus two inches of black top to make it good. So, we're trying to cover more miles. Know a lot of people don't like living on gravel. That's ours. I mean, anybody got any questions on cost of that? And I think u I know as a South County resident, um we're very appreciative of the gravel conversion stuff. So, that's fantastic. Thank you for Thank you for doing that.

I'll just say this, the ones that got it done love it. the ones that haven't not so nice. So, but that we try to do the most the houses on it, but there is some that we do that had a house and there's only like a mile to the next black top. We're going to go ahead and do it. I mean, it just saves us money and time having go grade it on that one mile. So, we're going to hopefully do more wedging next year. We'll see. We got some other money that's going to be coming out of the road project on some stuff. So

on my way here tonight, Carrie, I passed your pa. It looks like they were putting asphalt down. So if we see them putting asphalt, that's the wedging that you're talking about. Right now when we're running Yeah. Where you did that the Yeah. going out to 19ville there. Did you talk about North El River Cemetery Road and 100 North about what we're doing there? Oh, yeah. I didn't know but to council doesn't know. I don't think

there I know everybody who goes behind yall's there at the truck stop that road cemetery road and 100 north still tore up. We got y coming in the 27th to fix that. We're going to reg grind it and fix it back. And part of Jim Tid's thing that he will pay us back for that. Oh yeah. In two different in two years.

So then we're going to go ahead from our part since we're doing that. At least go up 24, bring it up to them, then up 31. So it's all done. That little section right there. And if you ever notice, you do lovers lane right there. We chain sealed it four years ago. So all that's all black top in there. Good. So and that project Eel River Cemetery Road was 105,000 point something and then that's Jim's kids part. Okay.

And then we have an additional that's at least close to 18,000 and then what we're adding now we're going to be adding more to that. So it'll be about another 65,000 onto that. That's all I had. Question for for Carrie about that. No. Yeah. The Hills River Cemetery Road. See the what Jim Tib is paying. What is that? It's where they put the water line and the sewer going to the He's paying from 100 north where they started. He's paying. I was kind of wondering is that part of that ready fund or No, it's Makita fund.

It's Makita funds. Yeah, we the project was more than the ready funds. So the ready funds are used up. So it'll be Makita funds and we signed an interlocal agreement. Our board signed an interlocal agreement with the county that we'll pay 5,000 in two years. We had approved. So it just takes a little bit away, but And that'll be a fourlane road, right?

So questions. So with the with with the conversion of trying to get rid of some of the gravel carry, does that change your I see you gave us an equipment list. Does that change the equipment? Like because I assume that that's why you maintain quite a few graders is is to grade those. So, got rid of one graater. Oh, you did? Yeah. We're going to try to get rid of another one. We don't need four graders. Just two at each end. But I mean, one at each end would be significant. Mainly if we get less gravel roads, that'll be just for plowing snow and pulling the trucks out of the dip. I attached that the last minute tonight. I went I thought, hey, they may be want to know where we're at on equipment. That's great. just to have

and road what we do about traffic bash road what's left use paw on that bridge or the whole thing the whole thing they'll use flaggers or do one side at a time you don't do the bridges first though yeah the bridges got to get done first and that's when they'll use paw when they got that part closed so that was what I was going into with this first sheet that you just got the spreadsheet Mhm.

And that first uh project there you can see is that that's going to be a community crossing matching grant. That would have been 2025, but we didn't know. They've always had two calls the last well they started um in 2016 CCMG. Well, uh I think it was about May we found out they were only going to do one call and we were going in for the second call because your projects need to be road ready and with that bridge that we have to do there and that's a township bridge if you need that's the top line there. It's like a light blue or gray. That's going to be the new bridge will be a 19 foot span and it'll also be white and um to make it more and it'll be a concrete box call which is still in footage in a sense.

Unfortunately uh the cost went up tonight and now you you didn't see that but about 4:30 I got a call from Colin and I got the latest figures and it went up to 710,000. Now, that's I know that's an estimate, but it they broke it down for us pretty good. The engineering firm that we use, we're hoping it still comes under.

Um, so this call opens October 1st and so we're going but that we're going to do this bridge prior to the call for CCMG 2026 so we can have a project ready. So all that's going to be local cost that says LPA. That's all local public agency. That's us. So as you can see, I kind of broke it down. Maybe we take a 100,000. We'll have to see where we're at. Out of Cune Bridge, 150 out of restricted, and then 460 out of wheel tax. Again, we hope it comes in cheaper. and um if we can if everything's ready to go. I got a progress report from the engineering firm late today and there's they're still working on it and we're hoping to be able to bid that it's going to be by December 8th so we can get it on the books

and get it going. So there's that one. And then if you go below 2026 call now that will be CCMG that's wall that's your W bash road and now it's went down to a million you get a year. So with that said um we're going to go in. You see our local cost uh is we'll take it out of restricted and I'm hoping that then if we get our grant that's 880,000 and then the Paul Paul Pike which will also be on that call because after they use that we'll we'll redo Paul Pike because you they're going to be using that road. We'll shift them back over to Wallbash Road. So we'll we'll pay Paul or Wall Bash Road first and get that done and then we'll go in and do Paul Pike and there there's your million. More than likely that's how we'll do it and the cost and you can see the miles. So Walbash Road is 3.29 miles. Uh Paul Pikes 1.7 miles. So there's that one. And then if you go down to 2027, I wanted to give you what we are going to be spending in the next few years. There is, and this is not everything, but this is the big projects uh will go in for bridge 46. That's the hope, which is uh Meridian Road over the ill river going into Denver.

So, we'll go in for community crossing on that and probably use will tax. We'll just see where we're at. And then I we have a leting date in uh uh 2026 on 78. That's a federal aid. That's your bridge 165. You can see that we'll our portion of the cost will come out of bridge and um rest of it will be the expected award which we already have that that's federal aid. And then the next one down is 2027 that bridge letting date again we'll take that out of bridge and we've already got the award on that money as well. And that last one that you see 2030 I'm working on that one right now. It's it's already it should be advertised any time. Um and so that's kind of the expected amount there. I don't have all the figures of that because that's 2020 or 2030. So, we're still working on it.

Yeah. So, just kind of wanted to give you a breakdown that we are going to be spending some money and and some big money. So, that might also help you with your the wheel tax that you talked about. We've got some bridges that we're going to have to do major work with. Any questions for Janice? Great. Well, thank you. I appreciate you taking your time out. Yeah. Thank you. Um, next on the um agenda is council discussion and committee report. Do we have any

um Yeah, I would just reiterate we met for the budget workshop. I just wanted to reiterate timelines that um believe by next Friday the 26th we're getting all the budgets back out to department heads for review um as discussed and then uh we have the public hearing rescheduled for August um I'm sorry October 14th and then the adoption hearing on October 28th. So and those will be at 7 p.m.

Yes. Yeah. So still have those. Um, I also kind of wanted to ask, I know there was uh some discussion in the minutes about advertising. Um, I was hopeful to maybe have the advertising done to be able to vote on the appropriation tonight for the uh study for the fire territory for the for the for the South County. And so, just wanted to make sure that um we're going to get that advertised. It's advertised now, right? It is. Okay,

good. And I think that was I think it was $12,000. Does that sound right? Okay. Okay. And then the other thing I know we had some discussion during the budget workshops around some fund reporting in that and so just wanted to see if it would be possible uh moving forward at every council meeting if we could get a current fund report for the for the previous so you know if it was today you know as of the end of August that would be that would be super helpful. So, yep. I'd like I'm an email person, so if you could email it, that would be even better.

Talk to everybody and I can have copies for you. That'd be great. Thank you. So, EMA Herb sent an email to all of us about advertising that we voted on last meeting and um we're stuffed to go into her room from his uh reimbursements that we had advertised and never made to the agenda to get the funds appropriated. So, how does that going to work? Is that revert?

It's advertised. So, what happened was is I you have to submit it the Friday before the Wednesday that you're going to run the thing. So, I sent it in at 8:30 Friday morning, you know, and I didn't get a reply back to them. They usually send a confirmation back. She sent it back to me Tuesday morning and said we missed the deadline by a few hours because they had a cut off because of the holiday. And I said, "I've submitted it to you always on these Fridays." And she would not budge. I tried talking her into it. I'm like, "This is going to cause us to have our appropriations approved a month later." And they just didn't care. So, I went ahead and had them run them to 10th. So, everything is advertised and done and it's set for October 14th was what the advertisement was for. And I was just I mean, the only thing you can do is vote out of, you know, it wasn't advertised on the exact, you know, you're going to be short if you voted on it tonight. So, we're supposed to do it by the 10 days,

the 14th. Is that going to be Are we doing that during the budget hearing or are we doing that during the council meets the 21st? Well, we I think last last month or two months ago I I thought we agreed to move the council meeting on the 21st to the 14th. Is that for sure? Yeah, I believe so. That's October. Yep. 21st. Yep. We have another one 28th, right? It is advertised and it's we're way ahead of our 10 days. So because he wanted to know she wanted to know you want to go ahead and advertise now. I said yes please. So it sounds like the newspaper is the

and we didn't get an email saying we had to have it or I guess I so moving forward I told Marcy you know if there's a holiday on a Monday we're submitting on Thursday. Okay. You know and so be hopeful for the council to have the agenda done like a week ahead of the council meeting or something. Yeah, like we had last minute on the agenda yesterday that we got

Okay, great. Any other council discussion on committee reports? No. Okay, next on the agenda is public comment. Do we have any anyone in the audience that would like to speak? If so, please introduce yourself. Limit it to two minutes. We would appreciate that. Any public comment. Okay. Well, next on the agenda is adjournment. Motion to second. Okay. All in. Okay. Thank you. Thank you everyone. [Music] Oh, I'm Did you have signific sign

you don't have a place on there and she doesn't got one right here. She's got one right here. All right.