Boc - Regular Meeting

Good morning. This is December 15, 2025. This is a Miami County Board of Commissioners meeting. I will call this meeting to order. And the first on the list would be Marjorie Vanderpool.

I'm not Margie. She had to work, but I'm here on her behalf. Um, my name is Dan Hair and I'd like to address some issues with um, parking at Eagles Point. Um, we would like to get an ordinance um, put in place for um, Eagles Point um, in regards specifically in regards to RVs parking out there and and continuous parking um, as well as campers, semis and trailers. It causes a huge hindrance um, for driving, for the kids, for the plows. Um, it just causes a big issue. When we contact the HOA, we're told there's nothing they can do because it's it's county roads. We call the county, they say there's nothing they can do because it's there's no ordinance. So, um, we're here asking that an ordinance be considered for that.

Gary, do you have any comment? I agree. I mean that makes us hard on us. But I know the only thing I knew was they have to park on one side. I mean that's the only thing. Hey, when we were redoing the roads out there, we had four phases. We had boats and campers. It was a problem for us too at that time. Uh so it has been going on and so that's been we started with faith about five years ago when we first started. So it's been a problem for a while just to let you know. And the one street over North Lincoln, there's a bunch of them along the old school and I know they're just parking them for stories basically. On the street?

Yes. I mean, the street is wide enough, but they're still on the street. There's also deserted vehicles as well that's been there for years that flap tires and they're just there. They need to go away. But I think there is something about somebody and somebody have to go out and enforce that. Well, that

I was able um in researching the um ordinances, I was able to find a couple of different ordinances that address parking um at specific areas in Eagle's Point, but it only addresses parking on one side or the other. I wasn't able to find anything in all of the chapters on the ordinances about those recreational vehicles, um campers, buses. There there's a specific there's a huge camper that's parked on South Lincoln and Kart and I'm not sure if you're familiar but when you come up to Kart it's a T- road but you have that camper that sits right here you cannot see around there there's a big tree there um you you just can't see and there was a couple of kids that almost got hit playing in snow they were just out trying to shovel snow that camper sitting right there there's semitrs sitting on March streets um down by Thuli Courts. It It just makes it very difficult and it's very dangerous. There are trailers, empty um trailers on March Street down by the park. Kids are are playing on and and whatnot. They're not supposed to be there. But when when we call, like I said, it uh we don't do that. They don't do that. And so we're here just asking that we can maybe get some ordinances for those. Mark, is that our county issue or is that a the homeowners association issue?

Um, it can be both. The homeowners association probably isn't going to be able to do a whole lot if they don't already have covenants in place because to add covenants, you basically need most of the land owners in the HOA to then agree to that covenant. I'm going to guess the people that are involved won't and I don't know if they'd be able to have enough alter their covenants. So, it can fall in the county. I will add the the zoning ordinance does state you can't park an RV for more than 24 hours. Um, so I mean, if there's RVs that are parked, you can make a zoning ordinance in plate, but that won't help with the campers or the semis.

So, it may be something that we do need to address to pull in those. Is there a difference between a vehicle that is motorized and one that's not like a trailer versus a semi tractor? I can define them differently. Yes. Um, but if you're saying in the zoning ordinance, it basically just lumps recreational vehicles together. But I would say those are not the trailers. Those are just what you would think is a traditional RV. But then the semis wouldn't fall under renovation, would they? Yeah.

So if it's a semi, is this a semi that someone lives there, they're parking for the night, and then they're leaving?

No. Um, for example, the one that's on March Street, um, they will come home for a week at a time and park it right there and then be gone for three or four days and then come back and park it right there. Um we've had the issue on on specifically March Street um with this one particular semi for quite some time. Um and and again when when we do um address the home owners association, the the manager, it's a county issue, not our issue. And then they say, well, the county has ordinances to find for parking, which I was able to find. um where it, you know, it specifically says it's $25 per violation, but then we don't have ordinances and the police can't unfortunately can't follow up.

Any advice? I mean, it's we can put an ordinance in place to regulate the parking, but then the question is if we let's say we deny all parking out there for these types of vehicles, where are they going to go? Um, so there's a balance and and I I haven't read the other ordinance she's referencing about parking out at EA's point, so I won't find that. But um is is the would the issues be alleviated if we enforced you have to park farther away from a corner or is it just no matter where it is on the street, the semi or the RVs are always going to be an issue?

Well, the the problem is is that our streets, for example, back to South Lincoln, our South Lincoln street is a little less than I think it's 26 feet wide. So, when you have a a a big camper um sitting out there, you only have a tiny little space to go around and then when you have a a big, you know, a big camper there, you cannot see kids. You can't see around the corners. You can't and even with driveways like the some of these camp I mean, we all know that Eagles Point in in certain areas, the driveways are right on top of each other. And so when someone's backing out, if there's a camper for their neighbor or a camper for the person that lives across the street, it becomes a huge issue. Plows can't get around and we've got FedEx. I mean, we see a ton of traffic obviously with the holidays, but I mean, that's a huge issue. There's no there's no reason for these campers if if if you're going to have a camper and be an owner of a camper, then put it in storage for the winter. I mean, or or even the summer. I I not trying to to be cranky about it, but it causes a huge issue for everybody. Um, so it's not just there at the corners. You you can't see around anything. And um, you know, when there's not an ordinance in or you have you you call the police and say, "Hey, this camper's been sitting out here for a month and nobody's moved it." And you know, there It's just it becomes a safety concern. It becomes dangerous for drivers. It it just is a huge hindrance. It be like if we, you know, on Third Street if we parked campers all the way down, uh it would it would be hard and it would be tough um for drivers, for kids playing, for plows, for the mail people, FedEx, everybody.

[clears throat]

The the storage issue I completely agree with. If it's just parked for storage and it's not like daily or some semid use, that would be an easy ordinance to put in place. They have they can't park it more than 24 hours. If they do, then there's a fine. I don't know if the fine per day would be less costly than putting it in stores, though. So, I but we can we can do an ordinance to regulate the parking of RVs and campers. the semi that the person parks for a few days and goes that might be a little different since it's not there all the time. It is being used. It's not there for storage. But how how many semis are actually out there? Is it just this one or

in the last few weeks when I have gone around um there's just been the one continuously on Mar Street. Then there's also a red one backed by Alta's court. Um, which that has a huge parking issues. Anyways, um, unfortunately I I haven't seen it come and go as much as I do the one on March Street. I do have the ordinance um the um ordinances that you find it online. I did. I can get that. Okay. Yeah.

Sheriff Hunter, any comments? probably the only uh comment I would make if you decide to uh put an ordinance of some sort out of it, it needs to be defined really clearly because when an officer goes out to do something, there's always something else that gets involved in it and there's always a snag somewhere along the line. So it needs to be defined very clearly you know and what has been done sometimes and I realize in the residential area sometimes it's difficult to do but sometimes it is the flat mill parking down through that area which pretty well takes care of but again you've got vehicles people's cars and the pickup or whatever might be sitting out there I think anything larger than a pickup shouldn't be there. It's probably what we've seen the same thing. I know these guys at the county highway have seen the same thing. It it is a hassle and one of the things that we we feel bad about when they call us and they need something done. We don't have any way to go. There's nowhere to go with that, you know. So, if something is put into place, you we want to look at it a little bit ahead. See what okay, we're going to do this here, but how's this going to affect over here? what's this going to do here? You know, because it always becomes an issue. There's always something else that pops in and kind of muddies the water a little bit. So, it I'd say probably needs to be done. Yes. As to exactly how you want to label it. That's that's the issue. I guess I would personally start with the campers, the RVs, and the boats that can't park on the street. But semi that's that's their livelihood.

Yeah. They have to be able to drive it home. I would think semis I can understand and and that's fine. Campers that sit there for months and months and and and weeks and even trailers. We've got um I'm sure you're aware we have a a new EP LLC that came in and they park trailers all over that area. just just regular trailers that they use to haul stuff and and their construction things, but they sit there for weeks at a time and it's and they're lined up back to back to back and it's it's it's just not safe. What kind of trailer are you talking about?

Um there's Well, there's a couple on Travis Street that are um trying to remember when I utility trailers. Yeah, utility trailers.

I've seen them out there. Um, and then enclosed. And like the ones parked on Travis Street, there's two of them parked on the o obviously the only side that you can park on, but they're way out in in the um roadway and they're like 20 feet long, probably 12, 15t wide. Um, and it becomes an issue. be able to table this for a while. I'd like to go out and drive it. But I also I know there's

when you define the rules of the game, they just play the game. U you can't have it there for more than two weeks. Well, they go out, they move it 10 feet and hey, I moved it. So I So I got to think about this because I've never until recently lived it with an HOA or in a neighborhood. I've never had to think about it. So, well, they shouldn't be able to use the street as their winter storage. No. So, you want to look into an ordinance and we can adopt and if you want to drive out there and kind of look at it and see are there streets that there should just be no parking on and we need to put that,

let me know and I can write it up. I know we have two streets out there currently that are two like culde-sacs um that there is no parking on the street at all. So I mean um the other the other issue that I wanted to address is um we contacted the highway department about getting some signs um and because we have a ton of people um that run bus stops. We don't have any kind of signage, any kind of anything out there for the safety of these kids. And and Eagles Point has three different um buses that come. Lewis Pass, um Accon, I believe Peru just started coming out there. And so there's a ton of kids and there's no other than the bus stop signs that come out on the bus themselves. There's no safety or monitoring or regulations or anything at all to help with the safety of these kids getting on and off the bus. And um like I said, we contacted the highway department to get signs put up and um they were wonderful about it, but there I guess it's a a budget issue. It needs to come from the school

or say that these be brought up in front of these to get it in place. Okay. If they want to do that, you also said you got stop on them just like any. If you don't see the bus, we're not going to see the signs over here on the right. It just it didn't make sense to have those because we didn't know the defined areas of your bus stops because that it wasn't a budget issue at all. Okay, that's what the signs aren't, you know, we can afford that. So, how can we help with the safety of the kids? I guess is is where we're we're all three schools use the same bus stops areas. Um, no, they have

We're talking about lots of different Yeah. And they're going to change. Yeah. Yeah. Every year they're gonna they're gonna change because like up in our area where we live there's they had their buses was picking up for two years they picked two or three years they picked up the same spot the kids met there as those kids got older and changed into the other school thing. Now the the bus is picking up in a different area. That's a constant rotation of movement where those buses go. Just throwing that out. I agree with Janice. If you're going to ignore the red flashing lights and the stop arm coming out on the bus, you're not going to pay one ounce of attention to a sign. see the signs. You can So, I guess we're we're

So, where do where can we go for help with that? Um because we've got kids and and people just running those. So, didn't we talk on the phone, you and I? No, that was Margie. Okay. I remember

saying something to her. I said, "Why don't you guys get a bus monitor or get someone like down here at Blair Point, they have a a guard, and I mean, we can't be out there and police what everybody does. Neither can the sheriff's department. So, I would say you guys need a a stop guard, somebody there with the kids every day. I mean, it's their children, and if you want the safety of them, you need to be there with them. Would we go for the schools to get that done or I mean nobody's going to listen to us if we just show up and say, "Hey, don't run this." Who does come up with crossing guards?

Yeah, I suppose if it's next to a school, the school takes care of it. But the city pays for the crossing guards in with the state amendments. I has a good answer for you. The buses have red lights in his arm and it's illegal to blow through them. Yeah. Go ahead, Chair.

Excuse me, Brit. Um, you got different school systems out through there. Like I say, the bus stops are changing. You know, they got in all different locations out there. It's going to be very difficult unless you have a police car behind every bus. it's going to be difficult to manage that situation. I I agree with you. It's an issue and we don't have that issue just out at your place. It's it's all over

and we never seem to be in the right place at the right time, you know, to be able to control the issue. But, um, like Fred said a few minutes ago, people don't pay attention to signs. They don't. And if you're going to if you put signs up at all bus stops, you're going to have nothing but signs out equals point all over the place. Which but on one hand, I mean, you can say, well, we we've got it, you know, we we we we've got it advertised out here that, hey, this is school zone. That's true, but you're covering a wide area out there and it's going to be regardless of what you do, you're still going to have people to do that and to be able to enforce that. is very difficult to be honest with you. I mean I agree with you some it'd be nice to be able to do something but to be able to have the manpower to put maybe say a couple cars after a time and just follow buses around all the time because I got the same issue throughout the county north and south you know with those school districts and buses run all over the place.

So it just it it's almost a hit and miss type situation. And I I hate to sound discouraging in any way, shape, or form, but that's the way it is. That's the reality. Yeah. Well, thank you. That's it. We are going to work on an Okay. Thank you. Michael, you're next. You're up front. Oh, we want you up front. [laughter] We got to put insurance in the hot seat.

Morning, Michael Consolidated Union. Um, thank you for the opportunity to come before the commissioner today. Thank you for the opportunity to present property and casualty insurance renewal. As you're accustom, you guys all have the uh insurance proposal booklet, but I also have an executive summary one page uh that I wanted to share with you guys today because it speaks to the reasons for a minor increase. Um and and the reasons for the increases that that are present today are in the uh second table down below. Um we are up seven vehicles across all departments within the county. We are up $1.56 million in payroll experience mods going from 1.2 29 to 1.51. We had two large work comp losses that have hit the books. And then uh on the property values, we're up 4.6 uh million at 6.95% total increase. And our in the marine values are up almost a million dollars across the board. Um that nets an 8.5% increase. If we were to take the exposure increases out of the equation that I just reviewed with you, we would actually have a net decrease in overall insurance premiums for the year. Um, and so for that reason, my recommendation to you guys is to maintain the status quo with the same exact insurance companies that we presented. I did go out and have conversations with two other insurance companies, uh, because that's what you guys pay me to do is to manage your insurance and make sure that we have the best program for you. Um, and I've had conversations with two other insurance companies that could not compete with the current rate structure that we have. So, I feel very good about what we've done. I know last year you guys got quotes from outside agencies as well. Uh, so you guys were able to see the full marketplace. Um, so I was not a I I did didn't want to take you through the market again this year. um and make it look like you guys were constantly price shopping and and making sure that you guys were doing that. But I did want to have conversations with a couple competitive rates uh just to make sure

that we had the best bang for your buck going forward. I could bore you with as many details as you wanted. It's got a got a 42page proposal booklet right here in front of you. Um insurance committee did meet last week uh and and and did get the full full run of the full details. Sorry for that. Um but uh you know with with a new auditor um new auditor's office and uh Alan Hunt was always the insurance commissioner that handled that previously but thank you Mr. Msman for sitting through the torturous meeting that we had last week. I don't think it was all that bad was it? It's not.

Um having said that again it was my pleasure. Uh I I would be remiss if I didn't thank some of your departments. I know some of them are here. Um, I know Sheriff Hunter's here, but uh, if I didn't deal with Dave Vitec, uh, he puts his best foot forward for Miami County and the sheriff's department. Um, Janice and Carrie County, uh, uh, sheriff or county highway department. Um, you know, between between the departments that you guys have enabled and and work with and in my office, we we have a wonderful working relationship and I would be remiss if I didn't thank as well as uh, Annette and her her team as well. So, that is my recommendation. I I'm asking for renewal and your blessing to continue to provide your services.

Do you have any concerns when you met?

No, I didn't know that was the nicest way to inform us of an increase [laughter] that we were getting a bargain. Well, I mean, and honestly, when you look at the numbers and and you realize the amount of dollars that are paid, um, and you just look at the dollars, it it is it does feel like it's a little bit of an increase. But when you start breaking those down by line item and you realize that you're up seven vehicles, you're up, you know, a million and a half dollars in payroll. And quite honestly, I I insure three counties in the state, um, it it seems like almost every public entity that I work with is competing to keep their people in house. you know, the sheriff's deputies are increasing their pay to keep the people that they've trained and keep them in house and past counties competing with, you know, recruiting other people and they're trying to increase their payroll. I mean, every I mean, I I do three counties, I do four or five small towns, I do uh I don't know, eight or nine volunteer fire departments. I do a lot of public entity business and it seems like the it is it's it's it's it's a it's a real thing in in in the world of public entities right now to to maintain status quo and to keep you guys' payroll where it needs to be to to keep your to take care of your employees. You know, we're in ever evolving economic times and real life inflation exists. fil. But when you break those items down into numbers that you can look at and and in in real life exposures and then you equate them back into the individual policies that we have, I mean, they're they're justifiable increases.

I have no question. Any questions? Do we need a motion or I need a motion that we stay with consolidated and move forward. Thank you very much. I'll second that. Then a motion, a second to continue um consolidated union for our insurance. All in favor say I. I. I.

Thank you. I didn't know something. Commissioners, I have a letter here from IND dot. I'm going to I'll just go ahead and read it to you and I'll get to the point for everybody. And it's regards uh community crossing matching grant 2026 calls for projects. Dear Mr. Muscleman. The NN Department of Transportation has completed the review and selection of projects for funding in the 2026 Community Crossing Matching Grant Fund Program. INDOT received 450 applications and requests for 237.1 million in funding. Each application was reviewed carefully by your INDOT district office and the local public agency selection committee. I regret to inform you that your application was not selected to receive community crossing matching grants at this time. While your projects did not receive funding for this call, we encourage you to reapply during our next call for budget year 2026 once, excuse me, July 1st, 2026, which will actually be 2027 call year. So with that said, I did call INDOT. I

called both Fort Wayne and Leaport. I talked to Marcy is her name and um she told me this is the how that went down. They had um the budget as you know and I've been warning you that got cut. There was a hundred million on the on the plate and uh as you can see they received a request for 237 million. Our application was fine. There was nothing wrong with it because I was all worried and thinking, "Oh, what' I do? What' I do?" But we were pre-warned of this. So, what they did is typically they went through people that had never applied because uh for an example, Denver got an award of like 110,000. They had never applied before. They had a engineering firm. So they paid an engineering form firm BFNS to help them with the uh getting their ADA title six and and get everything in place. So they received the reward which is a good thing because if they hadn't have they would have thrown that money away on an engineer. So we're happy for that. So the county did get a little money for that. So then the other thing was they uh in the past we've received over six million since this started. 2016 was the first year and the work was done in 2017. So, we've done really well, but this, you know, this is kind of a damper, not kind of a big damper, a million dollars that we didn't receive, but they had a lot of money to divvy out and more applications than ever. As a matter of fact, the woman told me from Leaport, she sent out 79 uh nonawward letters and she said, "I've never sent that out even the entire time." So, so we had a meeting with uh our engineering firm last Wednesday, Thursday, whatever day it

was. Um and we're going to plan not even B, plan C. Um, as you know, we still have to finish Wal Bash Road and we have that large the structure. Um, but it's going to change things up and it's going to slow it down. Um, the structure first before do anything. So, and at least get wall back road. We'll have to see where we're at when it come to doing Paul or how bad they tear it up. Just wait and see. It's not a good thing I can tell you right now. So, we're going to fall back like we did before.

We did um we will put in a bid for that structure. The engineering firm um is still getting everything in place. As soon as all the permits are in place, we'll go out and put in a a bid to do that structure. Um which is a 19 ft structure. We were talking about putting in a concrete culvert, but we're looking to see if there's anything we could do that would be a little less money. Like uh the bridge we did on 700 North, that bridge we replaced, if you recall, that was I don't think Mark was in office yet, but we had a bridge go down and I think that cost us around 700,000. So, uh we are moving forward. We're not going to stop our projects, but this is just going to put us behind a year. It's in the other projects.

So, this will affect the conversion. Yeah. Probably not. It'll be really thin this year on the conversion. And we promised some other areas that we we'd like to get out and do some work in some other areas. Promise. Believe me, I never not promised. Yeah, we we never So, um even though this is disappointing, we'll still keep moving forward. still apply for projects. Um, we'll spend what we got left best we can. I mean, I appreciate your attempt. That's a lot of work. And

it is um the city of did not receive theirs as well. I mean, it is it's disappointing, but at least they're still giving some money out. I mean, it potentially it could go away completely. You just don't know. Yeah. I mean, even though we go in when it says it's time that we'll get it again, we can get knocked out again. And it just prolongs everything, but we got to get Wash Road completed. We had a plan for 2027. We were going to go in for bridge 46 uh over the Eel River going into Denver. That was the plan. But again, I we'll just have

everything's going to fall back. It's just like doing road work. Instead of trying to catch up a little bit, we're going to just take a hit again. Have any other questions or concerns I should say?

I mean I this last snow we got not change subject. We mailboxes are still people's some of them are upset and foremans went out and looked at them and there is a few that we are going to have to fix and we've been using temporaries and if they want to keep temporary what we got they can do that way too without us having to go out at least the temporary they're on that cement base they fall over it might dent the mailbox a little bit but they're not tearing up This is the worst I've ever seen since I've been here. The lake though was wet and heavy. Yeah.

Well, we're still some of the worst thing is if they didn't get pushed back and they hit a chunk of our stuff, that chunk's going somewhere. So, and we have some people saying we get some emails, it's we're not doing I'm not doing my job. So as far as the salt and the sand supply, it's as expected.

Yeah, we I mean we've been right now we're really low. So the next it looks like a relief for a while. So we'll get the barns back full. The Denver I'll just be honest is basically empty. I mean we can't go and going. Being this cold, it just don't work as good. No. So hopefully we'll get back full again and ready to go for the next battle. I have seen it's the second snowiest December on record. I saw that it's the second snowiest December on record.

Well, I'll agree to that. I mean, it's been a while since we got hit this early. Yeah. and it just woke everybody up. But a lot of them didn't wake up till after they went off. We haven't had a lot of roll. So I mean people just going to slow down. So thank you for me. Thank you. No, but they sent the stuff in for your signatures. I think Mark, you've prepared that.

So, we've um we're doing or using our animal control to help serve some of the smaller towns of the the county. This is I think Denver is wanting our animal control officer to help go out to Denver and when there are strays and dogs running around to help capture them and uh impound them. And so, to do that, we have to have an interlocal agreement. Denver actually had to adopt its own animal control ordinance, which I think is very similar to ours. And so this is just saying our animal control officer can go out there and assist them. And I think uh Denver pays us for that. So we have that and the resolution.

There's a resolution and then an interlocal agreement. Move your signatures up. Okay. So we have this interlocal. This is we have the ordinance first. A motion. Yes. Motion to accept. Second. Then a motion and a second to adopt the resolution for interlocal agreement with the town of Denver for animal control services. All in favor say I. I.

I. And then we have the interlocal agreement itself which we all have a copy of. I move we sign or yeah we all signed the interlocal agreement out of Denver just you okay to authorize Fred sign. Yeah and I'll second. Okay. There's been a motion a second to authorize the chair to sign an interlocal agreement with Denver. All in favor say I. I.

Now you take this evening. I ask a general question. Um, so the county animal control services, they're provided for the county, but the individual towns in the county,

the the incorporated towns. Incorporated. Okay. So, Bunker Hill and Congy, we already have two others and I can't remember which ones they are. Um, but they they could and if they have to have their own animal control ordinance because technically our animal control officer is helping them enforce their own ordinance. They have to have something in place. Yeah. That's why with with Denver, they wanted us to help, but they didn't have any animal control ordinance in place first. And so that they had to adopt their own. And I think they only just did that earlier this year.

The sheriff's contract disappeared on and this was already voted on during the budget hearings and stuff. So, we just need your signature and the council signature. So, this is on agenda for tomorrow as well. The salary stayed the same. A motion for you to sign. I move that we allow the chairman of the board to sign the sheriff's contract. Is it just one year? Yes. Okay. For the next year. want to get him in here to see if he had any concerns or you don't know of anything.

You can I talked to him about it. He didn't. I mean, I I show went over it with him the other night, but you can yell at him if you want. Yeah. And he knows it's going before both sports in the next because he's got to sign after tomorrow night. Yes, sir. Have any questions, comments, or anything about your contract? Okay, I'll second. Right, there's been a motion and a second to give the chair authority to sign the sheriff's contract. All in favor say I. I.

I You probably have some minutes.

Me, too. And I just want to uh Kim has been real good at sending in the commissary bank reconciliation for the sheriff's department um every month. And so she's turned in November for us already. And I just we just have to note that we received that. If you want to look at it, you can. Um I can't remember if we email it to you or not, but she just it has to be noted in our minutes that she has um given us the minute the report. No, there's no place for sign. There's no action. No action. Just the fact that she did it. And then yes, then we got the minutes to sign.

I move we accept the minutes. A motion and a second to accept the minutes from 12125. All in favor say I. I do that. Payroll. Move they approve payroll. Second. Then a motion and a second to approve the payroll. All in favor say I. I. I. and claims.

We approve the claims. Second. Then a motion and a second to approve the claim. All in favor? I

do. Do you have any

Do you have any else you want to discuss? You got anything? Arrived the weekend. All right. Pretty active, was it? Not really. Couple runs, nothing.

Move we adjourn. A motion, a second to adjourn. All in favor say I. I. Hope everyone has a good Christmas.