Town Council - Regular Meeting

It is 7 o'clock. So, let us begin our council meeting. We'll begin with the pledge of allegiance and followed by a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Can we have a roll call, please? Ethan Maple

here. Ryan Hartley here. Bill Neyer here. Chad Melunder here. Terry Re here. [clears throat] We'll move on to our claims. Uh looking for approval of APVS 28499 through 28536. I make a motion to approve APVs 28499 through 28536 as presented our backup materials. I'll second that motion. Motion made by Chad and seconded by Bill. Any conversation related to that? All those in favor say I. I.

I. Any opposed? Those are approved. Thank you. We have a series of minutes to approve. The first is from our town council meeting on November 19th. I'll make a motion to adopt the town council minutes from November 19th, 2025. I'll second that motion. Thank you. Ryan made the motion. Chad seconded. Any other adjustments need to be made or conversation? All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? That is approved or adopted from our executive uh meeting on the 19th.

I'll make a motion that we approve the minutes from our executive meeting on November 19th as presented in our backup [snorts] materials. I'll second that. Thank you, Bill and Terry. Any conversations? All those in favor say I. I. I. That is approved as well. How about How about the administrative meeting? Let's go. Let's go with that one. I'll make a motion to adopt the administrative meeting minutes from November 19, 2025. I'll second. Thank you, Brian and Terry. Any conversation? All those in favor say I.

I.

I. Any opposed? Well, good job. Three. We do uh create [snorts] a little bit of space before we jump in any of the business for any public comments limited to three minutes on agenda items only. So if there are any public that would like to comment, this would be your time. None. Um I'm going to um adjust slightly and move uh our new business 6.4 four up ahead of our old business. We're just uh letting our visitors and guests who've been here for a few other meetings get out of here quicker than otherwise. So sir,

good evening, Mr. President, Council Brian Bos with Beris. Pleased to be with you this evening. We have before you ordinance number 12325C. For those of you well extremely efficient system, that means that's the fourth resolution considered this evening. Uh 123 I've learned it says the filing.

Y325 uh was the approval of documents that are before you by the economic development uh commission for an economic development loan uh to Han County Hospital in the amount of $1.5 million. And the issue is taxable economic development uh bonds is four the same. uh 325A was the confirmatory resolution uh by the redevelopment commission of the creation of inallocation area and revision of a couple of allocation [snorts] areas that we'll go over here briefly. Um and and also approving an economic development plan for the Kroger allocation area. uh 325B was a pledge resolution pledging the uh tax increment from the Kroger allocation area first to the Hancock Regional Hospital series 2020 bonds and their access to the [snorts] Hamilton Regional Hospital three times to Hancock Regional Hospital

[snorts]

um 2026 bond. So, first to the 2020 bonds, second to the 2026 bonds. Your resolution 325C uh tonight uh confirms the it finally approves uh the pledge agreement uh by the uh from to the town from the redevelopment commission. It also approves all of the draft bond documents [snorts] that have been submitted and the financing documents that have been submitted uh to the meeting uh for your records. and takes final action on approving the issuance [clears throat] of most of you know the story but I'll walk you real quickly through the attachments that you have the four attachments uh item A shows the uh addition to the Hancock Regional Hospital economic development area of two parcels of property a 6.519 acre parcel that is currently in the CO economic development area and allocation area is being moved into the Hancock Regional Hospital economic development area and then the 1.030 acre right ofway where Leon Lane currently exists is being added to [snorts] the HR EDA as well. three parcels. You look at the next attachment. Uh the current 7.720 acres that is in the existing HR allocation area pledged to the 2020 bonds, the 1 acre right ofway and the co parcel all create the new Kroger allocation area. And again, the tax increments in that area will go first to the payment of the series 2020 bonds, second to the series 2026 bonds. The series 2026 bonds will fund the the

next attachment. The uh illustrates the removal of Leon Lane demolition and uh vacation of that area, the construction of a new roadway to the north and extension of utilities. also lighting signage, uh, [snorts] traffic signage as well and a variety of infrastructure are anticipated. [clears throat] Those are in attachment to pay for from the loan to the hospital. Those are attachment D with the total costs estimated currently of 1.279495 million. So there the uh there were two public hearings tonight. One by the economic development commission on bonds, no public testimony. Uh one by the redevelopment commission on the confirmatory resolution of public testimony at that item. So apparently the public's okay with it or at least silent on the issue. Uh we appreciate your approval of 120325C. I should add it's not going to close this year. Uh the hospitals indicated [clears throat] to close it next year. So likely first after here if you'd like questions

I'd like one Harold that a little addition to the road there. You've got that figured in as well. You're good. Thank you council. clinic questions or conversations related to this. The only question I have is does this change in buying the Bakovic area change their timeline at all? And I don't know that you would know that, but it shouldn't have an impact. But

just from the tangential conversations that I've heard, I don't think it changes their timeline. Their project has changed. And uh I believe Mr. Gibson perhaps shared a schematic of that. The very first meeting we had on this on this issue. So continue [cough] each of the resolutions uh with the exception of the pledge resolution authorized the officers of the council, the commission and the economic development commission to renegotiate sign documents uh to uh amend the uh the financing [snorts] documents. [clears throat] Haven't created those yet. Should also mention that and a couple of you have heard already that these bonds are actually being issued as a supplement supplement to the 2020 bonds. So 2020 adventure with a supplement 2020 financing agreement with a supplement 2020 economic development agreement with a supplement. So they're kind of packed together

with our action tonight. If this were to be approved, would the hospital how quickly will the hospital move on these improvements? Is that in conjunction with the Kroger deal or is it going to be done before all the tees are crossed and eyes are dotted with Kroger? It would be done in conjunction with the Kroger closing. Okay. We will not initiate those improvements until that project is closed. Okay.

Council, would anybody like to make a motion related to resolution 12325C? I'll make a motion that we approve resolution 12325C as presented our back materials. I'll second that motion. Thank you Chad and Bill. Any other discussion? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? That is approved. Thank you gentlemen.

Thank you. Thank you for your time. We're going to jump back now to our old business and um Jim has provided at our last meeting we had some conversation about a kind of a electronic speed sign to use throughout town in a variety of locations. Um you all said wait. I've got to wait. Um, but you sent us a quote and Ryan has provided um some more information. So, I don't have to wait anymore, but let's have a conversation. What do you got for us?

Yeah. Well, first of all, yeah, thank you for the county because they helped us get a better price on this county to use this company. Uh, and then thanks for uh Ryan because the next day I had an email telling me who to get a hold of, what his name was, this that and the other. So, very much appreciate. Made my job easy there. uh Ryan, but the cost that we have there, it was uh 31.89. This allows us one sign. Uh it's uh remote. Uh we can use our phones to uh change the language on the Can I use my phone? I'm not sure you can because there's an app that we will download and uh we can change that. So,

you're still using Wii language. So, I'm gonna we're we're not going to dive into the Wii. Royal Wii. I'm included in those too. Yeah. Deal. Okay. Go ahead. Well, if we share the apps, we'll let you know. [laughter] So, but uh I'm going to say for the record, I need to be excluded. But but this would be very portable. Um it's solar powered. Um there's Brian, is there anything that you want to add to this? Do you guys actually have this sign as well? We don't have we don't have this sign. Uh the reason that that after I talked with Jim Yep. uh about this a little [clears throat] bit. The reason I like this sign is because it gives the language. They do offer a cheaper sign

that just has a flashing light on it if you're going too fast in my opinion. Um you can set the parameters on this sign. So if if the speed limit's 30 and you at you know at at um up to 30 um 35 miles an hour, if you want to say you know thank you, it will flash thank you. if you, you know, at once they hit 35 to 40, if you want to say too fast, you can have it say too fast. Um, but the fact that it gives you the verbiage that you can program that in, it's um to me it it's it's more interactive with the with the driver. Um, and these these are backbased. Um, these are proven to u slow traffic down for a certain amount of time. They are portable. It comes with a mount so you we can put this up and move them around town. They they also do other things. They they also track traffic, track speed, so you can use them as speed trackers or ADT average daily traffic. So you can get data with these. Now they do have a subscription plan. you know, after 12 months, the the the speed trackers, the magnettos that the county bought, um, we didn't go with the the whole cloud data package after the first year. We still get the data, but it doesn't put it in in a nice pretty report, but we still get the data. But you can do that, you can do all kinds of things with these signs. Um, something that Jim and I talked about a little bit was if we are happy with this, uh, and we can move these around in town, but but if we are happy with this sign, this is something we can communicate with INDOT in the future and maybe add these if I endot gives us the blessing, we can add these to um, US 52 in the school zone. So, these are something that can

[clears throat] be added added there as well. the longevity of them with the solar panels uh I thought was a a better way to go over the other uh battery that came with it. Um I think it's a good investment. $3,100 for a sign seems like a lot of money. Um but the the flashing stop signs, you know, with LED lights, saves a life. Those are Yeah, those are like $2,000. But yeah, I mean if I think it's a good investment, you know, buy one, see how see how it works. And and um Ivonne, I just want to say that we brought this up last time. You weren't here. Jim was protecting the funds. You're first.

Yeah. He's like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." So, just want to get that out. Jim is a bit trigger. Something that can be funded through the street department. It it'll probably go through the uh NVH fund. Steve has money in there for that. Yeah. Yeah. There's money in there. I just want to make sure that that is open. Yep. So, we cannot put this on US4 or 52. Right now, it's US 52 is is state. It's state maintained. We cannot.

Now, we can approach you. Uh INDOT and INDOT's position in the past has been, hey, if you guys want to do it, knock yourself out. You just got to pay for it. Right. So, [clears throat] um, we can approach INDOT and ask them if we can mount these at each end of the school zone where we already have the the flashers that we have trouble with. Well, but we I think we'd want to ask him if we can use the portable we can move all around. Yeah. Yeah. And the biggest target would be US 52.

Yeah. And and if that I guess that's what I'm saying is if we purchase this and we move it around and we're happy with the results then approaching and asking them if we buy two more of these would they let us put them in the rightway more permanent more well yeah you can you can mount them there for a while and see if they're effective and yeah but you can leave them there you don't have to move around we can purchase them and leave them there if I do gives us their blessing But this this would be buying one sign would be a good a good test to see how effective they are in town.

But I would definitely want to make sure if we approve this that we are reaching out to INDOT sooner than later to see if we can use it off 52. Oh and like I said last meeting we're having these open discussions. Matter of fact, I was in discussion uh in front of the needlers again this week with INDOT. So they're reaching out. So we're having those. We're going to have our next meeting in January. So, okay. But I like this one because it does keep some statistics. When we open the app up, it will tell us how many speeders went. Like if it's in a neighborhood and somebody's complaining, it said, "Hey, cars are flying every day." If they're going through their speed limit, we can get back to that person said, "Hey, we had one car, you know, in a matter of eight hours." And they went, you know,

does it tell you if it's a Hummer or not? No. [laughter] Yeah. But I'm against it if it tells. So, so the way whoever that guy is. [laughter] No,

the way we use these in the county, if we have speed complaints, I'll put a magneetto out. And um basically a magneetto replaced the old tube counters we had. So when when you would drive around in county roads and see the tubes going across the roads, those were the the counters we used to use. The magneettos basically just mount up on a stop sign or not a stop sign but a speed limit sign or a signpost um at a certain angle and all that stuff and and they can stay out there for a week, week and a half, two weeks and collect data. I bring that magnetto back and download all that data or run a report right from [clears throat] my computer while the sign's out there. And if we have a speeding problem, I can contact the sheriff's department, say, "Okay, we have a speeding problem. You know, between 6:30 and 7:00 in the morning, we have um you know, we have four vehicles going excess of 70 miles an hour." Well, I can relay that information to sheriff's department. sheriff's department could then stage up that up there between that half an hour time period and it helps them narrow down that ban when when the problem is. Um that being said, sometimes I say, well, we have a speeding problem on this road. Sometimes it's police officers responding to runs. Um you know, some people take this as a challenge and we can set a limit on this, too, because what you'll what you'll want to do if it's speeding with 30, you'll put a limit of 40 on it, right? uh you don't want to put like a limit of 70 on it because then people try to let me see if I can break my record. See how high the number goes. But you can set all the parameters on this sign. It's completely programmable and you can do it from your phone, a laptop, a tablet. Uh so it's really nice to be able to do that.

You're a computer. Technology is great with these things. I like it. I like it. Thank you for the research and the the work. I'll make a motion to approve Jim to purchase this sign per the quote um presented. I second. Thank you, Chad and Terry. I was I I I want to amend your thing to add that I get the app, but I'll refrain at this point. We'll get that in later. Okay. Because I'm interested as well.

Goodness. [laughter] All right. Any other conversation? All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? That passes. Thank you guys.

I like it. Jumping back to new business. Um, schedule of council and commission meetings requested by the Greenfield Daily Reporter. They want to know when we're meeting. and I had a little discussion actually a couple weeks ago. I met with Tim Gro. He's a town manager at the town of McCordesville and uh town of McCordsville. They just built the town center. They built a $12 million J station as well. Is that correct? And they're doing about 600 homes a year. So, they've got a lot going. But they're meeting once a month. And I was asking Tim how that went. So, you know what I'd like to ask if we could do our meetings more once a month because there's a lot of activity that goes into preparing for the meetings that we have every two weeks. By the time this meeting is over, they'll have about a day, day and a half, two days tops to rest and right back into preparing for the following meeting. So, one thing, you know, we can maybe in January, uh, we can renegotiate maybe some of our legal fees throughout the year or we can take some of that monies that we might save for the meetings and use that for our RDC and our EDC, all those meetings. So, because we're spending some monies with the attorneys as well and then the overtime that we have, you know, for the meetings that when we come here through the evening. So, I I'm suggesting that we possibly go to one meeting a month.

[snorts]

I like this idea. Um I think it probably would save not only in all all our fees, right? Um [clears throat] the question would be what changes or additional support would all of you need to make that happen? a lot because a lot of decisions are made by you that would stop me from paying bills or doing whatever. You have to give me a lot more leeway to get things paid up time. I'm concerned that I think with you know I have a limit of I think 5,000. So most of it unless a pump goes out and it's it's a $9,000 pump and you guys have seen the bills those are things that really we don't have that time to ask. We just have to replace the pump. So, those kind of things, we make that decision, you know, [snorts] knowingly, you know, that we'll have to answer to you the following week what went wrong. But, uh, I think Bob has 5,000 as well. And then we've always stipulated that any bills that we have that would be late, you know, those have that might have a late fee, those get paid. All our utilities, they have to get paid. So, a lot of stuff is actually paid before we come to the appropriations. They're wrote out uh tomorrow morning. They'll be signed and out the door. So,

so what happens if um say we just had a meeting and the following week something major happened and we don't have a meeting for three more weeks. Yep. you you can always add a meeting. Yeah. But once we once we stipulate that we're having two meetings a month, that's what we have to go by. But like if we have an RDC meeting or even a planning meeting that might come in because that's how the other towns operate. I think it's even the county that they meet once a month on their Yeah. But uh you know there's a lot of other meetings that might happen. But uh to have these meetings every other Wednesday seems pretty redundant through the year. So,

Zack, what's the time required for putting notice of an emergency? Uh, 48 hours. Okay. So, if something came up and it really truly was an emergency in [snorts] three days, we have we could create stipulations though to Yvon's point around the payment of regular bills like regular reoccurring. We could also create a different avenue at which if it's something that she wants approval on, okay, you know, email suffices for this. Like I think we could get creative there. [snorts]

Well, and I don't know about anybody else's world, but my job we pay anybody faster than 30 days for anything. What What concerns do you have? Like what do you see thinking about this Siobhan? What what [clears throat] hiccups do you see in this? [snorts]

the number of decisions that are made. Um, paying bills is one thing, but also, and you know, I know I'm probably the only one who is not happy with this idea, but I just see the amount of things like I was just asked by Brian Bosma, hey, or by um, sorry, Harold Harold Gibson, hey, when is the next meeting? I need to plan. so many days before that to do an advertising. When can we do this? This this having two meetings a month gives you the flexibility for people to come and ask for things. doing it once a month. I think you're gonna just keep adding emergency meetings because stuff needs to get done that you can't do in once a month because of [snorts] the the timing required [clears throat] in advertising or sometimes things coming up last minute, you know. Um, I I just

my my hesitancy centers around our accessibility to community members and I know we don't I appreciate you all. [laughter] I know we don't fill the seats every meeting. Um, but there's the option to fill the seats twice a month to have conversation, comment, and access. That's that's my hesitancy. I I do think that the efficiency may I just for me I don't know what outweighs the other for at this point because there is an efficiency question and an opportunity to to be more efficient for our staff and for our team. But I my hesitancy centers around the accessibility to our community and our constituents and making sure that we're available. I mean once a month cutting that availability in half is where my hesitancy is but that's

well and you've even offered up the Fridays you know your speak for Friday so you know if you did that chat chat for Fridays I'm sorry council that's another opportunity for the public uh as well as you know I think the two two meetings started years ago with uh we added a Saturday morning meeting was Wednesday

Saturday morning 8 o'lock And like I said, we had half the crowd that we had here on Saturday mornings at 8 o'clock. So, we decided to move them to uh uh the se the Wednesdays and for whatever reason why there was two. I don't think anybody really knew other than I think they wanted one through the week and if somebody couldn't make it through the week, they offered it for the weekend, but then they dropped that because like I said, there was just nobody showed up on Saturday. So, they started having every other Wednesday. So, you know, my take is like I said, you want uh people from the public, well, we're open 40 hours a week, you know, every week. There's an opportunity for anybody to email us to come through town hall and I know that, you know, anything that Pacific has to go for you. Yeah. A good example, my parents, uh, they're selling a piece of property in Cumberland, and, uh, there's a timeline they have to meet, that meeting is not until next month. That's just the way they work. There's, you know, they drop that date just like Harold Gibson. U [snorts] you know, he has a date to work with and a lot of times the two weeks tonight's a good example. How long did it take him to get Bosman get all this stuff together in the two weeks to have this meeting? Maybe we give him that opportunity. [clears throat]

It's one thing that Jenny has the opportunity to call him or Yvon call him more, but to get it here to get the stuff to you guys in time might be a little more efficient for them. Well, these meetings have been on our calendar for a long time. Yep. I mean, it's not like it's it was scheduled 10 days ago and they had to rush to get it done. That's not on our end. That's on their Exactly. But still, their t their turnaround with all of their workload, [snorts] would it make it easier for them to So, we did have a tie. So, if we did go to if we if we did commit to one meeting a month and we kept it on the first or third Wednesday of the month and we we did it for the first couple months and then realized that, hey, we're not really liking that. I've always had it.

Then we just add back in the second meeting. If I can make a suggestion, yeah, the first two months of the year are pretty busy. We do know January and February because we're doing all these meetings and reorganizing getting everybody going. Maybe maybe schedule the first two months of two meetings and then only schedule one meeting for the rest of the year. And then if you figure out it doesn't work, like you said, add um it's and it really all came up because the newspaper wants a a schedule. So, but they've gotten a schedule every year for the past five years that I've been here.

Oh, I agree with that. Well, I like it because the times where we have to have budget meetings or finance meetings or anything like that, it's always like, you know, okay, during that month, now you're talking two Wednesdays and then you could use that for additional meetings if you needed, right? And it could turn into something that and you wouldn't have to have an opening for people to talk to. We could rotate through who's sitting here talking to anybody if they wanted that opportunity. Um, I think with Senate Bill One and and the changes that we're going to have, there's there's a fiscal piece to it. Probably not a huge one. It's not going to break the bank, but I think efficiency wise, it it makes a lot of sense.

And I think if we again, if we don't like it, we can change it midyear. We can add, but subtracting, I think, is not something we can do. I personally would be because of the accessibility concern on the website putting emails, cell numbers. I put my cell number everywhere. I don't care who wants to call me about what issue at what time. Call me. Emails are all out there. So, [snorts] and it it has happened a lot over reptiles. They may bubble over food trucks, sewers,

but that's definitely the exception, not the norm. But it's our

I don't think accessibility in my my opinion is accessibility is not the issue. I mean, how many times have we all of us went to meet somebody who asked us to meet them? I mean, [snorts] we talked reptiles at the library before, you know, I mean, like there's all those instances that happens. Um, my personal opinion is accessibility is not the biggest driver. I I like that it's available, right? But I think if you know, one Wednesday a month people really wanted to meet with us and not have a full agenda and we could rotate who that is, I think that would work, too. But I I don't know that there will be a call to action from the town for that. And and as far as the council goes, you guys have kind of implemented for the first time like the administrative meetings as well, which is a little different, but you know that that's a good tool for you guys. So,

and to your point about we already have in our calendars, we could use that time for administrative meetings. We could use it for other things. Could not use it if we don't need it. Provides flexibility. I'm a fan of it. I think there's kinks that we'd have to work out, but it's not impossible. Well, if we did it, I like the fact of keeping it the first or third Wednesday. That way, if we do need to go back to two meetings a month, we just add the regular regularly scheduled meeting back in. I would suggest we let Yvon pick which one so that it coincides best with the financial routines.

I thought both I So, what what are we gaining by making this change? I I guess that's my curiosity. Do [clears throat] we don't have to make this decision tonight? Well, you almost kind of do because we have to give a newspaper a list of next year's meeting by January. Yeah, we have another meeting. We have one more meeting. Yeah. So, is there [laughter]

is there a way, Jim, for you to communicate to us at our next meeting how this the staff and the team here at town hall what we're saving in the midst of it? you know, and I I don't pretend to understand all of the pieces that go into the putting together the agenda and all the pieces, but you're saying that there is a savings and both time and money. Is there a way is there a way to qualify that for us?

There's a lot of shuffling that goes on to prepare for the meeting because, you know, I I I see it and I I get that. Uh, and it I guess it's a little dis like I said some of our meetings might go to 7:15. All that energy went into that meeting throughout that week. I said, you know, a lot of that we can get done in one meeting and then take that energy and use it somewhere else. So, is there a lot of energy for a 15-minute meeting? There everything that goes the same. Yeah, it's same rotation whether we've got five things in the agenda or one. Yep. What what kind of legal impact would this have? Obviously, it's going to hit, you know, financially. How much are you saving? How much are we saving? You have to ask Ted that question. Um,

already pinged. I'm sorry. No, I'm doing Are there any complications with this? We're not paying you for at least 30 days. I can foresee some complications with publication of public hearings um and and notices of that nature. Um, it just it's kind of one of those things where you don't know it's a problem until you run into it, right? Um it is for efficiency sake. It's it's nice having two meetings. You just I feel like more gets done. But um can I ask like we cancel RDC and EDC meetings. What does it mean to cancel council cancel a council meeting? Are you allowed to do that? You can. Yeah. 48 hours notice of a canceled meeting.

So what's the difference of doing it the opposite way of keeping our meeting schedule the same? I think you set a better precedence to have the meetings on one and then add one versus saying you're going to have it at two and then keep canceling. I agree. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, that's a negative. They always cancel on the times where I was going to go. [laughter] Only when we knew. Yeah. Can you reach out to McCordsville and see if they have any issues with public notices that basically follow There's a lot of municipalities that do it. Yeah. with what Zach Mo

just my sense most of our clients do two meetings. I've represented one municipality that did one a a month and um I don't know if it was the nature of just their council and their relationships with their constituency but um their constituency did not appreciate one a month but it could I mean it could be just the way that you know they do their own their business and the relationship with what do you guys think you guys are around you know you guys come often what what is your opinion You don't even have to come to the podium. Well, thank you. You're welcome.

What are you going to do with that extra, you know, 15 minutes? [laughter]

What [snorts] do you think,

Orland? Like say you guys are the ones that are doing the actual administrative business part of it. I'm here just to see what's what's going on in the town. So, we have two meetings. So, be it. I'll be here. I have nothing else. [clears throat] You know, never know what health reasons or whatever. Like I said couple months ago, it's a pleasure to come to these meetings now because of the five individuals that long coming to me. Several years ago, it was time [laughter]

and you quit coming. Yeah. I guess I would be interested to see what kind of um fiscal impact it had, if it's even if it's even worth it, or we just stick with the two. you know, if we're going to save 1,500 bucks a year, I don't it's a little bit, you know, can can you take the labor that goes into putting the meeting together, separate that, put it somewhere else, that energy, I think you can [snorts] to put a monetary on it. We probably could, but

also [clears throat] my opinion, y participate in another Whether that Main Street Club she's already spending our time. Well, I'm just I'm just [laughter] throwing that out there if you want spread us around

because you are interested in the individuals in town and you're having your council chat things like that. Well, maybe if you had a Wednesday each month that you could then put yourself into an area, whether that's ball game or whatever, but your visual um that might give you an opportunity to um that you might like to do, but you [clears throat]

Thank you, Mr. Bond. You're a fast growing community with a lot of moving parts which is about ready to take off even more so when you have town center and everything that has to go along with that. I think this is the wrong time to cut back on meetings. I think that you're going to have a lot of things where big decisions need to be made, where you have to have public hearings, where you have to have public meetings, where resolutions, ordinances need to be put in place or need to be modified. I think this is not the right time to cut back.

And I I I'll I'll side with that. You like I said, we are growing. Forsville's it's a town of 15 16,000. And like I said, they built a town center, a $12 million jail. We know how, you know, what the meetings are required to get those projects done. 600 homes this year they're building. So, there's a lot of stuff going on. I was just like caught off guard if they were able to do it. I'm thinking, why don't we do it? But think about how much better they would have done if they had two meetings. [snorts and laughter] Can you just imagine what that town center would have been like? But I I guess what I'm curious, Jim, this is a proposal that you're bringing to us. Yep. Where does it come from? Is it just, hey, I I had that McCordville experience

at that meeting? Yes. So, it's not coming from necessarily a desire from our team or even observations of of how our team is functioning as much as it is I saw this. I can see that maybe it could have a positive impact on our team. But it's not like it's not like you all are crying out that that these agendas are too overstressing or that you're not getting certain things done. Prep to the agenda for a 15minute meeting is a lot.

And I would say I'm not going to speak on Bob's behalf, but you know for Bob police chief u you know to have material every two weeks sometimes it's a little difficult. So if you had it once a month, maybe there could be more preparation. And even even if the meeting lasts until 9, I'd rather a meeting go once a month till 9:00, then try to do two of them a month that lasts 7:30.

From a management view, I I I would say the efficiency to cut down on the cost, that's one thing. But I mean, this twice a month has been going on for well over 30 years. And um um and we are growing to Ivon's point. I it it does make me nervous to go to once a month, but if you went once a month, how much how long is it going to take you to put together all the APVs, all the other the same amount of time? The APVs would be the same amount of time. the amount we'll just have but we'll have double to look at for you to go through and to read up on and

the amount of stuff we'll be sending out might be overwhelming with the amount of stuff that we are cranking through in a month every month there's been a couple of weeks in a row where we've had really nice short meetings with very little on the agenda but if you look at today for instance you know you've got a lot of decisions.

I I think that's an important point because if if I h if I have to read through all of the meeting material, I mean, I'll I'd get it done, but the if we stick with the Friday before the meeting and we have twice as much material, that's a lot of to digest um within a matter of four days. That could be that could be changed as well, though. I think that

I think the Friday before the meeting and really the push back when we originally brought that up was you know you have a meeting then you have a week and then the next week you're sending out materials for the next meeting that's a lot you know that was the push back then I think if you have that you probably could go to hey the materials come out you know a week before maybe two weeks before and then if there's addendums or additions to that then the additions to that come I don't think it's going to create extra work. It's going to be the same prep time. You'll still have all the last minute changes because unfortunately life isn't perfect, right? You're going to have those anyway.

Well, and at some point we have to just say here's a deadline and now you're in it next week. Whether it's two weeks or four weeks, there has to be a deadline because otherwise Well, you tell Hancock reach. Yeah. And that came in at 4:00 today. Yeah. And then we say we'll see you next and and I think at that point they know that because Bill, you know, you [clears throat] know which town that you have a deadline and if you don't make it, you go to the next month. There's no ifs, ands, buts, you know. So,

well, I think this is this is a lot of good information. I I would suggest we we u take some time to review this and address this at our address this at our meeting on the 17th. We can all do our own research on this and maybe reach out to some other town municipalities and maybe we can each uh take some time and talk with some of the staff and see how they feel and um maybe we come back to this on the 17th and address it. Sounds good. Yep. I'm fine tableabling it. We'll table it to our next meeting old business.

I'm real 50 I'm 5050 on it. I'm I can see the benefits on both sides. [clears throat] It's I think it's going to be a tough decision. Okay. Thank you for the conversation. Nepotism forms. It's a just a housekeeping thing. Just I need you to sign them and they have to be done in December once a year. Yeah. So, it's on our agenda just so I can say yes, we'll sign that forms. Yep. Got it. Uh renewal of our lease for the chamber. I'll make a motion that we redo the lease with the Chamber of Commerce so that they can occupy that space right there for next year. I'll second.

Thank you, Bill. Brian, any further discussion on that? just briefly because I know there have been periods of time where there was resistance from the council to have the chamber of commerce in the same building. But it's kind of like Main Street, Alliance Club, any other organization that's promoting the town, working with the town. I think it certainly makes a lot of sense to have a chamber of com right. [snorts] So I want to keep your questions. Any other comments or no? I concur.

Ethan, before you move on, um on 6.4 the resolution, not one of us has who who passed it and who second and I did. Bill seconded. Okay. Thank you. Chad made the motion. Bill seconded on which one? The resolution. We all three of us didn't have it. So, I got it. Okay. Thank you. Bill. Got it. [snorts] Um, so back to the lease. All those in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? That passes. Thought we were Chad made it. Bill second. Thank you. That's where I would have slipped it in. Sorry.

Same as the other one. [laughter] anything. Um, we're just continued conversations. We've been able to have a few of those tonight, but well, just briefly at our next council meeting, I will have the comments back from the school on the agreement between the town main street and the school for the continued use of common area for concerts and other events. Good. Good. Thank you. It'll be nice and we can move that to New Town Center hopefully in the future. Yes. Legal updates. Nothing to provide tonight. Okay, [snorts]

Jim.

Uh, I'm still working with uh two developers on some property south of New Palestine. So, uh I think one of them is actually going to close uh yet this year. The one on Bentner uh it's getting real close. And then the other property is just uh south of the school on Jim Road. So those are some properties that you know housing subdivisions are looking this way. They're out in the county. But you know we're going to try to figure out especially with the one on Bner you know if there's a way we can annex at. I've been working with some property owners see if you know that would kind of go fluent there. And I did reach out to the school just to talk about their impact and there's some easements that might be required from the school on the south side to get sewer back there. So So there's just some discussions. So we'll see if that comes about and then uh I got a letter in front of you uh for Glad Acres and I uh uh Commonwealth had helped me with this and actually the county health department looked at it and they made some changes and so we're kind of close to this. U I think I'll have one more go around with the county. Uh but I'd like to be able to reach out to Glad Acres and actually U Raisner subdivision. I had uh three calls last week where they can't use the washer uh they can't use dishwashers and things like that through periods of times of year. So uh I had a meeting with Bill Spalding and Thomas Barkley uh with the county uh to talk about removing the septics. So I think the next step uh uh Bill Spalding uh and uh probably maybe Al Stong and myself will get together and just talk about how that would look for the county and the town and uh talking with Thomas uh we'd probably have to go into an interlocal agreement with the county and then uh there is some SRF funding uh I think there's a due date by March 31st

uh if it kind of all works together. We would try to seek funding um through SRF to get that done. So So it's like I said, moving slow, but we haven't gotten the letters out yet, but I'm anxious to get the letters out and get the response and kind [snorts] of keep that ball rolling. So thank you. Yep. What went on with the wastewater treatment? Oh, I'm sorry. Yep. Uh because the snow didn't make it. Kyle did call Scott and really wasn't anything. So, thanks. Steve's not able to be with us this evening.

He's got some he's got some illnesses going. He has lungs. I think it's it's a lung cancer, but it's know if it's small or large cells. He's got some health issues right now. Lung issues, COPD. And yeah, don't go into detail. Um I will celebrate that we did get approved for some community crossings grant this year. So he did. Yes. Um appreciate his work on that and I know that was a more competitive cycle this year because of some changes in the laws um and the allocation. So um we'll have some more work to do this year. So I appreciate his efforts and his work on that. Did Did we get the amount on that or

uh I can tell you I didn't pull it up on INTO's website.

Congratulations. Uh preliminary been awarded 114,39144. We'll use it. Yeah. Yes. Very nice.

Chief, but I want to say a big thank you to our snow gentlemen. Um the other day when all the snow [clears throat] came, the county was busy. We didn't have any. They had our main roads cleared off. It was nice coming in about 5:30 in the morning. The main roads were clear. They hadn't hit all the subdivisions yet. No accidents and they did a wonderful job. Good to hear. Mr. Yavon, welcome back.

Thank you. Appreciate that. Um, I don't have anything of significance other than thank you to my awesome team for allowing me to go on vacation. I've never gone on a three week vacation ever. I don't think you're going again. No, but it was wonderful. You need to be able to do it. Anxiety level was probably high. Yeah. [laughter] I appreciate it very much. It's easy if you know there's an end to it. [laughter] Fair enough. Well, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you to your team.

Uh we offer public comments. Five minutes. Anything that anybody would like to say about anything? say public. Okay. To council comments, Bill to congratulate Coach Ralph, his coaching staff, and every member of the Paly High School football team winning backto back state championships. That's just fantastic. I just want to thank them. I know that we have our Christmas event on Main Street coming up soon. I encourage everybody to be involved in that. That's always a good time.

That's December 13th. Thank you, Terry. Oh, um, congrats to New Palestine. I want to thank you guys for looking into the radar speed signs. I think that's um very needed. And I want to thank Jenny and Bri and everybody that helped while Ivonne was gone. I know we all I know that I bug you and I'm sure they bug you. I don't know. But anyway, thank you. That's okay. And that's all,

right? Congratulations to the new PAL football team. Uh it was a tough game. It's fun to watch. Um it's pretty incredible records what they're doing. Uh just amazing. And congratulations to Alabama for winning the Iron Bowl. And uh when you go around a roundabout at five west and three south, drive real slow so you look pretty.

Nice. Um, I'll echo the congratulations to the football team, but also uh just the the way our town showed up for them. Um, it was fun to be at Lucas Oil. Um, it was clear that we our our fans heavily outnumbered Marville's fans. I don't know. We don't I know we don't have to travel as far, but I love the way this team show or this town shows up for our team and for our schools. Speaking of our schools, um, our arts department at the high school have their winter gala this weekend. So, Friday and Saturday night, there is some uh some choirs and bands and all of the things that will help you get into the holiday spirit if you're not quite yet [clears throat] there. Um so, tickets are necessary. So, go buy your tickets, find your seat, cheer on our kids because we have some incredibly intalented students at the high school and um they're all going to be on full display and it's going to be a really neat event. And it's it's more than just a concert. there's fundraising opportunities and and ways to participate beyond just sitting and listening. So, I'd encourage our town to get out for that. Um, I was going to congratulate our team again um for that snow event plowing and the work that they did. I appreciate that. Also, our December council chat is this Friday. It's going to be at Sherido. So, um, who wants to go with me? 8 a.m. Friday, Sherido.

I will be out of town. Ryan is going to be out of town. I could be there. I [snorts] might be a few minutes late. I have to drop my dog off the vet. You could be there. I I can. Yes, I I I I'll be there. I I will do there. I will be there, but I'll be Okay. Five minutes late. In full disclosure, I have to leave a few minutes early to drop my dogs off the groomer. So, we'll just Okay. Their cinnamon rolls are life-changing. that I just told her that word for Jim brought one in and we split it and it was amazing. Amazing. And if you get the cheesy pepperoni sourdough loaf and you warm up a little pizza sauce dip to dip it in,

you don't need anything else for dinner. So, I bought uh the the large uh cheese jalapeno loaf for Thanksgiving and it [snorts] was very well received. So, I I've been a We went to the grand opening and I'm telling you that Yeah, I was there after you and you bought everything. Yeah. Yeah. Everything was gone. I did. I did. I spent as much money as I could. Well, Sherry do is opening for special hours for our council chat on Friday. So, we will be there at 8 o'clock. Terry will be there at 8:05 and uh we will hopefully have other people join us uh for that that conversation. [clears throat] So, um, that's all I have. Chad,

um, obviously congratulations to the football team. Um, Sher do is doing great. I heard wonderful things about them being open so far. Snowplow work. I did have multiple people comment about noticing when they came into our city limits and how great our streets looked. So, um, great to them. I saw Steve, uh, getting coffee the day after, he looked like he was, uh, struggling. Said he was out till 1. So appreciate all the work that they do to make that happen. And that's all I have. I will end it with a motion to adjurnn. Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. We'rejourned. Thank you all.