Town Council - Regular Meeting

I'd like to call to order the Town Council Wednesday, May 27, 2026. Order please. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

with liberty and justice for all.

All right, now is the time for remembrances and acknowledgements. And I know you all know about Steve's son-in-law. I'm glad the town sent something.

Also, the community lost an icon. A couple of weeks ago, Tammy, the whole community really had adopted her and help keep her safe. And, um, for those who ask, apparently Bruce, her dog has a new home, so he is taken care of the way everybody came together and showed their concern about her and tried to help her. And I know you know, the chief and I have talked several times about the calls that he would get from people concerned about her situation.

So all right, let's go on with roll call. Nanette.

District 1, Steve Shoemaker. He's out today. District 2, Paul Perry. Present. District 3, Stacey M. Krieger. Present. District 4, Ann Resteron.

Here.

Council at Large, Leanna K. Hughes. Here. Clerk Treasurer Nanette Angel here. Administrative Town Manager Chris Cook. Here. Deputy Town Manager Andrea Balboni. Here. Town Attorney Fred is sitting in for Chris Wisher. Here. Engineer Drew Flanian. Present. And Police Chief is here.

Aye. I'd like a motion for the approval of May 13, 2026 minutes, please. So moved. Second. Do I have a second? Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

If we could back up just a minute, please. I almost forgot the big punchline here. I wore my Splash Bash t-shirt. This is five years old. So five years ago this week, we opened the splash pad. And it's a big success. It's still going great, better than ever. And I decided that now's the time to wear it. We would model this tonight and wish the splash pad happy fifth birthday and have a happy season. Good. Thank you.

It's hard to believe it's been five years.

I know. I know. I assume no scheduled appearances or comments by citizens. We'll go on to new business. No civiltown. Sewer.

Contracting is requesting payment approval of $175,722.50. This equates to 72% of the total contract worth being completed. Of this amount, the change is $5,271.68 with the amount of $170,450.83.

All right, I need a motion for the approval of pay application number two to Cobra Stein Contracting. I would make that motion. I need a second, please.

Second.

Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Powers place, Drew.

Yes, so this is the certificate of substantial completion. So this signifies the project is ready for its intended use, which Engineer has confirmed with working with a sewer utility. So this certificate also starts the one-year warranty period for the project. Engineer recommends Council execute the certificate of substantial completion dated for May 7, 2026.

All right, I need a motion for the approval of Powers Place Sanitary Sewer Relocation Certificate of a Substantial Completion.

I would make the motion for that.

And do I have a second, please? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. Drew Newberg, wastewater.

for the floating cube project. Reynolds Construction is requesting payment approval of $233,245.96. So this equates to the whopping 1%

And I would so move to pay that. All right, do I have a second? Second.

Any discussion? 1%. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Motion carries. I'm unaware of any unfinished business that we need to discuss. So we'll go into staff reports. Chris, town administrative manager.

Yes, I have my report ready for you. Some highlights from the meetings. I did attend the Breakfast at the Brickyard networking event at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and made a lot of good connections on that Saturday the 18th. Under personnel, I didn't have it listed, but I do want to commend our intern for the summer. He's been hard at it the past couple of weeks, and he's already got about 700 items scanned into the Novo software from a GPS standpoint for some of the fixtures, and he's walking around the town making great progress. Um, 1 of the issues under residents, well, kind of put it under miscellaneous about the Julianna in a 2nd. But under item 1, I was at a meeting yesterday in boonville. It was a war county open house within that. And I was told, and I haven't had a chance to tell a couple of folks here, there is a work order on the truck signs that they're going to place in advance of the town along 662 right off of the interstate to give folks a turning opportunity to get out of the inner core. And they'll do the same up here at 66. But they have issued a work order to have those signs constructed from NDOT. And they acted like it would be later this summer, if not sooner, before those go up. So is that enforceable? Yeah. I mean, our stuff's enforceable now, but this is like just another set of signs from the NDOT side of things that's going to keep, that hit them when it's, right off the highways you know the problem is our signage is right at the town limits right and by the time there's nowhere to turn around it's too late they're going to get hit with this earlier and then we're continuing to work through some of the other options but that was very successful yesterday the solar panel like i said are up and running they want to do a kind of a ribbon cutting and i didn't know if there was any dates that jump out i'll send an email out to the group I know Fridays and Wednesdays are good for Dr. Perry, and I know that, Stacy, you said after 4, 3rd? After 4. Okay, and then did, I know Steve didn't have any, did either of you have any, like if we set a date to do a ribbon cutting for the solar project, did you have any timelines or any preferences?

Are you talking to us? Yeah, yeah. Oh. I wasn't prepared because I didn't know we were there.

Well, I can just email you.

Okay, would you mind?

I'll email you all a couple options and we can go from there.

Yeah, that would be great. Is that good with you? Yeah, that's fine.

And then item six, I wanted to keep up there because we're still working on the trailer option and the boat dock is holding firm. The river level jumped eight foot above expected forecast. Friday we had a meeting. It was as high Monday as it was supposed to be tonight. And I met down there again Monday morning with Noah and Artie, talked to the vendor. With the additional support arms and the flexibility with the forecast, it's supposed to crash sometime early tomorrow morning. And it'll stay up until about the first, barring any unforeseen calamity of something hitting it. It should be fine. I've notified the lock master that it's out. He's letting the tows know when they're in the area, because sometimes they like to get out of the channel through here. And we just said a few words to kind of keep it, because the pins, it's metal on metal where those two arms hook to it. And that wasn't the case with the old one. And the pinning system that goes in there is about three times wider than the old pins. So theoretically, for the contractor, we're going to kind of get close to the red line here. But hopefully the next time we get close, we won't have the forecast jump overnight by eight foot and kind of catch us off base. So I'm working on getting that trailer in here. We'll address it. We'll inspect it once the river levels go down. I don't foresee any need. It's taking it so far, but we'll double check everything and make sure that it's safe before we open that back up to the public. But that'll probably be sometime within a week, week and a half before the levels get down low enough for boating. Were there any questions on that? Because I just wanted to kind of i know it kind of sits out there and i didn't know if any of you had received any i haven't received any i've spoken to some of the fishermen about it and kind of explained the difference between the new one and the old one and once i explain it to them they're they feel comfortable that that will be all right um the silver lining is we got a stress test uh right away right right yeah it wasn't planned but uh Yeah, I mean, if it can take this, I mean, now granted, I wouldn't want to push it much more than where it's going to end up.

Well, next time hopefully you'll be able to get it out.

Yeah, well, next time I'm going to, even if it gets sniffing to that level, we're going to get it out and err on that side of caution. But Owensboro did not get theirs out in time. Theirs took damage. And I know Henderson... you got to understand it's a different level of Henderson and their doc's a little different. They went ahead and took theirs out Friday and that's when we met to discuss ours and we felt with the conditions we would have time Tuesday to make a call if we needed to adjust and you know it jumped up Saturday with all that extra rain so.

How does the how do how do the barges

find out that's i mean it's still way out of the channel um but i i notified the lock master and they used the radios and they kind of issued a warning to the toes in the area because it sits so low it's not like it has a reflector system on i mean it's marked in the channel they know that it's there because that's why you get the permit from the core so it's like on the charts But because most of them, you wouldn't expect to be out there when it's at minor, I think we're at an actionable flood stage now, which it's just below minor. So I just wanted to kind of address that and be on the radar with you on that. The item seven, all we're waiting for, we have the verbal from the state ready folks. we just want something in writing i'm meeting with the vendor our team is tomorrow to kind of stay ahead of that so that once we get the email we can give the go-ahead for the trail work to start it'll take them a week or two to kind of get mobilized and then the repair work ideally if the river goes back down soon should take less than two weeks to repair so i'll keep you posted on that via email Unfortunately, with the river conditions where we're on the river item 10. They have had to cancel and postpone the leg of the Ohio River way event. From Louisville to Evansville, and they're going to look to revisit that section in the fall, because when they got to Louisville, the river was so high being in a canoe is not not safe. So it's unfortunate, but we've been in contact with them, and the minute they have a date, I'll get it in front of the appropriate groups here and get that re-approved.

They had a very nice video on Facebook. Yeah.

And through their videos, I did find that another historic block on the east side of Cincinnati has a mural on it. and it's like a lot 37 or 35 and we're what 40 or it's like 10 back from us it's on the it's owned by uh thomas moore yeah it's like 35 i think we're 47. it's owned by thomas moore college now as a As a research station for the river, and they've got a mural on the front of their lock building, their old lock building that faces the river. So. As we work through the process on talking about murals. There are examples of something on a similar building on the Ohio river. So. That should help us when it comes with the covenants with the park service. That brings us to something I'm going to I'm going to tag into drew a little bit on and that's item 11, which is the. Juliana drive stormwater line issue as you know, it's been well documented. The team has performed admirably. I'd like to thank Russell and his team as well for helping us out with some guidance. Andrew and his team, and then our street department's also been out there helping. But we roughly had a 24 inch stormwater line collapse. And then with all the rain we had. four inches of rain in three days last week there were a lot of challenges for three property owners in the juliana drive area but we were able to mobilize and get a solution i'll turn it over to you because i know we just talked about it in finance and i want to make sure everybody's on the same page yeah just for record purposes too we did declare an emergency at the last town council meeting

So, per that direction, we did receive two quotes per Indiana code. We received quotes from BLS Construction LLC at Sam's Trucking and Excavating. Sam's Trucking and Excavating was the low-quoter who could, not only cost-wise, but also schedule-wise. So they was able to get out there. We made the award on Friday and got out there Monday. and then we had about four inches of rain and it changed the situation from what we were dealing with a few days prior. So it was a media threat to the public's safety, to some property there. It still continues to be. 60 linear feet of pipe. We have a temporary pipe connection, so at least the water is now somewhere equal to flow. As Chris alluded, they had several challenges out there, not only fighting rain every single day. The depth of the pipe was about 15 feet in elevation. The previous developer who installed the pipe had put construction debris, large boulders in there that the contractor came in with. Probably something about four or five foot in diameter.

The ones in the picture, we didn't, they hauled away the big one before we could get a picture of it. But it was probably twice to three times the size of the ones that were in the pictures that we sent out.

There's tree stones, tree logs in there. and then the ground water conditions that they had to deal with. It was just horrible. Again, like you said, Russell and his crews, San Tech's sewer department did a great job to assist. The contractor had crews on site that worked up one o'clock one night to try to get this storm sewer open. We were there. on memorial day weekend saturday to finally get the temporary connection in place given what we now know we believe the best best path moving forward is to go ahead and open cut replace the storm sewer to the manhole we don't want to have to deal with this in the next few years again it's very deep sewers about 14 15 foot deep it's right in some residential areas it's in a roadway So what the recommendation is to proceed and SAM has to provide the cost. We've been working with them. It's approximately $248,933 to go ahead and complete the remainder of the work. with town council approval they can essentially start tomorrow i believe to go ahead and get this work wrapped up i think it'll take a total three weeks with the restoration of the concrete we'll have some driveway replacements but the main culvert itself should be complete about a week's time

Okay, do we want to go ahead and vote on this now?

We can. So just to back up, we also had a finance meeting before this meeting. I've also educated the town council on kind of where we're at for the funding for this emergency project. The only place that we can really pull this money as of right now would be the edit funds and this would be our pulling out of our reserves. We would ask for an additional appropriation at next council for 352,000 just to cover what could possibly happen because I know we have some undecided amounts of what we might need to do, you know, a pump truck and we've got a reimbursed sewer for some things and all that. So I feel we're pretty safe on doing that. I think finance's general consensus was to move forward with this additional appropriation and I will work on that and bring that to you at next council.

Do we have any questions? Any concerns?

The only question I might have I think was Answered in our finance meeting. We were pretty thorough with everything between Drew and Chris and Andrea.

What are the unknowns? Like you know a lot, but what are the unknowns, if any?

Just the underground conditions that we're dealing with. Generally a pipe would be bedded in some sort of stone, but the soil conditions are with what that contractor previously put in their developer. So there are some extra bedding associated with it, so we've made some accommodations with this cost bedding material at the two foot of like a number two stone foundation base in there. So there are some in there. There is some other unknowns of what we can't see underground that could come up if there's any other potential utility impacts out there. Those could be some of those unknown risks that we have.

But we won't be dealing with the extreme slope of the backyard and the proximity. I mean, most of this work was going on 12 foot from their bedroom. So we will have more. Is it fair to say that? I mean, we'll have more space and it'll be a flatter surface than the slope. That we were dealing with, and then you throw 4 inches of rain on that with the type of equipment. And the proximity to the sewer line where we were digging. That was an additional concern, because we were only a few feet from the, the, the sewer main in that area and it just. It was not anything that could go wrong did go wrong. And I think the team performed as well as they could under the circumstances. Nature did not help us. No.

The pipe was collapsed. We just had water. Even when we plugged it off and had some pumps going, it was still getting around the exterior of the pipe or somewhere underground. So it's another one of those unknown risk factors that we have to contend with. But hopefully as we, now that we have a for sure game plan, we're not just trying to salvage what's there and we can just go through and rip it out. It should go a lot quicker and smoother, hopefully.

It won't have to be a surgical.

And additionally, we are at, what, $61,000 as of right now in expense. So the $248,000, so we're looking at $300,000 plus whatever the extra is. So just to make sure everybody's aware that that's kind of the money we're looking at.

Right.

And my layman... mind, it looked to me like between the pictures and their explanations that It was almost like they used it as a trash dump for whatever they could come up with just to...

Fill the hole.

Yeah, exactly.

But that happens everywhere. Does it? I mean, when they have to fill and get it to grade, the odds of anybody ever seeing that are slim to none. And I don't want to defend the person that did that, but I know from digging up dirt for 20 years, you never know what you're going to find, what they used for fill.

I thought it was a problem. The reason why the town has standards and made those improvements and changes for the better is the situation like we're dealing with now. Like the pipe materials, corrugated metal pipe, we do not allow that type of materials. We want long-term, 50 plus, we're looking at 100 years even, type of materials where... in some cases are 25 years or less, but that one has, that one's been 35 to 40, so it's in horrible shape. But the town has a lot of standards and protections in place now because of those exact situations that we're running at.

But you put a, you put a metal pipe at the end of its life with that type of weight from the boulders on top of it. You saw what would happen and you saw the Swiss cheese, like, hitting along the edges of the pipe that came out at the collapse. The concern is the pipe from where we stop to. would be a lot of the same and it's only a matter of time. And then again, you don't know, you might have some boulders sitting on top of that as you open it up, but by having that flatter, wider surface to work from and the fact that we're not trying to not hit a house, it'll be a lot easier to proceed. Okay.

Any other discussion or questions? I'd like to make a motion that we proceed with this project Do I have a second?

I would second.

Any other questions? All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

And before we go on, I just want to say I don't encourage or endorse going out and sightseeing, but I did go see what they're talking about last weekend. And if you go up to the top of the hill in River Bend, go up to the top of the hill and park in the circle at the top of the hill and walk down because there are way too many trucks and too many other vehicles and workers and people and Um, to get through and get in all that mess, it really isn't a place for people who are just cruising through. But if you come to the top of the hill, there's a nice place for you to park there. The other thing about that is, um, the other thing is that I talked to the homeowner and I talked to some of the other neighbors and I don't know how they feel today, but I know that on that day they were. bragging about Russell. They were bragging about everybody. They were bragging about Druid, bragging about all the workers from all the companies and how thoughtful and cautious they were and how they were letting them know everything that was going on every step of the way. And, uh, I appreciate that. I mean, that makes us look good. So thank you too.

But we were communicating into the night, like at 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning, even on some of this stuff, especially on that Friday morning when the crews were wrapping up. And, you know, Russell's crew had to come out and tend to some of the generators that we were renting from them. And I know they were out there several times throughout the night, because there was some issues with the prime on 1 of the 2 pumps. And, you know, we had essentially like a bypass system. Because we still had to get the storm water through there because of the rain that was coming down. So we had a two-pump system with a primary and a backup to kind of get the water around where they were working down to where it should go. There's an emergency backup still up there in case something would fail while we're continuing the project. It shows what the teamwork can achieve, and it never fails. You can take one holiday into a random hat every year and pull it out, and you're going to have something like this happen.

Okay.

You want me to continue on? Yeah. I got one more thing. They started working on the mural. They've got the outline of the Newberg, and I continue to provide some feedback. I know, I think you'll be very pleased with the, in the letters, There's going to be scenes from around town and I don't have the final copy in time to share with you because they'd included one thing in the example that wasn't actually in the town limits and I knew that we wanted stuff in the town limits. They had included the high school and we felt that it should just be stuff from within the town. So they were going to make one change and then once that comes out, I'll give it to you guys to give a final blessing and then they're almost done after that. They're also going to come up with some lighting options that we can put up to kind of light it up at night. But I think you'll be very pleased. There'll be scenes of the trail. I think press hall. This the, the older part of the well, the older part of town hall. Yeah, the bridge and it's. It's very nice and I think everybody in the community should be pleased once it's done, but. It's been a process. I know how they work now. And like I said, as we work towards finding the funding for any potential other public art, it'll be a longer process because they're booked for the rest of the year. But I know we're waiting still from the park service on looking at the old lock and dam building. But at least we found where other people have already done it. So that should help with our cause. um one other thing uh i don't want to get ahead because i don't know if the police report's done but i have been meeting on some potential solutions uh with drew and our street team and some vendors to hopefully bring before you at a future council meeting maybe the next one just depends on cost of putting some additional measures in place for the uh right there by the restaurant in the plaza where the bench got taken out from the accident and then we would use that maybe as a blueprint to start funding the other locations that we talked about where our roadways hit the river but we're still doing our due diligence looking at all the options and i would i would probably be sending out an email ahead of time just to kind of educate and then i'll make a formal presentation with engineering here and kind of go from there. But one of the products I met with today is actually made in Louisville, and the plant is actually in the Mega Cavern. And they have a system that's deployed in Nashville, Tennessee, and I'll have some videos of what they're doing in Nashville, Tennessee with that.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

All right, Andrea.

um you guys have my report in your packet um i don't have anything additional but if you have anything or any questions just let me know does anybody have any questions for andrea all right director of planning and zoning let me get that report her report is in your packet as well if you guys have any questions just let me know okay

Do we have any questions for Director of Planning and Zoning? Nanette, Kirk Treasurer.

We had a finance meeting before this meeting to discuss the Julian issue and all the different options that we had available. We also talked about something else that will be coming forth to you at next council. Chief Nick Donan has contacted me, and we had already budgeted for this vote that he is requesting. You have it in your packet and in his presence. He has requested that I request the motion to approve the purchase of this boat. This boat, we do not have to pay for until it arrives, and we're looking at three to four months out. So I would like to request a motion to approve this $80,000 purchase of a rescue boat for the Newberg Volunteer Fire Department. So moved. All right. Any discussion?

Second. Any second? All right. I'll second it. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed, motion carries. Town attorney, do you have anything? Town engineer?

place here so elder bush road culvert is installed they just got the surface on top of it and that work will be complete i think i did get the final uh when they're supposed to complete the miscellaneous patches around town they've been delayed with the weather of course but they're supposed to do it all in one swoop so they should be able to do it here in the next few days or maybe early next week and they'll have that

Is Eller Bush open right now? Yes.

Okay. Yes. And then I have one item. I drink with the source here, a repair project. Chris and I will be meeting with two property owners tomorrow to discuss land acquisition needs for the project. But this this project is funded through the civil bond. You have all permits associated with the project in hand. And pending the land acquisition being secured, I would request authorization to go ahead and quote the project out.

So is that a motion?

Yes, I'd like that recommendation from town council to allow engineering to seek quotes from contractors to complete the project.

So moved.

I'll second it. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries.

Okay.

Any questions for Drew? We'll go on to commission and committee reports. Air Authority, no report. Anne, BZA? No meeting, no report. Anne, fire? I think we already took care of that. I think we did too. Any questions for Anne? HBC, myself, we met on May 14th. We had two COAs that we approved. A siding approval on 106 East 1st and a demolition of a 2014 addition on 10 Sycamore. Any questions for me? Is that the garage?

I don't know, but 10 Sycamore? I think so.

Isn't that the garage? It was the upper portion that faces onto Water Street and back in. oh that's right like the upper level like if you're looking if you're on the new entrance island and you're looking at the house that upper portion isn't it the new entrance no no well i think i'll send it to you i'll send it to you i paul parks

Then, uh, no meeting since the last, uh, council meeting, but the net, the June meeting has been moved to the second Thursday. So that's June 9th at 6.

Okay. Where do you all meet?

Hmm. Good question. Cause we alternate, I think it's going to be in here. Is that right?

Cause the second we have HPC here also.

Oh, so blue Dennis. Okay. Yeah.

All right.

On the night, June 9th.

Okay. Any questions for Paul plan? No meeting since we met last, but our next planned meeting will be this coming Monday, which I can't believe it's going to be June. Any questions for me? Paul, please.

Yeah, no meeting. Chief's here if he has anything to contribute.

I don't have anything off the top of my head unless you had a question. I will say that Chris and i have been communicating quite a bit in regards to like the incident that happened last week with the accident down water street so he's kind of running with a lot of stuff that they're out there so we've also got some other surprises um well i mean not surprises but it's safety stuff i forgot to mention it in my report but what we're working on for the third

On July.

Okay.

With the safety barricades and stuff for the fireworks and the stuff with HNI down here that'll block the potential from a vehicle to go through the crowd. So we're working on, we've got a sponsor that has been very generous with paying for it. And it'll be the first time that this system will be deployed in Ward County.

Okay. All right. Any questions for Chief or Paul? Stormwater, we do not have a report, do we?

It'll be a meeting Monday. Okay.

All right. Ann Street?

I have a very short report that was dated May the 21st, so it's a week old. The new department assisted with drainage project in Juliana and also trained a new hire. and did cross-training on employees on the new department. So probably somebody needs to let Mr. Arthur know what the expectation is as far as the report goes so we can have what you want to hear.

All right. Any questions for Ann? And nothing for utility, I assume.

Unless Drew has something else, I don't really have a report. OK. OK.

Meetings next Wednesday? Okay. Finance, I think we've been taken care of. Do you have anything else?

No, ma'am. All right. I do have something else. The state. So we're done with the audit and the public report I forwarded to all of you guys today. It should be on the website by Friday.

Okay, good. Excellent. We'd like to hear that. Paul, personnel.

Yeah, I have several personnel motions. The first motion, I would like to make a motion to approve the recommendation to hire Jacob Crone as street and maintenance laborer at a rate of $21 per hour pending background check and negative drug screen.

All right. I'll second that. Do we have any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed?

Second motion. I'd like to make a motion to approve the hire of Christopher Arnold for town custodian at a rate of $20 per hour. Again, pending background check and negative drug screen.

I will second that motion. Do I have any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion carries. All right, Arts Commission. Leanna?

Well, our normal meeting date would have been Memorial Day, so we changed the date to this coming up Monday. And we're going to meet at the little red brick house, and that's on June the 1st at 530.

And your concerts start when?

June 6th.

June 6th, okay.

And it'll be every Saturday through the summer.

Okay. All right, sidewalk committee, Leanna?

Sidewalk committee, I just want to bring something up so that you are aware. Some of us met with some of the people in Driftwood today. Chris Cook was there, Riley was there, Anne and I both were there. One of the neighbors that's affected with some of the faulty sidewalks had asked if they could meet with some of us. Gerald was there. I guess that's about it. Four homeowners. Four homeowners. Two. Two homeowners. Yeah. I know we've been talking about this and talking about it. It's drug on for so long. Those... Poor people do not even have the rights to have a homeowners association at this point. Mr. Manningly, the developer, is willing to turn everything over to them and I said at the end of the meeting, I think you guys ought to go after that and get your homeowners association on. They said no, we don't want to until all this is fixed. There are so many sidewalks that are not meeting ADA requirements. There are driveways that are in real jeopardy. The sidewalks in some places start and stop. I think we need to start getting pretty proactive with this. We've tried to go along with him. He's come and met with us several times and when he leaves you feel encouraged that he's really going to take care of this and then months later we're after him and he's well i got this done i got that done but folks it's been over 10 years and we're still we're still just befuddled trying to figure out how to force him to do this now as a result of the finance meeting we do know that we still have um is it called a bond that's not a bond What's it called? Letter of credit. So we could recoup some of our costs. I think we need to go after him with this. I think that this has just gone on way too long. And these poor homeowners, my gosh, they've been more than patient. Chris, do you have any comments?

I think what we need to do is what I said at the meeting, we're going to reassess. They're going through both Riley and Gerald with the level. They're checking all the work. There's a map that we've been working from that goes back before my time here. And we're going to update that and then try to get a meeting with Mr. Battingly and kind of talk about some of the concerns. And I want to talk to Drew and Chris a little bit offline and kind of figure out a game plan, but I felt the pain from the neighbors in that area. When I found that it had been that long, it was concerning to me that it hadn't been addressed. I would hate to see somebody's rights to not assemble in a homeowners association kind of stymied for that long. I mean, people bought and sold houses multiple times in that area during that time. And you have part of the neighborhood that can have an HOA because everything's been accepted, while the homeowners, not the condos that are back there, cannot. and they have some concerns and they need to have them addressed and i feel like we're making every effort from from our team here at town hall to try to get those uh move forward but we can redouble our efforts like i said after today's meeting i want to get the data from gerald and riley as they double check because what we found today is even some of the stuff that had been recently repaired still wasn't up to the the stand i mean it was off a hair but You know, all it takes, it needs to be at a certain point. That's a federal guideline that we have to do. And for us to accept that, it has to be within those guidelines or we're going to assume potential liability down the road if somebody trips and falls and it's not up to the standard. You know, we're opening up ourselves for potential liability down the road.

Can we get an estimate of what the cost to completely address the problem would be? So that gives us the magnitude of the quote-unquote damages, right?

There was an estimate a long time ago. Yeah. Five years ago. Okay. That was done. And since that time, Mr. Bank, they have been completing some repairs to do the work ongoing. The town staff is... needs to go and check physically check all the locations where mr magnate has made improvements make sure it's meeting our requires make sure it's been done and that and at that point in time that dollar value could be reassessed once we know the exact extents

But I can guarantee you that it's more expensive today than it was five years ago.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would like to know that figure.

Yeah, I'm sure. But it will not cover that. No, but I'd like to know how much over it is. As I had said, we have those streets have been formally accepted by the town council. I don't think normally we do accept them when the sidewalks have been completed, but there was a big push I can't even tell you how many years ago and to do that. And you guys did accept those streets. So I told them in finance that I would pull and double check letter of credit. And then I'm also going to just give you guys a timeline of everything. So you guys have it and kind of see where we are.

that the town should consider having a separate letter of credit for sidewalks as well not the roads that way if the town does want to maintain the roads for uh for snow plow removal there's still measures to ensure that the town if he has sidewalks that meets the compliance requirements and a lot of times sidewalks are one of the last items that's constructed to. So again, that's something for the town to consider. I know it's on the list of the standards when we go back and redo them is to add a separate letter of credit for that. Those items alone.

I mean, I think understanding the magnitude of the problem is key to what we're going to do next.

Yes, I agree.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Leanna, growth and progress?

Growth and progress. Next meeting is on the 18th. And Paul, I have three o'clock on that one, is it? Where is it for?

Four.

Okay, that's okay.

Yeah, can we do four?

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

All right. Okay. Paul, do you have any miscellaneous business?

I do not.

And you? No. Leanna, do you?

I do not.

I just wanted to say that this Sunday is the Strawberry Social in downtown Newburgh at the Lock and Dam.

Hold on, I have something to say. The Tri-State Orthopedic Surgery sponsored Strawberry Social.

Okay, well I was just getting ready to say who the sponsor was.

I got you on that.

Yes, you did.

Who is it again?

I think it's Tri-State Orthopedic Surgery. Thank you.

Urgent care. Oh, sorry. That's right.

Also, Friday night and Saturday, the museum is having an antique show. So that will be at Newburgh Elementary School. So we got a lot going on this weekend. Nannette, approval of claims. I haven't seen any advertisements for the antique show. It's on Facebook, but it's also on sidewalk signs.

Yeah, it's on all the sidewalk signs. I have reminded the museum a couple of times not to put the signs in the right-of-way, and they persist in doing it, and they have them again in the right-of-way.

It's so hard to understand what the right-of-way is, just to be honest. Okay, claim time. These claims have been provided to council five days prior to this council meeting for review. I would like to request these claims to be plus any sewer adjustments to be approved for payment in the amounts up. No adjustments this time. For Civil Town, $266,345.87. $266,345.87. For sewer, $441,389.54. $441,389.54. 389 and 54 cents.

All right, I'll make a motion to approve all claims properly signed and we do not have any sewer adjustments to be made. So do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed? I'll make a motion for adjournment.

Yep, yep, yep. Wait, wait, one more thing. Okay. Women's Club, Newburgh Women's Club. Oh yeah, tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, 9.30. at the trailhead to unveil their newest green plaque. They've been doing the green plaque since 1975, so it's an incredible addition to our town and to our history. And I hope to see you there. We each get three minutes to speak, so you won't be there long. It's going to be very quick. And that was one thing that the shoemakers told us tonight, that they will be there tomorrow.

And it's at 9.30, right? 9.30. Yeah, 9.30. All right. I'll make a motion for adjournment. Do I have a second? Second. Discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye.