Commissioners - Regular Meeting

We could.

Are we ready, Ben? Yeah. When you were saying that, I thought you were telling me to pause myself. Okay. We're going. Okay. All right.

I'd like to call to order. Please, everyone, stand for the flags.

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.

Okay, welcome everyone to the Porter County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, May 19th. Consent agenda.

Okay. Approval of payroll April 24th, 2026 and May 8th, 2026. Approval of claims, April 23rd, 30th, May 7th, May 8th, 2026, May 14th, 2026. Approval of minutes, April 21st, 2026. I move we approve the consent agenda.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. Motion carries. Announcements. We're accepting applications for the Porter County Public Library Board of Trustees. No political affiliation necessary. Applicants must reside in the library district. Applications are due by Thursday, May 28th at 4.30 p.m. Applications must be turned in to the commissioner's office or emailed to melanie.griffin at portercountyin.gov. The appointment will be announced at the June 2nd commissioner's meetings. We have a second where we're accepting applications for the plan commission to finish Arvin Merkner's term. No political affiliation. Applicants must be a resident owner of real property in unincorporated Porter County. Applications are due by Thursday, May 28th at 4.30 p.m. Applications must be turned into the commissioner's office or emailed to melody.griffin at portercountyin.gov. The appointment will be announced at the June 2nd commissioner's meeting. Our final will be accepting applications for the Porter County Airport Board Authority. Applicants must be of Republican affiliation. Applicants are due by Thursday, May 28th at 4.30 p.m. Applications must be turned in the commissioner's office or emailed to melanie.griffin at portercountyin.gov. The appointment will be announced June 2nd at commissioner's meeting. And all this will also be listed on the county website. Okay, next. We have an opening bid, Scott.

This is the Hackney Lane Pavement and Drainage Improvement Project.

We've had two submissions, one from Milestone Contractors and Ray Friley Construction. The first one's from... Miles.

Base bid, $1,259,381.85. Base bid, $1,259,381.85. Alternative one, item two. as ordered by engineer, $9,996. $9,996. Base bid, $1,124,597. Base bid, $1,124,597. No alternative bid.

For Hackney, we will review these bids and give recommendation for Jim with the highway update. Question.

Bernie just advanced to us that Reese probably didn't submit a second.

The alternate bid? So that is wrapped up with the way the itemized proposals are broken out. That base bid should include that item. It's just an as needed submission. So it shouldn't affect it, no.

Okay, next, Marquette Greenway Calumet Trail reroute phase 4, 4A Kimmel Road, State Park Road to Broadway, Pinetown.

We received three bids, one for Milestone Contractors, Reef Raleigh Construction, and Gary of Construction.

Base bid, $1,639,872.91. Base bid, $1,639,872.91. That was Milestone Contractors. $1,639,872.91.

The next bid is from Reith Riley Construction.

Reith Riley. base bid two million two hundred and one thousand seven hundred and eighty four base bid two million two hundred and one thousand seven hundred and eighty four reef riley the last bit is garrett construction company Gary Up Construction Company, base bid $1,368,500. Base bid $1,368,500. Gary Up Construction. Again, we'll review these bids and have a recommendation at the stormwater agenda item.

Okay, next, 157 Franklin Building, Rear Basement Access Gare Renovation Project.

We received bids, one from Hessek Construction Company and one from Heria Construction.

Base bid, $199,729. Base bid, $199,729. Alternative, 10,000. Which contract? Passy Construction Company.

and gearing up construction.

Base bid, $217,873.50. Base bid, $217,873.50. Alternative item, 10,000.

And that's fine.

We're going to review these and then get the answer before the end of it. That way we stay on track with everything. Okay.

Next item up, Mosier Consulting, Jeffrey Spires. How are you, sir? This is a continuation of contractual services and assisting the IT department with the Microsoft 360 integration.

Correct. So working with it, collaborating with them on the program, the cloud migration for Microsoft and working on IT services in general across the county.

And with that, we approve the continuation of contract services with motion.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion approved. Thank you. Next item, we have a discussion on Chesterton Porter 911 consolidation. Scott.

Yes. So the commissioners had at their last meeting had read a statement or I had read a statement that requesting that the towns of Chesterton or Porter, if they wish to continue into a consolidation type of request, that they would reduce that to a resolution. I think we had some timing crossed, I believe. that shortly before our meeting, council on April 13th had their meeting and towards the end of their meeting, it's clear a motion was made and seconded and passed unanimously to begin the process of consolidation with the county. I have been able to send that to the commissioners. So our request that we made at that time was for a resolution. Just to be clear, I believe this meeting occurred shortly before our meeting and we just didn't have the communication up and running at that level at that time. So I do believe we've had an official request by the town of Chesterton Council to begin the communication and the negotiation process to have the consolidation considered.

As we move forward with this eventual consolidation, I'll make sure that Visconde, the Director of Emergency 911 Dispatching, stays in clear contact with both municipalities and let them know what's happening as we start discussing this at the county level.

Do we need to pass any motions here today?

I think this board needs to decide whether it's going to take the request and go to the council and talk to the council concerning ultimately a financial request, whether that's equipment or personnel that need to be added or the complete consolidation can be done. And I don't think we know that at this point as we sit here.

So moved.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries. Next, Gilman.

Paul, how are you?

Morning.

I've just got a pay application for the jail project and the highway project. If you guys want me to read them all. Can we do these all at once, Scott? We can. Okay. Gary up payout number 12 in the amount of $266,992.75. Kleckner interior payout number 11 in the amount of $34,382.30. Stance painting payout number nine in the amount of $81,919.97. Stafford Smith payout number 6 in the amount of $26,739.12. Effie Moran payout number 12 in the amount of $56,088. H&T Electrical payout number 12 in the amount of $37,474.70. Quality Control Systems payout number 11 in the amount of $121,691.24.

I move that we approve the payouts for the jail one through seven as stated on the agenda.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries.

And we're still very much on target budget with all this.

Yes, absolutely. For the Porter County Highway Department, we've got area payout number 17 in the amount of $194,593.25. Kleckner Interior, payout number 11 in the amount of $1,742.15. Hill Fire Protection, payout number nine in the amount of $10,374. Bloomfield Mechanical, payout number 14 in the amount of $21,161.08. Circle R Electric, payout number 15 in the amount of $25,185.37.

I move that we approve the payouts for the highway department items one through five as stated on the agenda.

Second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Question.

Yes. What do you see as being tied up with the garage?

With the garage, we just completed the The dip pierce footings and foundations are going in. So you're probably looking about a month and a half. Once these footing foundations go in, we've got a trench drain to install in there. We can pour our slab and you'll see the building start going up. So you look.

What are we doing about the lawn?

Jim and I will talk after this, but we've started addressing some of it. I was just out there this morning walking the site with Gary. We've got a game plan to get that addressed up until the point where the cold storage building is.

Do we have the ability, because it looks like we're going to get into the hotter period of summer before we... We see the grass popping up there. Do we have the ability to water that out there?

Yes, we'll take care of that. The plantings will probably wait for fall just because those are going around cold storage, and we don't want to set those up for failure.

All right. Yep. Thank you. No problem.

Thank you. Thank you. Next, you may serve. This is Rhonda Young, Comptime Report. Good morning.

Rhonda, before you get started there, could you explain real quick, what is this report? What does it do?

This is a report of all the employees in the county that are working over their hours, which they turn into comp time hours, which we would be liable to pay if they ever left employment. We'd have to pay the comp time out. So it's very important to keep it low.

So as HR directed, commissioners have asked you to kind of keep track of this and report to us periodically as to what these numbers can, let's see if these numbers are going down or if these numbers are going up.

Correct. I've been in contact with the department heads, and I understand that we did have a raise in the comp time this month, but a lot of it was the election, and we're going to run into that, and construction season, so our stormwater and plan commission is going to be a little higher. It really depends on the seasons, but I have spoken to the department heads, and they're very well aware and really trying to get it down.

Any further questions?

I have a question. The person who has 1,000, is that correct? I'm sorry, what? Somebody who has 1,000 hours?

Who has 1,000 hours? Yeah.

There are a couple on there. One's Chris Byers. Oh, yeah. And the other one is Kevin Pazer.

And he shouldn't have been a department in there.

Exactly. So we have to have approval from you to either reduce it or to review it to find out if they're okay with it.

That was prior to him before we went through everything and made him exempt and non-exempt. And Kevin should have always been exempt as a department head. That's why his hours are so high. And Chris Beyer, he's with the courts and they handle things differently with the courts. So I really don't know what they do with their comp time. I don't know if they have a special bank for it or how often they have to use it because they have their own handbook.

We legitimately have an employee over there with 1,000 hours?

Yes. And this is the first time it showed up on the report, so I'm not real sure. Do you know, Karen?

We were just talking a minute ago. We have a couple of individuals that there were agreements or when they moved up or whatever, like Chris Byers is now in charge of the department. So he could have had it previously prior to him taking a position that he's not entitled to come in for. So it has to be cleaned up.

Before we agree to pay for any of it, I think there needs to be an investigation of both.

That's what we're planning.

Okay.

There is one that I'd like to bring to your attention.

That's several years of salary.

Well, this, well, about now, it's about three quarters of a year.

Three quarters of a year.

I think it's 15, 20 as a total for five hours a year.

That's a lot.

We have an individual that is not entitled to it from soil and water that I think that you need to get to with Mr. Chabot, Mr. Antonio, and he keeps on increasing his, and I don't think he's entitled to it, so we might want to clean that up a little bit too.

The rule's pretty clear. I don't know why.

They should be following the handbook. It is addressed in the handbook. It's in the handbook. Yes.

But arbitrarily, the department heads feel that it senses their department. They can do it. And sometimes, since the call for your address is not clearing, they're just taking something.

Well, that would be a huge mistake on their part if they continue to do that. Right. Yeah. Policy. It's ordinance. And for any department head or employee to deliberately violate county ordinance, that's a serious event.

Correct. There are some department heads that can do better in monitoring staff, that's for sure.

Right. So you're going to do some investigating on that, Karen? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Parks Department.

I need some good news.

Yeah. Good morning.

Good morning, Larry. Morning, sir. How are you? Thank you. Good to see you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you guys for giving us the chance to come up here and talk for a few minutes. What we wanted to do here today is kind of make an announcement of a couple initiatives that we've been working on over probably the last couple years or so in identifying a couple big key projects that we think will really bring Porter County Parks forward and really help address some of the growing trends in outdoor recreation and tourism and overall, you know, economic availability here in Portland County. So we launched just about a year ago, we created the Capital Campaign Committee, and that was to oversee the direction of raising funds and determining the two key big projects we're looking at here at Portland County Parks over the next few years. And in that committee, what we determined was the needs we needed were One of them being a nature and event center at Sunset Hill Farm County Park, a big nature and event center out there. And then the development of the South County Park, the one just north of the campus. So this committee has been working hard over the last probably six months or so getting this campaign ready and getting all the information here that was passed out before you to now publicly bring these campaign

And I think that's what we need to do to get our goals forward for Porter County Parks. What's your plan to kick this off so we get some

so what we planned on doing was after we made the announcement publicly here we've done it at the board meeting uh we're doing it here we've got a parks foundation coming up and we'll give the same uh announcement and then as well as the county council meeting uh and then start our marketing and pr blitz after that to get all this information out in front of the public very nice

I think it's super. I mean, you get kicking it off. I mean, our parks now, I mean, you know, I'm lucky enough to visit them, you know, on a pretty regular basis. You guys are doing a wonderful job.

Thank you. Thank you. And you're having sponsorship levels that you're doing?

Yep. So we have a handful of different sponsorship levels that we have created as far as donations or benefactors in conjunction with several events that we're putting on, events that we're creating. And with the amphitheater, we have different levels. If you'd like, I can kind of read those out loud.

No. I mean, we could do that if you'd like. especially for the big business, want to do naming rights, go ahead.

And then, so kind of the, on the one handout on the front, you can kind of see kind of a generalized image of what we are envisioning our nature of that center to look like. This isn't the final drawing or anything like that, but this just kind of gives an idea of what what we're looking to build we wanted to keep it with the theme of sunset hill farm and the agricultural history and the natural history of it and really create that you know barn themed atmosphere and ideally the nature center that center itself will have a capacity of roughly over 400 people So large events, big events, public events, private events will be able to take place there, as well as the expansion of our biggest program, Camp Funset, which every year has a wait list of between 200 and 300 kids on it, on top of the 900 kids that we currently have in it. So this will allow us to eliminate that wait list entirely. It's one of our big goals for that as well.

Maybe walking trails and other things around. What do you think the cost of that, you know, just a ballpark, what do you think, you know, off the ground? For the... Some type of shelter, you know, some type of building of this sort.

For that nature center, our rough estimates right now are right about $5 million to get it built. Okay.

And what nature center? So what would it choose to be?

So the Nature Center would serve a lot of different purposes. It would be an educational facility that we would open year-round. So it would be open to the public, you know, seven days a week year-round as a place for people to go. We'd have interpretive displays. We'd have staff there. And then on top of that, we'd use it for programming, whether field trips, parks to schools, you know, Camp Funset. We'd use it for, like, our art programs, our nature programs, as well as be able to rent the space out for private events like weddings and corporate stuff. then you know besides that you know you have the walking trails or whatever you want to put out what do you think the rest of the costs you know maybe seven seven million you know to develop the rest i think in in total we're probably getting pretty close to that five to seven because we'd have an expansion parking lot the bus drop off uh landscaping up front uh and then as well as uh kind of the side exterior features and things like that very nice and you're taking you take any size donations from private business Yes, we won't turn any donation away.

So have you changed the name of the South Porter County Park to the South Porter County Park?

So right now it is currently nameless. So it is open for, you know, we do have a naming rights policy that the park board has adopted.

There you go, Barb. $2 million, get your name on it.

There you go.

10 years. Very nice.

Go to the South County Park. I think Jake hit the nail on the head that not only does the Nature and Events Center allow us to expand and enhance all of the programming that is now resulting in greater visitation to our parks than ever. We're hitting record levels, but we're limited in our capacity to grow those. We can't grow them anymore. not only does this allow us to grow those to serve our community so we don't have wait lists but then it becomes a steady revenue generator for our parks to sustain and allow us to grow our programming not just at sunset but at south county or whatever bring across all of our parks as a nature and event center. 400 people, we have very few opportunities in Porter County at an event space that is not only that beautiful in a beautiful setting, but it's just top tier event center that can hold that capacity of people. I don't think we'll have any problem renting that event space out and generating revenue for our parks to enhance what we do for our community.

Where on Sunset Hill would you place this?

So we have an area at Sunset Hill called the North Field. So it is the space directly north of the main parking lot before the tree line. Where the crops are at? So we have a big chunk of acreage right before the crops where we'd be able to put it. That big grassy? Yes. yeah where that gazebo is at yeah so that would be the gazebo would become almost like the front entranceway to the nature center and it would incorporate into the landscaping it'd be right beside our animal exhibit uh which we're currently working on expanding right now as well so it'd be front and center you'd be able to see it from six you'd be able to see it from you wouldn't be able to miss it you'd be up on the hillside

Well, I'm excited about the South County Park because we haven't had a park down there. We haven't had a park south of 30. So I'm really, really happy that.

Yeah, that's another big project that we're wanting to get off the ground and get moving is the South County Park. It's been a project that's been in development for decades. close to 15 years now, I think, give or take. So that is a key area we're wanting to address and really get off the ground.

Some of our residents, or I think probably many of our residents, would be surprised to learn we really don't have a park in South County.

No, not one like this that can handle real outdoor recreation and sports and things of that nature.

Those of us who've lived here for a while, I mean, There's quite a few homes being built. Yeah. Right. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right.

No, it would be used. Oh, yeah. I've heard a lot of people say they want that. I'd like to see that happen.

What is the dollar figure to get South County?

For the full build-out on the existing plan with everything, so that's the parking lot, that's the trails, the picnic shelters, the fishing ponds, that's all the baseball fields, the softball fields, the pickleball courts, the soccer fields. dog walking dog walking area and all the amenities associated with that came back in just about 33 million last year 33 million However, now we, yeah, yeah, we have, we have plans to do that in phases. Right. I mean, that's what's important. Yeah, that was, if we started today to do the whole project, start to finish and one go, it's about 33, but we can easily chunk that out into phases to make that more palatable.

in a very big piece of that was accessing the park on 49. It's very, very expensive, moving utilities, et cetera.

We were really working on that. Did you get cooperation to?

Not yet. It is in progress. alternate entry point to the park that is not off of 49. Wouldn't it be better for more waste? That would reduce. That was estimated to cost at least $8 million of that. So we have to bring that down to the lower 20s to accomplish everything.

If there's anything I can do to help on the south side, please let me know.

Well, we certainly... We aim to phase this out.

yeah yeah yep and and bring it out in pieces so it's a little more you know palatable yeah not coming off the 49 saves a lot of money right huge well it's far better and safer i think it's no one was really comfortable trying to come off the 49 road in terms of new park like that very much so you want to tell them on facebook uh so phase one uh what it would generally look like would be know all the earth work uh getting up to grade level would get the drainage and all the all the utilities and everything like that ran the you know the base the base items uh the ponds would be dug in you know the picnic shelters the fishing piers all the walking trails uh the parking and some of the amenities like bathrooms and things like that would be put in all in base one and all the greens but it's all the All the stuff you would need to make a park would go in on phase one. The only thing that would be lacking would be the dedicated, you know, stadium-type items for, like, baseball fields and softball fields. Maybe the pickleball courts would probably go in on phase one.

We could likely bring soccer fields.

Yeah, see, with the... Part of phase one is everything would be cut to grade and level. So you could still go out there and play soccer. You could have soccer tournaments. You would just have to bring the goals and stuff like that, which we could always work with local communities on helping to provide that. But it would be flat enough to grade that you could hold those tournaments and stuff like that there. So it could be used for soccer on phase one.

I have a question. Because $30 million is a lot of money, even if it's in the high 20s. How many county parks do we have now?

In total, six.

Where the South County Park kind of threw me off is none of the county parks that we currently have in operation has a single softball, soccer, baseball field or anything else. Why down there?

When we... We actually met with a lot of the community and community leaders down there a couple years ago, and that was the big thing that they wanted. That's what they wanted. Yeah, they wanted because they're running out of capacity to have the baseball teams, the soccer teams, and the space to do practices and games and tournaments. And this is to help offset some of that capacity issues that they're needing right now.

Or max out. Right. Right. Yep. This would allow those opportunities to take place here, bringing in economic investment to our community, people traveling here to take part in tournaments. Our residents wouldn't have to travel out of county, so it would serve South County, specifically the whole county, The athletic components, to your point, Commissioner Biggs, we don't have those in our parks. And this is what South County really, really wanted when we spoke to them and gave them a questionnaire. What would you really hope to see? There's going to be over a mile of trails. People can take their kids out there, dogs, playgrounds, pickleball. Everybody loves pickleball, all ages. But these athletic components are going to be unique to our county parks. But they'll also be a revenue generator in their own right. But it will keep people here in the county. They won't have to travel outside of the county. to be able to access a larger facility like this?

My grandkids spend all their time in Crown Point playing baseball, travel baseball, and that's where I think we could go crazy with South County Park, bringing all the Northwest Indiana kids here to do sports.

That's kind of ridiculous. that we're spending that kind of money outside of our own county for that purpose.

Yes, we don't. You know, I'd really like to see that. You know, I mean, even, you know, if you found a different interest, I mean, if you get a good kickoff with $5 to $7 million, you know, I mean, provided, I mean, that utility charge is huge and it's up a large amount, you know.

But we have, you know, the makeup of South County, anything south of Division Road is truly different than what's going on. north of Division Road, where, you know, City of Alvarez, Portage, Chester, they all have softball fields in South Haven, many softball and soccer fields, where the municipalities, College of Hebron, have not been able to develop that on their own because of their size. So, I mean, it's way overdue. So, as we keep growing it, that... absence of anything like that down there, she's going to be more glaring.

Yeah. I agree.

We certainly don't need her to go into Crown Point.

Love Crown Point. Fundraising question to the commissioners. We would like to approach Porter County for potential donors and would like to know the protocol of how we proceed.

Approaches for what, Larry?

Money. Money.

Scott? Fiscal body would be the place to go.

county council let's start with the council county council it would be the place to go for funds that would be that would be of the request cool very good thank you you know yeah i just be real you know working in this you know i'm hearing things that you're not of course that i think that a more appropriate action at this point is dissolve all of your any opportunities that may be out there first, and then come to us. Things are really tight right now. The state of Indiana has us up in the air over, you know, because of that, but we don't know what we're going to collect next year. And if you or Larry, somebody reaches out to me, I got a couple ideas. And, you know, for some, you know, to bring in some serious money to get stuff started. Cool. Let's dissolve all of it to make sure that we're uncovering any... you know, thing that may be out there that we currently have not, you know, touched, asked, you know, for help before we go to our conference.

They're going to ask you that. Jim and I have talked on this. If you have any potential donors that you could send our way, please contact us.

Well, I know for a fact, Larry, that, you know, the White Foundation, giving millions to the town of Lowell for their part. You've been very generous in that.

We've put our capital campaign committee started last August, and we've put considerable work into our outreach to the community for prospective investors and donors who want to be part of building such transformational projects. We've started that work. We've had some really great conversations, and we're really just getting off to the races. A lot of conversations set up here. ongoing into the summer as we do this work but we're doing everything we can to raise the kind of money that we need to do this for the community and we hope to do that in collaboration with the county so we both achieve it together yeah yeah i think there there's some opportunity here for us to help you yeah but that conversation conversation needs to be had so there's some reaches out okay

Anything we can do. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate everything you guys do.

Thank you.

Thank you guys. We appreciate all the support.

You guys are doing a great job. Thank you.

Okay, next. Highway Jim Blair. We have that award bid. Are you guys ready?

Okay.

Okay.

After reviewing the Hackney Lane pavement drainage improvement project bids, was the lowest and responsible bidder. So we would recommend awarding the amount of, for the entire bid of $1,124,597. Second.

You have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries.

And just a quick update, I was going to tell you that the assigned project was led by NDOT, so we are going to be presenting that at the next meeting, but it was a successful award within the project estimate that we have. So more on that later. Okay, thank you.

Thanks, Martin.

Soil and Water Conservation District. Hi, Michelle. They took your car, huh?

They took my car. So they couldn't find another vehicle to match the price that you approved. So I have three different bids. And I don't want to be presumptuous, but in the event that this might happen again, is it possible to make a motion up to a certain point? Like, for example, to the next lowest bid?

You guys can get your authority up to whatever you want.

Okay.

Okay. And what is your recommendation this go around?

Well, we have the lowest bid, which is from Merrillville this time. That's a brand new one. And it's $499 down. And then it's $466 a month for 36 months. The next one was at Graff in Chesterton. And there's no money down. And it's between $514 and $524 a month. There's a little variable there. So I didn't know if it was possible to say up to the maximum $524 a month or not. But I mean, I feel like if I need to come back next month, I need to bring a cookie tray or something because I'll be a regular visitor.

So I am going to move that we approve a lease of a vehicle for up to $550 a month. You're marvelous. Thank you.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor by saying aye. Aye.

Motion carried.

Thank you so very much. You can still bring those cookies.

Okay. But I know we have to eat outside this room. That I do know. Thank you very much.

Thank you. There's an exception for cookies I heard.

Okay, health department.

I believe I've read that somewhere.

Anyone here from the health department? No health department. Scott, do you have these memorandums? Are you familiar?

The one thing, I thought we already had a memorandum of understanding for the POD site at the Expo Center.

We have. That's a renewal.

Okay.

Okay.

Can we vote on all of these together or do they each need to be separate?

Let's do them separate.

Okay, then I move that we approve the MOU with the Porter County Expo Center as a POD site for use during a public health emergency.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

I move that we approve the MOU for installation and maintenance of two AEDs in Safe Heart Station at the Porter County Expo.

Second. We have motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

I move that we approve the MOU for installation and maintenance of one AED and save heart station at the Sunset Hill Park.

Second. We have motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Facilities Department. Mr. Phil. Good morning. Okay, first up, you got 157 Franklin.

That's for a putting bulletproof type filament on their glass. They had Homeland Security came in right before they agreed. entered their space after remodeled it and was recommendation due to the fact that all their front part is nothing but glass, that it would just take a heavy object to break through it. So the recommendation being that the election department and what their secure is, is to seal all their front part with security ballistic filament and caulking.

Can you say the amount just so for the record?

It's $9,459.80. I did reach out to other companies. The other one I did have a quote for, they no longer even do it because they just said it's not cost effective for them.

Okay. I move that we approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye.

Motion carries. The second one is for EMA. They need to have their floor reseal and epoxy. They went out and got their own quotes and found that this was the best one for them that fulfilled what they needed. It was for 23,800. It'd be paid on the bond.

I move that we approve.

A second?

Oh, she made a motion. Yes, a second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye. For animal shelter, when we had all those nasty storms where we lost a lot of trees and powers, the animal shelter transfer switch ended up getting fried. So they generated works, but it will not transfer power. We're paying that out of our budget for $13,231.55.

Is there anything that you can do to put some sort of surge protector in there so it doesn't get fried in the future?

They kind of do their own thing. It does have its own surge protector, but it hit it before it even hit that. It literally hit the wires coming in. Oh. Because I went and diagnosed myself. I checked all the fuses. I was in control. And then the guy showed up and he's like, I can tell you right now, I even, I missed it. Right. Going in all of the main power lines going in. Yeah. Melted across the bottom board.

Yeah.

Yeah. For sure. And the amount? Was $13,231.55. I move that we approve.

Second.

We have motion to second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

I have a payout for JDC for $12,150.

Move that we approve.

Second. And wouldn't we tie up things there?

Real quick here, this is, there should be probably one more payout, but it would be the reserve. They're balancing what's left of the units, and the BAS system is almost done through there.

You're pretty happy with what we've done?

Yes, they are. We're also moving forward with their showers and stuff that started last week. And we got the first set doors done. Good. They'll finish up that set today. Structure point option. We made a decision.

for the 157 franklin building for your basement access stair renovations we reviewed the bids the lowest responsible bidder was asked construction we recommend accepting the alternate as well so the contract total including base bid and alternates would be 209 729. and what was the alternate that you were bidding on

That would be fixing the parking lot completely. Oh. Field it, crack it, and then right the whole thing when they're done.

Okay. Okay. The other question I have on that is that within the budgeted anticipated budget amount because I didn't remember this being quite as high of an amount that we were looking at when we were originally looking at it.

It's in the original engineer's estimate that was submitted to the prior facilities director.

Now, the work on the parking lot, at the end of the day, will that create more parking space?

No, I wish.

Is it going to create less parking space?

No, it's just going to restripe it before we can then go to the original we talked about, is assigning certain spots to the people that they go to.

Which is always a popular thing.

It always is.

Good. Okay, hold on before that motion. We have to clear up. We had a motion and a second on the mechanical concepts payout number six, the amount of $12,150. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carried, sorry.

I move that we approve the bid with Haas, is it Haas Construction?

Hasse.

Hasse Construction for $199,729, as well as the alternate for $10,000 for a total of $209,729. Second. We have a motion and a second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you, guys. Okay, thank you. ADC, Alison Cox. Good morning.

Shante is our juvenile detention alternative initiative coordinator. And that's why we're here today.

I see you're smiling so you haven't ruined her yet.

And also, I do want to thank you all in regards to all the building events out at the Juvenile Services Center. It's been amazing. It really has been. So we really appreciate it. Even the kids in the detention center are so excited about the showers because those showers have not been redone since the building opened over 30 years ago. So it's a great change. So thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Okay, so we have an ordinance establishing a non-reverting fund number 9183 for the Community Corrections Outreach Prevention and Intervention Fund, first reading. So, I'm gonna close the commissioner's meeting and open up the ordinance meeting. Is there anybody who would like to speak in favor of the ordinance? Second, is there anyone that would like to speak in favor of the ordinance? And third, is there anyone that would like to speak in favor of the ordinance? Is there anyone that would like to speak against the ordinance? Second time, is there anyone that would like to speak against the ordinance? And third time, is there anyone that would like to speak against the ordinance? None? Okay, I'm going to close that hearing, go back to the commissioner's meeting.

I move that we approve the ordinance establishing a non-reverting fund 9183 for the community corrections outreach prevention and intervention fund first reading. And if you could ask them to have shorter titles in the future.

I would love to. That's the Department of Correction.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Okay, we have a second ordinance establishing a non-reverting fund, number 9140 for the JDIFY27 grant fund. First reading. I'm going to close the commission's meeting and open up the ordinance meeting. Is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of this ordinance? Second, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor? And third, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor? Is there anyone that would like to speak against this ordinance? Second call, is there anyone that would like to speak against this ordinance? And third call, is there anyone that would like to speak against this ordinance? Hearing none, we're going to refer back to the commissioner's meeting.

I move that we approve the ordinance establishing a non-reverting fund 9140 for the JDAI fiscal 27 grant fund on first reading.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Thank you. Good day. Nice meeting you. EMA, Lance Bella. Lance? There's Lance.

Lance's department is reimbursed by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security a portion of certain salaried items within his department. This fund would allow those reimbursements to be captured in a non-reverting fund and then utilized within his department. I believe he was requested to do this at the council level, which is what got us to here today.

Do we have a fund number for this at this point? Usually we do.

Yeah, it's on it. Is that the chapter?

That's the chapter, not the fund.

4934. Okay, so we have an ordinance adding chapter 3-095 and ordinance number or fund number 4934, Porter County Code establishing EMA DHS reimbursement grant fund first reading. Okay, I'll close the commissioner's meeting, go on to the ordinance meeting. Is there anyone who would like to speak in favor? Going second, anyone who would like to speak in favor? And third, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor? Okay, anyone would like to speak against this ordinance? Second, would anyone like to speak against this ordinance? And third, is there anyone that would like to speak against this ordinance? Okay, none said. Closing that meeting, going back to the commissioner's meeting.

I move that we approve the ordinance establishing the EMA DHS reimbursement grant fund number 4934 on first reading.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Thank you. Mr. Jaybo. Development and stormwater management. How are you? We do well.

Before we get into business, Martin told you half the story this month of letting it in. I told you about our county's white sign project. I also want to inform the commissioners of the county Road 100 South Safety Project was let earlier this month, well below our engineer estimate of $6 million. It's sold at $5.4 million.

Congratulations.

So finally a project in the making for many years is going to be done now. There's going to be a lot of heartache with detours and all that. This will probably be a two-season job, but it's well worth the effort because those were sites of some fatal crashes because of the hills. So today, bridge 132, pretty much self-explanatory approval to solicit quotes for early procurement for the concrete suppliers for the fabrication of the box beam. We're hoping this expedites the schedule.

I move that we approve.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Next item, same bridge, to approve the bid documents, we do have a title sheet for you to sign and allow us to solicit bids for said project.

I move that we approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Same for the next 2 items there. 1 in the same bridge number 1 and bridge number 66. Approval to solicit bids for. Bit documents from the.

I move that we approved.

We have motion in a 2nd holds in favor signify by saying aye aye aye. Motion carries.

The next three are same explanation, three different companies. What this is, we're asking you today, signed an as-needed agreement up to a maximum amount for professional services will be used for... Can you read the names? I will. I explained the explanation. And they will be assigned task orders as the department has projects that they need expertise on. This is very similar to what stormwater does. As a matter of fact, it's exactly what they do, where they have a stable of consultants or contractors working for them. The task order, if you remember at your last meeting, you approved a resolution allowing the department to sign up to $50,000 for a new quote, up to $75,000 for a task order. That would be in this case here. So we've capped all three of them at $150,000. And the three consultants are American Structure Point, United Consulting, and DLZ Indy. We'll see. And we're requesting your blessing approval of those three.

I move that we approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Back to County Road 100 South, the safety project. Mind you, I didn't tell you this project's almost a mile long taken out of those hills. But this is an affirmation in between your commissioner meetings. We are in a hurry within that so we can get the project sealed and our funds for our construction and our inspection. You guys graciously signed the agreement, and this is just an affirmation that you did approve that for that project. And this is for an agreement with DLZ, Indiana, LLC, for an amount of $715,180 for inspection. A lot of it will be reimbursed with federal funds.

Do we have to order? Yes. Okay, I move that we approve. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Are you ready? Okay.

We'll move to the last.

Mike, you got two first readings?

Yeah, let's move to the last item in our agenda. It's still transportation, then we'll go on to the amendment.

The award bid?

Yes.

Okay. Market Greenway Trail reroute, Base 4, Camel Road, State Park, Road to Broadway, Pine Township.

After review, we did find carry-up construction to be the lowest responsible bidder. Would we recommend award to carry-up in the amount of $1,518,500 for the base bid plus both alternates.

Was there an alternate in there?

There was two alternates. The base bid was $1,368,500. Yeah. And then plus both alternates that we had, which is for a pedestrian bridge in the middle and concrete decking for the bridge.

All righty. I move that we approve.

Second. We'll have a motion and a second. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Okay, back to number nine, Four Corners Winery and Wedding Venue.

Yes, the Planning Commission met a couple months ago. Two meetings ago. Didn't make your last meeting due to scheduling. This is the first reading for a zoning map amendment. Going to change from rural residential to moderate intensity commercial or CM. The petitioner is here, Mr. Tisma, to make a presentation to answer any questions, but a little more history. For years, they've operated this operation here, and they were coming in for use variances from the BCA. They've proven that their business is a successful model, and they wanted to roll this into a permanent zoning so they could continue. So with that, I'll introduce the petitioner, and he'll make his presentation.

Can I just ask, what was the plant commission recommendation?

to send favorable to the commissioners by overwhelmingly.

Hi, I'd like to pass these out. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I wanted to apologize for my wife. She was unable to attend today. She's helping somebody go to a medical procedure today. Sorry.

Maybe state your name and address for the record.

My name is Mike Tisma. Address is 294 East, 600 North in Valparaiso, Indiana. My wife and I purchased the property at the location in 2010 with the intentions of opening up a winery. While we were working on the property, somebody came to us and wanted to get married. We had no idea that we were going to own a wedding venue. But in 2017, we have an old Quonset hut that somebody fell in love with and just said, hey, I would like to get married there. So we took about a month and cleaned it all out. And we went from, I think, three weddings that year to a few years ago after COVID, we were up to about 50 weddings. And it's right around 30 weddings now per year, I would say the average. So We again, as Mike had mentioned, we came here in 2011 and asked for a variance in order to have the business on that property. We were awarded that. I came back twice since then. And at this point, we are requesting that we can be revised to the commercial. just to protect ourselves with all of the hard work that we've put in and all the money that we've put in. We want to make sure that that property can continue to operate as is. So the property, again, the intention was to have a winery, and the winery finally opened in 2021. We've got, initially, We have six buildings on the property. One is the historic home that was built in 1875. We had to do a lot of work to make that into the library. Basically stripped every wall, every floor, and got it to the point where it is. We invite all of you to come out and look at it. It's just a beautiful home. So that's where the tasting room is. There was an old barn on the property that we tore down and put up a new barn which houses our production and also currently houses our very small kitchen. Our kitchen offers charcuterie boards, flatbed pizzas, assorted dips. The Quonset again that was originally there we turned that into the wedding venue and then additionally because it got so popular and we had so many weddings scheduled we ended up putting an additional building just to the south of the Quonset hut and that building houses two bathrooms and some storage and also a small caterers room to help with the weddings our weddings We basically rent the property to the bridal couple. They then bring in their own food vendor, which we use all local vendors. And they can elect to have, if they want to have hard liquor, they have to also bring in a liquor caterer at that time. If they choose to just have beer and wine, we will assist them in getting a local permit to allow that. And at that point, they hire our licensed servers to serve their wine and beer to them. Every wedding has to have security. We use the Porter County Sheriff's Office. A lot of young, great young men come out and do our security for us. We require that they purchase a one-day event insurance of $1 million just in case something ever happened. So out of all those weddings, we've never had any instances of any kind of problems or anything. We also have a lot of special events. We bring in Humane Indiana, which during the events, The owners or the people from Humane Indiana will show different birds that they're rehabilitating to young kids that come and get an opportunity to experience, I guess, farm life, if you will, and nature. We do a lot of events where we have dog adoptions. We do, we've done a lot of, a couple times a year we have yoga out there where we'll have, gosh, 40, 50 people show up and they're out near the venue doing their yoga. So the wedding venue holds up to 225 guests. A typical wedding is probably around 150 to 170, I would say. We have all of our parking on the property. I think two years ago, we had a parking lot put in. It's like a crushed asphalt that has really helped out. When we first started, we were parking everybody on the grass, which was nice until it rained. Then it was a problem after that. So that has helped us out immensely. We have enough parking for all of our events that we've held. At the last meeting, one of the critical concerns was any parking on the road. Well, we don't allow any parking on the road. And when we do have the larger events, we specifically put no parking signs out for that event. And then so that they don't look bad, we pull them back in that evening. We're in the process now of finishing up. There was a turn of century barn. on the property that was ultimately going to be a larger tasting room. That barn has been basically built. We're just about ready to finish out the inside of it. It will not only house the new tasting room, there will be a very small event area upstairs on the east side of the barn. And then on the east side of the barn in the bottom, we're going to move the kitchen into that area, which will be a dedicated area for that kitchen, make it a little bit easier for us to cater to everybody. And then also in the future, we've had a plan to have a very small brewery as well added to the property. We'll offer probably a total of about six beers on that. So right now we have five full-time employees and five part-time employees. Once this new barn opens up, we would expect to increase that load. I guess one thing I would like to say is that we've done this without going out and borrowing a bunch of money. So we're a very solid company. Everything that we've done so far, we've paid out of pocket. As we've grown, we've kept all in-house and have paid for the projects that we've gone on. So I want to thank you for your time. Thank you. I appreciate it.

I have a question. The moderate intensity commercial, what does that entail?

Well, there's three commercial classes. There's what's called neighborhood. That's the smallest. That's what you'll find in these tight-knit neighborhoods, a little commercial, like a mom-and-pop business. The next level is moderate intensity, which has got a range of activities that can be. And then, of course, the highest level is very high intensity. That's where you've got your strip malls, and they're very dense.

can we like we've done in the past to ensure that should at some point in time this no longer be the venue that we've approved that it um it has to stay you can put a condition on the permitted uses yes as part of your condition of your approval yes i've actually added he's married out there oh run a very nice operation yeah thank you thank you how many how much land here are we talking

There's 11 acres, just under 11 acres.

So it would include all 11 acres?

It would include all 11 acres, yes.

I think you have access or you do own property surrounding it.

Yeah, we own another 31 acres just to the south.

But that's not in the rezone.

Yeah.

So 11 acres, it would include 11 acres.

Yes.

See, that's, I agree with Bart that, let's nail this down because, I mean, Like me, you're not going to live forever.

Right.

Sell it or it's going to close, right?

Yeah.

But that zoning stays with it forever. Yeah. So let's be precise on what we're going to, what we're doing here today.

What we can do. I mean, there's still public comment that it takes, so we'll have to hear that, but. We can work with Petitioner and bring to you what we feel would be the appropriate ones, and then you can make those final decisions on the cut at your second reading, if you wish.

Okay. Can you wait?

Well, he's got to go second.

We still have the second reading. Oh, yeah. And we do have two of our children working for us, one of which is... very instrumental. It does all of our finance stuff. He's our main winemaker. He ultimately, he's a young guy and he's going to be around a long time. And so, and our biggest concern really, and the purpose of this turning it into commercials, there's 125 acres just to the west of us. If 500 homes go in there and they don't want a winery right next to them, everything that we've done will have been for naught.

And you were there first. I hope so yeah I hope it works that way but um no I I totally yeah I totally understand but I agree with Commissioner Riggins that because it's this is historically has come back to bite us yeah you know they get the they get the zoning and you know a couple years later they get bored running their own business and then they sell yeah and something else goes in there so

If you, when you get to the time for your motion, if you want to put that, staff will work with petitioner and bring back to you some reasonable uses.

I'm glad you're doing that. Like I said, I think you run a very tight operation.

Thank you.

Very, very clean.

Yeah, it was.

Rooms, everything.

It was a mess when we bought the property. I don't know if anybody knows or remembers.

Oh, yeah. Oh, I saw it. Yeah. You did a beautiful job with the building, too. Yeah, it's an old building.

Yeah.

Home.

Yeah.

I'm sure that took a lot.

Yeah. Oh. Yeah, thank you.

I was looking through here to see if he was going to be dancing.

Next time. Too bad.

Okay, so. Yeah, too bad. Let's go to the hearing for the Four Corners Winery Wedding Venue, Sassard, Zoning Mac Amendment 294E-600 North Alparazzo. Indiana, Washington Township, Revised Zoning Industrial, Revised Zoning District from Rural Residential District RR to Modern Intensity Commercial CM. First reading. Close the commissioners meeting. Open up the hearing. Is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of this project? Second call, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of this project? Third call, is there anyone who would like to speak in favor of this project? Is there anyone who would like to speak against this project? Second call, is there anyone who would like to speak against this project? And third call, is there anyone who would like to speak against this project? Hearing none, going back to the commissioner's meeting. Do we have a motion?

I move that we approve the rezoning for Four Corners Winery and Wedding Venue from rural residential to moderate intensity commercial on first reading.

Second for discussion. What about the, we're going to

with the stipulations to be identified for second reading.

Permitted uses. Yes.

Part of my motion.

Correction. To bring back a list of permitted uses.

To bring back a list of permitted uses.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you so much. Congratulations.

Thank you. Yeah. Next on our agenda is another map amendment for Naturian West LLC. First reading for a zoning map amendment. Project location is a few parcels, two or three parcels, north and south of County Road 1500 North in Pine Township, approximately three-tenths of a mile east of 550 East, with a mailing address in Michigan City, Indiana, Pine Township, or by zoning district from rural residential to Greenway. A little background on this. We have met with the petitioner and their team on and off over the winter and into the spring. This is predominantly all farmland. It's got a series of regulated drains out in the perimeter and out and about. And it seems to suggest this used to be a very wet area until the farmers 100 years ago drained all the water away so they could make it a productive farm. Petitioners here First, they approached us whether or not use variance would be appropriate for what they're going to do. They don't want to steal their thunder, but they're basically going to return it to wetlands for credits. And we talked about different ways. And what we finally came to the conclusion of the rezoning would be the best approach from the county's perspective. The Greenway zoning, if you look in the Unified Development Ordinance, does allow this kind of activity, and it's got a little more control on it from a zoning structure, so to speak. You cannot build houses or residential unless you come in for a special exception use, which means you have to appear before the BZA to just kind of get in context. So do you want to make a presentation on that? And Sarah, do you know how to turn off the monitors? So with us today are consultants representing V3, who are the engineers and scientists for this project on behalf of Naturium. So I'll let them introduce themselves, and we'll let them make a brief. Oh, by the way, this did come from the planning commission with unanimous 8-0 vote, favorable recommendation. I love it.

We got one up there that's always bad. Yeah, we're in the process.

I wish I could throw that out in the middle.

My name is Tom Slominski. I'm with B3 Companies. I'm L27325 Jane Woodridge, Illinois 60517. I'm Derek, and I'm representing the Turian. They're not able to attend today. They did provide this statement. I can summarize if you'd like. It is a restoration project to serve as a weapon mitigation bank to sell credits for unavoidable impacts to weapons when certain parties need a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers or the Indiana Department of Environmental Health. What mitigation banks are the preferred manner to mitigate for what impacts? And that's what this proposal involves. There are two separate parcels within the three parcels of Beaver Zone. They total 109 acres that were restored. The area to wetland and prairie, there are 100-foot buffers around the entire wetland area. And it will provide a total of 80 credits, 80 wet mitigation credits, to mitigate for all kinds of projects, roadway projects, bridge development projects. It has been... The design has been scrutinized through a two-phase process by the Corps of Engineers that leads the inter-agency review team that includes U.S. EPA, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Indiana DNR, and Indiana DNM. It was approved a few months ago and now pending zoning action. All permits were also issued by IDEM, the water quality permits, and the DNR certificate of approval for a floodplain. Most of the property is located within the floodplain. It's an ideal place to restore wetlands that would be managed in perpetuity by a land trust. They would be placed in a required kind of easement that would be managed by the land trust in perpetuity to comply with all easement restrictions. And basically, conservation does not allow change to the vegetation, hydrology, or open space or wildlife habitat. If you'd like, we can show you some exhibits. We have some photographs of wetland mitigation banks. Notarian, that is their main business. They do wetland mitigation banks nationwide. B3's focus is the Midwest. That picture is of our Blackberry Creek Headwaters Wetland Mitigation Bank in Cape County, Illinois. It started as a farm. A common way to develop wetlands that either have drain tiles or drainage ditches is to restore the wetland hydrology and reestablish native wetland and prairie plants. This is just an example of how that occurred. We actually get our plants from Spence Nursery in Montana. And the goal is to develop high quality native vegetation, both wetlands and uplands.

Are you familiar with Shirley Hines? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So they do these restorations also. Yeah. Restorations also.

This is a second go back one. This is another mitigation bank in King County. Both of these were on property owned by Campton Township that has an active open space program. And they hired B3 to basically, restore these at no cost to them, mostly funded by sales of weather mitigation credits for which the property fits a percentage. The two example areas, one area was a former turf field by the previous owner of the property that we restored the necrology to the area. It's partial to the floodplain that we, again, plant native vegetation. The goal is to meet the rather strict performance standards within the five-year period to get agency sign-off. and that it goes under a long-term management program, in this case by Camden Township, and in the case of this Old City Light Mitigation Bank, by a long-term manager, a designated long-term manager, of which the funding is provided through the sales credits. That's the Again, another agricultural field. This one's kind of the impression that we replanted and turned into a very high-quality emergent and wet prairie wetland. The wetlands that we're here today about, and wetlands typically only need soil saturation or a slight ponding in the spring, so it's not very wet all the time. But that's how you establish different native plant communities. And that's what that area looks like, the finished product, basically.

Are you allowing any, is the owner allowing any public access to any part of the property? Like walking trails?

That's not planned at this time. The goal is to It takes a lot of work to restore hydrology and get the native plants installed and maintained. You have to meet basically invasive weed performance standards. But there's no intent for public access at this point.

What was presented at the meeting, maybe to help clarify when the owner was here, was that their aim is to do restoration, manage it to restoration until it meets its peak goal. And correct me if I'm wrong, it may pass into other hands, which could open it to avenues such as what Shirley Hines does or other type of agencies. Could you clarify that?

That is correct. This is a five- to ten-year project. Year one starts when construction begins, and they are collecting bids now for the actual construction. If things go well, you can meet performance standards within the five-year period. But if it doesn't go well, it could go six, seven years. So this is at the minute of your project.

And what was important is their conservation easement will always stay in force. It runs with the land and runs with whoever owns it. And that's kind of companion with the recommended zoning greenway because it also has certain restrictions. As I said earlier, you can't build a house without it coming to us and asking for approval to do so. I'm sure their conservation easement would out-trump our zoning, but ours is just another level of protection. at the planned commission meeting during the public comment period commission?

Yeah, I mean, it was vetted for quite a while. We had quite a few residents there. And they did a very good job of addressing all the concerns. But the one thing I'm happy to see on the document you sent us, the one thing that we had addressed a few citizens out in the hallway was the hunting. They were worried that it could turn into some type of hunting club. But, you know, under this document you provided, you know, you've stated that there will be no commercial hunting operations will be allowed on the conservation easement during or after operations of the mitigation bank. private individual ever owns a property they may personally hunt on it but while abiding by the restrictions laid out in the conservancy easement so or conversation easement so I think you've addressed that because that seemed to be the biggest concern when they left I don't know if there's any residents here but so that I think you've done everything your due diligence you're just converting it back into a natural you know beautiful preserve, if you will. So, I mean, everyone's questions were answered at the meeting. I think everybody felt good.

There was the one, the one you talked about. Yeah, and that was the land value.

Right. And then, you know, you forwarded me that. I think you did a good job addressing that. I think that puts that part to bed.

Question. What, under this particular zoning, what could go in there?

I'll look it up while... Give me a moment.

By the way, once it goes into a land trust, that is permanent, right?

Yeah, definitely. That's a requirement of the court. It's part of the approval process.

Is it a non-revocable trust? All right, permitted uses, agricultural crop production, farm and forestry, farm, plant, raising a farm and exotic animals, sale of agricultural products, storage of agricultural products. Conservation is conservancy and nature preserve, which this falls under. Public access for fishing, boating, a trail. Institutional uses could include fishing pond, hiking trail, nature preserve, reserve or preserve, or a public park. Now this is all under Greenwood. And then they have special exception uses, commercial use, and they can only get those if they come to the county and the BCA. Commercial uses could be a telecommunication facility such as a tower. Industrial uses would be an environmental and atmosphere monitoring tower. Institutional uses would be low-impact structures, a nature center or a parking lot. And a residential is a single-family detached dwelling. Those are special exception uses.

How many acres is this? The actual mitigation is 110 acres. I don't know the acres. I've got three parcels that are being rezoned.

Are they all contiguous?

Yes. There's two of them are contiguous, and one is separated by the county road 1500 north.

But all three would go under this if we were to rezone this. Does this particular type of zoning, if I own property next to it, Does that handcuff me at all from doing what I can?

No, that was a very detailed discussion, specifically about the water. Since they may be putting small little berms in order to trap their water, that most of the water is flowing away from their adjoining property owners anyway. So this is actually a blessing for them.

They want to get all the water they can get.

But no, it's not going to affect anything with the neighbors next to them. kind of a no-brainer okay we uh close commissioner's meeting go into the zoning meeting but what i would ask when you make your motion make some reference there are three individual parcels at the plan commission we read them off as three different zoning amendment cases but in your case maybe just say the three individual parcels in one motion

Okay, so close the commissioners meeting, open up the zoning amendment meeting. Is there anybody who'd like to speak in favor of this project? Second, is there anybody who'd like to speak in favor of this project? And third, is there anyone who'd like to speak in favor of this project? Is there anyone who'd like to speak against this project? Second, is there anyone who'd like to speak against this project? And third, is there anyone who'd like to speak against this project? Hearing none, going back to the commissioners meeting, we have a motion.

I move that we approve the zoning map amendment request for three different parcels that are contiguous from rural residential to your Greenway on first reading with Naturian West LLC.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Motion carries.

We'll have second reading on June 2nd. Thank you.

Thank you. Sheriff's Department, Mr. Bellen. Sheriff, how are you?

He fell asleep over there.

You're welcome. Okay, we have solutions and agreement for professional wetland discrimination and declination services of apportioned property east of Porter County Sheriff's Office Jail relative to the proposed gun rage not to exceed $7,500.

This one and the one following are both on the same project. I'll let the sheriff explain this project, and I can explain the details. Okay.

All right. Are you guys ready?

Sure. It looks like you want to do a gun range, and we've talked about this before.

This has been a project that's been discussed for about, oh, since the creation of the jail, the sheriff's office. And I think we're at a point where we really have to have serious considerations to try to get this project pushed through. The reason why is finding locations to qualify our deputies and our jail officers on court security for training, and that is getting more difficult as years go by. Currently, we use the Conservation Club, but so does almost every single police agency in the county. However, because we have approximately 125 people that are carrying guns out of the sheriff's office, obviously it's a big chore and a big task to accommodate that type of usage. And what we also recognize, too, is liability is huge in law enforcement. And making sure that our officers, our deputies, and our trained officers efficient, we really are at that stage, that critical point where we need to really see if we can make this gun range happen. And I think it's necessary. I think we're not looking for something that's going to be, you know, outrageously expensive uh we're gonna kind of follow the model that vandenberg county has where it's it's it's on land that is pretty much set aside but you know it's gonna be gravel there's gonna be some concrete pathways The dirt, it's going to be, you know, an outdoor range. Maybe at some point, if we can get a building for training scenarios, cleaning your weapons, things like that. But we're trying to really do it where it's cost effective. And that's something I would ask that we really consider between the commissioners and the council. But we have to start somewhere, too. Yeah.

So the sheriff met with the city, because this is within the city limits. It's not in the county. And there were two takeaways from it. They were supportive that from a zoning, it's appeared we still have to make proper submittals to the city. But one, the property immediately east of the jail sheriff's office is part of a detention pond, very shallow detention pond system. And as such, it has a calculated storage. So before you today, you have two proposals, one from Soil Solutions, Inc., and the other one from Avid Marsh, a local engineering company, to, one, take a look at the wetlands, see what impacts those would be. And then, two, for the engineering, that would be Avid Marsh.

Now, if we approve that other one, can we get credit for the wetlands?

What's that? Oh, we do use them all the time, by the way. But for our projects, we do. But the second one for the engineering is calculate the storage for the stormwater because this is going to be a contained system, which means we're going to rob away from the stormwater.

And so, therefore, we've got to create additional storage, and hopefully that can be done on county property.

So, the first one from Soil Solutions is to do a wetland determination delineation. Talked to the owner of the company, John McQuestion. He feels he can get this. He's got to go through all the regulatory agencies, IDM and the Army Corps. to get this deemed not a wetland, even though there are wetland-like plans.

This on the east side of your building?

Yes.

I just can't envision where it is.

Yeah. It's directly behind it, where all the construction trailers are.

Yeah, yeah.

That property just behind it.

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Then the engineering is just simply looking at the volume, where we've got to make up the volume if we heat up that volume, putting the range in.

Can we do both of these together? I move that we approve the agreement for professional wetland determination and delineation with soil solutions not to exceed $7,500 as well as the agreement for professional engineering services with Ebon Marsh not to exceed $8,000 for the proposed gun range.

A second for discussion. Sure. We identified how this is going to be paid for.

We're working on that. I'm hoping maybe some bond money that maybe we have left over. Barb's looking at me like, what?

No, this is for the jail, and you have X amount of dollars, so if this is how you want to support that.

Bill, could you come up here a second, please? We're going to ask you to find $15,000 for these two service projects. Is there some place that you could either within the fund?

I mean, right now, we could pull it from the fund for the other projects. There you go.

All right. Thank you. Let's talk to the sheriff and Mr. J. We'll get the details. And let's get that moving, get that in front of the commissioners for June meeting to get that approved. Second? Yeah.

All right. Sheriff, do you have any thoughts on the total cost once this is done that you're going to be looking at?

Yes and no. Obviously, we don't go too far in the weeds because we don't even, we want to make sure that we can even build it, right? Right. In that location. In my conversations that I've had, cursory level, I was told to maybe look at a price tag around $750,000. Okay. Yeah.

We sure don't have that in the bond, so. Okay.

Bill. Let's see what we're looking at here. We may find something out here that would make that site unbuildable.

You know, and I know in the past that the conversation has been why not look somewhere else. It's a perfect location if you really think about it. And the reason why is because it's already an industrial area with already heavy industry, noise, everything that's taking place. And it's not near a residential area. And those are always the two biggest considerations you have to worry about.

Oh, no, you don't have to sell this on the location.

But it's, yeah, let's find out what we're dealing with here as far as, you know, location and then, you know, we'll deal with the other locations. I think there's opportunities there to come up with this money.

All right. Thank you. All right.

Thank you.

Anything else? Okay. Do we have a motion and a second? Yes.

I thought we did already.

No. We were waiting for a second.

Oh, he was making a .

All right. We have a motion and discussion. Yeah. Okay. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thanks. IT, Lee Childress.

Yeah. Morning. Morning.

Requesting additional appropriation amount of $1,000 in the line item 32100 for travel.

I move that we approve.

Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Salvation Army, Run for Angels. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Okay, so the Salvation Army will be hosting a four-mile race, Run for Angels, on November 14th, 2026, from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m., starting and finishing at Haven Hollow Park, and we'll go through neighborhoods and Occupy County roads.

Anybody that we approve?

second you've signed up for that haven't you yet the run i'm mountain bike i don't run he's going to need all three hours five hours let's say four hours four hours four hours yeah um we got a motion in a second all in favor signify by saying aye aye motion carries thank you thank you any other matters which may come before the commissioners anyone like to speak Larry, you're good? Okay. Next meeting will be June 2nd, 2026.