Redevelopment Commission - Regular Meeting

I was secretary meeting to order, right? Yep. Got most and then open it up for president. The bill started until president. Let's wait. Oh, we'll wait till Andy gets back. Yeah. So, you got the gavl, sir? No, technically. [Laughter] motion. I left my baloney set behind. like to call this uh meeting of the Porter County Redevelopment Commission to order and stand also with liberty and justice for all. Okay. The first item of business is swearing in the while we do a roll call. Roll call first. Uh Jim Biggs here. Andy Vasquez here. Jason Gillian. Bill Herring here. Ralph Ne. Andy Malleta. Okay. You have a quum, sir. All right. I guess the swearing in now happens. Is that something you do, Scott? Yeah. Do we have the form down or no? Why don't we go ahead and do election of officers? Okay.

All righty. Uh do we have a any uh I'd like to make a motion to elect Jim Biggs as president of the RDC? I'll second that. Any other nominations? If not, um I guess we have a vote. All those all those in favor say I I those opposed same side. Yep. You have all passed. Thank you. Uh continue with reorganization. Uh uh our next position is uh for vice president. I'll accept the nomination for vice president. I'd like to nominate Bill Herring as vice president. Do we have a second? Second. We have a mo uh we have a motion as well as a second for approval of William Herring as vice president of Port County Redevelopment Commission. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, same sign. Approve. Um we have uh the secretary's position. Good. I'd like to nominate Ralph Nev if you'll accept it. Secretary second. We have a motion as well as a second for approval of Ralph Nev as the Porter County Redevelopment Commission's board secretary. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, same sign. We get down to our consent a consent agenda. Mike, you want to go ahead and and start today? Just go down to BNC. Uh December's meeting for those that were here pretty short. Uh we did talk about the executing the contract for the comprehensive thoroughare plan. Uh that

was pretty much the sub substance of that meeting and attached you have a financial report dated from December 11th, 2024 through February 18th, 2025 for review showing expenditures. I have no claims before us today for you to approve. We recommend you approve the consent agenda. I'll entertain a motion. So moved. Second. We have a motion as well as a second for approval of the consent agenda. Uh all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, same sign. Motion. New business. Um we have the appointment of director, assistant director, and the attorney. our board. We'll start with the appointment of the director. My recommendation is to appoint Mike Jabbo as our as our director. I think utilizing his position in county government as the executive director of operations of bank mission uh is an advantage to us. So I will I will entertain board will entertain a motion. I I'll make that motion to appoint Mike as director and I'll need a I'll need a second if there is one. Second. I have a motion as well as a second to to have Michael Jbo as the porticon redevelopment commission. Um appointed director. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed same sign. motion assistant director. I recommend that we appoint uh

what is Susan Hail. Susan Hail. Hail. Susan Hail. Uh she is the planning director within the Porter County Planning Commission. Works under Mike. I I recommend that we appoint her as the assistant director. entertain a motion. So move. We have a motion as well as a second for approval. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, same sign. Motion approved. Then we have last but not least uh our attorney's position for the county redevelopment commission. I recommend that we retain and hire as well as hire for this this year. Scott Mccclure, second of Raymond Elwood. We have a motion as well as a second for approval. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed, same sign. Motion approved. Thank you. Commission member comments. Well, if we could, we have a couple agreement like to explain to you. Item 4B and Mike, right? I can we can do the swearing at now before we do those contracts. Let's do a You don't mind? Go. Ready. All right. So, I need everyone to stand. All the members need to raise your right hand. Repeat after me. I state your name. I I Andy office do hereby swear do hereby swear do hereby swear that I will support the constitution of the United States that I will support the constitution of the United States and the constitution of the state of Indiana and the constitution of the state of Indiana and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and I will faithfully and impartially discharge the

duties of a member of the Porter County Redevelopment Commission the duties of a member of the porter Commission according to the best of my ability according according to the best of my ability and in accordance with the laws in accordance in accordance with the laws of the state of Indiana of the state of Indiana and the ordinances of Porter County and the ordinances of Porter County. So help me God. So help me so help me God. Thank you. You know I don't remember doing that. Yeah. It's uh beginning of every first meeting of the year or the first new first meeting of a new member. Well, you're official. Welcome. Yeah. Feel different. Do you? Go ahead, Mike. All right. Item 4B is a professional service agreement uh for economic finance consulting LLC for financial consulting services. Uh with me tonight is Dan Bodic who represents the firm. He had a contract last year. from time to time on an as needed basis, we have our annual reports and other such reports or when we're working on a project where we need finance consulting services. We call upon Dan to help us through all that. Uh he's a great asset to have as we go through that and what we're recommending to approve an as needed contract at prescribed hourly rates for as needed services for Dan. We recommend that you approve a motion. So move. Second. We have a motion as well as a second to go into contract contractual agreement with uh Dan what's it defic all those in favor say I. I. Those opposed same sign. Approve. And the last agreement we have before you today is contract for Scott Mccclure

of Rain Elwood. This is for legal counsel for the year 2025. I'll entertain a motion for approval. It's a move. Second. Have a motion as well as a second for approval. Contract rainwood floor law firm the county redevelopment commission. Uh all those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed same sign. Motion. It's a pretty light meeting tonight. Is important guys reorganize and we do get these professional contracts in in place. Um therefore we have no really formal business but starting next month coming at you with more meaty subject subjects to talk about but I put in the agenda commission member comments if anyone would like to start off the year by making comments and maybe what your goals and missions are and what you'd like to see. I would like to ask one question. Uh in looking on the calendar it says on March 3rd we're going to have a meeting. Are we on the redevelopment commission business council? March 3rd is that was the business council separate from this redevelopment. It's a sub of this. Yeah. It shows up on our they are still meeting. Yes. Okay. So, you're free to attend and and the next meeting is on the 25th of March. And that's maybe a subject that we have members here. Okay. Um, do we want to continue to meet on the Tuesday of the council meeting at 4 p.m.? Uh, this calendar was approved at least commission, but if that's something you want uh re-examined, we can do it now or another. The area of concern with that is every quarter we have a foundation meeting and

then we have this foundation and council and depending on what we have come May 1 those council meetings may be somewhat long. So I would like if we could move into a different day would be greatly appreciated. If not then just deal with it as it is. I suggest 7 o'clock Saturday mornings. Nice. I I agree. I'm a farmer. I'm up that I was known that before I made a vice president. Well, good luck with that, gentlemen. That I'll be there. I don't know about you guys. Why don't I do this? Why don't I send a poll out to all of you? We'll come up with meetings. We'll look at the calendar first. We got to see when this room is available. I you know, it's it's whatever the board wants, but I know that there's an advantage for had it before, but I also understand that kind of pigeon holes us go on because that's sitting right in front of us. And I I just want to say something that this year is going to be critically important to this board. I I'm predicting that this board is going to be involved in decisions that are as far as this county goes from the economic development generation. It's coming. I I don't I'm not going to get into details now, but it's going to be important that we're all engaged. We all are here when we're supposed to be here. That we bring our our you know, that's why I reached out to Stu Summers about coming back and helping us with some stuff this year because I felt, you know, well, first of all, I respect the world guy. I've seen him at work. There's nobody better. But this year is going to be a huge

year, a huge year. So bringing Dan on from financial and then bringing Mike on, you know, seeing somebody by having some outside, you know, contractor here. It's not going to be engaged as Mike in his office is going to be definitely more significant. So, it's a this year is going to be a big year. It's going to be a turning point for us. Not I don't when I say us, I mean for a county and we're going to be we're going to be right in the middle of it. So, anyway, that's what I have to say. Well, you raised a good point. Last year when we had the meetings, there's a few meetings we had to start at even earlier 3:30 3:00 because it was going to be a long agenda and the council was going to have a long agenda. So you want to entertain I can put some I can find on the calendar where we got a set date every month. I talk to Andy the president county. So, let us get the dates together and we'll work each of you and we'll find a date that maybe for you to consider. Well, see the hard part comes with a council that my backup is also a council member. So, it's like if we're running home, and what Commissioner Big says could be true, these meetings could extend beyond an hour. Yes. want to start early. 7 o'clock on Saturday seems fine to me. Yeah, I don't have Scott. No, no, I think part of the limitation is I believe Mr. Brittner had an issue getting here before 4:30, which is part

of the reason why because he was deployed that we were at this time. So, we started with three o'clock. You have a problem with that? I prefer a different day, but I'll start at 3 o'clock. That's the board's You want to make a motion to do so. You can do that. Okay. I have a question. Andy just Why can't we do it a different day? That's what I would suggest. We got to look at the calendar to see whether rooms available. So, we'll just tenatively agree to 3:00. We'll find a day that's consistent every Okay. We'll report back to you and then you can make a decision. Thank you. Not a problem. Any other comments from the commission members as we start off this new year? I'm really excited. I think we got a good team. We got a great team. We had hoped as staff come especially for the people that are new to it. Sue and I were working together. Maybe a little prime primer on responsibilities. And you look at the Indiana code, it's pretty dry. So we'll get something out to you soon. Susan's been working on that. And speaking of that, Susan, we we went we went the agendas out of the meeting dates at least a week before the meeting. Okay. Is she still here? Oh, there. We had that conversation earlier. Okay. Thank you. That was more my fault than her. Um, and you recognize St. I wanted to recognize St. Summers. He's been an asset to this organization before and we hope you as we go into the new year here. So, you'll see more. That's all we have is a staff report right now. Unless you got questions for us. I don't have any more questions. Public comment.

Oh, public comment. Larry's here. Larry. Hey, Larry. Nothing. just sitting over there. Notes. The reports. Yeah, I mentioned that earlier. Oh, you did? Yes. My fear is Larry's gonna live here about five years. He's going to write a book. We're all finished at that point. Thanks for showing up, Larry. And Dan wanted to mention, but I mentioned earlier there are certain annual financial other things to do. Now that you've signed a contract with Dan, we'll be having those hopefully for your next meeting to approve. We will have Yeah. I mean, that's the whole thing with with Stu and Dan and you. It's it's a veteran. We got a better administration now. So, that's great. We're gonna we're gonna have to have our game as a year. So, I don't have anything else. Anybody else? Speak up. You'll get run over. I'll quick fix it. I'm sorry. [Music] Andy, if I may reason about Jeremy, I didn't make that one. I promise. We'll talk to him about getting to the top board members. Before you go, some of you got to sign a contract. Yeah. Well, the downside is over. Well, and then we would switch

the meeting, you And I mean if they want to keep it I have no problem but on the day of the foundation maybe during that week or during that period a different day in the best I'll pull up the top. Thank you so much. We should get two signs, Susan. We should get two. You got two. Here's another one for this before you go. Hey, Ste, let's go to lunch one day. I'll give you a cup. Well, you know, I I don't leave the county much, so a little bit. Yeah, that's good. Good.