Town Council - Regular Meeting

I pledge allegiance to the bloodline 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.

Call to order the meeting of the Ronald Town Council. First on the agenda is June 2nd's Town Council meeting minutes.

I make a motion to accept the June 2nd, 2026 Town Council meeting minutes as written.

All those in favor, oh, sorry. I'll say it. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? I have state, by the way. I wasn't here. July 6th executive session meeting minutes.

I'll make a motion to accept the July 6th, 2026 executive session meeting minutes as written.

I'll second that. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All opposed? All right. Next, I'm going to close the Council meeting and open the public hearing for Ordinance 202604, Building Permit Fees.

Hi. Yes, so I'm here requesting your approval for a fee structure update. The building fees haven't been updated since 2004, and the zoning fees have not been updated since 2009. With the new house bill, we would not be able to renew our fees for five years once that takes effect at the end of the year. So that is why we are now requesting all our jurisdictions to adopt our new fee schedule. I think you all have that. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions from the public? I was just going to ask if there was any questions from the public, concerns, comments?

probably don't know anything about it well it but it was advertised um and then after tonight too it will be advertised in the paper in the paper and online and in our office and on the door of the town council any place it could have been advertised but if you want to look through it you're welcome to look through it okay um just a second and i'll get this in order several pages there's also problems when you can If anyone else wants to take a look, there's printed copies as you came in.

When was the last time the adjustment was made?

2004 and 2009. It's been a while.

Yeah.

I'll switch it here if you want to swap me out. Thank you. Here is a kind of a list of when everything was updated. The bulk of them were updated in 04-09 each week throughout the years. But we're often told we're the lowest in many counties.

And Kim, you said this would then be locked in for five years? Right.

And then at that point, we're only able to increase them by the inflation rate, 3% to 4% or something like that. So we thought it was time to. bring them up a little bit, and then in five years we'll decide if we're gonna increase the three or 4% or not.

Thank you.

Does anybody, I don't even have much time to look at it, but does anyone have any questions for Kim or council? I am going to close the public hearing and reopen the regular meeting. Do you want to vote? Do you guys want to go ahead and vote on the ordinance or do you want to? That's up to you. I already want to vote on that. Kim is about to stick around if she doesn't want to.

I'll make a motion to approve ordinance 2006-4, building permit fees.

I'll second it.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? Thank you so much. Okay, I just need you to sign on the in favor side and now you're here. What's up? Yeah.

Sometimes it can be more exciting.

Sometimes that's good when it's not exciting.

Sometimes boring is good.

I'm used to it.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, citizens' comments? I have a question.

Citizens' comments, can comments be made at each of the departments?

No. Okay. Then I'm gonna speak. Okay. My name is Rick Hartley. I live at 523 Frederick Crossing in Roanoke. We've had some recent changes obviously in the police department in Roanoke and everything that I perceive is things are going a whole lot better than they were before. I'm seeing slow traffic on South Main Street, which runs normally at 60 miles an hour or above. I'm seeing it slow down. One thing I'm not seeing is any change in the fact that people don't know what a center line is. So from any part of Roanoke North to South Main Street, That yellow line is virtually gone and non-existent. As a result of that, it's very hard to tell where you're going to run into somebody, because you could watch 50 cars get out of Main Street on a day, and 30 of them would be on both sides of the road. It's a significant problem. U-turns are a significant issue in Roanoke. They just do it really darn well, please. And that needs to be addressed, and I truly believe it is and will be, will continue to be addressed by the current police department. Another concern I have is which kid's gonna die first on the e-bikes? The razors, it's gonna happen. They ride wherever they want. They ride in people's yards, they ride in sidewalks, they ride in streets. Unfortunately, I've seen two instances of a family, including the school, oops, about said he had a father driving down South Main Street. He in the middle and the two kids on each side have been completely blocking the street. So in many of these cases, the issue is not the children, it's the parents. So that's all I have to say right now, but again, I'm so pleased to see improvements starting to take place. Thank you.

Thank you.

Are we going to address the tree? It's on the agenda later.

But if she has a comment now.

Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. I have another comment. And actually, this is just a suggestion. It has nothing to do with the tree. Darling Rose, 239 South Main Street. You might think about, in our social media various places, suggesting that people, property owners who mow their grass, that they Don't mow it and blow it into the street. I think if people read it and see that it actually is something that they shouldn't be doing and it's coming from some authority, maybe they'll stop. But I know for a fact that we've had quite the problem at Vine and South Main Street because of grass and debris so maybe if you guys i don't know just post something on social media um you know aaron could post something just suggesting that if you mow your grass don't mow it in the street i mean it's common sense to me but apparently not everybody so my suggestion did you want to go make your other comment no i'm good sir yes my name is david parker i'm here representing the ageless

Tractor Club of Roanoke. What I'm after is permission to hold a tractor meeting in the municipal parking lot. What I want to do is have the guys attend the meeting, but bring their tractors into town. And then we have a meeting in the parking lot for a couple hours, kind of maybe get together and have food or whatever, and then just kind of sit around and talk for a little while. And then a couple hours later, go home.

And I think when we had talked, you're not asking for any street closures, right?

No, just access to the parking lot. Like I said, probably 12, 13 tractors parked in the parking lot. We'll have a meeting a couple hours and then go home.

Probably want to coordinate with the church, too, because they park a section of the parking lot.

When he's trustee over there, so that's all together. Do you have a date, David? Yes, August 1st.

I don't have any issues with that. Anyone else does?

I don't know how to do that. I think it's cool. I'm sorry? I think it's cool. Thank you.

Personally.

Are there any other questions?

So it's been approved? I think he was just kind of looking to make sure. Thank you for coming. I just want to say I think the town did a real nice job of cleaning up after the storm.

The town looks good.

I'll let the guys know.

Any other questions, comments, concerns? All right. Thank you. Park? Hmm. She stays about here.

So the drinking fountain down by the pavilion, it's not unrepairable, but it's kind of pointless to try to repair it anymore. It's rusting and there's a zillion different breaks in the lines. So Park Support is wanting to get a new drinking fountain. I gave you three quotes. And as Terry knows, drinking fountain prices are all over the place. But the cheapest one, I mean, it's metal. Same brands down there now. Has a bottle filler on it, 288 compliant. Spots to drink and then a doggy bowl one or a foot bath or whatever.

When you're playing in the creek they'll come in.

Is there one over another that you would prefer or, I mean, because they're impressing what's kind of spit out.

Especially the material.

No.

There's not one I prefer over the other. Just kind of three that I could find that met all our needs.

I always like to go with the cheapest, but I don't always want to go with the cheapest simply because it's the cheapest. I want to make sure it's going to meet the needs.

What I like about the cheapest one was the bottle color. I mean, we're finding bottles down there all the time. People need them, so I'm sure they'd like to come up.

Yeah, it's kind of in the range that we purchased the one that hasn't learned this.

And that one looks like it does have a dog bowl that's on the back side of the picture.

And Park has the budget left to pay the $3,000, roughly $3,800 after. And then you guys could do the installation. And I'll make a motion to approve the quote for $3,699 plus or minus any of the fees involved.

I will second that.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

All opposed?

A couple more updates. So last week we finally received a survey for the difficult court and we were signed. Monday I think

send out all the dnr get their approval and after they give you okay approval and get started on both of them okay um so what i handed out to you guys i don't have an exact proposed budget tonight i apologize for that um what i give you guys to take a look at is our budget over the last three years um That way it's all up together. You'll see we did a 3% cost limit increase just to show where we're at on that. That it still wouldn't be enough to cover the last two years of budget. So, well, I take that back. The last year's budget, anyway, which was the reason for that is we put off buying turnout gear for the guys for a couple years and, you know, we're way behind. So last year we did buy six. They're about to buy four this year to try and keep up because it's expiring. So I'll get a budget. Will we get a budget to you? I know we're meeting on the 16th. And I'll get an email to you guys before that. So you have time to look at it for sure before that meeting. So it's just waiting on just looking at a few options of, you know, before it puts up hard to figure, I guess, number out there. So.

Why is the bank interest zero? I'm just curious. It's on there. What's that? The bank interest.

That's, that's not, in terms of accurate. Um, yeah, when we put this together, just the guy that put this together didn't have all the figures. So that, that's, that's where he didn't have that from our treasurer. That's the only thing. But, um, I have something else for you guys. I'm trying to remember what it was now. But, uh, so anyways, we'll get the budget to give I'll get to you before the meeting on the 16th. And did you guys have any questions on the financial report? I've seen those on there.

I think one is on the proposed budget. One thing that's not on here is the amount that we pay toward the truck to be paid off. So that's not included because it's part of our contribution. And then on the financials, I think there was a line up under the expenses of contributions and gifts. And I assume that was to give to other organizations.

No, that was probably for that was for our Christmas party for the fire department. And part of that and also part of it was for the we do like sponsored baseball team or you know stuff like that here at the park and I can get you an exact breakdown of that from the treasurer but I just want to make sure I understood the line item yeah because we didn't we didn't donate that much you know but I know we did some um towards last year towards well That should have been this year. We didn't do any of the fireworks this year, but I know we did last year. And then, you know, the baseball team, and we did a few other things this year. Soccer last year, yes. But either way, I'll get you a breakdown of exactly what it is.

No problem. Thank you.

Yeah.

You talked with the last meeting, I think, about the instructions. to talk to Jackson Township yet.

Yes, that's what I was going to bring up. I appreciate you bringing that up, Brian. So we're actually meeting with them Thursday night. So it sounds positive. I mean, I know they want to hear our side of it, you know, figure out what we can come up as a solution. So we're meeting with them Thursday night to try to see what we can do as far as if they're willing to split, you know, what's left over with you guys. So We're kind of up in the air on that. Tanisha, I need to blame you for, the last meeting you asked us about being in a bad position without getting the tools replaced. The next day we got called out on the interstate for a double fatal with three pins. Yeah, that was, yeah, three semis and three cars. But we made it work. We were actually, One of the chiefs, because that's a dual response with Allen County Department, they requested our RAM, which is one of the tools that's tore apart right now that is not operable. But we made it work. We made it work. I thought that was kind of ironic. I just asked that last night, and of course the next day. But we made it work. Obviously, the tools that we had that are tore apart would have been better. because of the ram the bigger tools because we were working on smaller tools but it didn't really affect the outcome but just like you know it did thank you that was a very tragic situation yeah a 15 year old lost his life yeah yeah horrible situation all the way around for sure so i will let you guys know as soon as we hear from the township where they stand and hopefully Obviously, we'll do the August meeting for you guys and see what you guys can do to that.

Thank you. Thanks, Brandon. Yeah. Police department.

All right, so in your stack, you have the July calendar. As you can see, our coverage is much better this month than it has been in the past few. We've only got a couple of nights that are uncovered as of right now. But that can always change as people sign up for days. Next you have the total incident report, same as you got last month. And then after that, this is a breakdown of per officer as requested by the nation. I'm missing one of the pages, but you should have all of them.

Very helpful, by the way, very helpful.

If you look up Thomas as an officer, no entry. I'm not sure why that is that way, but we'll try and figure that out. Other than that, obviously the Pops Cops was canceled, so we didn't have anything with that. Fireworks went smooth, no issues with traffic on the way out in about 20 minutes, so everything else is going smooth.

Awesome, thank you. Thanks.

Superintendent of operations?

One thing is approval tonight. So a couple months ago, we had a water meter situation. We're in a six-month trial. I showed Tanisha the information we can get off this. It's very helpful. We really like the meters. Bought two of them to put the car wash, so they're more accurate and better than what was over there. But in order to make Sarah's job easier, there's a module we have to purchase, so we should do the billing. And that is $1,195. The plan as of now is we're just going to slowly change things out, but we're working on getting quotes and some of the possibilities of what we're doing. a quick change and get that all out.

Yeah, I will. The information we can see and even if, you know, someone from town has concerns about their bill, you can pull, you can tell by hour of the day of when, like, I can tell you to push out. Or in the afternoon or the night.

Yes, yes.

It's really, it's great information, though, if someone has concerns, if they're having water loss and things like that and have questions for town, we can better assess their situation, I think.

We've even, two of the meters have pressure sensors on them. So we've got one on each side of town. So that's kind of nice. We can see the pressure in the system throughout town. We won't get all of them with that. We'll just have a couple on the chain.

Not that anyone's looking at your race to see if you're using the bathroom during the night.

I was curious. There's temperature sensors on them as well. Those are nice like with the hot weather we've had I can see the temperature rise with all these meters that are in garages but it's nice in the winter so when somebody leaves the garage door open we can have alerts and say call and say hey you need to close your garage door or put something around it. all right well i'm going to make a motion to move forward with the upgrades on that tune 360. i'll second that all those in favor say aye aye all opposed um the other just updates so last month the consumer confidence report was mailed out that's an annual thing shows all our water samples the ranges they were in there was one violation on there for total call form so that's we do that sample twice a month It was done in the wrong bottle. So when one of those come back, it's just a presence-absence test. It showed present. So within 24 hours, you had to go sample from that spot that you took it, a house five or another place five taps up, five taps down, and then all wells and send it in. And those all came back fine. Come to find out it was taken in the wrong bottle and switched to the Sarah bottle. That's what caused it. So it wasn't anything in the system. But that's all on our website. The link was on everybody's bill. Got sent to the health department and then we keep copies in here if anybody wants them.

Can you give us an update on SME and how the living is going?

Yes. Background samples were done last week and said it could take up to two weeks. So I'm hoping again next week maybe we see that. Steven's still after We had a response about the debris pile addendum we put in. We don't seem to be getting back. I don't know why, but we're also gonna sit down and talk to them about the groundwater monitoring we've been doing for 30 years, say exactly what it is they're wanting. So we're trying to set up a meeting with IDEN to get the bottom of that, because we've met the 30-year threshold that they still want us to keep doing it. Our last report last year, put a cover page on us and thank you for your service for 30 years. They didn't like that.

We did have 30 years.

They can't tell you no if you don't ask.

So with that, back to the debris pile, so people understand, that debris pile, originally to move that and do it to I-10 standard would have been between $6 to $10 million.

Yes, originally they wanted the entire debris pile hauled out.

So by S&E coming in and resampling, it looks like the debris piles should be able to stay, but certain other areas will have to still be removed.

Yes, so we will have to move the debris pile over to get what's underneath it, but we won't have to hold it especially long until now.

That's teamwork in five minutes.

And also last week, the service line inventory. So federal mandate, you know, you have to try to identify all the service lines in town. So every year we send out letters for ones that we have unknowns. We're down to 17 unknowns in town. So a letter was sent out to those residents. And hopefully, I got one phone call today, so that got pulled off the list. So now we're down to 16, but we're getting closer than that to take care of two.

So I think that's all I have. Everything's going good with the superstition.

Yeah, they've still got to do the restoration, grass seeds and landscaping. We got to find a walkthrough. We're going to come back and fix the fence. There's an alarm going off for the generator. Don't know why. We got to check that out. But other than that, it's looking fine.

nice the heavy rains we've had there's been no main hole going off so it's taking all the flow out of town i just want to say thank you to everybody who comes to town council meetings to try to hear what's going on there's a lot of different pieces and a lot of things so just thank you for your engagement

councilwoman terry edison yeah riley again to piggyback on what was already done thank you to the utilities department for the cleanup after the storm it was pretty awesome so it's looking much better councilman brian humphries the only thing i have is to follow up if anyone has had a chance to look at the police department policies if you have any change

together for the August meeting. I know there was some redundancy towards the end of it because we were piecing together different pieces so I'll go over that a little closer to you and try to weed that out but if anybody has anything you could maybe email me that within the next week I'll try to get that all done.

Okay thank you. All right thanks for that next year. I have nothing at this time thank you. So I am going to address it for Teresa. We've been in discussions with our attorney. He has drawn up a mutual settlement agreement. I have a copy up here for you to review. You can look at it tonight. You can sign it tonight. You can take it to your attorney. That's where we're at. So that's the agreement we have here. um as far as the sidewalk goes um we have an ordinance in place for that there's a copy grant put a copy of the ordinance up there for the sidewalk um what is it the ccmd yeah community crossing the ccmd the ccmd grant um is it next next year the one we apply for next year is going to take care of well could take care of the sidewalks on in that portion of the town so just so you're aware of that but after the meeting i can give you a copy of this like i said you can review it and sign it tonight or you can take it to your attorney and then let us know and then we can get together and sign it or have further discussion whatever needs to happen but that's where we're at on that so i have that for you up here how do you make a motion to approve that i'll make a motion to approve the tree step agreement with uh between the town and

The owners of 261 South Main Street. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

All opposed? I'll get this to you. Like I said, you can review it now or you can just let us know. That's all I have. Sarah?

Resolution 2026, the annual appropriation reduction for 2026. Typically, I bring this to you in August. Some changes that they are requiring is that we have it signed before I meet with my budget rep, and so that's why I'm bringing it to you tonight. So I just sent that to you earlier today. If you guys have any questions, total reduction, I'm asking for it's $1,760,550. Does anyone have any questions for Sarah?

I'll make a motion to accept Resolution 202603, appropriation and deduction for the 2026 year.

I'll second that.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? That's all I have. All right. Any old business? Presentation of bills and utility adjustments. I will make a motion to approve the bills and utility adjustments as presented. I will second that. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed? And I will make a motion to adjourn the meeting.

I'll second that as well.

All those in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed?