Town Council - Regular Meeting

I know all the names. I know all the names. I know all the names. I know all the names.

I know all the names.

That's the thing. So I think Tina was going to come tonight and talk about, you know, in town. You know, the day of the fireworks. Let me know when you want to do that again. I have two relatives that I consider my chihuahuas.

They will take care of any situation. The granddaughters that live in the tree get out the way some people are never going to get out.

They can't see the south lights. That's the reason why I said it needs to be right turn. And Paul's like, well, you know, we have that light coming south because of it. People change the second.

broke, you realize what happens.

As long as it's not, it didn't like right away, it's okay because there's a lot of stuff that's in there.

Let's bring it together, people. 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. You're fine. I'm not attention to the last meeting. All right. Ordinance violation.

Why are you alone?

We're we have a man we think you want Jackson 3 a mode for you to get 3 of I think the 5 Jetson of you 49 front of 155 mark Street mode one night in part 3 of 14 or 3 of 4 or 4 in line. I think I want to do it by spring the 1315 North Shore Drive mode, 1440 North Shore mode, 1450 North Shore mode, 740 Lakeside mode, 750 Lakeside mode, and 355 Bernice mode. New violation for readabatement. 175 Front Street, letter sent, posted in mode. 155 and 165 Front Street, letter sent and posted. 1360 Eastgate, letter sent and posted. 8 9-line drive mode, 415 2nd Street Road, 106 Park Avenue.

Excellent, excellent. That's what we like to hear.

Then for abandoned vehicles, 402 Grant, two vehicles removed, 102 Weston, a vehicle is removed, 252 Weston, vehicle removed, 175 Jefferson, vehicle removed, 472 Spring Beach, vehicle removed, 530 Spring Beach, vehicle removed, and 355 Bernice, the vehicle involved. New violations for abandoned vehicles, 114 Park Drive, letter of assent, 154 Grove Street, letter of assent. And for nuisance violations, Jackson Street, it says a lot with no address, junk was removed. 252 Weston Street, washing machine removed. 295 Weston, trailer with junk removed. 114 Park Drive, refiner removed. 355 release, tires, auto parts, and junk removed. 210 line drive, building materials. Follow-ups are needed on 580 bay view, an abandoned vehicle. that it's successful.

Yeah. I'm excited.

Great job.

Great job, guys. Stuff insurance for 2026?

Yep. This is just a requirement through AIM Medical that we're going to partner with them. It's just a resolution requirement.

Okay.

This resolution member. 2026-01, the resolution for the town council of the town of Rome City, adopting a second amendment and restated agreement and declaration of trust of the AIM Medical Trust. Do we have a motion?

Yes. We have a motion. Resolution 2026-01.

Thank you. Good package for 2026.

You missed the sewer rate study. Oh, I'm sorry. All right. I'm sure she just wants to do her thing.

I'm Morgan. I've been working with Lee and Heidi on the internal rate study for the sewer utility. So I just came to kind of present the findings to you all. I've already had meetings with the two of them to go over, but to present it to the board. So I have some papers for you all. The first page is just more about me and the services RCAP will provide. So RCAP is a no-cost technical assistance provider to rural water and wastewater utilities. So this race study came at no cost to the utility. We are federally funded through

Health and Human Services, EPA, and USDA.

So all of this on that first sheet would come at no cost. If there are any other services we can help out with past this rate study, I've been talking to the two girls about maybe doing some mapping work as well. But right now, we're just having the rate study in front of you all. So I've been working on this for a couple of months now. And the way that we kind of look at doing rate studies are we look at the financial operating costs versus the revenue coming in for the utility. And to do that, we look at the operating ratio. So we look at the ability for the system to pay, to keep the plant running, do upgrades as needed with the ability to pay with cash instead of having to dip into reserves or get funding to get projects completed. So at minimum, we want that operation ratio to at least be a 1.0. We want to at least be breaking even. The USDA Rural Development recommends to be at a 1.1, so that way we have a little bit of wiggle room in case emergencies do happen, something more expensive comes up. But our cap tries to get the system to a list of one to just have more flexibility, so the first page after that kind of overview about the sheet goes into the findings, the numbers presented are real figures for utility. I looked at the financial gateway reports for the last three years and then did the revenue ratio calculation using the sewer utilities operation line. So we can see over the past couple of years, there has been an increase in revenue which is good. We are above a 1.1 ratio, at least toward 2025. So that is a positive there, but we're still not at that recommended 1.2. So from that, there is a need for a slight rate increase. I propose just like an annual 5% for the next three years. That comes out to about $3 a month or so. The rest of the packet shows you the example ordinance of what that looks like. I did also look at the system development charge. Right now, you all have it as $345. Compared to what we see at other utilities, that is quite low. I use it in the past a thousand, sometimes even higher, but that really doesn't have new development coming in. So that is also a change in there. In the meetings that I've had with the world, they often talked about the board being interested in just doing a flat $10 increase. There is an example ordinance in there that would be a 14% rate increase. So that is pretty good sample rate increase, but it would also get you in a positive ratio above that 1.2 if you all were to just jump and do a $10 increase. I have the rate increase doing 5% over three years, which would eventually get to that same $10 rate increase. We always try to do it over phases so that way your customers have time to kind of adjust their pockets and get used to the new rates. So the rest of the packet is just examples of what that ordinance would look like. I have it broken into each year. So you can see the first year increase, what the entire ordinance would look like. Same with the second and third year. All of them are just a standard 5% each year.

So that it wouldn't be a huge ball up in their pockets all at once, because it really needed to come up substantially from where it was in order to meet the needs. We were thinking that next year would be our last year to have to make that increase. Would we still follow into those brackets with one more increase?

Yeah, so I have it at Right now, so this is going off of the, because your current ordinance, you are at $73 right now. So if you wanted to just do straight to a $10 increase, that's what I would be projecting for year three. So that ratio would be, I believe when I was doing the work, your operating ratio went straight to a $10 increase, which gave you right to a $1.3 increase. percent, so well above the one you all are welcome to do that route. This is just more of my predicting. If you want to do a straight $10 increase, you can. Or if you want it to be more periodic, . We're not making industry. Yeah. That was my thought.

So I was thinking that once we go to the next $10 increase, then we could put a stop to the increasing of payment for X amount of year.

Yeah. That is a route you can take. We still recommend with our projects, even if you want to do the 10% or you want to do the FASL route, it's not great doing 5% every year for the next three years. Our cops still want to be involved in the picture. We're at the end of every year. We still do. Another great study to see where we're at to see if the 5% over the three years is cutting it, or if we do need to be more aggressive and do a larger increase, and then eventually stop doing them. But if you do want to do the 10%, stop doing them every single year. That is a route you can take. And we can still be involved in the picture, keep doing these annually. Like I said, our services are free to the utility. We have no problem keeping our relationships involved doing these annually, even if you want to do the one increase.

Well, our greatest concern is the increase in the cost of pricing parts and so on and so forth. Some of them have jumped substantially in the last few years, especially since COVID. And availability is like... really difficult.

Yeah, and we're seeing with all of our systems that used to be prior to COVID, we would still always recommend like review your rates annually, be prepared to do a small percentage just to keep up with inflation with how we've been seeing with the rising increase of hearts sometimes that annual 5% isn't enough. So this was just more of a presentation to show you what I did. Either direction, you would be still positive and be trending in your operating ratio. It was more, we always try to do it in a phase to try to give the customers more time to adjust. But if you're wanting to just do it all in one go, that way you have to not keep doing it annually, it's up to what all you see fit for Thank you. And I have my contact information on that front page. Me and Heidi also have my contact information as well. And in the digital copy, it's the same one that I've sent you both. So if it needs to be dispersed in any way, or if you have any questions, feel free to contact. I can make any edits, revisions, any other things you want to see done with it, not a problem. Again, this is no cost to the utilities.

Do you think there's ever any services or best practices as far as like how we can cut our costs on this at all?

Yeah, so we do system inspections. That's something that we routinely do is wanting to go out to the plant to meet the operator, discuss how operations are handed out there, see if there are any cost-saving measures. That's usually the first kind of practice we'd like to do versus increasing costs if that's something you are interested in, we can get something set up with the operator to kind of do a system inspection to see if we can find anything out there. No, all of our services are free of charge. The same with the mapping, which we can talk about at a different time. All of our services, we do not charge any fee for service at the Indiana RCAP. Some of our, we're in all 50 states and the Caribbean regions do charge fee for service. At this time, we are not fee for service. Obviously, if that changes,

You will be the first to know.

We're not going to charge you secretly, but there are no fees for officers, so it would be free of charge. Okay, so you guys do have a service that would come and inspect the range of... Yeah, it would just be, it would still be me and a senior on my team who's in a more seasoned, like the technical side of it. He is a former public works director and... operator, so he's either the one that would come out with that or do that. Is there something that we can schedule? Let's look at that one there.

The aging infrastructure assessment would be interesting to look at.

Yeah, that's something we can schedule. It'll just be me getting in contact with the operator, and it'll just be scheduling on whenever both availability works out. So that's something you all want to get going.

Yes, I'd like to move forward. And I see on here that you also have an assessment for aging infrastructure. Yeah, I'm real interested in that one too. Because we had a lot of the reason that we're at this point was because no maintenance was done for a period of Yeah, many years. And so now we're having to pick up and replace rather than Yeah, and that's something I think about operation and maintenance procedures.

We do work on getting like brain procedures getting We have some things in the office that are kind of like flashcard style that are from the EPA, what they see as weekly, daily, monthly, seasonal operation schedule. So if it's something I'm concerned with, like operator, maybe they don't always know the best practices they should have. That's something we can work with as well, like operator training. Okay. Okay, so work on getting something for us getting out to the plant and look at the infrastructure and get a system of action going. Do you need to have a motion on it? I don't think so.

Yeah, we don't have time.

Okay, I'll just get the contact information. If one of you all would just send that my way, I can get in contact with the, or the operator.

Got it right there. Okay.

Thank you.

2026 to authorize electronic transfer.

Yes. So this is for not for people taking electronic transfers from us, but me sending them to. We've had an instance with our credit card that I've had to do it. And then also with AIM, if I send them electronic transfer payments, it saves us $25 a month as well. So it's just a little bit of savings. And then it just gives us authorization if we have to make.

$25 a month.

Yeah. So yeah, that's what that's. It's for ACH payments that are not requested from us, but we request to send to like our credit card provider, our insurance provider, if we have to do that. I generally send everybody a check, but with the AIM Trust, it's a $25 monthly savings if we do the electronic one.

So what are the controls in place so that you don't set up a dummy account? What's our controls in place to stop that?

Really, how I've been doing it, I do a manual check within our accounting system and then release those funds that way. So there's no way to, unless somebody had access to our software accounting, you can't send it.

Well, before you make the payment, though, you would have somebody review it? I can. We actually just got one of our checks stolen. It was a $30,000 check. It actually came across my desk today. So we have positive pay. Do we have something up right here? I think it's something we might want to look into, especially with the check frauds. Is that something similar to what we're talking about? No, that's different. I think that's different than what she uses.

Yeah, it's just directly. And we had one come through where we don't know that one of our checks got scrubbed too.

I think every time you do a check, you have to submit all the checks that James made that day. How does it work?

That's basically what... This is the sign of the end of our meetings. This is all the checks that go out for So that's what we sign it.

This just protects us. Yeah, we don't have that. Yeah. There is. Yes. Well, basically, I'm not sure what it does. Every time you do a check run, you send that file to the bank, and then when they clear the check, they compare it to it. The problem with that is if it smudges or rings, they're going to send it through, and then you've got to go into your account and approve it, and then pay if it doesn't match up exactly the way it was prepared. That's the only bad thing about it, but it's a good check. You know, getting fun is where I work that we have brought about 800,000 hours. Every level. So, I mean, We're going to have any controls or anything on this. make sure that we are paying what we're supposed to pay and somebody works it over before it's sent there.

Yeah, I can see how to do that. I don't know how to do that.

Because we don't have anything. Well, I just think somebody needs to oversee it. Because otherwise, all you're doing is trusting the person. It's not against the person, but it's just a control issue.

Right. That's fine. And that's what we do with our bank deposits and things right now. She initials everything before.

that we have a second person. It'd be so separate.

Do you want to review the process, Kurt? Yeah, I'd like for some of our members to review it.

Dustin, do you know of any processes that are already out there? Something curious.

through the State Board of the Council, DLGF, maybe even Gateway. Yeah, I can send an email out and see if anybody's got one.

Thank you.

I'm surprised the state wouldn't have already something set up about that. I think we've got... There's something. Everything, it seems like.

We'll table this resolution before next meeting. Okay. Okay. What we can find out a better way to do it. We're going to be waiting.

We're going to look at that because of that.

But you can tell you need to go ahead with what we need to make it back. Yeah, this is the, so community crossing funding was, they're only doing it once a year.

And what happened at the end of last year, which would have been September 1st, we had to submit and then now. usually in October, whether they're granting it or not, a lot of the small communities didn't get funded. And it just, I don't know if it was because the way they changed the program, they went from one down to two or from two down to one, and then they changed the way they did the pots of money. And it seemed like all the larger municipalities received funding and hardly any of the small communities did. So then the legislature went back in, opened up some more funding, and then They had NDOT contact the individual communities that had put in for it already and said that if we wanted to go ahead and resubmit. So this is the resubmittal. Now it's all contingent on whether NDOT still has money available. So it's kind of a first come, first serve thing. And so we'll open these tonight. We'll read them and then take them under advisement. And then I'll send a lowest bid to... And that and responding, then we can prove it at the next meeting. So the first one is going to be API construction. I don't you want me to read them true yeah okay so. They have for Pleasant Point, they have $80,829. And for West Pleasant Point, they have $92,700. I don't know what that totals to. And that's together. And then the second one is Brooks. And their Pleasant Point is 85,225.20. And West Pleasant Point is 97,819.

And I'll have to look through and make sure they have all the documents they were supposed to send.

But it looks like they're all about the same thickness. The third one is E&B paving. And Pleasant Point is $118,691.25. And then West Pleasant Point is $138,756. So we can pretty much say E&B is out. I'm thinking it looks like it's going to be APIs. Yeah. Yeah.

So I guess we got to, let's add those two together. Did he?

173.59. What was the second one? 529.

What was the second one that you did? 92.7. 92. 1,700. Correct. 700. Yeah. Yep. That's what it said.

Well, they do big, big jobs normally. I'm surprised they bid on it. I'm surprised Berks bid on it too there usually. It's really a small job. Big companies like that. So, all right, well, I'll send that in to them and see what we get back. And then the other thing on that is the round for this year is opening September 1st through September 30th and going through the asset management plan road that really needs some work done and has had nothing done to it since 1974 is all of the concrete streets over here um lions drive park uh sylvan and central and ellis and wildwood and this last winter it really took a toll. A lot of things heaved that hadn't and then we had a lot of blowouts on the corners.

We had a lot of freestyle this year. Yeah. So I think that really affected a lot of concrete everywhere.

I contacted Natalie and I said this that project is way beyond what I've ever done as far as trying to overlay concrete with asphalt. It's a certain way you have to spec it out so they do it right. um i contacted her to have them give us a quote on what it would be for them to to set up basically what this is the spec page yeah and then i can once i have that then i can do the rest of the stuff But the other thing is whether we'll have enough for the match, which we don't know until they give us kind of a small estimate. And then the third thing that has to do with the community crossing grant is, I don't know if everyone knows that when the governor gets rid of the tax on gas, it affects us because that is some of the money that we get to do our match. for community crossing so aim had sent a letter out with some of the other municipal groups so the county groups and anybody who would get gas tax funding asking the legislature to dip into their surplus funds to fund us that money that we're losing because of giving everybody that because of the suspension of the gas So that's in the works too. So we'll see. But it could significantly affect what we get.

And I don't know how often we get that.

Do you know, Heidi, how often we get the gas tax money? I don't know.

I think it's, is it, let's see that. I'm thinking it's quarterly. So

I think we get the money. It is. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't hurt to reach out to Dave and say, hey, you know, we know this is in the works. We're in favor of the gas tax suspension, definitely. But, you know, on the other end, it's going to hurt us in the end. And if they have funding, surplus funding that they could provide, we would sure like it. Yeah.

So I just want to clarify where the closure is gonna be. North. So it's only close to there. So traffic could still get there. I don't know if we're staying where the culture is at Weston. Are they going to bump it up? We have nine trucks coming. So maybe down in the space plus inbox trailers. So that puts us first.

Well, we can't cut off access to the people who live back there.

No, I know that. Yeah. No, that's what I'm saying. They were still allowed. But I think before In years past, they could go around in stitches. You know what I'm saying? And then last year, Paul put it right at the end of where the North Street was. Yeah, North Street. That's where it's at. So then they had extras, like every parking was going on.

which that created a problem too so i'm wondering if it wouldn't make sense to just leave it where it's at west and only allow the homeowners or and or their company that i'm not sure how we're going to know that i don't know

I don't know how that would handle.

I don't know how he did it in years past, because last year was the first year that was open, right?

Yeah, there was a lot of complaints. Now the concern, there's two other concerns. Number one, there was a lot of parking that happened down there. Whatever that is the point, so now that that's on. I don't know what there's a question is there going to be, is there any public parking that will be taking my stuff. And if not in that street. There was a lot, there was a lot of concerns and now the lightning. There was just a lot of concerns last year. We had a couple almost near accidents coming out.

Yeah, Paul and I talked a little bit about it on Southern Point because I said to him, I said, without there being a light or someone monitoring it, I know one of the problems last year was that somebody was adamant they were turning south. And everybody else behind him is like, just go right. And the person would not go right. You know, just go right, go up to the first thing, turn around and come back and head south. That's what normal people do. Okay. Well, they wouldn't move. And so it was blocking everybody. It went off for like half an hour. And like she said, the person got out of their truck and went up there and go just turn right. And it turned into a big ordeal. So I don't know if we need to have somebody stationed there. Because my concern is if they are, we do say they can go right there. I don't know that these people here are going to let them in without a police officer being there.

How do they have to go right there?

I don't know that they were going to block that off, really. I'm asking about the Lake Association's thing they're doing, because we haven't had much communication about that.

I think the idea is just to put up, just to clean up and just to have people sit there like we do.

I guess we are going to block it all off.

So we're going to have a Chicago room from so-and-so person. We'll have them park up in so-and-so.

Okay. So is that anybody or is that people who contributed to that?

Okay.

Part of the issue is the parking at the top of the building. That's where a lot of people park.

Oh, North Street?

Yeah. They park there and they watch the fireworks from there.

Yeah, it's a lot of these questions are call questions because I don't know anything about what goes on that day.

Is there anywhere we could shuttle people? We talked about that in the Red Association.

Well, they park down there and then they line up along the shoreline there where the old public access used to be. They line up there and watch the fireworks from there.

Which is where they're talking about. You're done with this one. She's talking.

I'm talking on North Street. This end of town.

I'm not talking about south end of town.

Yeah, but shutting it down is not going to stop people from walking through their setting. I mean, that would still be open. They could park somewhere in town and then walk down there with a chair and sit and watch them. You're not going to stop that. It's just the additional vehicular traffic that was down there last year. If there would have been a problem, like say, in clients back there at

That's why there was so much additional traffic. They were parking down there. Right.

And we don't want them to do that.

Yeah, the parking and the vehicles came down.

Yeah, I think it's not a problem if they walk down there. It's the vehicles. Right. It's the vehicles that's causing the problems.

It's dangerous. Vehicles. It's dark. There's little kids excited. Right.

And they're not, they're probably not even spaced far enough if there was an accident that emergency vehicles could get through there. I don't know. Daniel left. I was going to say, because he was probably on duty. You could say, but.

So we've had issues with people parking on the lawn of the laundromat, the back lawn. And one year they parked there and they damaged their sewer connection. And another year they parked there and it was damaged. their connection to the public.

Yeah, people are just going to need to rope it off so people can't get in there.

I think you've closed both those outlets. Yeah.

And I think, well, there's businesses that are there that are not open.

Well, I mean, they come in there. The other issue is people parking like in businesses that are actually open. And then not allowing customers to get in and out. So last year, trying to be good and open. Yeah. I brought it over myself. Paul gave me a big barrier thing. So people could get into the liquor store. That part. Or liquor store. At Bronnie's was closed. So we had left it. We're going to leave it. We had people going around. Sure. Well, yeah.

That's how that goes.

Yeah.

Well, we closed off our section of the alley because we had so many people who were walking through there with baby buggies and pulling wagons and cars all at the same time.

I don't know what to do to help you. I want the town to have a great time. There's just a lot happening. There's not a lot of help. And so there's a lot going on. And so when you're trying to be helpful, our department's trying to be helpful to the liquor store and vet devs if she's open so that they can still come in that way, one way. So we were saying no fireworks parking. But when I asked for help from our police department, I was told no.

We haven't had those issues with people in cars and they can walk through that parking lot at their own ease.

and they come around, and then there's . There's nowhere for . This is what I'm . The whole place is completely parked off. It is. It is a nightmare. We get parked in. We can't get out of our house. all the cops to have cars towed.

On speed dial? Yeah. Well, it sounds like we definitely need to close it at Weston and then only allow residential traffic to get back to North Street and people that are walking.

Yeah.

However Paul wants to handle that. And then I don't know what to do about Sylvan Point because, I mean, I can see that's going to be a problem. Because they can't see the light. They don't know when it's green or red. Well, maybe they can and come up from there, but there's no delay. Like, you can turn right or you can turn left out of there while these cars are going this way.

And there's really no way to go back to parking at all.

So then we won't have a problem.

Well, people will drive to park.

They go down there anyway.

So I'm trying to say, how are you going to handle that issue? If there's no parking down there, you've got to look at what are you going to do?

Can we make a parking spot? Obviously, we could try to advertise it. Would we blockade off the road?

Well, I mean, they park in the parks as it is. I mean, they use all the parking spaces.

What if we block off the road the same way we do the other way?

So, point.

Yeah.

Well, then, I mean, you could. You're going to have to have Paul coordinate with the Lake Association then on, because they're going to be taking people down there.

On the bus as well. On the bus. But right now, I don't know how many of those spots we have honestly filled, so I don't know if it's even done. Maybe put up a giant parking lot.

Well, I'm going to tell you that nobody reads signs. Literally no one.

No, they don't.

They don't. It's just, that's why we ended up putting the bike trail, you know, the bicycle on the trail so people understand. Yeah. Yeah. Because the do not enter sign wasn't working. Even though it says one way. Yeah, these sound like poll questions. I don't, I mean, I could say you could shut it off and I don't know, are they allowing people to other places? Are they allowing people to sit in chairs down there?

Yeah, I mean, people want, they put it off. I hope we're not on the hill. That's cool.

Everything is full. So I know that. There is not a place.

But that's what I'm saying. Like, for instance.

You can walk down there. That's not the concern. We already were having the life and certain distance.

Everything.

The life concern is we were already having issues. We were not having any serious post-hapes. Now we have a light and it's closing down one way or the other. It's going to be a disaster. So I'm just asking. I don't want anyone to get hurt. And then where's the people going to park? Because there were people that were used to parking. So they're going to try to park on someone's lawn. The one, I don't know who owns the, used to be the railroad right away, but it's grass now. They all go back in there. No, the other way.

Oh, Julia Bolander.

And they are only part-time.

Well, I mean, some of that is the personal responsibility of the property owner. So if they know that, they shouldn't be groping it off and not letting you on there.

They're not going to allow you to be a part-time. and there has to be some signposts that we're not having parking down there because you will have a mess of people trying to go down thinking they can.

It sounds like we need to have something up before they come down. Almost like that road needs to be closed except for to West Angels.

Well, we're in agreement with the front street and the alleyway and we'll go ahead and discuss further with Paul as to Delvin Point.

I just need your clarification. If we're not worrying about it, it's just free for all. Who's the question right now?

The council. She's asking if she has problems with people that are parking in there.

And well, I don't know. Stay.

And staying, then she's going to need some backup from our police department. Because previously there was no backup.

And I understand. I'm just. I know like with Miller's it gets cold, but I know most people try to be aware of that rather than closing it. They close early in the month of fire, which people can still go in.

And they close at nine, I think. Because the liquor store, and I know about that. Yeah, I don't know. What are the hours of the liquor store? Is Deb not opening this year? We haven't heard. Okay. Well, it only makes sense. It's just more of a headache for her. It's just stressful. I don't think so.

Okay, he's back with me grilling.

I apologize.

Yeah, we're having an issue with some employees for the 4th of July. We need that covered, seriously covered by our law enforcement to prevent people from parking down there.

And we have the

liquor store there. They would like to be opening. We need to have people be able to get in and out there. People who are just coming for fireworks and parking in there and blocking it all out so that they can't have customers. So we had issue last year that wasn't covered by any of our officers was asked for it and told no. So I'd like for the department to prepare for it. I understand, but our problem truly is Sylvan Point because of the new light there and everything, the way that it is. Anybody coming out there can't really see the light, whether it's red or green, for them to come out there anyway.

Can we close that? Can we just close it?

And I think that's a fine solution, but they need to have, the Lake Association needs to have access to it, and the fire department needs to have access to it, and the display people need to have access to it.

I think, I don't think that's a good idea for the Lake Association, just to go to the public access.

Okay. Well, yeah, but the other issue is, like I said, the fire department and people who are in charge of the fireworks themselves and all those who monitor the people to make sure that they're not in areas that they're not supposed to be in. I guess, like I said, that just that whole area down there, that whole area down there.

But yeah, if we have enough, I think that's the issue we ran into last year. We didn't have many officers.

That's part of our issue. Can we rent some? See if we can't get some people to help. Yeah.

Well, that sounds fun. Listen, I had 85 people in my backyard last year. I'm not doing that.

You basically were.

You had that many people in your backyard. I mean, it was so much fun. A watermelon for 85 people. Some extra patrol.

We can request extra people from the county, from Walkerville.

Well, Wokenville has their fireworks. They'll have theirs at their Wokenville's festival, which is usually, it's now in September. So then we won't be competing with them. The only other ones that I know that's having fireworks on the 4th besides us is Kendallville. Possibly Ligonier, but I don't think so. Albion is not. They're having their fireworks during their channel lakes that they just had. And Avila is having theirs at their Freedom Festival. But Ligonier is the other one. I can't remember. I was thinking they were not. They may be the end. They may be doing the Marshmallow Festival. They may be doing the Marshmallow Festival. It seems like a villa was opening with fireworks and Ligonier was ending with fireworks. For 250, yeah.

So is there a way to be, I'm thinking of residents. Residents, they can let it out to families that are coming or whatever. These are designated parking areas so they know where the parking is. I mean, like the parks, they can park at. I don't know, I'm just saying.

Somebody that's more skilled at that stuff than I am. Yes, maybe we could get our social media person from the park to help us get that post together because Lee stopped us.

I'm saying if you post something on social media. Well, legally they can park anywhere they want.

Right.

Get some of the places.

Long as you're not blocking somebody right way. Yeah. Everywhere. No. No.

Yeah.

And because of the construction site, we're going to need extra guys. How many people do you think are short?

What's your capital? If we said, hey, here's an open checkbook, how many people?

I would say only five more guys.

So if we double it and say you can get 10?

You can get 10. Yeah.

I have no idea.

I don't know what the going rate is. An hour?

What time does he usually have you guys come on? Five? I don't know.

I think it's either four or five.

And then you're on until what?

Whenever?

Well, because you get all the votes.

It's a five-hour shift. Yeah. You guys were out there five hours last year.

Because they normally shut down, if I remember right, the trail at four. Because that's when the fireworks people are supposed to be coming and setting up. Now they set up early last year and put a real crimp on us because nobody knew they were coming that early. So that's something else we need to get with. Like association on make sure that's communicated. Okay, find out what time they're planning on coming. So we know when we need to shut the trail down.

Yeah, they're not moving it.

Well, I'm going to say that as a female, it would be a problem for me going into a construction for John, but... No, what I'm saying is that construction is...

I've picked a couple of pieces of duct tape and duct tape the doors shut. So that one...

The chamber provides... I think it depends on you where they might need to do that or... But I know people will use it if it's not needed.

Well, we'll put some out. We always do.

That's theirs, and you're going to fill it up that night. yeah that that's it they'll probably still go in there because i have been into a few that look like they should have been out of service for a long time yeah that's kind of tough i think

So maybe we need to increase how many port-a-johns we have around town too.

It won't be over coverage that way. If you could look for six. Six additional guys. If all of us show up, that should be all. Well, but if y'all don't show up, we need you to drag somebody over from Wocumbeville or run quickly to Cromwell and get somebody. We don't care. Usually Wocumbeville is pretty good.

Well, because you guys usually go home when they're in there.

So it's closing at Weston, right? Yes.

It's going to stay where it's closed now. We're not going to mess with that.

And then it'll close there at the laundromat, right at the laundromat. Yeah.

Yeah. Last year, it went only to North Street.

Yeah. It'll come all the way back to West. Yeah.

If it's close to Weston, it did, right? Did you guys have problems last year? It was a mess last year.

It needs to go all the way to Weston.

Yeah, so, I mean, like, people walk in there, it's fine, but it's all the extra vehicles that would create a problem. And then the guy that owns that corner, you know, it's all... grass and it looks very nice and very inviting to park your car in and i'm sure people were steve that's his name we're parking in there okay room city elementary evacuation area september 10th at one o'clock that's just fyi and they come here to this building correct they go in the basement

Okay, so to continue forward with our upgrading our lift stations, we're trying to do a couple a year if possible.

I had Scott pick the worst two. stations that we have. Now, Scott, if you want to go over what is going on with those stations and then the dollar caps, the upgrades.

So we have a bit of it, which they are going to use a different manufacturer of pumps after 4D. They're not And they're talking about it may be the same. So, they're manufactured at no cost. Just because they're done with delivery. But back to 60 and 40. So, I got a quote for both of the stations. One for 60 was $97. And they would basically go ahead and change that. The only way to kick out all the way down one of these is putting the date of those may go over using them now. Moving or that's the problem, you know I'm mad that they don't know when you're going to go.

That's probably because that's all that was built back then.

Yeah, I agree. At that point in time, that's all that was built.

That's all that was available.

Yeah, well, I was, so I can tell you that's what probably happened.

But at least when we're getting out, you know, there's a different man factor of the brackets. Yeah. um so uh 68 they look at 30 pounds there's going to be tonight

So you need about 200 dollars. Well, and then. Well, yeah, let's just drop that. How about that?

Then go over the odor control issue. Which is the station we just redid.

And these days, it's sort of low area. There's no air movement in that area. So the snow doesn't get out of there very quickly. Is there a way to hide it? Well, I call it John Small, and people are trying to say it one way or another. Sometimes it's small, sometimes it's big. It's an ionizer. Oh, no, we don't need to be doing. Yeah. Well, by the time we're buying the big fan. How about that? Yeah. Yeah. I just don't know what you want to do that.

I don't know why. Well, it's always been. But there's nothing that we can truly do about it without costing thousands of dollars

And it's always, you know, it's really only about three, four months out of the year is when we have complaints. It's like right now, if we went over there with the low cloud ceiling and with the humidity is when it smells because it cannot, it does not get enough air. And where that is located, it's, you know, where Molens live on that loop, it's kind of down there. In a hole. And it just doesn't get the air.

Right. You have those same issues with.

And I almost think if we just cut the tree, we could tell him we could cut the trees down around it. I don't know if that would help.

No, it would make it worse because those trees are filtering. The trees are filtering in the air, so you don't want to lose those. But anybody who's been in farm country knows that this time of year, it's stinky down on the farm just because of the humidity that holds everything down.

Anybody who's been in a farm country

I mean, even this time of year, if I fry fish in the house, it takes two or three days to get that out of there. You know? Just because of the humidity.

So we're in agreement to not do anything with the odor control?

No.

At this time? Not this time. So it's up to you if you want to do both stations or just one station, but the one that's the worst is four-state, right?

Well, what kind of funding do we have to go forth with this?

Currently, we have $320,000 currently in our sewer now. So we do have enough funding in there if we wanted to do both or if we wanted to do one this year and one next year.

And what's the hold time like? You have one that's particularly worse than the other?

If I was going to say one over there, it's 16, because that one's 10 dimensions off the bottom of the tank. And I can't put that in real time.

And what kind of a time issue do we have to get what you need?

I'm thinking they said four or six weeks.

I'm thinking they're going to wait until fall to do it just because of less usage. That's when they normally like to do it. It's in the fall or early spring so that we don't have all of the full capacity.

Now you have what you need to do this fall in place. The parts that I'll be in for you to do.

That's what we're saying.

Okay. What's the advantage of us doing that?

So we have 26, 27 lift stations. We still have 14 upgrades.

So, you know, I'll probably be in the grave before we get them all upgraded at this point.

More expensive than that.

Yeah.

The tanks are bad, but I'm going to have to kill it. I'm going to get nothing gas even concrete out of them. So it's just two new pumps. Two new pumps. I think I opted for a new electric cabinet in just because the controls are putting new pumps now you're working off those controls that are half time i almost had to find them on any day or somewhere like that because they're getting to the point they're obvious that much so any control cabins weren't that comfortable i said they're not they expect something compared to growth but all this i mean if you do both I mean, you're not getting to really know nothing on the second time. So you're not really getting anything by doing both at the same time. Within a period of time. And they did start using PVC instead of the cast iron.

Yeah.

So that's come a long way . that's never gonna ride the path. Moving forward 30 years from now, it won't have a place. Those were rich numbers in there. They weren't wore out. So now you have that.

If this was your house, what would you do?

I mean, we're trying to move forward and get things done. So it's just another thing that we have a problem down the road. I mean, so say the pumps go down and I haven't rebuilt them because I don't have access. We're going to drop almost $30,000 from I mean, when you're done, you're out. So you just lost money. And the pumps that are in there are the original ones. As far as I know, they've never been there.

That's from 1974, just to bring you up to date. That's all right. Yes, yes it is.

But they made good pumps. The only reason, you know, that pumps need replaced early, besides that the connections don't work anymore, is that it's what people flush in. We never had that problem previously, so these new pumps have the cutters in them to take care of that.

have her go for Title I on the wet wipe company.

I said it would be a great thing for our Attorney General to go after. It is not.

I mean, you can flush a washcloth if you want, but that doesn't mean it's going to disintegrate or become a big deal. But they just keep doing it. What do you think?

It's totally financial.

When we first started doing the process, every Monday and every Friday, we do seven of those rotations. Now we put the grinders in them and outdated them. Now we have one or two, but that's in five years. We hold almost zero on Monday and Friday. We got rid of the key ones that were real bad. Now we're just getting on the aftermath of the plague. I'm like, what are you doing?

I'm here. We're going to go up again.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Like i've got a contract for you have both of the contracts. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Other yeah yeah which one is that.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- That was super see. HAB-Masyn Moyer- Winning for see.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- Yeah.

HAB-Masyn Moyer- What you need on those.

60? Yeah, I think it's going to be for 60.

Do you have any projects on Spring Beach?

Yeah, so let's start with Spring Beach. Over on Spring Beach at 532, we have a drain that's in the bottom of his driveway. So we used to have curving that went up both sides, channel that water down into here, and over time that curving has busted up. it's gone or yeah so it's basically two hills a hill here and a hill here so all the water goes in there and he's been very patient over the years um but i would like to have pulver come in and put some curbing in there to direct it into the thing and make it look at least decent because he did redo his drive and his garage and all that a couple years ago And so that cost for Culver to do that is $9,400. And then the second project is South Bend Drive. And I don't know if you had time to drive over there. It's a real problem. So I looked back on Beacon to see when this area lost all of its vegetation because it used to have a bunch of vegetation in there. Yeah. Hillback. So like somewhere between 23 and 25, all of the vegetation is removed. And so what's happened is that it is eroding back up underneath the road now. We had all that rain this spring. It really, you know, sped that process up.

Was it the dock owner who moved all that vegetation? Yes.

i'm assuming the property owner did and then in the meantime so we found it i got a hold of pulver found it in may when all that rain was going on i got a hold of pulver they came out and they're in the process getting me a quote well then i don't know what weekend it passed but On Monday, David came in and he said, hey, I was over by South Bend Drive and somebody's got excavation equipment in there and put in a retaining wall. And he goes, we have a sewer line that runs right through there. Well, see, we had put... Right. We had done 8-1-1 because we wanted to know what was going on in there because I was going to have pulver come out. So I wanted to make sure they knew if there was a gas line, a sewer line. Well, we didn't mark our sewer line because we called in the locate because we know where our sewer line is. So I don't know how close he came to hitting it, but he didn't hit it. Thank God. So I called him up and I said, you need to stop what you're doing because we're in the process of trying to fix this. It didn't go well for the first 10 minutes. We finally got it all figured out. And he's like, well, I'll help out any way I can. So one of the issues was going to be, do we have enough right away in there to get in there to do the work without getting an easement? So it appears that we do and we can do that. And he's okay with it. the homeowner is, or the property owner is. So, correct. And Pulver said he can stay within that right away, no problem. With this gentleman getting in there and moving material around it, basically puts us into kind of an emergency situation. Every time we have a downpour, I'm freaking out thinking the whole road's going to cave in.

So the sooner the better.

that we can get this scheduled and get it done. Now, the other issue is since then, this area, somebody's done something in here. So when pulver comes out, if we have them do it, and if they think that we need to extend it here, like another 10 feet, I'm going to have them do it because I don't want to be in an emergency situation again like this. So that'll be something that we'll determine once we get out there. But I did try to get a hold of a couple other people to give me a quote. I know you guys like free quotes and One was Eshelman. They won't vote it. It's too busy, number one. And they don't have an in-house concrete person. They hire it out. So a lot of their stuff's already scheduled. So to try to get this in. They would put riprap in if we wanted to. The homeowner really doesn't want riprap in. And I really was only going to use that as an emergency situation. If it was starting to go, we were going to have to put something in, and that's what it was going to be. They gave me a name of two... The homeowner gave me a name of a company out of Fort Wayne. And I had tried to call them for five days straight, three times a day. And you can't leave a message and no one answers the phone. So I am super frustrated.

So I gave up.

And I would like to say that, you know, with Pulver, they know concrete, they know asphalt, and they know road. So they have... All of, I mean, that's such a unique situation that could go bad if someone doesn't know all of these types of construction. So I would just recommend that we have them do it. And it's 16,470 for that project.

Invoice number or quote number 2026-597. Thank you.

Yeah, and I believe that's, I don't think I gave you, did I give you a picture?

I think it's Kay Miller's property. Yeah, it says Van Wagner, but I clicked on the wrong thing. It's the prop, that's Van Wagner. Kay Miller. So it's a property off of Northport that used to have a trailer there. And there wasn't an address since GIS because nobody was living there.

Oh, okay.

So they're contemplating putting a house in. I don't know sure what, but they came in and asked for an address. So GIS has approved it. And so does Plan Commission. Just in the nature of people.

So what was the reason why we went to Plan Commission?

It's just the state law says you guys are the address assignees.

Okay, departmental report, town manager.

We had 14 permits for the month. We had two variances they approved, a new shed on Spring Beach and a two-story addition on East Gate. We have in the plan commission, subdivision, vacate and replat. That's what's coming up this month. We have a vacate and replat at Sylvan Lake Properties and Deer Run Point. That's the four accessory lots and one single family lot. And then cyber minor subdivision. The cyberts are, if you ever look up, they're thing on beacon it's in about seven parcels and they're basically taking those seven parcels and putting them into two so they're really i mean they're not really changing any of the lines there they're just kind of getting rid of some of the additional parcels that are in it because if you have separate parcels and you're on a ditch you pay for every parcel really ditch assessment I hadn't it's it's one one reason why they would want to do it, but then we had other various other reasons to do it, I didn't know they did that yeah every parcel ID number if you're on a ditch it's an assessment, whether it's a you know. 200 foot piece or 5000 per foot piece.

and find somewhere to get you some money correct. Right. um.

One other thing today, actually over the weekend, as I was out on the lake enjoying my nice little cruise, I was cruising through the Narrows and I said to my husband, I said, Jane, does that look like A second story addition is going to be put on that house over there? He goes, no. I go, right. It looks like they demolished the entire house. They came in and asked for variance. Put a second story on their house, and it's now just a slab. So I called Mr. Everhart because I figured Dustin was pretty busy today. He's got several meetings tonight he'd had. And I said to Bill, I said, if the board had known that they were going to demolish the whole house, they might have made a different decision on the variance.

Yeah.

So they never told us they were taking it down to the slab. I put a stop recorder on it today to find out what's going on. Because there's a completely different, there's a total difference between an addition to a house and tearing it down to the slab. New construction. Yes. I had a lot of questions about this when they sent the information in because I knew the lot. I knew how it was the grade of the lot. And they had the entry door on the second level, second story. And I said to the guy, I said, how are you getting into the second story? Are you building a bridge? And he never really answered me. And so I don't know why people just don't tell me the truth. If you want to tear your house down and you want to use the foundation that's there, then the board may or may not approve it. But the chance of them now coming back and approving it after you.

Basically, we lied to everybody.

Certainly, twice.

We felt some feeling that was wrong.

What is that?

Why were they tearing it apart?

All you needed to do was take the rope off.

But then a phone call is always very helpful. So I expect some blowback. Just to let you know. Well, they may find out that that's probably not going to be the case. So Basically, that's the rest of mine.

You guys can read the rest of mine.

There's a lot of other stuff on here, but that was the major issues today.

We had 1,195,304 for the ground. We put out 1,685,003 gallons. We had 10 call-outs for small Before we know the program. For locate. summary. We have we have the right business month or not. we're gone to the ground. And we play. me and Dave. We had a sewer plant which covered the last mixture that was not rotating. So we poured it in good time. I forget if it's on your box. Just know we ordered it repaired. Also, we replaced the drain pipe that was out there for the parking lot storm drain. It was not draining. So we were just trying to get one out of the canal. So now in Kelly Park, We removed the side and repaired that print screen out there and then back so that we know the format of the screen.

Thank you. Ready for a marshal?

Yep. For the marshal's office, vehicle mileage, squad one was 1,409, squad two, nothing. Squad three was 733, and squad four had 1,501 hours. 28 lead abatement, eight new subsistence. For officer-initiated events, we had 33 business checks. Certified warrants are attempted to 89 park security checks, as well as assist other departments and report to the police. For traffic violations, we wrote 15 tickets and 70 cameras. For other events, we had four VIN checks, 32 golf cart inspections, two VIN checks, one ORV inspection. We had one annual complaint, two suspected persons, four juvenile complaints, three suspicious vehicles, five welfare checks, 43 alarms, six accidents, 14 miscellaneous, two disabled vehicles, one medic assist, one 911. We opened cases. but for a meeting for 10 days, Paul went to a police prosecutor meeting on the 7th, the NDOT, State of Miami Bridge Project, and town council meeting on the 11th. He also went to Drug Freedom County at Noble County School Safety Commission. Another police prosecutor meeting on 21st and then met with NDOT on the bridge project at Point Pearl. For training, we had department training, department qualification for handguns. Paul, Dustin, myself, number four, number seven, and 11. The 11th through the 14th, I went through KACP level two instructor certification for defensive tactics. The 12th, Paul attended our webinar, threat assessment and management. On the 12th, we had a pro-rider workshop, which Paul was mentioned to me. For special events and activities, we had traffic control, roadside cleanup on the the student awards on the last day of school with the elementary. For notes, the Willow PD is a fire range on the second, on the 13th, destroyed drug evidence on closed spaces. On 21st, headquarters for leave for South Bend Drive work. For us, we had 212 incidents. February, we had 145. March, we had 147. April, we had 114. And then the area... One that we responded to, there was 130. One right down there was 130. As opposed to February, we had on our board, March, we had on our board, April, we had 72. So they know, going right along. The Sheriff's Department responded to 23 incidents in town. Obviously, most of them are either back to the South or one of us isn't on duty. In February, they came for 10 of those, 14 were In the area, they had 66 that they responded to. As of February, they did 60. March, they did 78. April, they did 97. So we help them out quite a lot. For our traffic, So each of our speed side, the minimum speed was five maximum speed was 55. I discovered coming to that accident last Tuesday that if you're just outside of town and above the traffic barrier there, that it will pick you up. So there will be a speed of at least 65 on there for this one.

So that would be you?

Maybe. So yeah, it will pick up just outside of town. Well, that makes it feel a little better when that one was 90.

Yeah. Was it right in town? Maybe.

The average volume per day is 444 still. and total volume 13,764. It looks like we're getting closer to halfway there on vehicle slow. It's a science work between us being down there and the sign starting to work.

Thank you.

Yep, I just had 56 miles just between here and Albion for May.

So that's all we have and our next meeting will be July 8th. July 8th at 630. Thank you everyone.

Do you want to approve the payment of funds? I know you signed them, but we didn't do a motion to approve them.

oh yep

motion. Seconds.

All right. Bye.

Bye.

I don't know if we got it all answered.

Did we get your question answered?

Did we get your question answered?

Yeah, I mean, so if they get more help, the pre-closing question will help.