Town Council

Rocky Ripple Town Council Meeting November 14, 2023 Rocky Ripple Town Board Chair, Mandy Redmond, called the meeting to order at 7:32 pm. Town board members Megan Hulland and Randy Sanders were present. Julie Smith, clerk treasurer, Mike Kiefer, town marshal, and Sarah Guffey, town attorney, via Zoom, were also present. Welcome Community! Town board chair welcomed and thanked those who were present at town hall as well as those who are joining us for tonight’s meeting via Zoom. Megan asked that we take a moment and acknowledge this is Mandy’s last board meeting as town board member and thank her for her service over the last 10 years. Mandy acknowledged it was bittersweet to be leaving. Thank you! Clerk Treasurer Reports Minutes – October minutes were presented, Megan made a motion to accept the minutes, Randy seconded. All were in favor, motion unanimously passed. Treasurer Report for October 2023 – In addition to routine expenses, invoices for 3rd quarter legal fees and stormwater fees were paid. Distribution of Court Costs were received from the Marion County Treasurer. The amount, $1,154.50, represented funds owed to us for the years of 2015-2022. Portalet was picked up. Ending bank balance for 10/31/2023 was $141,096.43. Randy motioned to accept the Treasurer’s report and Megan seconded the motion. All were in favor, motion unanimously passed. Clerk Treasurer provided both the nepotism and salary ordinance for town councilors to sign off on for the year. Property taxes on 4900 Riverview were cleared up and documentation received stating $0 owed. Results of 2024 clerk/treasurer duties discussion – Town Board met with clerk treasurer and discussed transition plans. Randy will be taking over the town hall/pavilion rentals, Megan and Randy will be added to the bank account, and Julie will be looking into what needs to be done to obtain access to Gateway, the Indiana state government site. Resident Kandy Kendall has offered to take town board meeting minutes for 2024. If anyone is interested in doing the job, the board would like to hear from you. The board will send out some form of communication alerting residents to the need for a clerk treasurer. Review/approval of revised capital assets list updated by Randy – Approved and signed off by town councilors at meeting. Old Business Rocky Ripple Flood Protection: DPW Updates, ILA – Bob Frye, legal counsel, is no longer with DPW. Ben Morrical is the interim DPW legal counsel. On Bob Frye’s last day, he sent a revised ILA to the town board. It addressed two of the town’s concerns. It is more like the MOU from several years ago. It was an outline, no exhibits with final specifications, basically an agreement stating what the city of Indianapolis was going to do, what the Town of Rocky Ripple’s duties were, and if the city county council approves the financing and the town agrees with said plan, the city will build a floodwall. Most importantly there were clauses added that stated that if the Town of Rocky Ripple finds the final floodwall project design or town hall plan not acceptable that they can walk away. The exhibits that the city kept in were an exhibit regarding the streets that would be impacted and repaired, as well as a map of the floodwall location. The town board did respond with their changes regarding the quit clause related to project design and the streets that were selected for repair after project is done. The City wanted an approval so they could proceed and present at the November 13th City County Council meeting, but the town told them they would not be able to meet that deadline. Concerns are whether the quit clause is enforceable and when will the town hear more about the internal drainage project. FEMA is going to preapprove this project and can do this without the internal drainage project finalized since some issues are addressed with pumping stations and various other drains that go back out through the floodwall. Stay tuned to the Northside floodwall news since drainage issues are being addressed on that project. The board is not ready to sign tonight. The Indy Northside floodwall project had a notice in today’s paper. FEMA gave approval of the project and is passing it along to the mapping department for the letter of map revisions and this posting is notification of that status. Megan will reach out to Bruce Arick over at Butler University and see if they received an ILA from DPW. CEG STEP Program Update – Earlier today Mandy heard from Lance at CEG regarding the status of the project. All phase 3 main line LPS installations are complete. All remaining lateral installations will be completed by the end of this week. All remaining grinder pumps installations will be completed by the end of the year. TSW will be demobilizing after lateral installations are completed and will focus on grinder pumps. CEG will no longer be able to accept late sign-ups and wanted the board to pass along that information to residents. Mandy reached out to Lance to clarify that it did not include those who are slated to have their homes demolished or the town hall. No response on that yet but the board feels confident that is accurate since that was always the plan. No grinder pump statistics have been received. A list of sewer access points has not been provided to the town since not all have been determined. Speeding Cars in Rocky Ripple/Related Safety Concerns – Will address in spring. INDOT ADA and Title 6 Compliance Plan – No update, but we are currently in compliance. Town Manager/Marshal’s Report – On October 20th at 0100 hours in the 5100 block of Riverview Drive there was a domestic battery report. There was no arrest. On October 30th at 1100 hours in the 5200 block of Riverview Drive there was a report of damage to a vehicle. Not sure if it was accidental or intentional but a car ran into a truck. 2023 CCMG paperwork is almost completed. Need copy of cashed check for files and that can be submitted and closed out. Finished the road inventory and the road asset management plan. They are required to apply for future CCMG grants. Looked into a Wi-Fi lock for front door of town hall, it will cost $250. New lock for electrical box will be an additional $20. Randy made a motion to spend up to $300 for new locks for town hall and Hohlt Park. Megan seconded. All in favor, motion passed. Town Web Email Migration – We were to migrate from Rackspace to Google Mail tonight, but it has been delayed. Randy was notified today that some DNS settings needed to be changed first before we continue. There is a 3-day turnaround for that request to be completed so hopefully in a week we will be fully migrated over to Google Mail. Downtime will be limited. Community Association Updates – Trees in Park, Other – Clothing swap was successful. Organizer would love to do it quarterly. Next RRCA event is the Holiday Bazaar on December 2nd from 10 – 3 pm. Bake sale items are requested. The grove project committee met. The arborist recommends the mulberry trees be taken out and then shape or trim back the other trees for a nicer, more balanced canopy and then consider planting other trees to fill in. Received a quote for $2300 and work would be done in a day. The quote is good for 30 days. This quote would take out the trees that are dropping the limbs and include trimming back those trees that have leaning branches. The RRCA would like to ask for the town board’s approval to do this project of maintaining the grove and keeping it safe and stable. Randy made a motion to move forward with proposal as the consultant suggested. Megan seconded. All in favor, motion passed. Planting some new trees in the park would be nice. Will look into seeing if KIB can help or check with the Mary Durkin Bloom Where You Are Planted Fund. November 21st is the last meeting of the year. All festival raffle prizes were picked up. New Business – Final board meeting of the year for Frank’s Livery is tomorrow, November 15th and Megan thought she would attend. Community Concerns No additional community concerns were raised. Randy made a motion to adjourn, Megan seconded. All in favor. Meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm. Respectfully submitted, Julie Smith