Zionsville Town Council

Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 ZIONSVILLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FOR JANUARY 16, 2024 AT 7:30 A.M. EST ONSITE MEETING 1100 West Oak Street This meeting was conducted onsite. All Councilors participated in person. Council Members Present: Jason Plunkett, President; Brad Burk, Vice-President; Tim McElderry, Craig Melton, Evan Norris, Sarah Esterline Sampson, and Joe Stein Also Present: Heather Harris, Town Council Attorney; Mayor John Stehr; Mia Riley, Deputy Director of Finance & Records; Tim Berry, Crowe; Amy Lacy, Municipal Relations Coordinator; and other Town Department Staff OPENING A. Call meeting to order B. Pledge of Allegiance Plunkett All right, good morning. I will now call to order the Monday or Tuesday, January 16, 2024 Town Council meeting. If you would please, stand and join me with the Pledge of Allegiance. All Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF THE MEMORANDUM OF THE JANUARY 2, 2023 REGULAR MEETING Plunkett Up first is the approval of the January 2, 2024 Memorandum. Are there any questions from Councilors? I believe a copy has been posted. Having none, I’ll make a motion to approve. Norris Second. Plunkett A second by Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Page 1 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. APPROVAL OF 2023 YEAR-END CLAIMS Plunkett Up next is the approval of the 2023 year-end claims. Are there any questions from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Stein I move to accept the year-end claims. We’re automatic almost. Norris Go ahead. Plunkett I got a first by Councilor Stein. McElderry Second. Plunkett Second by Councilor McElderry. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. APPROVAL OF JANUARY 16, 2024 CLAIMS Plunkett Moving along, up next is the approval of the January 16, 2024 claims. Are there any questions from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion there as well. Burk Move to approve. Plunkett First from Councilor – what that you? First from Vice President Burk. Sampson Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Sampson. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Page 2 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 REQUEST TO SPEAK Plunkett Up next is a Request to Speak on Agenda Items. Amy, are there any requests to speak? Lacy No there are not. MAYOR/ADMINISTRATION UPDATE Plunkett All right, moving along we have the Mayor/Administration Update and we have Mayor Stehr with us this morning. Good morning. Stehr Good morning Councilors. Good to see everybody – McElderry Good morning. Stehr On this chilly morning. We have a few things to get through here – I’ll just go ahead and jump right in. The first item that we had on the agenda was the establishment of the Pathways Committee and this came from looking at the boards and commissions. I think there were some conclusions that were obvious. Some of those were inactive and some of them were not as efficient as we would like to see. So with that in mind, then in consultation with Council leadership, I’m proposing we combine the Pathways Committee and the Pedestrian Mobility Committee. You can't think about pathways without considering safe crossings and ADA compliance. The idea is to take two 7-member committees and combine them into one 5-member committee with the following makeup: One Town Councilor who acts as the Chairman of the committee or the chairperson of the committee, two mayoral appointees and two Council appointees and then a staff advisor provided by DPW. The committee’s role would be to settle on a list of pathway priorities and I would say no more than five at the beginning of the year and then report back to Town Council with progress made in the fourth quarter. The committee could also make a case for funding to do a pathway study to the Town Council on an as-needed basis. Now it’s clear to me and I think probably to a lot of you too as you were out campaigning that this is something of great interest to people here. They want pathways in Zionsville and there has never been an ordinance formalizing the role of the Pathways Committee so that’s why it is on your agenda for first read today. So does anybody have any questions or comments about that? Melton How many other committees are created by ordinance with the Town of Zionsville? Stehr There are several that are. I mean, I can’t name them off the top of my head but, for example, the – Page 3 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Melton I don’t need the name, I was just curious if there was a majority – Stehr Yes – Melton Of them or – Stehr I will say probably 6 to 8, is that right Heather? Harris Yes, I would – yes and the other thing that we’re trying to do as we redo the Code of Ordinances for public transparency is to incorporate more of them into the Code so that if you’re a citizen you are able to go to the Code and see what committees or commissions we have at the Town and how to be appointed so. Melton And the responsibilities of that – Harris Yes – Melton Committee? Great, thank you. Norris And just to be clear, this comports completely with state statute and everything in terms of what we can do from a local government standpoint? Harris Yes, there is no state statute governing Pathways Committees so under home rule we’re able to create our own committee and give it its own governance. Norris Okay, thank you. Stehr All right moving on then – the next item is the Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council and the Council has been chosen with the help of Mary Grabianowski. If she didn’t teach you she probably has taught your kids here in Zionsville. She was a government teacher for I think close to four decades at Zionsville High School and we have selected 19 young people to take part, some of them are in the room today. Since this is mid-January the group is going to have kind of a short term. Our intention for this in future years is to follow the school year. So the next MYAC will be chosen in the fall and their term will run through the spring. So just to go through the names real quick and some of these names will be familiar to you but I want to make it clear that Kate and I had no part in the process. It was Mary Grabianowski that went through this and chose. So, I know there was some lobbying involved but I did not carry that to Mary. She did this on her own. So we have a couple of freshmen: Sofia Suarez and Ben Maxey; sophomores: Sadie Choi, Noah Alt; juniors we have Nolan White, Parker Coyle, Emma Vargo, Noah Berg, Jackson Munk, Caroline Sampson, Helena Streib, Sapna Srinivasan; and seniors we have Brady Coffman, John Gunderman, Cooper Siegler, Charlie Sondik, Taleia Poindexter, Bella Rolsen and Aiden Cope. And what we’re going to do with them is we’re going to, we’re going to meet with them in Town Hall before school once a month and we will ask them for input on relevant matters, we will encourage them to do a service project that’s going to be directed by the group and we will ask them to make a presentation to you at the end of the school year. The ordinance formalizing the Mayor’s Youth Page 4 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Action Council is on your agenda this morning as well for first read. Anybody want to ask me anything about that or have any comments about that? Sampson I just want to say one of the items that you had presented that really appealed to me was that you were not just teaching them you were having them do a take action and I think – Stehr Yes – Sampson That’s great and the service. Stehr Well thank you, thank you. Yes, we’re following the model that’s been carried out in other municipalities here and it’s been very, very positive and very productive in many places and we hope to see that same result here. McElderry Mr. Mayor, could you kind of just share your vision as to what you hope to accomplish with the Youth Board? Stehr Well, it’s to get young people more activated. I mean, I really believe and we’ve all talked about this that everything we do here we need to have a 20, 15 to 20- year view and that’s them. That’s their generation that’s going to be living here. They’re they ones that are going to be in your positions and my position in 20 years so we would like to have their input now and, and you know, I mean, you’ve been around enough young people to know that they have some great things to say and some great ideas and I think we need to be open to them and formalizing a way for them to communicate with us. McElderry Thank you. Stein Yes, I’m a big fan of the idea. Question though – what, what happens next year? Is it a four-year appointment for the freshman or? Stehr It is not. Stein Okay. Stehr It’s a one-year appointment – Stein Okay. Stehr And, Yes, we haven’t really determined yet whether there will be some carryover. I think there might be, especially this year because it’s a short term, it’s only going to be a couple of months but those who, who have applied and were not included on the list this year we certainly encourage to apply again because there will be new opportunities next year as well. Okay, the next item is – Burk Just thank you for doing it but more than that, I know some folks are here, some of the kids are here today, many couldn’t be. I know it’s a two-hour delay this morning so thank you for getting up and getting out here in the cold but I just Page 5 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 appreciate the number of students who’ve expressed interest in doing this and stepping up and being part of your government is a noble action on your part and I thank you for doing that. Sampson Yes, it’s great to see you guys here. Stehr Yes, we put out the application for about a week and we had close to 100 kids apply. So, Yes, it was, it was gratifying to see the response. All right, the next item that I have is a grant writer and we have done, I think, a great job in recent years obtaining grants. A couple of examples would be the Carpenter Nature Preserve, the SAFER grant to hire new fire fighters, READI, Next Level Trails and it kind of goes on and on but at the same time I think we’re missing out on others. And part of the reason is that our department heads just simply don’t have the bandwidth to search for, fill out applications and pursue grants that we may or may not get. It’s not a, not the best use of their time. So what I would like to do is use money from the Food & Beverage Fund to hire a part-time grant writer that will work across all Town departments to research and write grant applications working from a database that is built of our demographics and vital statistics and other relevant information. The position can be budget neutral because we can support it through the Food & Beverage Tax Fund. I believe this does meet the definition of economic development which is the standard for Food & Beverage Tax use and here’s what I’m proposing – I’m proposing a six-month trial period. This position can be sort of as a part-time consultant for six months and at that time we can reassess whether we want to carry on for another six months, expand it to a full-time position or move to a new protocol to help capture grants from both private and public sources. So does anyone have any thoughts on that? Stein Do you already have someone in mind or are you? Stehr We do, we do. Stein Okay. Stehr Yes, we have someone in mind who is, it’s Amy Connelly, if you know Amy – Stein Yes, sure. Stehr She has written grants in the past. She’s also an excellent writer. She’s trained in journalism so she’s good at investigating and I think she’d be a great person to – for a six-month trial in this position. Sampson And you said budget neutral, right? I think – Stehr Budget neutral because money would come from the Food & Beverage Tax Fund. Sampson Okay, I think this is actually a very good point because I’ve been on the side of having to write grants but also on the side of having to review grants and for some of the more competitive ones you, there’s a lot of writing. So to just bank Page 6 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 on people doing this on their side time is quite an ask so I’m, I’m very much in favor of this. Melton John, is there any, is there any future plan to work this into your budget instead of using the tax dollars collected from the Food & Beverage Fund? Stehr Umm, we’ll see how it goes. I, you know, what I’m really interested in Councilor Melton is to have that six-month trial to see how successful this is and how productive it is. I think the Food & Beverage Fund is a good place to go because this is economic development and some of the ways we’ve been spending our Food & Beverage Tax money I’m not really in favor of. I like – Melton I would agree – Stehr Focusing those funds in, in an economic development fashion. Melton Fantastic. Well, Yes, I just think that we should maybe consider putting that into a budgetary – Stehr Yes – Melton Thing that comes from the larger budget as opposed to – I’m just not a huge fan of the Food & Beverage Tax itself. That’s probably, probably just a personal thing but, Yes, I think if we can eventually get it worked into as as a budgetary item, I think having a grant writer on staff is a great idea. Stehr I think that’s a discussion I would love to have in the coming months. Melton That’d be great. Stehr We’ll see how it goes and take it from there. McElderry I don’t think you can underestimate the importance of the investigation part that you talked about – Stehr Yes. McElderry I’ve been involved in searching for grants in the corporate world – Stehr Yes – McElderry And there’s a lot that goes into it in addition to all the writing – Stehr Right – McElderry It’s not as simple as it sounds. You do have to actually do a lot of work – Stehr Yes. McElderry To find out what grants might be available so I’m looking forward to seeing what she can accomplish. Page 7 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Stehr Great. All right, the next item that I have is an RFP concerning our golf course. I want to look at the Zionsville Golf Course which I believe is a great community asset. I think that many people and groups and school teams that use it I think would agree but I also think that managing it appropriately has been a bit difficult and this is not a comment on our course manager, Mike Wall, who I think does a fantastic job but I think municipalities and parks departments are not really set up to manage something like this and to back that up, I’ve done a little research myself here. There are 2,500, about 2,500 municipal golf courses in the United States, 82% of those are managed by private companies not by the municipalities. Now I’m not saying that we have to enter into an operating agreement like this but I think we should consider it. It’s a starting point, again, I want to reiterate this is an expiration and I’m opening, open to see where this process leads us but I’m bringing it to you because I want to be cooperative, I want to be transparent and I value the input that you would have during this process. Now, just to give you just a brief, brief background – the golf course is a Parks Department asset but it is owned by the Town so any contracts regarding its management would have to come through the Mayor’s office and, again, I would seek advice from the Council before any decision is made on the way forward. Does anybody have any thoughts on the golf course and management of the golf course? Norris So what are some of the issues you’re trying to resolve by going through with a private management or maybe not issues is probably not the right word but what are some of the problems or benefits? Stehr Well this really cropped up a couple of years ago when we repaved the cart paths and I had experience with the Parks Department at that time. We’re compelled to take the lowest bidder and we ended up delaying the opening of the golf course that year, the job wasn’t done very well and we didn’t have a lot of recourse. I think a private operator is probably more successful in, in those type of transactions in, in getting things done in a timely efficient way. I think our golf course has a drainage issue. It is a flood plain and if it rains, and I’ll bet if we go down there right now – what is that? Five, I think hole five is a lake right now and that’s, I think that a private entity will manage those things much better than, than we do as a Town. I think our facilities aren’t the best. We don’t do a very good job at having events there, having golf outings and having things that bring in additional revenue so I do think that a private operator who is focused on that role is going to do a better job than a municipality or the Parks Department which has many other things going on. The, it’s really an outlier for our Parks Department. It’s a business is what it is – Norris Yes – Stehr And our Parks Department is not really geared to operate a business like that. Melton Just one note – I do feel like it’s a business in a place where a business normally doesn’t exist so I think that that being an outlier, that’s the benefit of why there is a golf course there, right because it is the flood plain. So it is unique and it would be hard to manage drainage, hard to manage construction around that so I think Page 8 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 this is a good idea to, to consider and I appreciate you bringing all these great ideas today but this one’s, one that I also see adds a lot of value. Stehr Well thank you. Thank you. Plunkett John, you mentioned that the course is a Town asset but, obviously, within the Parks Department. So I guess the questions I have is, is the Parks Department writing the RFP, the Parks attorney or who’s writing the RFP and who is ultimately going to, I’m assuming it’s Heather now? Harris Yes. Stehr Yes, yes. Harris Yes it is. So, it’s actually the Mayor, myself and Jarod. Plunkett Okay. Harris So we’ve been trading drafts and I actually worked on it a lot yesterday so we’re making sure it aligns with state statute as well as benchmarking it across multiple other municipalities who’ve recently led RFPs in this same space. So I know we’ve got content of what we’re sort of looking for and the assets that would be managed as well as the concessions at the course and then we’re adding in all the statutory requirements as well and I hope to have the Mayor a draft later today that’s in a more final form so. Plunkett Great. And then, and then I guess when that comes back that’s a decision that you make or that’s a decision that since it’s a Town asset the Council makes or who, who ultimately? Harris Ultimately, the Mayor can make the decision to sign the agreement up to a three- year agreement because it is not a lease of the property, it’s a management agreement. If it were a lease the Town Council would have to approve because you’d be leasing an asset and there’s some language in state statute that if it were effectively leasing meaning you no longer controlled the land then that also would require Town Council approval. If it’s over three years, currently it’s contemplating three years, but if it’s over three years that also requires Town Council approval but I think as the Mayor stated, he’s planning to share that and get input from the Council regardless of whether it’s three years or five years. Plunkett Great, thank you. Sampson What does – you said you were benchmarking with other municipalities – what does, what’s a normal range of cost that it incurs? Stehr Well, it wouldn’t incur a cost to us. In fact, it would be cash flow positive to us. What I envision and what we’re going to ask for is to take a percentage of the gross, revenue for the Town, put that back into the Parks Department which is what we – so what we do now we take the, the “profits” if you will, which aren’t really that high, but we take the profits and that stays with the golf course and that stays with golf course improvement and that sort of thing. So this would be a Page 9 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 positive to the Parks Department. That revenue would come in that wouldn’t have to be segmented that way. It can go to the Parks Department to support other Parks Department programs. And, presumably, the independent operator would take on the insurance right, Heather? And the operation of the course and manage all the course operations so take that off our plate and we would have a small cash positive effect. Harris I think one other thing I would note that is being contemplated is an investment in the actual, a capital investment in the actual infrastructure at the course. Stehr Right. Harris There’s some improvements that need to be made and oftentimes you’ll see an operator as part of an operation agreement make some sort of one-time capital investment to kind of upgrade facilities or upgrade certain services. McElderry That was actually going to be one of my questions Heather is that going to be in the RFP that we’re asking for that initial investment? Stehr Yes. Harris Yes. McElderry For the drainage, things like that? Okay. Stehr Yes, and I think just, just to calm any concerns that people are going to have – we can also put in such an operating agreement the rates – Norris Yes – Stehr So the rates don’t – Norris That’s what I was going to ask. Stehr Explode exponentially. That there’s a limit on how much rates can be raised because I know a lot of people are very price sensitive. A lot of retired folks use the golf course – Sampson Right – Stehr For their form of exercise in the summer and I’m sensitive to that. I don’t want to price them out. I don’t want to price anybody out. Our golf course is one of the best deals around and that’s one of the reasons I think it’s so popular and people, and people love it the way they do. So I don’t want to lose that part of it in this. Sampson That was a concern of mine. I think, I’m not sure if they stayed with an independent operator but I believe Azionaqua went through some of this where they had been running it with just a Town, I mean just a person from the Town and then they had a management company come in and I think they’re back to someone from the Town. So, that makes me interested, unless Ginger works for the independent operator. It just makes me interested like if that happened within Page 10 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 our Town it would be maybe somebody you could follow up with like did you have a reason that you switched back, something that you’re not aware of. Like, did it make the rates go too high? Did it make a drop off that equilibrium point where people will stop paying that price because it’s too much, it’s no longer the deal it was. Stehr Well this is news to me about Azionaqua. I thought that Azionaqua was a private club and being operated privately. I had no idea the Town – Sampson There’s definitely a group that in – Stehr Yes – Sampson And just having kids that had worked there – Stehr I’ll look into that and – Sampson Yes – Stehr We can, we can have a discussion about that. Sampson Maybe follow up on that – Stehr Yes – Sampson Just to get more information. Stehr Okay. All right, the next item that I have here is the Comprehensive Plan RFQ. As you all know, the previous Town Council put money in the budget for a new Comprehensive Development Plan for Zionsville, something we haven’t done in 20 years, something that’s greatly anticipated by a lot of people. So this RFQ is the first step in what will likely be a 12- to 18-month process put together, to put together a document that will guide our Town’s growth for the next generation. It’s going to be a very important process. I can't stress how important this is. Our Community & Economic Development Director, Mike Dale, will be the quarterback and will ride herd on the process with significant input from many other folks. We will have committees and subcommittees and people from all different stakeholder groups as well as all different geographic areas of our Town and I’m hopeful too that the Town Council will play a significant role in this, particularly those of you who represent those areas that are north and west. We used to call them Union and Perry Township. To me, they’re north Zionsville and west Zionsville because they are Zionsville and they deserve as strong a voice as everybody else in, in Eagle Township. So, with that in mind, I’d like Mike, Mike to come on up and give you an idea of what’s involved in the RFQ process right now. Dale Thank you John. Good morning everybody and Happy New Year. I see some new faces on the Town Council. It’s great to see you. I’ve had the privilege of working for Zionsville about a year now and as John mentioned, our current Comprehensive Plan is really antiquated and it’s been – I think I sent you some information in a memorandum on this – the long series of amendments that have Page 11 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 been approved by the Town Council over the last 10 to 20 years. It’s time for the Town really to look at the entire corporate boundary as one comprehensively. In case you’re not familiar with the process, the Indiana statute requires a municipality or unit of government to adopt a Comprehensive Plan if it wants zoning. So in order for us to have a Zoning Ordinance and zoning regulations, we must first have a Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan sets out a vision or a goal for future development and then, of course, zoning and zoning matters should reflect that long-range vision referenced in the Comprehensive Plan. Today I wanted to just review the process with you and get input from you if you’re ready. It’s important to me and it’s important to the citizens of Zionsville that we’re all on the same page and that we’re all unified in the process and how we intend to go forward with this project. As John mentioned, it’s probably a 12- to 18-month process. Usually the process gets slowed down towards the end because you have to schedule public hearings and you have to have them a month a part so the first, the first half of the project moves along fairly quickly with the consultant that’s ultimately selected does lots of research and conducts public workshops and stakeholder meetings with your constituents to gain an idea of the current demographic current growth trends and understand what, what the citizens’ concerns are about Zionsville and where they think development should occur, how it should occur and when it should occur, where it should occur, all those things and then ultimately the consultant will prepare a Comprehensive Plan document that references a vision based on all of that research and all of those meetings and all of those public workshops and all of those – and subsequent hearings, public hearings. The way I tentatively now envision the Comprehensive Plan would be three basic components, three elements or three components to the plan being land use, transportation and economic development. The statute itself gives us some relatively, a short list of things that must be addressed within a Comprehensive Plan. There’s a few elements, a few items that the statute requires but it’s relatively short. In theory, you could write a Comprehensive Plan that’s one or two pages if you just, if you just want to slap one together and say you have it. Most units of government go through this process of hiring a consultant. The consultant, rather than staff leading this, a consultant whereas I personally, I’ve probably been through two or three Comprehensive Plan projects in my career, in my 30-year career as a Planner. The consultants have done 30 or 50 of these and so they’re very familiar with the process. They, they know how to get the work done. They’re, they’ve done this many times and so that’s why in most cases a unit of government will hire a consultant to help with the process just because they’re, they’re so familiar and they know the, the pitfalls and the red flags and so on of getting this work done. Again, this is an opportunity for us to all get on the same page. I’m very, very interested in your thoughts about the process. The way I tentatively think of the process right now is to, involves an RFQ – a request for qualifications – where we invite consultants to submit their qualifications or their, their, their backgrounds, their staffing to us so that we can see the, the wide range of consulting firms that are interested in this project and the experience that they, they would bring to the, and expertise they would bring to the process. At that Page 12 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 point say theoretically we get 8 or 9 or 10 responses to the request for qualifications, the RFQ, then there’s a selection process of, of scoring, scoring those consultants and narrowing down the process maybe to the top three and then comes the interviewing and then interviewing each of those consultants and find out which of those three consultants perhaps which one of those three consultants brings the chemistry, brings the background, looks like the best candidate for the job. At that point then after that consultant is selected, then there’s a refined scope where we detail the exact number of meetings, the exact number of workshops, the exact type of research, that that type of documentation that they need to provide us – all the fine details is provided in that narrowed scope with that consultant. They submit a price to us, we determine whether or not that’s within our budget to, to pay them and then if we all agree, and I do mean all of us agree on, on the consultant, then we would sign a contract and we launch into the process that I’ve mentioned to you earlier. I do believe that as part of this process there’s going to be many meetings, many workshops, charrettes sometimes they’re called, stakeholder meetings where the consultant and staff would identify certain stakeholder groups within the community of Zionsville. For example, like safety as a stakeholder group or commerce as a stakeholder group or the schools as a stakeholder group. So there may be 5, 10 or more of these stakeholder groups that’ll have expertise and input into their particular realm of, of their engagement in Zionsville, all of this culminating in a Comprehensive Plan. Typically the Comprehensive Plan is submitted is submitted by resolution. It’s not an ordinance. It’s typically adopted via resolution so it doesn’t have the power or the same standing as an ordinance would yet it becomes the adopted policy of the Town for future growth that identifies land use areas for, for growth in the Town, it identifies transportation corridors and how those, how the infrastructure should be improved and also would outline an economic development strategy for the Town. How, how to sustain growth in Zionsville based on the wishes of, of you and as expressed by the residents of Zionsville. Plan Commission holds a public hearing ultimately on the draft Comprehensive Plan. The Plan Commission then votes on a recommendation to you, the Town Council, they may vote favorably, they may vote unfavorably, they may suggest a conditional approval on the Comprehensive Plan or they may send it back. They may say you know what there’s not enough work here based on the community input. We haven’t done enough work, we need to go back. It’ll step back a little bit, do a few more things before we have another public hearing with the Plan Commission. Ultimately, the Plan Commission votes on a recommendation to you and then it’s in your hands. And then at that point you can still send it back if you still feel it’s not adequate or if it’s missing in some ways or you can vote in favor or against the Comprehensive Plan. And then from that point after adoption of the Comprehensive Plan, there is going to be a chapter within the Comprehensive Plan for implementation. The Comprehensive Plan does nothing for us if it’s just, it’s adopted and sits on a shelf and gathers dust. It has to be implemented. So within the Comprehensive Plan there will be a chapter identifying implementation steps. There may be a 2- year implementation strategy, a 5-year implementation, 10-year and so on so that we’re, we’re accountable, staff’s accountable to you and then we’re accountable to the citizens of Zionsville to follow through this vision for growth in, in Page 13 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Zionsville. And at that point maybe after 5 or 10 years we may want to do it an internal in-house amendment or, again, hire a consultant. It should be, it should be continuously revised. We should be looking at this Comprehensive Plan roughly every 5, 5 to 10 years, 5- to 10-year increments making sure it’s current because in reality things come up, projects come along. Perhaps there’s a project that is very impressive but doesn’t exactly align with the Comprehensive Plan but it’s very impressive, very, very desired within the Town of Zionsville so we may depart from the Comprehensive Plan and maybe this happens a few times so we need to revisit the Comprehensive Plan. Are we really following the vision or has our vision changed? We’ve approved a few projects that don’t align with the Comprehensive Plan and maybe that’s a, that’s a red flag that we need to revisit the Comprehensive Plan because our actions aren’t matching what we had thought would be the vision for Zionsville. So there should be ongoing 5, 10-year reviews/amendments/updates to the Comprehensive Plan. So, I kind of outlined for you I think a general process. I would intend to have frequent meetings with you about how we’re, how it’s coming along and feel free to reach out to me, my office and, of course, anyone on my staff. Staff, we anticipate staff will have a support role in this process. The consultant is the expert, we will be support staff for the consultant if they need research, if they need some new information, we will be there, my department will be there as well as Lance Lantz, the Department of Public Works. His department is playing a very important role in terms of, of guiding the process for transportation-related matters. We’ll be staff for the consultant and support this process with public hearings, charrettes and workshops, staff will be there to facilitate this process and then also respond to you and your questions. So, again, it’s very important that we’re all in this. I feel very strongly that we should all be on the same page. If there’s any questions you have about the process, please reach out to me and we’ll, we’ll do the best to, to answer your questions. Plunkett Mike, you, you mentioned – thank you for that update. Dale Yes – Plunkett You mentioned a couple of times that this is a tentative process or a tentative timeline – Dale Yes – Plunkett Do you have an idea when you guys will solidify the specifics of the timeline, questions that you’re going to go through with the consultant so we can be aware of that too and is that something we can have access to? Dale I intend to continuously update the timeline for you so with each new event, with each new milestone, update the timeline. As part of the contract with the consultant, they will also identify a timeline and expectations for when to get things done. My experience though with Comprehensive Plans is usually we try to follow a timeline – things come up sometimes, some parts of the timeline move faster, other parts move more slowly with our, our sights on getting this done within 12 months, sometimes it starts getting pushed to 15 months but so, so a timeline is somewhat fluid but the consultant wants to get this done as Page 14 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 quickly too so all of us want to get this done as quickly as possible but that’s my objective, my vision right now is to continue, provide you a continuous update to the timeline. Plunkett Sure. Well, I appreciate the update and I would certainly encourage every Councilor up here, we all heard different things on the campaign trail about the Comprehensive Plan and the importance of it in different parts of our districts. I would certainly advise everybody to reach out to Mike and get us engaged in that process as, as your time allows. Sampson There’s definitely one aspect that came up repeatedly during my campaign and it was that people were unaware of the charrettes and meetings for the Form Based Code attempt and that that made people, that probably was part of the feedback that was coming after the whole report had even been written and I think the question of was that just a waste of money since we ultimately did not pass it, I think that needs to be one of our main focuses. I mean, just because we give people a chance to be, to express their opinion doesn’t mean that we’re going to choose that opinion but still I think that was the main feedback – people would like to be heard so. Dale Thank you. Burk Mike, I only had one question again just to echo Jason – thank you for taking on this project and this will be a significant lift for you and your team but much needed and this is something that’s needed to happen for a while and we were happy to put the dollars forward for this to happen this year and, again, you mentioned a lot of stuff but you just caught me at the end when you mentioned kind of the process that you have in mind and then you got to, it sounded like once you kind of had one person, one, one consultant defined then you discuss budget and price at that point. It seemed odd to me that we wouldn’t be looking at cost and budget and what they’re proposing, maybe even amongst the final three or even upfront. It just seemed like you get all the way down to, to the 9th inning and now all of a sudden now you’re talking cost and if it’s not what you’re looking for is that going to slow up the process and you’ve got to back it up? Dale That’s an excellent thought and we’ve talked about that internally too the best way to do that and maybe at your suggestion is the best way to do it – once we narrow it down to the top three – that’s why I want to have this conversation with you – Burk Yes – Dale Get your thoughts on this process. As you suggest, maybe the better path is to once we narrow it down to our top three is then to get the preliminary budget so to speak because then the scope is going to be further refined throughout this too but – Burk Right – Dale Yes, we, that’s a great thought and we’ll work on that. Page 15 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Plunkett Mike, what’s, what’s the best way, obviously, we don’t have time this morning to go through all thoughts that Councilors have on, on the Comprehensive Plan – Dale Yes – Plunkett And the process. What’s the best way for us to get that to you? Are you going to set up individual meetings with us, group meetings or would you like for us to email thoughts? What’s the, what’s the next step on our end? Dale I’m open to suggestions. If you would like one-on-one meetings with each of you I’d be happy to do that. I’d be very happy to meet with you individually and that may be very productive that way you have one-on-one time and we can have a conversation or if you want to submit information to me through the Mayor’s office I would also be very pleased to, to receive and be reached in writing so wherever your comfort level is I’m there with you. Plunkett Yes, maybe we, John, maybe we think that through a little bit as it relates to the best way for, for us to communicate with, with Mike and any other department heads, obviously, as, as we’ve talked about in the past. McElderry I’ll just add real quickly and I’m catching the President’s vibe that we don’t want to ask a ton of questions right now but mine has to do with the land use and I appreciate the fact that you’ve put that as one of the three most important parts of this including transportation and economic development but there are appendices in the draft RFQ right now for transportation, for economic development – Dale Yes – McElderry But not for land use. Dale Yes – McElderry The level of detail isn’t there and that would be something that I would be interested in getting involved with before the RFQ actually goes out because I think that was one of the failures of the Form Based Code was I don’t think we went through exactly what that zoning needed to look like and as a result, it kind of missed the mark. So, I think that’s important that we have that level of specificity in the RFQ so that any firm that’s interested in contracting for this would understand that that is a huge part of what we’re trying to do moving forward so – Dale Gotcha. McElderry I look forward to talking with you about that. Dale Okay, excellent. Thank you. Melton Mike, just on the tail of what he just mentioned – this plan doesn’t change zoning once it’s approved as a resolution, correct? Dale That is correct. Page 16 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Melton Great. I just, I’ve had many western Zionsville concerned about zoning being changed through this plan and the idea is that it still has to go through the Planning Commissions and through the Council for rezoning even though this, if this plan were to get accepted in 18 months or two years or whatever, so I just wanted to reaffirm that for those listening. Thank you. Dale That’s correct. Thank you. Plunkett Thanks Mike. Dale Thank you very much. McElderry Thank you Mike. Norris Thanks Mike. Stehr Thank you Mike and I have a high level of confidence in Mike in his management of this process. He is, I think, one of the best guys around to do this and we’re fortunate to have him here to, to guide it. The next item that I have has to do with the Boone EDC, the Boone Economic Development Corporation. As you know, we pulled out of it four years ago and I believe this has put us at a disadvantage in attracting economic opportunity to Zionsville. The head of the Boone EDC, Molly Whitehead, is here with us this morning and I’ve asked her to speak to you briefly, 4 minutes, right? A 4-minute presentation on what the group has to offer Zionsville. Molly – Whitehead Good morning Council. I’m Molly Whitehead. I’m the Executive Director of the Boone EDC. For those of you who may not be as familiar or as a refresher since it’s been a few years – Boone EDC, we’re a public/private nonprofit. Our mission is to recruit and retain employers in and to Boone County. That includes small businesses as well as large businesses. Our team here you’ll see we are four strong and I’m just going to fly through this to be able to get to your questions. You’ll see the next couple of slides here are values, advocacy, commitment, innovation, responsiveness and connection. That’s what we stand for, that’s what we believe in, that’s why we believe that a partnership with Zionsville is in the best interest of not only the Town but the rest of our community. The slides following this – what we do – essentially, again, recruiting and retaining employers to Boone County that, in turn, provides an increased assessed value to you all which, in turn, generates taxes, allows you to pay for not only things you need but things that you want and ultimately the goal is to reduce the tax burden on residential taxpayers which has been an area of concern for Zionsville in years past. We’ll fly these next two slides – I’ll let you review those at, at your convenience. Our services – there’s two different slides for those and we’ll move on to the third one. I’m not even sure who’s running this presentation but what you have in front of you here is our 2023 performance. This is, this is our why. This is why you want to engage with us. We received last year 100, it’s actually 191 leads Page 17 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 total – that’s one lead for every 1.3 days. What a lead is, it’s a company that’s considering expanding, it’s a company that is considering relocating perhaps opening up a second, third, fourth location and you’ll see more than a third of those leads come in direct to the Boone EDC. This is what differentiates the Boone EDC from other economic development corporations around the state. I just did a quick straw poll – my friends actually in Hancock County, Johnson County – most of their leads they get about 130 leads so the difference is the Boone EDC we’re generating last year it was 72 leads came in direct to us. They are choosing because of our, our knowledge, our expertise, our branding to knock on our door first to seek those locations and that assistance. Moving on to the next slide there – again, we do small business and large business. You’ll see we did 34 site visits with small businesses specifically and another 70-some with large businesses. And the slide after that – landing the project. What this looks like, our process, initially we receive an RFP. Sometimes they look like this, sometimes they don’t. It’s here’s what the company is looking for and sometimes it is a quick what do you have to submit? Other times it is a significant request for a proposal that we have to complete on behalf of the site or location. The next slide after that follows – we do a cost-benefit analysis on every project. We want to make sure that the taxpayers of the Town of Zionsville, of Boone County are getting as good of a deal as the company may be and we’re submitting – you’ll see just an example of all the different types of things that go into an RFP. The slide after that is our aftercare piece and I would argue this is actually just as important as the beginning piece. It is far easier to keep a company here than it is to recruit a new company to Boone County. You’ll see that we will work with the Town coordinating press releases, we will visit with the company on a regular basis but we will also ensure that they filed all of their appropriate paperwork with Boone County so that we don’t have issues come tax time. You’ll see our funding here, again, we are funded privately and publicly. Publicly is through fee for service contracts or agreements. This is the per capita funding how it breaks down per community in Boone County and then you will or what I should say is we’ll discuss this following the first year and see where everything stands. With that, the contract or the agreement we have reviewed that with Heather ahead of time. Don’t have any questions on that from our end. The contract request is for $60,000 annually and I would be happy to answer any questions that you may have. Was that 4 minutes? Stehr It was a little bit longer. Whitehead Okay, I’ll try better next time. Burk Good job. Page 18 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Stein Molly, can you give us just for the sake of the audience and those of us who may not know, some of your crown jewels as of recent? Whitehead As of recent? So, of course, keeping in mind these are not in Zionsville. Our biggest deal that we had last year was actually an expansion by NewCold. It is a state-of-the-art food storage facility in Lebanon. That was an initial $150 million dollar investment just two years ago and they have since added an additional $150 million on top of that but, honestly, the favorite wins are really the small businesses that we have helped to locate in Boone County. Hattie’s Coffee in, in Whitestown that was one that we had to help overcome some significant barriers at the municipal level. We’ve helped Indiana Owned, they actually have a gift shop now on the square in Lebanon. We’ve helped those small businesses get started either just through tapping into our network or in some cases helping them access capital. Melton So when, when you work with a small business, you’re not charging that small business anything. You’re, you’re actually looking for funding to try and help them – Whitehead Correct. Melton Expand? Okay. Whitehead Correct. Melton Great, thank you. Plunkett Anything else for Molly? Thanks Molly. Whitehead All right, thank you. Stehr All right, thank you Molly. Appreciate that and just to reiterate what she said – the contribution that we’re talking about for this year is $60,000 which is the same as it was in 2019, the last year we were in. Our peer communities are paying significantly more than that now because things have evolved over the last few years so I think the Boone EDC might be coming to us and asking us to be on par in 2025 but at that point we can reevaluate whether we think the benefits are consistent with that and we can think about raising our level of contribution. But I do want to say that at this point this is, again, this is budget neutral because this can be funded through the Food & Beverage Tax and, again, clearly, I think this is an economic development project or, or idea that meets the bar for the Food & Beverage Tax Fund so I would ask for an appropriation of $60,000 from the Food & Beverage Fund for Boone EDC. All right, under Other Matters – I have just a couple of things here. First of all, security here in Town Hall. I think you’ve probably noticed that we have a bigger security presence here with an officer posted in the lobby and we will continue to do that during business hours at Town Hall as well as situationally like in this room this morning we have a security presence. I think this is a combination of the world we live in today and also some recent events that – and also I think bringing us up to par with our peer communities. If you go to other Town Halls Page 19 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 nearby here there is a security presence that I think we had been lacking. Chief Spears and I have been talking about this for several months and he is able to accomplish, accomplish this within his existing budget so, again, budget neutral this process to have the security in Town Hall and I think this will add a layer of safety not just for our employees but also all of our visitors to Town Hall as well. And we’re soon going to have another person posted out there too who will greet people and direct visitors when they come in to where they want to go. They will also be able to carry out some transactions that people have with the Town and this is very important because the MAC as we have known it is going away. The Admins for various departments like Police, Fire and Wastewater will go back to their departments and we will be seeking new ways to provide efficient service to our citizens. One of those efforts will be to further digitize our processes. We will no longer take cash payments after, in the next couple of weeks, we’re going to get to that, and I think that is going to be a very important aspect of what we’re doing there. So does anybody have any questions about the security process or, or what’s happening in the former MAC? It’s not former yet but it will be as of this week. Norris I assume the department heads are supportive of moving the administrative staff back into – Stehr I would say that that is an understatement, yes. I think the department heads have been quite supportive of that. Norris Okay. I’m seeing nods so, yes, big nods. Stehr We like big nods. Burk And will Amy Lacy still be housed in that spot or will that become the reception area or are you talking about something separate than that first office? Stehr There will be a reception area in the lobby – Burk Okay. Stehr So that when people come in they will be greeted as soon as they step in the door. I mean if you spend some time out there now, people come in and they, they just don’t know where to go. I mean, they just kind of look around so I think this will provide better service to our constituents and also be better from our end too – more efficient from our end so. Melton So is there, is there a construction budget with that? I mean, you’re going to – Stehr Well, I’m glad you asked that Councilor Melton. Melton I’m a construction guy. Stehr That’s a good question. So you also know that the rooms, the conference rooms here at Town Hall are sponsored and that sponsorship money goes into a Town Hall improvement fund. Those sponsorships with the exception of one – so we Page 20 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 have four I believe right now expired at the end of 2023, December 31, 2023. So I am in talks with various companies to take on new sponsorships. One company, DK Pierce, has agreed to continue with their sponsorship so that’ll generate some money and I think that the funding that we generate from those sponsorships can be used for the project to build a, an appropriate welcome desk out there in the lobby. It’s not just, we have some desks and we have some walls we can repurpose so it’s not going to be a huge expense but we have IT expenses and things like that too to make sure that everybody is able to operate there. And by the way, the police officer that’s going to be out there is not just going to be sitting there all day. He’s going to have some other sort of management and responsibilities within the department scheduling and that sort of thing that he will be focused on as well so it’ll be a productive use of his time and then when he goes on vacation or, or needs to take a day off we will have other officers rotate in. In the summer we’ll have the opportunity to bring in some SROs who won’t be in the schools then that can be here so the Chief has a really, a really good plan to do this without having to add to his budget this year so. And then one other thing, one other thing under Other Matters. Under state statute the Finance Department is required to give you a finance report by the end of January. This is the last meeting in January so no time like the present to ask Tim Berry to come up and give you that quick finance report. Berry Thank you Mayor. Mr. President, members of the Council – Tim Berry with Crowe, municipal advisor for the Town. As the Mayor mentioned, according to statute 5-13-7, the Board of Finance is required to meet each year to review the Town’s investment policy and the Town’s investment earnings for the prior year. Unfortunately, today Cindy Poore was unable to be here today so that’s why I’m here. Cindy has prepared the presentation to go through the information accordingly. Indiana statute for investments for local units of government as well as the State of Indiana revolves around the policy of safety, liquidity and yield in that order. These are taxpayer dollars and as such the interest and desire to maintain the safety of those dollars is first and foremost and that is true with your policy as well. The policy, the investment policy that the Town Council adopted in December of last year revolves around the allowable statutes within Indiana’s investment policies which is 5-13-9. It does not go above any of those and revolves around maintaining that safety and security and yield requirement. Today we are going to review the year-end balances for the Town and today, currently, the Town is able to invest and deposit in any financial institution that has a brick-and-mortar location within the Town’s jurisdiction. Today there are two banks that have those deposits though it is the desire of the Finance Department and the Administration to do a thorough RFP on banking services here sometimes towards the end of the first quarter of this year and to re-deposit and allocate funds according to the responses that the Town receives. Last year in the Town’s main account the Town received investment earnings of $2,383,907.01 with an annual yield of just over 5%. The Wastewater Department received annual earnings of $124,196.73 and then the Rainy Day Fund is also invested separately and the Rainy Day Fund today is invested in Trust Indiana. That is a local government investment pool sponsored by the State Treasurer’s Page 21 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Office and coordinated through the State Treasurer’s Office and those dollars are currently in that today. Today the Town has two banks that they use. The main operating accounts are in PNC Bank and the health fund account is in Centier Bank currently. Those will be subject to change as the Town looks at their investment policy or at their deposit accounts moving forward. With that, I would take any questions that you may have with regards to reporting of the Town’s finances. Burk Yes, Tim, I just have a quick question – how often do we kind of update the investment policy or strategy for the Town? I’ve had some conversations with Cindy and I know she’s not here but I feel like maybe there were some missed opportunities in the recent past to maybe be doing some, some things in a different fashion that might actually generate more revenue. Berry Well certainly the way the current investment policy has been adopted by the Town Council really limits some of that because it references the statute largely in each of those areas so even if there are changes in statute according to 5-13, it is in reference to that so it may limit that but certainly it is eligible for review and from a good sense it should be reviewed on an annual basis. We’re not doing so today given the fact that you just adopted it less than a month ago and it is current at that time but I would recommend that next year at your Board of Finance meeting would be an appropriate time to review and if there would be any statutory changes prior to that, I would suggest that they bring that to the Council’s review prior to that point in time. Burk Appreciate it. Thank you. Stein Tim, can you speak to the direction use, it’s about, I just rough mathed $2.7 million in interest earned on the accounts that are listed there. Where does that go? What’s it limited to? Berry That is returned back to the funds. So those dollars go back to the main account today goes back to the General Fund. The Rainy Day earnings go back to the Rainy Day Fund as it exists today. We have seen over the last year a rising interest rate environment. There’s talk that we may have plateaued out and that you may be seeing in, in the future at some point in time a reduction in interest rates by the Fed. As we go into this year, it might be appropriate for the Town to look at their investments and maybe instead of short-term investments and riding that yield curve up as they have been doing, taking advantage of the yield curve and maybe extending those investments out longer term, not long term but longer term, to take advantage of that yield curve as it moves forward. That’s something certainly we would recommend that Cindy and her staff look at as, as we move forward into the coming year and certainly as we look at changes to the banking RFP. Stein Thank you. Page 22 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Melton Tim, I noticed, I noticed on the average annual yield that there’s about a 2% kinda delta between some of those accounts. Is that, I mean, is that standard, what’s causing that? Is that – I just, I would assume that they’d all be very similar as opposed to having the 2% deviation. Berry The other accounts are largely bond funds – Melton Oh, okay so it’s – Berry And you’re limited on earnings in bond funds with arbitrage earnings and all of that – Melton Substantial investment, right? That’s different – Berry Yes. Melton Okay. Berry So that’s, that’s why there’s really that just difference in distinction. Melton Thank you. Sampson My question is like how liquid are we when we’re looking at $54 million dollars? Berry Today you are very liquid. Sampson It’s just sitting in a cash account. Berry You are sitting in an overnight investment account, correct. Sampson So, even just locking some of those into a CD would be better than leaving it – Berry Potentially but you also want to invest in a CD in a, in a rising interest rate environment – Sampson Right – Berry And then lose out on that growth. Sampson Well I was just going on your take advantage of the top of the yield curve so. Berry And that, as I said earlier, that would be something to, for the Town to begin looking at now as it appears – Sampson Yes – Berry According to financial experts that maybe we’ve hit the top of, of interest rates. Sampson And who is keeping an eye on this and deciding when we are at the top of the yield curve? Page 23 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Berry Cindy is the designated investment officer as the Director of Finance. Plunkett I would point out, Tim, as, as you’re aware and many in this room and watching are probably aware, I mean part of the reason we did not have an updated finance ordinance or investment policy, I should say, is because of the results of the State Board of Accounts audit and the Council didn’t feel appropriate to, to pass any, any investment policy until the internal controls were righted and that was part of the reason a year and a half ago we attempted to engage Baker Tilly so. Berry Yes. Plunkett I mean it’s not like we weren’t keeping an eye on it – Berry Right, Yes – Plunkett It was just something we were somewhat hamstrung with so. Thanks Tim. Appreciate it. Berry Thank you. Stehr Now I just want to reiterate from what Tim said, we are on a path toward better financial standing. I just want you to know that and we’re going to keep you updated every step of the way in that process. Just one other thing from me and that is that at the end of your meeting today I’ll have the honor of, of swearing in Vice President Burk as a Police Commissioner here in Zionsville so if you would like to stay for just a couple of extra minutes, we’ll be efficient with your time in that. So any further questions for me? Plunkett All right, thank you. Stehr Well thank you very much. I do appreciate it. Plunkett I think you’ve made up for four years of Mayor updates in this meeting. TOWN COUNCIL UPDATE Plunkett All right, up next would be Town Council Updates. Are there any updates from Councilors? We do not have any – Burk I just want to thank Lance and his crew, obviously, just driving in this morning I realized how – I saw everybody out and about taking care of business and just good to know that we’ve got a great crew out there who’s taking care of our, our, our roads and streets and keeping everybody safe and you had a jacket on earlier so I thought maybe this was a special occasion Lance but just a little too warm. Yes, but anyway, thank you. Appreciate it. Sampson I have one question that I thought of as we were going out for or we will going out for the different requests for work. At the end of the year you had had a compliance form that everyone signed and a comment was made it seemed like we should have signed it at the beginning for not, like not having nepotism. Page 24 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Lacy Yes, we normally do. One thing we were waiting for was to redo that ordinance that goes with it but probably at your next meeting – Sampson Okay. Lacy You’ll sign that. Sampson Right, that’s good. Plunkett Any other updates from Councilors? Sorry to kind of run through that. I apologize. OLD BUSINESS Plunkett We have no Old Business items. NEW BUSINESS Consideration of an Appointment to the Safety Board Plunkett First item up on New Business is a Consideration of An Appointment to the Safety Board. This is in response to Council, you’ll recall Councilor Choi was appointed or former Councilor Choi was appointed to the Safety Board as a citizen member and his schedule doesn’t allow for that. One of our former Safety Board appointments, Jeff Papa, who was on there for the last three years had expressed interest in, in staying on. So, with that, with that in mind, that was the intent of we would remove Alex Choi and keep Jeff Papa on the Safety Board. It’s consistent with, as we talked about, it’s consistent with the folks who were on there that wanted the or had the desire to stay so it was a pretty, pretty easy, pretty easy consideration there but certainly open to any considerations or questions or comments or anything at all from, from Council. Sampson So do we need to move to add him? Plunkett Yes, I would, if you guys are okay with it, I would, I would make a motion to approve the appointment to the Safety Board. Sampson And I second. Plunkett And a second by Councilor Sampson. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Page 25 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing the Pathways Committee Ordinance 2024-02 (First Reading) Plunkett Up next is a Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing the Pathways Committee. This is Ordinance 2024-02. As Mayor Stehr had indicated in his Administration update, this is an attempt to consolidate a couple of different committees. Are there any questions from Councilors for Mayor Stehr? This would, this would mean that we would have two appointments there so, obviously, what I’d like to do is send you guys and gals the list of, of the folks we do have on this committee now. Councilor Melton currently is our Town Council representative there and I would certainly lend him the opportunity to, to continue that should he want to but what I would do is send you guys the list of who is currently on there and then we can figure out what the next steps would be from there but – Melton And that’s the Pathways Committee and the Mobility Committee, right? So you’ll have the list of both of those – Plunkett Yes – Melton Groups? Thank you. McElderry So, in essence, we’re actually – Plunkett Well one of those, one of those we have appointments to. The other one was not a real – Melton Okay. Plunkett Well, not a committee that we had appointments to so. Melton Okay. Plunkett Yes, I’m sorry. McElderry So by going from 7 to 5 we’re actually reducing the number as opposed to necessarily just appointing – Plunkett Yes – McElderry We’re just keeping two of the – Plunkett Well and the other thing I would say is two or three of the people that are on the Pathways Committee that we appoint are on other boards or committees or have other commitments and don’t have interest to, to continue so I think it’ll be a pretty easy, pretty easy decision but I’ll certainly get that to all of you guys. Any other questions or any questions for Mayor Stehr? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Melton I’d like to make a motion to approve Ordinance 2024-02. Page 26 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Plunkett We have a first from Councilor Melton. Stein Second. Plunkett Second by Councilor – Burk Isn’t it an introduction? Sampson Yes. Plunkett Yes, sorry, introduce on first reading. Melton Sorry, introduce. Stein Yes, on first reading. Second. Plunkett Yes, so we’ve got a motion to introduce on first reading from Councilor Melton and a second from Councilor Stein. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing a Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council Ordinance 2024-03 (First Reading) Plunkett Up next is a Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing a Mayor’s Youth Advisory Council. This is Ordinance 2024-03, also a first reading. Are there any questions for Mayor Stehr? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Burk I would move to introduce Ordinance 2024-03 on first reading. McElderry Second. Plunkett I got a first from Vice President Burk, a second by Councilor McElderry. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Page 27 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds Resolution 2024-03 (Public Hearing) Plunkett Moving along – we have a Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds. This is Resolution 2024-03. I believe this is for your grant writer, is that correct? Yes, okay. So this would be – I’ll actually go ahead and open this up. Harris This is for the Boone EDC. Melton It’s Boone EDC. Plunkett Oh, this is the Boone EDC? Harris Yes, this is the appropriation for the Boone EDC in the amount of $60,000 which would be our annual contract with the Boone EDC. It is still coming from the Food & Beverage Fund. Stein So is it really an approval of additional funds or just a reallocation of current funds that have already been allocated elsewhere? Harris So these funds have currently not been allocated elsewhere. They’re just sitting in our Food & Beverage account but because they have not been budgeted, we would need to have an additional appropriation which would then add them to our budget for 2024. Sampson Do we have an amount of the Food & Beverage account? Melton Balance. Sampson Balance? Amount? Harris I don’t have that information but I can – Stehr We do. It’s approximately $1.1 million dollars right now. And, sorry for the little bit of confusion there. So we’re asking for $60,000 for the Boone EDC. I’m going to come to you next time and ask for $60,000 for the grant writer, to set aside for the grant writer. Sampson Okay. Stehr I wanted to see what you thought about that idea before, before I asked for the money for it so. McElderry Mr. Mayor, you, you referenced that the $60,000 is what is currently being asked for but there’s a, there might be and I don’t know if Molly wants to address this but there might be a need to increase that some point in the future. Do we know if the $60,000 for the entirety of 2024? Stehr For the Boone EDC? Page 28 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 McElderry Yes. Stehr Yes it is. McElderry Okay, thank you. Plunkett All right, this is a public hearing and I have proof of publication of the public notice of the public hearing. At this point, I will open the hearing if there’s any members from the public who would like to speak. Having none, I will close the public hearing. Are there any further discussions or questions from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Melton I’d like to make the motion to approve the Resolution 2024-03 for the $60,000 additional appropriation of funds to the Boone EDC. Sampson Second. Plunkett I’ve got a first from Councilor Melton, a second from Councilor Sampson. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. OTHER MATTERS Plunkett Up next are Other Matters. Are there any other matters from Councilors? Sampson Oh, I have one – I asked for clarity from Ginger and she said that there was a consideration of using the company but that they actually use the person and so she was a private – Melton And that’s regarding Azionaqua? Sampson For Azionaqua, Yes. I didn’t want to leave that confusion out there but. Plunkett Any other Councilor matters? Norris Nope, just be safe out there. The roads are a little slick so, Yes. Page 29 of 30 Zionsville Town Council January 16, 2024 ADJOURN Plunkett All right. I would make a motion to adjourn. Sampson Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Sampson. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. The next Regular Town Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, February 5, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Zionsville Town Hall Council Chambers. Public notice will be posted in compliance with the Indiana Open Door Law. Thank you. Respectfully submitted, Amelia Anne Lacy, Municipal Relations Coordinator Town of Zionsville Page 30 of 30