Zionsville Town Council

Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 ZIONSVILLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FOR AUGUST 19, 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; Tim McElderry, Craig Melton, Evan Norris, Sarah Esterline Sampson, and Joe Stein Absent: Brad Burk, Vice-President Also Present : Adam Steuerwald, Town Council Attorney; Mayor John Stehr; Deputy Mayor Justin Hage; Cindy Poore, Director of Finance & Records; Lance Lantz, Director of DPW; Jo Kiel, Director of Human Resources; ZFD Chief James VanGorder; Mike Dale, Director of Planning & Building; 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, August 19, 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 AUGUST 5, 2024 REGULAR MEETING Plunkett All right, first on the agenda is the approval of the August 5, 2024 Town Council meeting memoranda. A copy has been posted. Are there questions from Councilors? Sampson I gave a correction to Amy. Page 1 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett What was that correction so it’s on the record? Sampson It was on – Lacy Page 13 and it said “hanging chat” and it should be hanging chad. Plunkett Okay. Lacy So, I will fix that. Plunkett All right, anything else from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. Norris I’ll make a motion to approve with that change. Sampson Second. Plunkett I got a first from Councilor Norris, 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 6 in favor, 0 opposed. APPROVAL OF THE AUGUST 19, 2024 CLAIMS Plunkett Up next is the approval of the August 19, 2024 claims. Are there any questions from Councilors? I’ll make a motion to approve. Norris Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. REQUEST TO SPEAK Plunkett We have one request to speak. Amy, are there any others? Lacy No, just that one. Plunkett All right, we have Mervyn Cohen. If you would, just come to the microphone. You know Mervyn, you know the drill. You’ll get three minutes, I’ll let you Page 2 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 know when you’re at two and we’ll go from there. If you would, just state your name and address for the record. Cohen Good morning. Mervyn Cohen. I live in the Village at 520 West Cedar Street. Almost everyone in Zionsville stresses their love and the importance of the old historic Village. We want to preserve the historic homes and the ambience of the Village. We repeatedly hear this love of our Village. The small lots, the pretty yards and the narrow roads bring charm to our Village. However, what is unique, and I believe critical to the Village, are the very old homes. These are being demolished at an alarming rate. I know of three old Village homes that are scheduled to be demolished before the end of this year, one is disappearing as I speak. It was built in 1880, is in good condition and was recently purchased for $495,000, yet it is being demolished. Another example – from 2017 to 2019, the Board of Zoning Appeals approved variances with construction on seven new large homes in the Village with demolition of existing old historic homes. The average size of the homes that were demolished was 1,012 square feet and with the new homes 3,096 square feet. I would like to ask the Town Council to address in the future two issues which could reduce the destruction of the old homes. Correcting both would preserve the old Village homes. These are zoning and demolition laws. Let me start with zoning. You’re presented today with an ordinance to make it easier to get a variance but it is already too easy. In 11 years from 2012 to 2023, the BZA received 74 petitions for variances in the Village and approved every one. Zoning laws are established to protect the environment in which we choose to live. They’re never perfect but the BZA should only grant variances to correct aberrations in the zoning laws. They’re not there to be popular and approve every variance request. Finally, with regard to demolition, Zionsville has not a single rule or regulation that can delay or prevent the demolition of any old historic home in the Village. I would respectfully ask you to ask the BZA to be tougher Plunkett Thank you Mervyn. Cohen And also to consider some regulation – Plunkett Appreciate your time – Cohen To protect our old homes. Plunkett Appreciate your time this morning. Thank you very much. McElderry Thanks Mervyn. MAYOR/ADMINISTRATION UPDATE Plunkett All right, up next on the agenda is the Mayor/Administration Update and we have Mayor Stehr with us this morning. Stehr Good morning Councilors. Page 3 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Norris Good morning. McElderry Good morning. Stehr This is really a momentous day. You might’ve noticed the tall guy in the sweatsuit that came in the room here today. Matt Anderson, a Zionsville dad, who just returned from the Olympics in Paris, he is a member of the Bronze- winning men’s volleyball team but there’s so much more to this guy. He is a 2004 state champion in high school in New York, a NCAA champion at Penn State in 2008, he was an All-American in 2007 and 2008, a four-time Olympian and a two-time Bronze Medalist and we are just really pleased that he lives in our town and that he’s representing us as well as he does and I’m pleased to say today I’m proclaiming this as Matt Anderson Day in Zionsville so I do have a proclamation here and Matt, come on up. And I ask you to bear with me. I have a couple of whereases and therefores here but I’ll just go through this quickly. Whereas, the Games of the 33rd Olympiad ended on August 11, 2024 in Paris, France and 10,500 athletes competed representing 206 countries. And Whereas, Matt Anderson represented our town, state and country with remarkable talent, determination and perseverance exemplifying the highest standards of athletic excellence in the 2024 Olympic Games. And Whereas, Matt Anderson’s outstanding performance in men’s volleyball contributed to his team’s success in earning the Bronze Medal. And Whereas, Matt Anderson is inspiring to young athletes and residents of Zionsville and embodies the values of hard work, resilience and integrity. And Whereas, Matt Anderson has shared his success with our community and will inspire future generations to strive for their personal best both on the volleyball court and in their lives. Now, therefore, I, John Stehr, the Mayor of Zionsville, do proclaim August 19th as Matt Anderson Day in Zionsville in recognition of his extraordinary achievements and their positive impact on our community. I urge all residents to join me in celebrating and honoring Matt for his remarkable accomplishments and contributions. Ladies and gentlemen – Matt Anderson. So if you want to step down for just a minute and take a few pictures with the Council I think that’d be great. We’re prepared to do it so come on over here. It’s not often we get an Olympian in the house. All right, continuing on now with the Administration report – as we have discussed, part of our journey to getting our financial house in order includes the State Board of Accounts audit for previous years, in this case, 2022 and 2023. I wanted to let you know this morning that this process is underway. SBoA auditors began last Monday and the process will now include entrance interviews with relevant parties including Cindy Poore, myself, President Plunkett will be part of that interview process today among others. Due to poor performance of Page 4 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 our software and other operational issues, we expect the audits will show some imbalances for 2023 and for part of or for 2022 and part of 2023 before we changed our software providers. The audit process could take from weeks to months to complete. This is an important step and we will report to you on any results that come our way, when they come our way. The next item is the Patrol Area for ZPD. Chief Spears has had discussions with the Boone County Sheriff about looking how we’re deploying our resources to best protect our constituents. Traditionally, our officers patrol the urban area of town, the Sheriff’s deputies patrol the rural and often that leaves just a few deputies to patrol a vast area of the county and can affect response time. So, the Sheriff has asked us to take over patrol of part of the town that is considered rural, the southern portion – you can see it on the map here. The bottom line there where we see I guess about five blue dots – that shows the heat map. There aren’t that many calls that come in from this area, it’s relatively sparsely populated and it turns out that most of our officers are closer anyway and, and have taken the majority of those calls. No money is changing hands in this arrangement. The agencies involved will continue to cooperate with one another. This will formalize what has already been the practice and I think give our constituents a better response time. There is no action on your part that’s necessary. Just wanted to inform you and if you had any questions, Chief Spears is prepared to answer any concerns you may have. By the way, the Police Board of Commissioners has been made aware of this and have signed off on this change. Anybody like to ask any questions of the Chief? Okay, great. The next item I have is Community Center and I know that there was, when you saw this on the agenda there were some people that were concerned about what this was. I just wanted to tell you that we have had very early and I want to emphasize very, very early exploratory conversations with potential partners on a Community Center including our school district, the YMCA, healthcare providers and also our neighbors in Whitestown but again, we are very, very early in this process and we have agreed that the next step is to take a look at potential sites for a Community Center. The YMCA will lead a survey to determine where such a center could go and we will take the next steps from there. But again, very, very early, just exploratory conversations. There have been no definitive actions taken on this matter. McElderry Mayor – Stehr Community Crossing Grant – McElderry John – Stehr We have been awarded a Community Crossing Grant from the state of nearly $500,000 to be used to make improvements on our local roads and bridges. This is something that’s going to come up to you later on your agenda here. The main criteria in this is efficiency in operations and an approved asset management plan and when Lance comes up here to talk about this with modesty he will tell you that this money is just generally available for municipalities but I want to point out that we have been extraordinarily successful in getting this funding since the grants were first instituted in 2016 and that is largely due to Lance and his Page 5 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 approach and his efforts on our behalf. This is just another example of the stellar work that I believe he does for our town and I just wanted to recognize that before you take up the Community Crossing Grant allocation today. Grant Writer Review – in February, I asked for the position of a grant writer to help our town identify opportunities across all of our departments to bring in extra funding for specific programs. The Council responded with a $60,000 appropriation from the Food & Beverage Fund as that fund is specifically for economic development. My idea was to bring in a contract employee to serve in that role as a grant writer at the rate of $5,000 a month and that we would revisit that idea in six months to make sure that it was bearing fruit for the town. So I asked our grant writer, Amy Connelly, to submit a report which is included in your packet and I just want to go over a few highlights here. To date, we have submitted requests for funding totaling $502,239. Additional requests in progress and due in the short term increases that amount by $35,000 and what we have secured, money in the door so far, is $15,563 for two separate projects for Parks and Recreation. Also, there are several major grant funds being requested right now including an Aid to Firefighter Grant which will benefit the Fire Department at almost $280,000 and Indiana Recycling Market Development Program Grant at $56,717 and a State Homeland Security Program Grant that will benefit our Police Department at just under $150,000. In addition, Amy brought our representative of the State Office of Community & Rural Affairs or OCRA into Zionsville to assess the needs and possibilities and is building a dating, a database, I should say, for projects related to the Carpenter Nature Preserve. Many of these requests are considered over months and we will not know the level of success until the fall but building that database and becoming more familiar with grants that are available takes a lot of work on the front end and the payoff comes down the road. Beyond the grant applications, the relationships and contacts that Amy is making will be a huge net positive for the town. There have been some projects that were not quite the right fit for the town so Amy has steered them toward other community organizations including those that you see on your screen right now – Zionsville Community Schools, the Education Foundation, The Hussey-Mayfield Library, the Zionsville Parks Foundation Board, ZAMWell which is an organization that deals with mental health in our community and also zWORKS. They’ve put together a sort of a grant writers consortium that Amy has led and that I believe is having positive imp – excuse me – positive impact all across our town. So, based on all of this information and the benefits that we’ve gained so far and the benefits still likely in the pipeline, I recommend we continue down this path and reconsider the program each year on a yearly basis going forward, so starting in the spring and then every year in the spring going forward. Is there any, any comments or thoughts on that? Plunkett John, will there be an ask or will there be action required by the Council to continue that for another six months or how does that? Stehr You appropriated $60,000 which is a 12-month appropriation so, no. I’m not asking for anything additional from the Council. I just wanted to update you as I said I would after six months. Page 6 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett Okay. McElderry John, I’m assuming that the grants are something that kind of pop up annually. They, they may be one-time things – Stehr Right. McElderry Is there a way to look enough into the future to realize before we allocate the $60,000 that, that it makes sense for the coming year each time to, to have a grant writer in place? Stehr I think that’s hard because as you said, things do come up and things are, are not anticipated to come up but they do and we take advantage of them but I also think that the opportunity to have partnerships with some of these other organizations in town means a lot too. When I started I stopped giving grants from the Food & Beverage Fund to local entities. I think that that’s probably not the role of government to do that but I think this is a tangible way that we’re helping some of the other organizations in our community that are doing good and important work. McElderry Thanks. Melton Mayor Stehr – Stehr Yes – Melton Is your thought that you’re going to continue doing Food & Beverage money in the spring, is that what you’re saying? Stehr Yes, yes. Food & Beverage money is supposed to be for economic development and I think this has clear economic development applications. Sampson Okay, so when I did the math, I feel like you split them up, the specific $502,000 that are submitted – you, you gave us exactly four grants, one which has been received and three that are outstanding. So would you say she’s working on one a month? Should, are we looking at small grants? The grants are – Stehr There are several ongoing at a time. It’s not really one a month. I mean, I guess maybe that’s what it breaks down to but – Sampson Right. Stehr But there are things that are going on together in various ways, in various places. Sampson Okay and is, this might be a Lance question but are you continuing to write the grant for the Community Crossings or did that become part of her role or is that? You are still? Lantz [Inaudible off microphone] Page 7 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Sampson Right, okay. Stein John, will we, will we continue to review every six months? I know how tedious grants are – Stehr Yes. Stein And they take forever, not only to submit but then to hear back on them. Are we going to do six-month reviews is that? Stehr I think yearly reviews – Stein Okay. Stehr Starting in the spring of 2025. Stein Okay. Stehr So six months from now – Sampson So a second six month – Stehr And then a year after that. Pardon me? Sampson So a second six month and then yearly from there? Stehr Correct, correct. That’s my proposal. Plunkett Well, I think we’re talking about two different things here like the review of the results and the contract itself and what I was asking earlier was the contract itself and, and – Stehr Right. Plunkett To your point, we’re not talking about the contract. So – Stein Correct. Plunkett We’re not talking about renewing the contract – Sampson No, not today but – Plunkett So, so the review is just the review of the results, right? Stehr Correct. Sampson Oh, I thought we, I thought actually when you set it up we were going to – maybe I didn’t hear that right – I know we appropriated the $60,000 which covers the 12 months – Stehr Yes. Page 8 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Sampson But I thought we were going to review if we wanted to keep doing it in six months. Plunkett Yes, I was under the impression that that’s what we were doing as well but – Stehr Yes we’ll, we’ll talk about that in the budget talks that are ongoing right now. Sampson I didn’t know if we needed to revote that we were – Plunkett Well, no that’s, that’s what I was asking – Sampson Yes. Plunkett And there’s, since the contract or since there’s – Sampon Enough money – Plunkett We approved the position under the impression that it was going to be a six- month and then a six-month review, but it’s not going to be a six-month review it’s a year-long contract because we appropriated the money for it, is the way I’m understanding that. Stehr Yes, we’re on the same page there. All right, the next item I have is the banking RFP results. We did an RFP to consider a new home for our town bank accounts and Cindy Poore is going to step up here and tell you where all that has landed. Poore Good morning. Sampson Good morning. McElderry Good morning. Poore Towards the end of June we sent out a banking RFP to nine banks and the responses were due back to me by July 18th and all nine banks responded. After careful consideration, we’ve made a decision to move our accounts to BMO. We are in the process of well, I say we – Jon Oberlander is in the process of reviewing the agreement just to make sure everything’s in line but at this point, BMO is the one that we have chosen. With the RFP responses that we received, they offered us the best value. Also, their online business banking portal was a big part in the decision as well. The functionality and the ease of use of that, I mean, that’s something we use on a daily basis so that’s really important and really their RFP, in general, was just very well done. So given that there are no issues with the agreement, we’ll start the transition process in the next few weeks. There’s prep that’ll have to take place prior to us making or moving the money but our goal is to have everything moved over by November 1st. Plunkett Cindy, will this include P-cards? So the P-cards we have now are through Chase. Will P-cards also go there? Page 9 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Poore No. Right now the state, we piggybacked on the, with the state on the P-card program. They just made a change to U.S. Bank from Chase so I’m in the process of getting that information to see if that’s the same change we want to make. Plunkett Okay. Poore So. Melton How long was this contract for? Poore I believe it’s two years. Melton Is it two years? Okay. Poore Yes, yes. Sampson Two years with BMO? Poore Yes. Sampson Okay and does this include the RDC banking? Poore Yes it does. Sampson And, and you can see where my mind is going. Does that? Poore No, there’s no conflict. She is a non-voting member of the RDC and as long as it conflict of interest form is completed, there’s no issue. Sampson So, Katie Aeschliman is on the School Board and she’s the non-voting member of – right? Poore Right. Sampson Okay, of the RDC and she is a BMO? Poore Correct. Sampson Vice President or? Poore I believe so. Plunkett Yes, I mean, I’m assuming Jon Oberlander is reviewing conflicts across the board – Poore I– Plunkett Right? Poore Consulted with him prior to any decision being made. Page 10 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett Yes. Poore Yes. Plunkett And he, and he would confirm that there’s no conflict? Poore Correct, yes. Especially since she’s a non-voting member of the RDC – Sampson That’s what I was thinking. Poore And as long as we fill out a conflict of interest form and file it – Sampson Well, and that’s something where couldn’t a different School Board member switch with her if there was? Poore I mean if there was, yes but in this situation there is not. Sampson Okay. Poore Yes. Thank you. Sampson Thank you. Plunkett Thank you. Stehr The next item is the 2025 Budget. We had the first workshop last week and I asked for Council feedback by today so we can incorporate the changes in time for the second budget workshop. That will be part of the regular Council meeting on September 3rd. The first public reading of the budget will be at the Council’s September 16th regular meeting and that will include an opportunity for public comment, then second public reading and formal approval on October 7th so everything is on track with the 2025 budget process and I thank you for all your feedback and we’re working on incorporating those things in, in the next presentation that you’ll get in a couple of weeks or a week, I guess. And then finally, the Fee Schedule Update. One of the issues we talked about at that first budget workshop was the Fee Schedule Update that you’ll be considering later on your agenda this morning. It has been several years since our public safety fees were updated and we are seeking operational changes in both the DPW and Planning & Building that will make us more efficient, more collegial and slightly improve our revenue picture. Now I do understand that I do not have a vote here but I want to signal my strong support for this proposal and I hope you’ll look kindly upon it when it comes before you later this morning. So that’s all I have, thank you very much. Any questions? McElderry I had a question earlier, John, but – and I know it’s very, very early and, as you mentioned, the meetings have been investigative at, at most but you mentioned meetings with Whitestown as it relates to a Community Center. This is the first I had heard that the Community Center might be a shared resource with another town. Is that, is that what your thoughts were or? Page 11 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Stehr Well, it’s, again, it’s just exploratory – McElderry Right – Stehr To see where they are. I mean they’re, they’re considering similar types of development but when you look at our 33,000 people and their 20,000 people, it certainly gives us a bigger range and, and gives us the opportunity if something is going to be more, more able to be supported with, when you add our numbers together. I think that where we are right now, a Community Center for a population our size that, that might be hard to achieve. McElderry Yes. Stehr But I think if we bring the two together that might give us other opportunities but, again, it’s all very early – McElderry Understand. Stehr I have, I have no formed thoughts on this. We’re just exploring the possibilities. McElderry Okay, thank you. Stehr And I’m sorry, I’ll just go one step further and say that it’s been important to me to, to kind of improve our relationships with Whitestown so I think that any discussions like this that we have with them are, are good on that level too. You know, that, that kind of cooperation I think it’s time to put together some of the animosity, put aside some of the animosities we’ve had in the past and move forward in a more positive way with our neighbors from Whitestown. McElderry Thanks John. Stehr Thank you. Norris Thank you. Stehr Thank you. TOWN COUNCIL UPDATES Plunkett All right, are there any Town Council updates? Melton I just want to mention that HWC met with residents in Perry Township last week regarding the Comprehensive Plan and it was very informative, productive and lots of insights from that farming district and I wanted to thank everybody who attended including Councilor Evan Norris and some other Commissioners from the Planning Commission, Jim Hurst and Kendrick Davis. Plunkett All right, anything else from Councilors? Page 12 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 OLD BUSINESS Consideration of an Ordinance to Amend the Zoning Ordinance for the Town of Zionsville (Petition #2024-39-OA, Practical Difficulty/Unnecessary Hardship) Ordinance 2024-17 Plunkett All right, we will move on to the first item of Old Business. This is a Consideration of an Ordinance to Amend the Zoning Ordinance for the Town of Zionsville. This is Petition 2024-39-OA, Practical Difficulty/Unnecessary Hardship. This is Ordinance 2024-17 and we have Mike Dale, Director of Planning & Building. Good morning. Dale Good morning. On further consideration from the Board of Zoning Appeals and in consultation with the President of the Plan Commission, they have both advised me to advise you that they now wish to, wish for the Council to vote no on this ordinance so that the unnecessary hardship finding remains in place. Plunkett All right, are there any questions from Councilors? McElderry I guess just have one and I’m happy to vote no if that’s what you’re asking for. I guess the bigger question is there was, obviously, some desire to move forward in this direction and, and move towards practical difficulty. Can you just share with us what, why the change? Was it just some Village residents came forward and said that they had concerns or did you reconsider it? But for it to get to this point it’s kind of interesting that at this point we’re now having to give it back so. Dale Right, it is interesting, and I think there’s just been a, a change of minds in, in further consideration. Initially, my impression in speaking with both Boards, they were supportive of the idea of changing that finding from unnecessary hardship to practical difficulty to the extent that my impression might, my understanding and my memory is that the BZA endorsed that change and, and what’s led the Plan Commission to recommend favorably on that ordinance. However, I think there was a change of heart. I don’t know what precipitated exactly the BZA’s decision to, to want to reconsider it but as you may recall, last month I asked the Town Council to grant a little more time so the BZA could reconsider the ordinance and in further, on further deliberation at the BZA hearing, they decided well, we think that the unnecessary hardship is, we’re accustomed to that, they, they said they’re accustomed to that finding now more so to a place where they can better utilize or process that finding better and that they think that the town would actually be served better by keeping that unnecessary hardship finding and so at that point they asked me to bring that to you. And then I did speak with the President of the Plan Commission, explained the situation. He felt that yes, in, in light of this new information, he would be supportive that, for the Town Council to vote no on this item. Sampson Is there a way to have I guess split rules later where rural versus urban is different or? Because I think that’s some of the struggle within the community. Is there a way to do that? Page 13 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Dale According to Dan Taylor who is the attorney for the BZA and Plan Commission, yes, that is a possibility. We could have a separate finding for the rural versus urban areas of the town. Sampson Do you think that that would serve the urban versus rural constituents better? McElderry I think that’s absolutely something we should consider and that’s one of the reasons why I asked is, you know, the rural folks a lot of times we’re talking about this, something very simple that does not involve the tearing down of a home or putting up a home that doesn’t seem to fit in the area. You know, if you’re living on acreage it’s much less of an issue so thank you for bringing it up and I would like to discuss that further if we could. Dale In, in what way or timing? Is this something that we should start to formulate and talk, perhaps talk with the Plan Commission and BZA more and then – Sampson I feel like – Dale Begin drafting? Sampson This would be more of Craig and Tim and Evan and Joe’s constituents that would be more concerned with wanting to switch the designation because I would think Jason and mine would be more for what it is. Norris Let me ask a question – is there any time restrictions with, with regard to if we denied this today, is there anything that forces us to, to not – it’s probably a legal question. Dale Yes – Norris I wouldn’t think so, right? There, there isn’t any but what I’m thinking about back to is like the PUD is the one year cooling off period – Dale Yes. Norris Or something like that. I wouldn’t think there’s a corollary for this. Steuerwald Not that I’m aware of. Norris Okay. Dale I think that the – Sampson That’s a substantial change if we went from the full to half anyway. Norris Yes. Dale I think the ordinance, the amendment you’re considering now would be substantially different than what you just considered so I don’t think there would be a timeframe limitation for that. Page 14 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett Yes I would, for what it’s worth, I would accept the recommendation from Mike to vote this down and if there’s a desire to consider differences between urban and rural, I don’t know if that should be considered what’s in the update to the Comprehensive Plan and whether or not we should kind of slow this down and just make sure we get that right as well. Sampson Yes. Norris No. Plunkett I don’t think we need to make a decision right now to jump into an ordinance rewrite about this when we’re doing so much else around town so. Dale Gotcha. Plunkett That’d be my recommendation. Sampson Sounds good. McElderry If there is a need for a volunteer though to, to just work through things, I’m happy to be involved. Dale Thank you very much. Plunkett All right, are there any other questions or comments for Mike? So let’s think this through here – Adam, from a motion we just would vote this down. We would vote to deny the petition or deny the ordinance? Steuerwald Correct. Stein But the motion is to approve it and then we just vote against that, right? Steuerwald No you, you motion to deny. Stein Yes, motion to deny it, okay. Plunkett And then when the, when the, when the ordinance comes down we would sign – Sampson No. Steuerwald You don’t even sign. Sampson I thought we signed no? Steuerwald I would not sign it because it says that you’ve approved it. Usually the Yeas and Nays are – Plunkett That’s right. Steuerwald 4 to 3 or 5 to 2. If you are totally rejecting it then there’s, there’s nothing to sign. Page 15 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett Yes, so I guess Amy, historically what we would’ve done here if we deny it is we would, if a motion is made to deny, we would sign as yea and you would make that change on the backend of the ordinance, is that correct? Lacy Yes, that’s what Heather has had you do – Plunkett Sorry, Adam. I should’ve, I should’ve brought that up. I’m sorry. Lacy In the past. Steuerwald Okay, yes, if that’s what you’ve done in the past. Plunkett So that way we don’t have to reprint it and rehear it and redo everything, we can just – Amy would, would write the motion down on the ordinance and then we would modify it that way. Sampson So the motion would be to deny? Plunkett Yes, so, so I will make a motion – unless there’s any other questions or problems from Councilors – I’ll make a motion to deny Ordinance 2024-17. Norris Second. Plunkett And a second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by, signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. So when this ordinance comes down, Amy’s made the change for the motion so we would, sign as yea as, as it was supporting. Norris And she wrote denied in big letters right there. NEW BUSINESS Consideration of an Ordinance Amending the Zionsville Fee Schedule Ordinance 2024-22 (First Reading) Plunkett Perfect. All right, up next on the agenda is the first item of New Business. This is a Consideration of an Ordinance Amending the Zionsville Fee Schedule, Ordinance 2024-22. This is a first reading so we will have another, another bite at this at the next Town Council meeting. We have Chief VanGorder, Mike Dale, Director of Planning & Building and Lance Lantz, Director of DPW to present as needed. Page 16 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 VanGorder Good morning Mr. President. I’ll be going first representing the Fire Department for the proposed Fee Ordinance’s changes for you this morning. I’ll call your attention to Exhibit A. We’ll start on page 1 of 12. A reminder these fees are not for all constituents, these are just fees for individuals that would be utilizing these services. Police Chief Spears is in the room if there are any questions regarding the law enforcement recording video new fee that he would be establishing. Under the Fire Department Fire Prevention Section, there is one proposed Fee Ordinance change and that is for failed new construction inspections going from $75 to $100. On the second page under our Program Fees, we’ve had tremendous requests from the community for new programs. So you’ll see there that there are eight new programs or offerings from the Fire Department and, again, these are just to cover costs within the program fees representing from CPR student handbooks, CPR non-certified classes, CPR certification classes, first aid classes, a discounted program offering for large groups that may request CPR training, an explorer program participation fee, first aid training kits and a refund for our project lifesaver tracking devices if they’re not returned. There are also within those program fees three revisions and that is simply updating our current Fee Schedule for our CPR offering from $70 to $75 and so on. On page 3 of 12, are the most substantive changes that are before you for consideration this morning and that is relating to our ambulance service or our emergency medical service fees. Keeping in mind the Fire Department does not charge unless we administer fees at a house or we transport a patient to a hospital. Item of note is these fees have not been considered for increase since seven years ago. So some of these fees do increase and I’ll go down through those. Our BLS which is basic life support resident fee is going from $540 to $810. Our basic life support emergency non-resident would go from $750 to $1,200. Our ALS emergency resident would go from $670 to $1,005. Our ALS emergency for non-resident would go from $850 to $1,400. Our ALS-2 emergency resident would go from $800 to $1,250. Our ALS emergency non- resident would go from $1,000 to $1,650. Our non-transport for resident would go from $300 to $400 and our transportation per mile would go from $15 to $18. BLS non-emergent and BLS non-emergency rates there a the end go from $400 to $810 and from $500 to $1,200. While on the paper they appear to be substantial increases, again, they’ve not gone up for seven years. We’ve shared with the Council members prior to the meeting, a spreadsheet showing local areas and all of these representative changes bring us from the bottom to the mid- point or right around the mid-point of all the fees that are being charged by ambulance service providers within the Central Indiana area. The next item would be for EMS fees only. We are proposing annual COLA increase that allow these fees on an annual basis if there were no other actions taken by the Council to increase based upon the COLA increase. Moving on to the next page under Special Events – you remember previously a couple meetings ago we did raise or amend the compensation for police and firefighters for special events to $60 an hour. So this action here where an on- duty police officer and EMT/firefighter would allow us to raise the fees that we would charge to those events that are not town-sponsored from $50 to $60 an Page 17 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 hour and that’s on page 4. Under Special Events, there’s an update there regarding some of the truck nomenclature that the Fire Departments use. We no longer have a grass truck and that’s why we’re changing those two sections deleting the grass truck and then adding a fire suppression apparatus that allows us to charge for those requests that may be there. The last item on page 4 of 12 is the town does sponsor several special events where fees are not charged for these services. Those are all listed, listed there. Item #7 had not been updated on the previous – excuse me – Fee Ordinance so that is a correction. It has been the practice of the town not to charge for those things, but this just brings that up to date and reflects that. That’s a brief overview of the Fire Department. I’m more than happy to answer any questions before I turn it over to Lance or Mike. McElderry I would just say during those discussions that we had there was some talk about not waiting another seven years and then having a substantial increase, that we should be looking at these more on an annual basis and keeping, can measure it with adjoining towns which is what you’ve already done but I, for one, would love to see us not wait another seven years and then have 30, 40, 50% increases. I don’t know what your thoughts are on that. VanGorder I would agree and I think that COLA helps identify that. We’ll be prepared on an annual basis to give reports to the Council regarding specifically the ambulance fees. I think Lance will talk about maybe what their change is and how they’ll begin to review those but that would be our hope, it would be to be able to provide a report. There were two other items that were shared or items of concern. We are looking at, at this time we’re not suggesting any changes for a failed inspection but we’re going to consider that. We have until the next Council meeting to make any revision to that. We would ask that the other one was our programmatic fees for our cadet program. We would ask that that be able to be included in this. We are exploring the opportunity to find corporate sponsorships for that so we wouldn’t have to but if we’re not able to cover the fees for the programmatic items in the cadet program, we’d like to be able to share those with the students and we have always worked with different programs where if there were any hardships that were there we’d help address those on a one-on-one basis as we work with Finance and Records. Thank you. Norris And with, with that change that you were talking about, the failed inspection – was that Councilor McElderry’s suggestion that the step up – VanGorder Yes we’ll – Norris A second and third failed inspection? VanGorder Yes, kind of an escalating scale as they continue to fail. We’re considering that right now. Right now we don’t have any proposed changes, but we would like to reserve the right to come back before the Council for a final reading and approval to see if there were changes at that time we’d like to suggest. Norris Okay, thank you. Page 18 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Melton Chief, one quick question before you leave – so, I brought this up in the last Council – the CPR classes is something that I feel strongly about that it should be discounted or, or, or free in my opinion. This fee that we’re going from $25 to $35 per person for the Friends and Family CPR Full Class and Skill, no certification – my question to you is with, how, how many of those classes do you really hold a year and then how many attendees do we have annually in that? VanGorder I don’t have that information readily available Councilor but I’m happy to get that for all of the CPR programs and provide that to you this week. Melton I specifically just want the Friends and Family program information if we can. I just don’t want there to be any barriers and I didn’t know if maybe a corporate sponsor for grants for if we’re having a bunch of these classes, I’d like to kind of understand that because I’d like to be maybe, maybe help with that situation because I think it’s a really important thing to cast out if it’s – and it’s one thing to be certified for the town and everybody else but as a resident, I think if we could maybe figure out something. I’m going to, I’m going to approve this with that $35 today but I think in the future I’d just like to know a little bit more about the Friends and Family CPR training so if you can get that number to me and maybe I can come up with some ideas for a way we can reduce that in the future, that cost. Sampson I like that. I like what Craig is saying. I actually took that class through my church and that was, that was my question as well. Do we have, I know there was some mention of churches when I first read it. Is there a not-for-profit rate? Like do Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts, do they, could we do something that encourages the learning of these skills because when I took that class that you’re speaking of with no certification, I definitely learned a new, at least it was new to me prior to my previous CPR training, where it was suggested that we don’t do the breathing, that we just kept pumping hearts and I remember telling my friends this and they actually argued with me saying I was wrong and I said I just had this training and they didn’t believe me. So, I would love for our community to understand from, tell me if I’m wrong – but I was told that most people don’t have the strength to do the breathing and the pumping if it’s, if you can’t that you should just go straight to pumping so that was, to me, very important information that was given with percentages of survival rates and so I agree with Craig – is there a way to consider having maybe a once-a-year free opportunity or if we could work that into the calendar because having no barriers would be a great idea. VanGorder I think all of those comments are, are well received and I’m happy to provide the requested information back to Councilor Melton. I’ll go back and speak with our CPR instructors. This program is led by Vinny who does a magnificent job. He’s got a lot of respect from the community and I like the idea to see if we couldn’t find maybe a biannual event to be able and try and offer something free. I’ll tell you that lots of times that’s why the request has come in for larger programs because we have a lot of corporate sponsors come and say the company will write the check and allow as many employees to come as they would like to have or somebody in the community picks up and helps cover the cost but I’ll get some more information and report back to Council before the next meeting. Page 19 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Sampson Thank you. Plunkett Thank you, Chief. Lantz Good morning. As Mike prepares to come up here in a moment to continue walking through the ordinance update, I just wanted to give a brief explanation. Most of you are aware of this but for those interested in the public, since 2021, the town has been taking steps prepared to reduce and then eventually eliminate its reliance upon a third-party consultant to serve as the town engineer, specifically to projects that come before the Plan Commission – developments, new developments, redevelopments. To that end, DPW has increased its staffing level by three. For many, many years the town relied first on HNTB to serve in this capacity and then in more recent times with Beam Longest & Neff and currently the way a project works when it comes to town is they sign a piece of paper at the time they submit their project agreeing to reimburse the town for any direct costs associated with a review and inspection of their projects. So now there’s really no great anticipation or, or awareness of what the ultimate project costs are going to be and throughout the life of the project this project owner gets a monthly bill. The town receives one bill each month. The town staff has to break that out into 40 or 50 different bills and send those out to project owners. Under this new scenario, when someone brings a project to the town, they will have basically two fees. They will have their review fee paid upfront and they will have a construction inspection fee paid at the time that or prior to construction beginning. So with basic overview, I’ll let Mike come up and continue to walk through the fees in his department and then we’ll kind of conclude with DPW just to follow the order that they’re prepared in the ordinance. Dale Thank you Lance and again good morning. The Planning Department has taken a look at its current fees for petitions and there’s a few other permit-type changes in this ordinance before you. I don’t know exactly how long it’s been since the town revised its fees for the Planning Department but in taking a look at them, it looks like they did need updating. What we did is we looked at what the petition fees are being charged by our neighboring communities and then also I looked at what I calculated as the overhead costs for the town to provide these services for petitions and what I found is that in, in many cases actually, several, we were similar to what the municipalities charged and in some cases we were less in which case I would adjust our fee higher. Also what I looked at again in terms of overhead, the overhead costs or overhead fees, well the overhead costs that we are incurring to provide this service, how they compared to with the average municipality fee. In some cases we were below and in some cases we were very close. So when comparing what we’re currently charging as a petition fee versus what the municipalities are charging on average for that same service versus the overhead costs that the town in incurring to provide that service, I chose the higher of those, of those three. And so what you have in front of you is a proposal to increase the petition fees charged by the town. I like to think of these as user fees really, user fees that are, that would be incurred by users of the services provided by the Planning Department, Planning & Building Department. So if someone needs a variance, someone needs a special exception or a special exception from the BZA or they’re filing for a rezoning or some other petition in Page 20 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 front of the Plan Commission and BZA, then they would incur that cost of the addition of the higher fee. So there are many fees referenced in here. I don’t know if you want me to go through each one of these. I don’t really think that’s helpful to you since you have the ordinance in front of you. During some conversations with, over the last week or so I wondered whether you might want to consider adjusting the fee for single-family home residence. For example, sometimes a homeowner might want to come and need or request a variance to encroach into a side yard setback in which case the filing fee being a couple hundred dollars, several hundred dollars, that might be an area where you might want to actually reduce the fee and to throw out a number you maybe want to consider like, like a 50% reduction in the fee for homeowners in the town since they’re already paying the property taxes and so forth. That is just a, I wanted to throw that out there as as an option for you to consider. Yes, Mr. Norris? Norris What page is that on? Dale Let’s see that would be – Norris Specifically. Dale I think my page numbering is a little different than yours. Under Land Use Petitions Development Standards Variances, Development Standards Variance. It would be – Sampson Is it a small? Dale I’m sorry? Sampson Isn’t it a smaller print with the redacted numbers or? Dale It’s, the one I have is with blue, with a blue font – let me see if I have another version. Norris I’ve got pages 5 of 12 and 6 of 12 that is the Development Standards Variance. Dale So yes, right. Right, right, right. Page 6, the top of page 6 of 12 perhaps, Development Standards Variance. Norris The $380 plus $95? Dale Correct. Norris Got it. Sampson I mean, in our discussions, I had spoken to you about how I was concerned with more fees going on to our constituents’ residential requests. So if you’re suggesting that something in line with that, I mean that’s what it sounds like to me. Page 21 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Dale That’s exactly what I’m suggesting or offering maybe – Sampson Yes. Dale In, in having talks. Sampson I think you and I, excuse me – I think you and I were looking at the numbers and how, where it fell and what jump was made – Dale Yes. Sampson Right? Dale Yes. Sampson Yes. I’m actually for what he’s suggesting. I just don’t – Dale It’s not – Sampson I do like that we are looking for ways for revenues to come to our budget and some, a lot of these ways are very practical and have had a lot of time lapse between our last revision of the fees. So I do agree that some of these seem larger but they are larger because we haven’t done anything for years to bring them up to current numbers but I don’t want, I don’t want to make our residents feel huge burdens when they are trying to do improvements to their property as they’ve already had large tax increase, increases for their assessed value so when I was in a meeting with them I was alone so none of you were there but I was bouncing ideas off of them and this was an area that Mike was open to that this could help people not feel it personally so much. It’s one thing when we’re, when you’re building. I thought the shift from the engineering firm to us was a, was a great idea. A lot of times we’re just the passthrough of the fee and this time we’re using our own people to collect the fee. We’re, we’re, we’re keeping the money but this is one of those moments where I was just trying to stand up for the constituent who wants to do something to their property and shouldn’t feel penalized for wanting to improve property because that actually improves our town when people are doing improvements and so. Melton And, and you and we want to encourage them to pull permits and file for these things as opposed to – Sampson Just doing it under the table. Melton Yes. Sampson Yes, so that was one of my feedback. Dale I’ll not that there is some precedent for that regarding municipal and school fees. On page 9 of 12 there is a provision for the town to charge to reduce the fee by one-half relating to municipal and school fees. That’s about the middle of page 9 of 12. Page 22 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Sampson So how low could you go in, in staying in line without making it out of whack in the Development Standards Variance for the residential district from the $380? Dale That’s hard to estimate. I just threw against this, there’s some precedent with the municipal fees. That’s how I chose the figure of reducing the fee by 50%. Stein I guess Mike – Dale Yes? Stein How many of these fees we collect in a, in a normal year? Just a range. Dale Plan Commission and BZA petition revenues for 2023 were about $148,000 for 2023. Stein Okay but that’s made up of all the different types? Dale All Plan Commission and BZA petitions. Stein Sure. Dale Not, not all, not including permits. Stein So but on the residential which is what we’re contemplating – Dale Oh. Stein We have, we probably don’t have that number. Dale I don’t have that number. Stein I was just trying to determine if it’s material or, I mean, if we pulled 12 a year then – Dale It’s, I would suggest it’s very, it’s relative, it’s a small figure. There’s not many homeowners. Stein Yes. Norris Mike, you did a great job in our meeting discussing the hours and breaking it out what the overhead was. Do you, do you feel like specifically the commercial or the subdivision type fees that, that you’re looking to increase, do you feel as though that what’s in this document now covers those overhead costs and those things like that because we were talking about how many hours go into – Dale Right. Norris Your staff working on this – Dale Yes. Page 23 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Norris And making sure that the, again, the town is not here to generate revenue necessarily but we’re here to at least make sure that we’re covering our costs of, of the employees and, and time and materials so. Do you feel like this has gotten to a point where you feel like it’s a good starting point at least for, for this year to, to see or for next year to see how this goes? Dale I think it’s a great starting point. I think it’s something we should revisit perhaps every year considering cost of living increases or inflation but, yes, I think this is a dramatic improvement over what we’re currently charging and especially for the commercial fees. Norris Yes because the commercial fees seem very, very low – Dale Yes. Norris Compared to, compared to the amount of time that I assume goes into – Dale Right. Norris Review process. Dale And it’s easy to underestimate actually how much staff time goes into these projects. As I was explaining we have a meeting where we review all the filings and so I have my Planning staff together and we’re talking about each petition and making sure we’re not overlooking something or something comes up with a project in the middle of the day and so staff will gather for half an hour and talk about a project to make sure we’re getting it right so. It’s easy to overlook all these other incidental meetings and talks about these projects that they’re paid by the taxpayer – Norris Right. Dale For those projects so I tried to, in, in my calculations I tried to take those, those meetings into account. Norris Thank you. Plunkett Any other questions for Mike? Melton Mike, we had one, during our meeting we mentioned kind of the PUD zoning district and the filing fees with that. We kind of talked about – that’s, that’s a pretty significant, significant increase, however, with projects like that that have the multiple, I guess zonings within the PUD, are you still feeling like that, that raise is enough based on residential, commercial, multi-family, and all those things kind of being combined or do you believe that this is the same as, as we looked at in the meeting. Since the meeting are we still thinking this is the way you want to present it? This is going to cover your costs? Dale PUDs can vary greatly. There can be relatively simple PUDs and there could be complex ones. So the way we’ve calculated this fee is to take sort of the average PUD which is, doesn’t exist so to speak, there’s going to be probably smaller Page 24 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 ones and large ones. As proposed, they increase about 85%, increase in PUD fee as we’re proposing. So it’s a substantial increase but it’s still about the same as what the area municipalities are charging. We’re dramatically, significantly below what our neighboring communities are charging for the same service. Melton We still are even with – Dale No we’re about, we’re on, on par now. The average fee for a municipality is about $2,200 and we’re proposing $2,270 so we’re very, we’re, we’re right on with the average of the area municipalities. Melton And plus the $80 per acre, right. Dale Yes, plus $80 per acre. Melton Great, I just, I think that’s important to kind of note that that’s a tool that’s being used often and a lot and when you have a proposed PUD there’s a lot to dissect and there are architectural – and we’ve, we’ve seen it through the South Village and other proposals so I just wanted to make sure that we have enough time to really dissect the PUDs as presented, whether they’re 130 acres or 60 so – it’s just a popular tool so I want to make sure – Dale Right. Melton We have enough in there to cover the time that it’s going to take you to protect the town. Dale And all the more reason we would like to revisit this annually if possible. Also, I did not get into most of the building permit fees. Kind of what, what prompted this discussion is the petition fees so I’d like to plan on coming back next year with a further revision for other building permit fees. Melton Great. Plunkett Thanks Mike. Dale Thank you. Lantz All right, thank you for your patience this morning. If I could address or direct you to page, I believe, 11, midway down you’ll see Public Works Department Land Use Petition Engineering Review Fees. Those two tables represent DPW fees included in this change. These are all fees, as I stated earlier, to new development. There are no individual fees associated with DPW. We took each of the project types that come before the Plan Commission that Mike, Mike’s office charges for, went through those with the goal to cover our staff time in the review of these and while these are new to the town as new revenue, these are not new fees to development. Those had been previously paid through the passthrough process that we have so development has routinely been paying for the review and inspection. So, just briefly, the first table you see on page 11, those are the project types, the petition types that come before the Plan Commission. Typically a base fee plus a per-acre or per-lot fee to scale the Page 25 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 review efforts that are necessary and then on page 12 of 12 are the construction inspection fees and you can see there, there are only basically two approaches for a subdivision and this is by section of a subdivision so a subdivision can have two, three, four, 10, 10 sections depending on how large it is. It’s a base fee plus a per-foot charge for various elements of the construction, right? That’s how construction projects tend to scale, not necessarily by size but by complexity. Complexity is represented by pipes in the ground, etc. Commercial site development though, however, is a little bit different. We have a base fee plus a per-acre fee. That’s how the construction efforts for commercial sites tend to scale themselves. I will point out as I did with each of our talking groups there, the very last sentence. In my many years of working with the school on their projects, they have routinely complained, I guess, for lack of a more delicate word, about the fees for another tax-afforded agency and so for your consideration I would, I have included the line there at the bottom that the Zionsville Community Schools are exempt only from the DPW fees listed within this ordinance so. With that, I’d be happy to, happy to answer any questions you may have or recall any of the previous speakers. Sampson So in that last statement, then we would be covering the costs of the schools, I guess commercial site development? Lantz Well we would be providing services at no charge to the school. Norris I don’t have any questions. Plunkett Do, did anybody else have any questions for Lance? Or Mike or Chief? Norris No, I would just like to, to thank Mike, Lance, George and Chief VanGorder and Chief Deputy Potts for, for all their hard work in, in putting – there’s a lot of work on the backend that went into this so and they, they came with the data and statistics so thank you all for, for doing that. Sampson Yes, thank you. Lantz This is an exciting time for, for I think for Mike’s shop and for mine. We’re really looking forward to the efficiencies and the better service that we can provide our customers. Plunkett I would point out to Council that this is a first reading and, as mentioned before, if there are questions, modifications, changes, etc. that anyone would like, please reach out to Lance, Mike, Chief, you can cc myself, Vice President Burk, cc Heather, maybe even Amy. We have to have this ordinance ready by Monday. So if you have any questions or concerns or anything you would like changed on this, please make sure to have that to the folks responsible this week, preferably by Tuesday so that Adam and Heather and their team can review everything before the meeting Monday, all right? Or before the deadline, I should say, on Monday. All right, so, again, this is a first reading. We’ll get another shot at this at the first September meeting. If there are no questions or comments from Councilors, I would make a motion to introduce Ordinance 2024-22 on first reading. Page 26 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Norris Second. Plunkett I have a second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing Fire & Park Donation Funds Ordinance 2024-23 (First Reading) Plunkett Up next is a Consideration of an Ordinance Establishing Fire and Park Donation Funds. This is Ordinance 2024-23. This is also a first reading and we have Cindy Poore, Director of Finance and Records to present. Good morning Cindy. Poore Good morning. With this, with this ordinance currently we have one fund that we use for all donations for all departments. We usually identify and track by just creating separate like revenue codes and stuff but it’s getting to the point where it’s harder to track it that way and the more that we grow and it would just make it a lot more simpler if we had a Donation Fund for Police, Fire and Parks. So with, with this, I am asking that the current Donation Fund be labeled Police and then creating the two new ones for Fire and Parks. Plunkett Are there any questions from Councilors for Cindy? Stein So the current Fund 2300 will be Police – Poore Yes. Stein And then we’ll add a 2301 and 02 for the respective – Poore Correct. Stein Okay. Poore Yes. Sampson Was this something that was part of the problem of getting that donation from the family with the LUCAS device? I remember we talked about she had tried to do it but there was confusion in how to handle a donation. Did that? Poore I mean I remember us getting the donation for that but I don’t remember there being an issue. Sampson Okay. Poore Yes, sorry. Page 27 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Sampson I think that would’ve been discussed prior to the – Poore Yes – Sampson Donation [inaudible] going between the two of us. Poore I would like to possibly ask if we could pass this on first reading, suspend the rules so we can move on. Plunkett Yes, in order for us to suspend the rules we have to have all seven Councilors available so. Poore Oh, I was under the impression it just had to be a unanimous vote for the Councilors present to suspend the rules but – Steuerwald Do you guys have different bylaws or rules than the statute, state statute? Norris Yes. Plunkett Yes, we – Poore Oh, you do? Plunkett I mean we’ve talked about this as recently as last week with Heather – Poore Gotcha. Plunkett On other items as well – Poore Okay. Plunkett That require 100% attendance to suspend the rules. Poore Okay, thank you. Plunkett I do appreciate the memo, Cindy. It’s certainly helpful to get these in advance so that we know what’s going on, so thank you very much. Poore Sure. Sampson Thank you, yes. Plunkett Are there any other questions for Cindy? If not, I would entertain a motion. Norris I’ll make a motion to approve on first reading Ordinance 2024 – Plunkett Introduce. McElderry Introduce. Page 28 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Norris Introduce, I said introduce? Plunkett Introduce on first reading. Norris I’ll make a motion to introduce on first reading Ordinance 2024-23. Sampson Second. Plunkett I have a first from Councilor Norris, 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 6 in favor, 0 opposed. Consideration of an Ordinance Terminating Fund 2420 Ordinance 2024-24 (First Reading Plunkett Up next is a Consideration of an Ordinance Terminating Fund 2420. This is Ordinance 2024-24. This is also a first reading and Cindy is here to present on that as well. Poore Yes. So this fund was created several years ago for a grant, a Task Force Grant that the Police had. It was a reimbursable grant. The person assigned to the Task Force would work overtime, that would be submitted and then we’d get reimbursed for that overtime but what happened is the overtime was paid through the overtime personnel line of the budget but when the reimbursements came, they didn’t go there, they went into this fund. This fund has been sitting dormant since 2009 and so I am requesting that we declare it dormant and these funds would actually go into the Operating Fund for the Police Department. Plunkett Cindy, do we have – out of curiosity, do we have other funds that are dormant? Poore None as, as, as far as like this one is. Plunkett Yes. Poore After 15 years but I do review everything – Plunkett Yes. Poore On a pretty regular basis. Plunkett Perfect. Thank you. Poore Yes. Page 29 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Plunkett Are there any questions from Councilors for Cindy? Sampson So, going into the Operating Fund is that because it matches an expense from 2009 or? Poore This, this money was accrued over a timeframe during the grant period and so and it, and it really one of two things should’ve happened – the reimbursements should’ve either been put into the Operating Fund in the first place since that was where it was paid or the overtime should’ve been paid out of this fund and netting a zero balance as the reimbursements came in but, unfortunately, it was paid out of the Operating and it was reimbursed to this special fund that was set up. So it’s not just one item that came in in 2009, it was over a time period of when that grant was in place and that person was working overtime. So it was, just the last time that any activity occurred in this because the, this grant has been done for years. The last transaction that took place in this grant in the fund was in 2009. Sampson So I’m following you and so it’s not matched to operating expenses from this year though, correct? Poore Oh no – it has, it has nothing to do with this year. It’s just been sitting there this amount in this fund for the last 15 years. Sampson Well I don’t actually think it as an operating? Am I wrong? Stein Police operating. Poore Yes, Police operating. It’s their General Fund, the Police General Fund. Sampson And so wouldn’t it go into the reserve instead of – because unless we appropriated additional amounts to cover the expense – like if it fit within their budget from when it happened in prior years, that would make it a reserve amount, not an operating amount. Poore We’re, we’re not appropriating it. We’re just putting it in their fund – Sampson Okay. Poore So that when they are ready to use it, then we can do an additional appropriation and then we will appropriate it to a line at that point but it is Police dollars and so it needs to go into their Operating Fund as part of their reserves and their cash balance. Sampson Right. Melton And Cindy, is there a balance on that account and I didn’t hear you say if there was. Poore Oh, I didn’t write it, I didn’t write it down. Hang on a second, I do have it. Sampson It’s $26,427. Page 30 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Poore $26,000, a little over. Melton $26,400? Poore Yes. Melton So we’re not talking – Sampson Yes, not a lot of money. I’m just thinking it through. I thought, I understand it’s Police dollars – Poore Yes – Sampson But it’s like old Police dollars instead of current year. I don’t know, Joe, am I not right on this? Stein Yes, I’m certainly not an expert on what to do with funds that were designated for something that are no longer, I mean, is it something that we have to return? Is it something – Poore No. Stein That you can keep in the – Sampson It would, for me, it’s like we have to look to see if we made additional appropriation in the year that it was, it was paid because they ran out of money from their funding in their overtime personnel fund. Plunkett I don’t, just to be clear – I don’t think they ran out of money. What happened – Poore Right. Plunkett Was it was – Sampson No, no, no – I know. Poore Yes. Sampson I meant that if additional money was put in from like a General Fund into the Police Fund that year that – Poore That can’t happen. Sampson Needs to happen, then the money would triangle back to that instead of. But it’s not that much money – Stein I’m comfortable. Sampson I’m comfortable. Page 31 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Poore It’s strictly money received from the grant. Plunkett I think if it’s not that much money or not I think the, the fundamentals of this, Cindy, is in, in 2009 – Poore Yes – Plunkett This fund existed – Poore Yes – Plunkett And, and when, instead, instead of the Police Department submitting reimbursement requests from this fund, they took it from the General Account or from their Operating Account and now this money is leftover and it’s been sitting there for 15 years. Poore Right, it just needs to be closed out and moved over to their Operating Fund. Sampson Right. I think the difference for me was a reserve versus operating but – Stein Had, had it been done right in ’09 the money wouldn’t be there but it, but because it came out of the Operating, it’s, in essence, reimbursing the Operating Fund for what the hit initially was so. Poore Correct. Stein I don’t have any heartache over this at all. Sampson Right, okay. Plunkett Any other questions for Cindy? I’ll make a motion to introduce Ordinance 2024- 24 on first reading. McElderry Second. Plunkett I have a second from Councilor McElderry. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. Page 32 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds Resolution 2024-14 (Public Hearing) Plunkett Coming down the homestretch here. Last item on the agenda is the Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds. This is Resolution 2024-14 and we have Cindy to run through this as well. Poore Okay, the first one is an additional appropriation to our Local Road & Bridge Matching Grant Fund into the construction line. These, these are grant funds that we receive, we just have to appropriate them in order for – they were Community Crossing Grant funds but in order for them to use them we have to appropriate them. The second one for the General Fund for Planning. These dollars are what have been received as revenue for collecting the engineering fees and this is something that we do every year once or twice because we budget so much that goes out of the engineering line to pay BLN and then as we recoup these dollars they come in as revenue and then we appropriate them to the engineering line to cover any variances that we may have in that line. The third one is out of the General Fund for Council. As you recall, the end of last year a decision was made to increase the Council salaries and that was done after the budget was approved so this is just, this additional appropriation just needs to take place to make those lines whole from what was approved at the end of ’23. The last one for the Town Hall Improvement Fund, Mayor Stehr, I don’t know, you may recall – we have sponsorships for our conference rooms and the end of ’23 those sponsorships expired and so Mayor Stehr reached out to current sponsors as well as new ones. These are the funds that were received for these sponsorships and the intent was to use these funds for the new welcome desk out there and the, and the small buildout right there where the welcome desk is. Sampson So the grant that Lance got was $483,000 – Poore Yes, yes. Sampson 780? Good job Lance and George. Plunkett I will say this is a public hearing and I have proof of publication of the public hearing. At this point I’ll open the hearing, if there’s any members of the public who would like to speak. Seeing none, I’ll close the public hearing. Any other questions from Councilors? All right – Stein I just, I just, this appropriation for the engineering, this maybe, there may be one more in the future to clean it up a little bit but given the fact that we’ll be doing our own engineering, we may never see this type of appropriation again. Is that fair? Poore Well, we are still in transition. Even, even next year the – I’m sorry – Page 33 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 Lantz [Inaudible off microphone.] Poore Okay. We’re, we’re still in transition so there still may be some – Stein Yes. Poore BLN costs next year but here again it’s a transition out of that and as we get these fees in then we will appropriate them into the line if, if it’s necessary. So it just depends on also for this year it’s possible there might be another one towards the end of the year but we’ll just, we’ll just have to wait and see and, and watch the line to see where it goes. Stein And I think I recall, Lance, when we talked that there may still be a need for outside engineering that in the event you guys can’t cover – Lantz Correct. I’m not going to speak for Mike but specific to the Planning – Department – Stein Sure. Lantz Planning & Building section, yes, they retain by ordinance, their right to invoke and charge for the use of an outside consultant either for projects’ size or complexity should the need arise. So that might result in a similar type – Stein Appropriation? Lantz Appropriation in the future but you should see these dwindle over the next 12 to 18 months and hopefully then be done with them. Plunkett Any other questions from Councilors? Otherwise, I would entertain a motion. McElderry I’d move to approve the resolution regarding the appropriation of additional funds, Resolution 2024-14. Melton Second. Plunkett I have a first from Councilor McElderry, a second from Councilor Melton. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. Poore Thank you. Page 34 of 35 Zionsville Town Council August 19, 2024 OTHER MATTERS Plunkett Are there any other matters from Councilors? ADJOURN Plunkett All right, I’ll make a motion to adjourn. Norris Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett All those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 6 in favor, 0 opposed. The next regular Town Council meeting is scheduled for Mon- or sorry Tuesday, Tuesday, September 3, 2024 at 7 p.m. in the Zionsville Town Hall Council Chambers. Please note the shift in the days due to the Labor Day holiday. Final 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 35 of 35