Zionsville Town Council

Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 ZIONSVILLE TOWN COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES FOR JUNE 16, 2025 AT 7:30 A.M. EST ONSITE MEETING 1100 West Oak Street This meeting was conducted onsite. 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; Deputy Mayor Justin Hage; Cindy Poore, Director of Finance & Records; Lance Lantz, Director of DPW; Amy Lacy, Municipal Relations Coordinator and other Town staff. OPENING A. Call meeting to order B. Pledge of Allegiance Plunkett All right, we’ll go ahead if we get a thumb’s up, we’ll go ahead and get going. Ready? All right. Good morning. I will now call to order the Monday, June 16 regular Town Council meeting. If you would please, stand and join me for the Pledge of Allegiance. All Pledge of Allegiance. APPROVAL OF CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS Plunkett All right, the first item on the agenda is the approval of the Consent Agenda Items. Assuming no questions, I will make a motion to approve. Burk Second. Plunkett A second from Vice President Burk. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. Page 1 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. REQUEST TO SPEAK Plunkett Up next is Request to Speak on Agenda Item. Amy, do we have any requests to speak? Lacy No we do not. MAYOR/ADMINISTRATION UPDATE Plunkett All right. Up next we would have the Mayor/Administration Update and we have Mayor Stehr with us this morning. Stehr Good morning Councilors. Norris, Morning. Sampson Stehr I just had a couple of things on the Administration Update this month. First of all is the Mingle on Main event. That’s an initiative of the Zionsville Main Street organization which will include closing a section of Main Street for a few hours for dining on the bricks. As you recall, this was very well received during COVID as a way to help our local restaurants keep operating through the pandemic but we hope that this time it will be more of a community event that people will turn out for and it is the first such event since you approved the Designated Outdoor Refreshment Area so all indications are that this could be very popular and very well received. The dates are June 17th, July 15th, August 19th and September 16th, the third Tuesdays of each month between now and September and the roads will be closed between 4:30 and 8:45. The closure will include the area between Pine and Cedar Streets, although Pine and Cedar will be open so there will be east-west traffic able to flow throughout the downtown. The next item I have is the new Police unit design. It has been 15 years since the Police Department has made any significant changes to the look of our patrol cars until now. The ones that are already in service will retain the current graphic scheme but the new ones will get the new treatment and eventually the entire fleet will be modernized. If you see on the screen here – this is what the new police cars will look like. There are a few of them around. They’re not completely outfitted yet but they’ll be on the streets soon. This will help with a maintenance issue too. The decals on the current ones there’s a thin line at the top of the doors that tend to defray over time. This is cost neutral and will allow, I think, for a cleaner look going forward. And I want to point out it was the officers that came up with this new graphic look and we will start seeing them in full service later this summer. If the officers feel good about it that’s good enough for me and they will feel better about their jobs and what they do going through the day. Page 2 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 The next item I have is some trail construction that’s going on right now and I know Councilor Melton is especially interested in this. As you can see here, the dark lines of the new trail segments that we have under construction, they include the east side of County Road 875 East and the north side of Whitestown Road. The construction began on June 2nd and if the weather cooperates, it will continue for about 60 days and be completed by the end of the summer. And finally, Lincoln Park – as the Parks Department moves forward in the Lincoln Park refresh, we are increasingly aware of the deep affection that many people in Zionsville hold for that area so we’ve come up with several ways for people to own a piece of the park. All of the current engraved bricks will be used for construction of the new gazebo. The non-engraved bricks will be available at a donation of $5 or more. People will be able to buy a new round of engraved bricks for the park pathways and for people who have fond memories of senior pictures and prom photos and engagements and weddings at the gazebo, they’ll be able to buy a piece of the structure when it’s taken down. We’re going to sell souvenir pieces for a donation and all the proceeds will go to the rehabilitation of the park. We hope that it will raise between $30,000 and $35,000 to go into the park refresh and if you want more information on that, you can go to the Parks Department page on the town website for more info and I think get a complete look at what’s possible and, and how people can get involved in the refresh of Lincoln Park. And that is all I have. Thank you very much. Plunkett All right, thank you. Sampson Hey John – Stehr Yes? Sampson I’ve had some people ask about the rendition and I just wanted to have you have a chance to say that it wasn’t affecting the parking on First Street. Is that affecting the parking on First Street with the new – Stehr Yes, I think that’s because one of the artist’s renditions didn’t show parking along First Street. That’s not affected by this. The artist rendition focuses on the park not around the surrounding area so. I, I understand the confusion but no, parking is not going to be affected right now. Sampson Right. I knew that but I wanted you to say it so – Stehr I appreciate – Sampson People will stop asking me. Stehr I appreciate it. Sampson Thank you. Stehr You’re welcome. Plunkett All right – Page 3 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Stehr Okay, thank you. OLD BUSINESS Consideration of an Ordinance to Amend the Zoning Ordinance (Petition 2025-24- OA) Ordinance 2025-12 (Continued from June 2, 2025) Plunkett Thank you. Up next on the agenda is the first item of Old Business. This is a Consideration of an Ordinance to Amend the Zoning Ordinance, Petition 2025- 24-OA. This is Ordinance 2025-12 continued from our June 2nd meeting. We have Deputy Mayor Justin Hage here to walk us through this. Hage Thank you President Plunkett. We’ve had a number of meetings where we’ve had this up for discussion. We’ve continued it a couple of times. After some really good discussion with a number of you and also with Mike Dale and his team, we’ve come to the conclusion that I think we can achieve the balance that we were looking for as it relates to public input and as it relates to transparency by way of procedural changes at the Plan Commission instead of an ordinance. So what we will do instead is similar to, I think, some of the efficiency that President Plunkett is looking for with the consent agenda items, we will do something similar as it relates to these minor development plan approvals and put them on a consent agenda. We will also be having a more expedited reporting structure from the staff in terms of what they will create. They will create just a memo as opposed to a full staff report so I think that’ll create some efficiencies. Again, these will go to a consent agenda. They’ll still be noticed the same way that all development plan approvals will be noticed and then the vast majority of those I think will stay on the consent agenda. There’s always the opportunity for Plan Commission members to pull those off that agenda, have them be fully discussed and debated and even, if necessary, have them be continued to a future meeting but, again, this will be able to give us the balance between public transparency, the opportunity for input while also getting some efficiencies. So I think what we’ve, we had some discussions both with Dave Franz and with Bob Clutter who serves as counsel for the Plan Commission. They will go through their process internally to have a public, as part of a public meeting, pass some changes to their procedural rules and, therefore, I think the best step forward as it relates to this ordinance is to vote down this ordinance and instead the Plan Commission will change their rules. Plunkett So we would, Justin, vote this down? It’s on the Plan Commission meeting tonight. Do I need to have a note for the meeting tonight when this goes back to them? Hage The answer would be yes and they, they actually don’t, they, they are, due to some quorum issues are having that meeting on the 25th, I believe. Plunkett Okay. Hage So we have some time for that. Page 4 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Plunkett Okay. Hage Yes. Plunkett Okay. Sampson Yes because last time we didn’t vote it down because we were going to give them reasons we were voting it down, is that? Hage Well there was, there was a couple different ways we were going to handle it. We were going to try to, this one has always been continued. We do have the outdoor dining which will come, we can discuss at a later date but this one has always been continued and the plan was to try to amend it and then send it back but since we figured out that we can do it via procedural rules instead, we’ll, we’ll vote it down and then as President Plunkett said, he’ll send a statement that explains the reasoning and then they’ll do it internally via their procedural rules. Plunkett Okay. All right, are there any questions for Deputy Mayor Hage? Having none, I will make a motion to deny Ordinance 2025-12. Norris Second. Plunkett A second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Thank you. NEW BUSINESS Appointment of Emily Fitz to the Safety Board Plunkett All right, a couple of items on New Business – up first is the Appointment of Emily Fitz to the Safety Board. We have, it’s rare that we have members of certain committees step down between appointments but we did have one that needed to be filled and the members of the Safety Board and leadership recommended Emily Fitz to the Safety Board so I want to thank Emily for that. Heather, do we need to vote on that or is that just something that? Just a replaced appointment? Harris I think you will need to vote on it. Plunkett Okay. Harris We have in the past. Page 5 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Plunkett Okay. Are there any questions from Councilors? Otherwise I would entertain a motion. Norris I will make a motion to approve the appointment of Dr. Emily Fitz to the Safety Board. Melton Second. Plunkett I have a first from Councilor Norris, a second from Councilor Melton. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. I want to thank Dr. Fitz for stepping up to do that. That’s certainly an important Board for us and the community so. Easement Encroachment Request (11651 Ansley Court) Plunkett Up next on the agenda is an Easement Encroachment Request. This is for 11651 Ansley Court. We have a couple of people that can talk through this, Kyle Montrose, the owner, Vice President Burk could walk through it as well and DPW Director, Lance Lantz. So I don’t know who would like to tee this up – maybe, maybe you can do that? Burk Yes, I’ll just take a shot. Thank you. Bringing forward this request for an easement encroachment request on behalf of a resident at 11651 Ansley Court. He’s interested in building a fence at the back of his property and what’s unique about this layout, which you can’t really see from the DPW report which is, I would encourage you to look at on the, on the laptops but TriCo owns the property next to him and has a service kind of garage back there or barn and then there’s a drive that goes back so in terms of the easement there’s, there is, there is a lot of access if someone were to need to do some accessing of the easement but he’s still asking that a portion of the fence be built over a public utility. We brought this forward, I went and took a look at it, sent some pictures so you can get a better sense of kind of what it looks like. I sent that as an email to you guys and then, of course, asked Lance and DPW to go out and take a look at the property which they have done and in Lance’s report dated June 5th, you can see that he would propose that kind of an amendment be made and that they would not, at least I, I should say this – he would not what’s the quote in here? Would not object to the encroachment if they were to agree to kind of what was drafted up here with a red line as opposed to a blue line. I’ve talked to the homeowner about this and they’re in full agreement that they would like to do that. So, as you know, we get a number of these. I really lean on DPW and if there’s something that they really don’t think is a good idea or something we shouldn’t be doing for safety purposes then I would not support that but happy, happy that there’s been a bit of an accommodation made here and that’s why I would support this. If Mr. Montrose would like to add some color, come on up. Page 6 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Plunkett Yes, if you would, when you come up just state your name and address for the record. That’d be great. Thank you. Montrose Good morning everyone. My name is Kyle Montrose. I live at 11651 Ansley Court. Thank you guys for considering this, this morning. It would allow us to have a more sizeable fence in our backyard, access for our dogs and just family to enjoy that space. There truly is, I mean on the back side of our house there’s a retention pond, on the side there’s a access road that goes back to a TriCo utility so it, it seems to and this is why I would even consider raising this to everyone on this, on this Council this morning, is that there is truly, there is access, right and so when DPW came out and said not on one side we were perfectly fine with that. We just want to do what, what the city and, and, and DPW is comfortable with and so it sounds like we have some general, we are aligned with DPW in what, what our, what our objectives are and so if there’s any questions, I’m happy to respond. McElderry I have one quick question – Montrose Yes – McElderry First of all, I’ve had labs so I can imagine trying to keep them in – Montrose Yes. McElderry Out of a retention pond is important. The red line it, it appears that that is where the fence should go. There, there shouldn’t be a lot of deviation. Is that your understanding is it, it’s not just a border it’s, it’s on that red line is where the fence should be? Montrose That would be our hope would be to put the fence on the red line. It would actually run from the south corner of our house to the back corner of our lot and then run the rest of the lot line around but it wouldn’t – there’s one area where we wouldn’t put the fence that DPW was okay to put it, we would just make it basically smaller than DPW was comfortable with. McElderry And then that all post holes need to be hand dug. Montrose Yes we would – McElderry Yes. Montrose Yes, we would work with our contractor to accommodate that for sure. McElderry Well thank you for coming. Montrose Yes, absolutely. Any other questions I can answer? Plunkett Any other questions? Burk No, just pointing out and I’m, this is all in the memo but, again, hand dug and then inspected by Stormwater staff before the posts. Page 7 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Montrose Yes, I mean yes. Burk Yes. Montrose Whatever we need to do. Burk Yes. So happy, happy to be accommodating when, when we can. Sampson In these situations we really rely on Lance and his team and I think we’ve come to a compromise with what you’re requesting and what they can accept and I think we could motion this forward. Plunkett Are there any other questions from Councilors or comments? Otherwise I would entertain a motion. Burk I’d move to approve the easement encroachment request for 11651 Ansley Court. Sampson Second. Plunkett I have a first from Vice President Burk, a second from Councilor Sampson. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Montrose Thank you. Plunkett Thank you. Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds (ZFD & ZARC) Resolution 2025-07 (Public Hearing) Plunkett Up next is a Consideration of a Resolution Regarding the Appropriation of Additional Funds. This is for ZFD and ZARC. This is Resolution 2025-07. We have Director of Finance and Records, Cindy Poore, here if there are any questions. This is a public hearing. I have proof of publication of the public hearing. At this point I’ll open the public hearing. If there’s any members from the public who would like to speak – seeing none I’ll close the public hearing. Sampson He wants to speak. Plunkett Oh, sorry. Burk You have to reopen it? Page 8 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Plunkett Yes, I guess I have to reopen that, yes. All right, so I’m going to reopen the public hearing. Rottmann Hello, Todd Rottmann, President of the Zionsville Architectural Review Committee, address 320 West Hawthorne Street. Our committee has been in existence for over 20 years and we’ve touched almost every historic building in the Village Business District. We, for those that don’t know, we administer grants that pay up to 40% of exterior improvements for those businesses for any façade that is visible from a public way. Our involvement helps make sure that we stick with the authenticity of the historic nature of the Village as well as making sure that we utilize the highest quality materials so these buildings and the work that the town invests in will continue to contribute to the character of the Village for years to come. Due to reasons not related to the quality of our work, ZARC was not funded in 2025 which I have two projects on Main Street right now that we’re not able to move forward with at this time but today we’re here to talk about the funding that was previously approved in 2024 for retractable awnings for the COhatch North High Brewing space. Those were approved in our meeting on September 10, 2024. In that meeting we discussed multiple changes with the client or the applicant on items related to the vinyl screen, the aluminum storefront entries that were proposed, etc. and then on September 13, myself and Lisa Paul met with the applicant onsite and made further changes, we helped them pick out finishes, textures, colors, what the edge of the screening would look like. We were able to actually remove an entire aluminum storefront entrance that was going to be permanent on the north side of that covered dining area and so the tenant was really amazing to work with. They accepted all of our changes. The work is now complete and since we don’t have a fund, we are here today to respectfully request the appropriation of $15,630.47 to complete our agreement with the applicant. Thank you. Plunkett Thank you. Any other members from the public? At this point I’ll close the public hearing. Any questions or comments from Councilors? Norris I, I just – President Plunkett, if I may real quick – Plunkett Sure. Norris On behalf of the, at least the Fire Department request, I know I gave a little bit of an update at the last meeting about this but the Safety Board at May 19th, I believe the vote was 4, 4 in favor, 0 opposed. You made this unanimous recommendation to the Town Council to appropriate an additional $150,000 from the firefighters operation funds to the overtime fund to ensure that the firefighters have the overtime staffing that they need to finish out the remainder of the year based upon projections to make sure that we have at least – ZFD won’t operate with, with three firefighters, less than three firefighters per fire fighting apparatus, suppression apparatus so this overtime will help to ensure that we get to the what are the standard, the standard is four firefighters per fire suppression apparatus. I think it leads to a bigger question too as to as we approach the midway of the year, what is the budget process going to look like next year for, for some of these critical public safety issues. I know the Mayor and his team are Page 9 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 working really hard on this issue trying to alleviate some of that stress for the Fire Department so it does have a great physical toll, mental toll on the firefighters so I’d urge all of you as we approach July and August and we start into the budget process that we start taking a hard look at some of the town’s finances, especially when it comes to our public safety officials and that just doesn’t go for firefighters, that also goes, in my opinion, for ZPD as well, as well as Lance’s people in, in DPW as well. I think all of them play a critical role in this so I’d ask that you guys support this today, this additional $150,000 appropriation. Plunkett Any other questions or comments from Councilors? Melton Just a brief question to Councilor Norris with this since you’ve kind of been spearheading this and I know you’re on the Safety Board, my question is has there been a change that has happened in the standards recently or has, has the Town of Zionsville not been meeting the standard from here back and I guess the reason I ask that it just makes sense to me that as the standards change we kind of like just like building codes we kind of get in line but this is a big deal, especially with, as you mentioned, the mindsets of these, these employees and these firefighters so I was just curious if this was kind of a new thing or if this was something that we’re, we’re as we grow we need to meet these standards and I just, I didn’t know if that was something you could answer? Norris I’ll, I’ll rely on Chief – my understanding is that the standards have not changed but it comes down to we’re, we’re obviously competing with neighboring communities, we’re losing firefighters to other departments and things like that but I’ll, I’ll let the Chief explain better. VanGorder Thank you Councilor for the opportunity. Thank you Councilor Melton for the question. No, the standards have remained the same. The Fire Department has been short staffed for several years. We were short 15 firefighters on shift as of last week. We did just have four graduate the academy so that lessens it slightly to 11 shortages and we’ll remain 11 full-time positions short until the end of the year when two more graduate and then we will remain at nine full-time firefighter shortages but that standard has not changed for several years. Melton Thank you. Sampson The, I guess I could ask this at our next meeting but for the people graduating, are they already in our budget from what we set last year? VanGorder Yes. Sampson Okay. VanGorder Yep. Those four that just graduated and came to shift, they’ve been at the academy for the past 20 weeks. Those are part of the budget for 2025 and also the two that’ll graduate late November/early December are part of the current budget that we have. Page 10 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Sampson Okay, the two were the ones I was wondering about but that might be due to attrition or? VanGorder Correct. Sampson Okay. VanGorder Attrition and we had individuals who didn’t pass at the last academy. Sampson Okay. VanGorder So it left another vacancy that we then had to fill. Sampson Okay. Thank you. Plunkett Any other questions or comments from Councilors? McElderry Just real quickly – returning to the ZARC appropriation. I just want to thank the Deputy Mayor. I know you’re trying to expedite meetings and he answered a lot of questions from me over the phone which made it a lot easier for me to come to this meeting and know what my vote should be and so I just want to thank the Deputy Mayor for reaching out. I think he probably reached out to all of us to kind of explain that appropriation. Plunkett Anything else from Councilors? Stein The work looks fantastic by the way and I think it’s going to do a lot to provide for the community. Plunkett I guess maybe I would take a step back as we talk about ZARC. I mean the reason this is on here is because this was already approved and we didn’t fund it so, so I appreciate Todd coming up here and walking through that but I think that’s also important for us to consider the process moving forward given the projects that are being presented to ZARC so I think that’s, they are good projects and they do really good work. I think that we just need to make sure we come up with the process to fund ZARC if that’s, if that’s the strategy we’re going to move or use going forward . Sampson I agree. I gave that feedback as well that it’s when you have something as a percentage of funding versus a number we could get ourselves tied up with committing to more than is feasible that year or as we make the budget we’re going to have to consider what would be the process, what would be, like it would seem strange that you could approve it before the funding was set in place so. Stein Are there any others that are approved that are unfunded at this time? Sampson No. Plunkett No. All right, any other questions from Councilors? Otherwise I would entertain a motion. Page 11 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 Melton Motion to approve Resolution 2025-07. Plunkett A first from Councilor Melton. Sampson Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Sampson. Sorry about that. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. OTHER MATTERS Plunkett Are there any other matters from Councilors? Sampson I do have one matter. We had a town just a gathering where we talked about golf carts and I just wanted to formally state that the people driving golf carts are supposed to have a driver’s license and be older, 16. I’ve seen children driving on Ford Road with their parent right next to them and I think this is becoming a town concern. I just wanted to make sure I went on record saying the driver of a golf cart must have a driver’s license. McElderry I’ve got one too as well President – just wanted to announce that the Boone County Democrats are having their summer picnic. It’s this Wednesday, June 18th at 6 p.m. at the Whitestown Community Park. ADJOURN Plunkett Anything else from Councilors? Otherwise I would make a motion to adjourn. Norris Second. Plunkett Second from Councilor Norris. All those in favor signify by saying aye. All Aye. Plunkett Those opposed same sign. [No response] Motion passes 7 in favor, 0 opposed. Page 12 of 13 Zionsville Town Council June 16, 2025 The next regular Town Council meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 7, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the Zionsville Town Hall Council Chambers. Final notice will be posted in compliance with the Indiana Open Door Law. Respectfully Submitted, Amelia Anne Lacy, Municipal Relations Coordinator Town of Zionsville Page 13 of 13