- Good afternoon, everyone. I want to welcome you to the town of Ellisville grand opening and ribbon cutting for the Department of Public Works. It's an exciting day today as we've officially opened the doors for our new Department of Public Works building, a space that's going to serve our community for years, even decades to come. This project is more than a brick and mortar. It's an investment in our future and our residents. And it's going to help keep the services that keeps Ellisville running day after day.
- I'd like to take this time to extend sincere thanks to the many individuals that helped make the financing possible. Doug and Mitch from Baker Tilly, your financial guidance was greatly appreciated in making this project happen. Lisa Lee and the team from Ice Miller, thank you for your support and counsel in this process. Darla Brown, our very own legal counsel, thank you for your expertise and your guidance throughout this project.
- To the People's State Bank, Johnny Lindsay and Gary Brinley, thank you for being our local partner. We can always count on you. To the Indiana Bond Bank, thank you so much for making this process feel smooth and seamless. We are also honored today to have Daniel Elliott, State Treasurer, with us. This underscores the significance of this milestone in our community.
- As clerk treasurer in my first term, when handling these two bonds, totaling $5.1 million, this honestly could have been very overwhelming. But with the incredible support from the Indiana Bond Bank, the People's State Bank, Baker Tilley, Ice Miller, and our own team, this experience has not only been a success, but a true model of collaboration. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to public financing on this scale for this project.
- Thank you everyone for being here to celebrate with us. And next we'll hear from town council member William Ellis. I don't know how much this amplifies. So I'm hoping everybody can hear me. I'll be brief because we have more important people coming behind me. But I just want to say thank you to everyone to help make this possible. This was not an idea that just shot up overnight. We're talking about two different clerks work with this.
- Two actual two cycles of council members worked with this and our taxpayers worked with this. But I'll tell you, we wouldn't be where we are today if we didn't have the employees we have working for the town of Ellisville. They are the reason we are able to be in a building like this. They are the reason that we have to have the infrastructure to actually be in a building like this because they're constantly doing their jobs. If there's a storm, they're out there.
- If there's floods, they're out there. If there's an emergency, they're out there. People don't have to wonder where's help in Ellitsville, because it's there. And now we have one location that a lot of those people can operate under to help it even better for society. So thank you to all our, everybody here that's gonna be working in this building day in and day out. We just wrote, as a council just said yes or no. And it was unanimous, we all said yes to this. And I do have to say,
- we would not have had the faith that this was needed if we did not know we had employees that deserve that faith. So thank you to all of you. Yeah, not like I've ever done this before, but I did forget, you know, the more important person, Daniel Elliott, our state treasurer. I've known him for years and he knows I always mess up like this. So this is no different. Daniel Elliott. Thank you.
- Actually, I do agree one thing. You've known me for years, and we've been good friends for many, many years. But I will disagree on one thing. I am not the most important person here. You guys are. You know, one of the things that I'm really excited about is you kind of wonder, why is the treasurer here? Well, I am the chairman of the Indiana Bond Bank. And as was mentioned earlier, we were able to help fund $5.1 million to go towards this important work that you guys are doing. But I'll actually tell you something why I'm even more excited.
- See, I have deep connections here to Ellensville. My son lives right down the road. He married his wife in October. They have a house. And so they are citizens of this community. In fact, when he told me that he was going to buy a house in Ellensville, I was like, awesome. William and Noelle are going to take good care of you. And I think that is what's really important when we recognize, when communities come together, the great work that can be done by working together, we as a state
- We have one job, and that is to help you as communities with your vision. I don't come up with a vision. You do. You guys do. But what we want to do is make sure that this can happen. Before I was here in this rural state treasurer, I was in local government working with communities like Ellesville. I grew up in small town Indiana. I still live in small town Indiana. In fact, Ellesville is the big city compared to where I live. But what's important is we recognize this is truly Indiana.
- This is how we get things done, coming together, focusing on those needs of the community. So we're excited to be able to help you. I hope we get to help you with other visions that you have in the future. And in the meantime, the most important thing is that you now have a beautiful facility that can help not only with our fire and other needs, but with all the needs of the community as you grow. So thank you for letting us be a small part of this important project. Thank you.
- I'm Kip Hetty, the Public Works Director for this department and town. I really don't have much to say. This is really awesome. To see this building come to fruition, I hope I don't get too emotional. I've been a part of this town since 1984 in one capacity or another, and I still am in other capacities. I started out as a volunteer fireman.
- I've seen the fire, the police, the town hall, all this advance in technology. I started working for the street department in 2001. I was very fortunate to have Jim Regal as my boss. Jim and Dave Siracote had me in on the interview. And I think by the end of that day, I'd got a phone call back and said I was hired. Jim's taught me a lot with this stuff in this town, Danny Stockup.
- was his successor, and then I succeeded from Danny Stalk up a street commissioner. And then whenever they decided to bring this public works together, Mike came to me and said, well, you're the street commissioner, makes sense, you got to be the public works director. So enough about me and where I've come from. This is awesome. I think I've seen him earlier, but Tony Fox is a general contractor. There's Tony.
- Tony was really great to work with on this and get this building built. He knew the dreams that we were wanting. I'd like to also thank our architect, Jane York. Is that right, Jane York? She wasn't able to make it today. And I want to thank all the crew that I've got. These guys, all these yellow shirts are awesome. A lot of work went in to get this place done, and they hung on and did it.
- I want to thank everybody very much. Thank Mike and Jeff. So thank you. Well, we had to argue about who was going first. So really, why are we here? So I came here in 1995. And I think in 95 minimum wage was like $4 and a quarter. And I think
- The average wage in the United States is about $28,000. I think the Braves and the 49ers and the Houston Rockets won all the professional things. I think O.J. Simpson was found not guilty. So just take you back to 95. But probably one of the most important things that happened in 95 is on August 14th, I think, is the correct date. Elchville had 10 inches of rain in a short period of time.
- The town flooded, every office that we had, police, fire, town hall, wastewater plant, utilities building and street building, street department were in the same building, and they all flooded. So at that point, that's what brought me here was they needed a new wastewater treatment plant operator. And it's a pretty good time to mention
- Jeff Ping, if you'll step forward and show yourself. Jeff was a city or a town employee, and it's the first guy I got to work with. He has served the town for 45 years. So everybody give him a hand. I'm not going to talk about him too much, because I don't want to be like Kip and get choked up.
- Very good friends and we are coworkers. I've never been his boss. Just a great employee and a great steward for our wastewater treatment plant. But in 95, shortly after that, we started to progress to get out of the floodway. The wastewater plant was built and went online in 97. I do believe that we got the fire
- department in 2004. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on that. And I think the police department came shortly after that. We bought this campus of 50 acres and they were the first building I think in 05. In the meantime, we still kept having floods and the town hall kept flooding. And finally, what did you say the date? What was the date? 2017, we built the new town hall that is just up the road here.
- And the last people left were the utilities department. And I'm going to let Mike, he'll tell you more about those two buildings. And it just took a long time to get to this point. And very proud to see this building and a place for all of our employees are now out of the floodway. We're all ready to serve the community like we have. And now we don't have to worry about floods. We're ready to go at a moment's notice. But really appreciate you all being here. It means a lot.
- My pleasure. Well, I love it when everything that needed to be said said so I can keep it short. Everybody can hear me, I'm sure. I don't think this amplifies anyway. But anyway, thanks for being here. This has been something that Jeff and I have talked about building this building since 98 when I came on board.
- The first time they took me down to the blue building, they said, that's your office back there. And I swear, you couldn't put all my coats in the office, let alone me get in there. So I went in there, and they said, that's your desk. And I literally sat down, and I opened the bottom drawer, and it had about this much mud in it. I go, what the hell is that? And they said, well, it just flooded recently.
- time to clean it out. So since then, you know, we've endured floods at both the street department and utilities building. And, you know, it was a dream to build this building. And without everybody's help, we couldn't have done it. Everybody I think has been mentioned that helped with it. Jane York from Springport, Spring Point architect,
- deserves all the kudos for designing the building. We told her a few things we wanted and this is her product and so really kudos to her. I think the importance of this building is not only to sustain our troops and our crews that work every day to make the town go and
- the upkeep it takes daily to take care of a town. If you can imagine what everybody goes through in their daily lives and what it takes to just sustain a household, well, you know, we sustain basically 7,000 people that live in town and with the utilities that we take care of, about 15,000 people. So you can imagine keeping that household up and going all the time. So this building,
- makes it easier for us to do our job. I think it makes us more productive. I think the building stands for growth in our future. I think that down the road you'll see this building used for community events and, God help us, but weather events that might displace
- of part of our community, this can become an emergency center. So those plans will be made in the future. But the building itself is a testament to the growth of our town and our future. When I came to work here, there's an old guy. He's a lot older than me. No, I mean, he couldn't be that much older than me. But there was an old guy that stood up in one of our meetings and said, I don't care what you do as a town board.
- I don't care what kind of plans you make, but just plan for the future. I want my grandkids to live here. So this is what this is all about, making sure my grandkids live here. It's kind of emotional, because I think about that guy all the time. And so here we are. Here we are going into the future. If anybody doubts that we needed to move, we want to invite you down to the Blue Building.
- Use our facilities and hang out there for about two or three hours, and you'll be ready to go. And you'll understand, I mean, we kid ourselves. We went from the outhouse to the White House. And we really appreciate support for being able to move into this place. My crews, my brother, everybody I work with are professionals. And it's nice to have a professional setting to work out of. It's fundamental.
- to having good morale and good work ethic and productivity. So thank you all for coming. This is a new place. You're always welcome here. And pay your water bill. Okay, well. Okay, well, we're getting ready to have a ribbon cutting. And the two people who are going to cut the ribbon
- Joe Bowman, he started in 1988, still working for us. It's a testament to how good a place this is to work. And then Jim Ragle, he taught me and Jeff everything we know. He started in, I think, I know he went to 14, he was here like 27, 29 years, something like that. 30. Yeah, so Jim was a long time,
- employee of the town and he was a street superintendent. And so we thank him for being here and we honor the people before us that paved the way. So we're gonna have a ribbon cutting soon enough. Tony, once again, he took the design and built this place to look around. The craftsmanship and the work product, it speaks for itself.
- We probably won't need another building until 2075 or longer, but I'll make that decision then when we need a new building. So I'll be there for the next building as well. So I hope you're all there. And I can't. Can you speak too? Okay. Well, anyway, I think that's it. Ribbon cutting, Jill, you want to take over?
- I am Jill Thurman from the Ellitsville Chamber. And on behalf of the Chamber, we are so proud to be celebrating the new opening, the opening of the new Department of Public Works building. This is a great example of our community investing in infrastructure that supports growth, safety, and quality of life. Congratulations to the town of Ellitsville and the entire Public Works team. We're excited to see the impact this new facility
- we'll have as Ellisville continues to move forward. Thank you so much. And if we could get everyone to stand, the ribbon is right here. So if we get everyone to stand in this area when we get ready to cut the ribbon, that would be fantastic. So you're like behind the ribbon.
- Okay. Yeah, I'll count to three. One, two, three.
- Thank you.