- Good evening. Good to have everybody. Looks like maybe the postcards got delivered. I have a few more
- people here tonight. We're gonna start off with a word of prayer and followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.
- So if you would please stand. Heavenly Father, we just wanna thank you for our community. Thank you
- for the citizens who make up this wonderful area.
- Lord, we just ask you to please be with us tonight that we might make the best decisions possible, not
- only for today, but for our future. We just ask your blessing upon this evening. In Jesus' name we pray,
- amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
- which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
- President Scott. President Sanders. Here. Mr. Korman. Here. Mr. Ferris. Here. Mr. Ellis. I'm here, but
- I'm all here. And Don Durnall. Here. Thank you. Okay, it's not on the agenda, but we're going to, I'm
- going to entertain a motion to approve the minutes from last time's meeting. And we have them here in
- hard copy this time, actually. So moved.
- All right, approve the minutes. I vote yes. Scott? Yes. Jerry? Yes. Mike? Yes. Kevin? Yes. William?
- Yes. Dawn? Yes. Motion passes. All right, we have a public comment opportunity at the beginning of the
- meeting and also at the end of the meeting. So at this time, is there anybody in the audience who would
- like to come up and speak?
- If so, please come up to the podium and sign your name and share with us whatever your thoughts are
- tonight. Anybody? Yes, sir. I'm coming first out of selfishness because my dinner awaits me after
- I'm Jim Perry. I'm a member of the subcommittee on Get this connection here parks recreation and cemeteries
- Why the three are together, I'm not quite sure but And I want since we got a great public turnout we
- know our subcommittee met with the park board Jimmy Durnall is the chair Jimmy are you chair is that
- accurate? president president
- of the park board, which I learned is under Indiana code 36 dash dash dash dash, is sort of a state
- entity, and it's also identified under ordinances within the town of Ellisville. And I've got
- that information from the meeting on Monday night. But we're having a public session tomorrow night
- in the Department of Public Works building. Is that accurate?
- Yeah, it's back there and apparently you get through it by traversing around town hall and taking a
- left and going naturally 90s to the left and you go back to the building there's plenty of parking yeah,
- and and so This is parks recreation and cemeteries if you're interested or want to comment on that we
- did have one topic of conversation on Monday night, and that's
- If the township merges with the town, what happens to the parks? And there are apparently a couple of
- county parks in the township geographic area, and those would remain with the county as I understand
- it now. So those are some of the issues that would sort of confront these subcommittees as they're discussing
- merger, consolidation, reorganization of some sort.
- And I've certainly that you know the variety of terms we can use to describe that but we're meeting 6 to 8 p.m.
- Thursday night the 5th and then 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday night the 12th one reason why we're in a little
- bit of a hurry is because the reorganization committee wants our report I think by the 4th of March
- is it? 27th the rough draft and then
- And then one more final document on the 4th of March. And maybe the reorganization committee for the
- audience tonight could indicate your future meeting dates that I think would also be helpful if somebody
- wants to come to this meeting and comment during the meeting. But I'm happy to... I will sort of stick
- around a bit, but I may not be here at the end of the meeting. I don't know how long it's gonna go.
- But I certainly will be happy to see people. Paula Anderson and Valerie Dewar are the other two subcommittee
- members. So there are three of us on the subcommittee. And we'll be meeting, as I say, in the Department
- of Public Works building tomorrow. And then next week, I think we're back in the town center, if I'm
- But I could be wrong on that but if you do come on the 12th and are looking for us You don't have to
- look very far. We're not going to go very far since I got my role later here That's my best way of getting
- around and snow will still be here in a week So, thank you Thank you, Jim. And since Jim asked we we
- meet every other Wednesday so the next beating will be February 18th and
- and the meeting after that will be March 4th. Jerry. Yes sir. So yeah, you're right Jim, the next meeting
- will be on the 12th and it'll be at the town hall. Denise, are you there? Yeah, do you wanna announce
- your public meeting?
- Good evening. The planning and zoning subcommittee will have a public meeting in this meeting room on
- February 17th from six to eight. And we'd like the public to come out and attend and talk about some
- zoning districts we're thinking of and we'd really like to hear from everybody about
- what they would like to see for the township in town. Thank you. And I think I'll just go ahead, Zach,
- you're at the safety subcommittee next Tuesday meeting here between six and eight, is that correct?
- Six and seven 30. Six and seven 30, okay. Just thought I'd announce them since we're going through the
- list. And we have our website. What's the address, William?
- That's another good place to go for hopefully we'll be Updating that and keeping everybody up to speed
- on what's going on. So that's a good place to check out, too Okay
- Like I said, there'll be public comment at the end if anybody is still thinking about coming forward.
- So the first item that we're going to address tonight is to review quotes from Banning Engineering and
- Shelton to provide maps for election districts. Who's presenting that? You have two proposals in front
- of you. One is from Banning Engineering
- to prepare election district maps. Their proposal is for 19,400, and then you have a second estimate
- from Shelton Specialties to provide, I think he said five council districts, and his estimate is 6,500.
- specialties, and he may substantially less than the other one. He is actually the county clerk in Knox
- County, so he's very familiar with the election law and how districts have to be drafted. And he will
- have five council districts, and it's not in the proposal, but in talking to him, I think he knows that the
- govern subcommittee may, at large, you wouldn't have to draw a district. At large is just, at large,
- everybody votes. But this would guarantee a minimum of five council districts that are districts. And
- if the council, which I expect it probably to be expanded, is at large, this would cover that too.
- So that's, those districts are,
- town and township. Yes. Based on population. Correct. To try to even out the population between the
- five. With a population deviation of around 10% or less, which is what the state guidelines are. Specify.
- So, it's already been decided that we're going to have five councilmembers? I thought that was the governance
- committees. No, it is the governance committees. Okay.
- up to five districts. Yeah, so like I said, if there's at large added, there's nothing that has to be
- drafted for that. Could we go to three or go to seven? It could. That's what I'm saying, is or not.
- That's correct. Okay. The only thing we based, I think it was with both of these were sent out based
- on the plan from Sheridan. Gotcha.
- We're not just talking about the town. That is correct. And all the lines would be or could be redrawn.
- So does Shelton have any intentions of making a presentation to us in the banning report? They talk
- about that, about coming and making a presentation to us and possibly even talking to the subcommittee.
- in my conversations with him. He has said he's willing to talk to anybody via phone or come here if
- we need him. Okay. What's the timeline for this? Well, I don't know. Banning did it for Sheridan and
- Adams so that they're aware of the statutory guidelines. And Shelton, who I've talked to, he's very
- much aware of our timeline too. So they would, I would confidently say they're both gonna fit within
- our timeline.
- 6,500 sounds a lot better than 19,400. I agree. I found helpful on the Sheldon document that pointed
- out that only the county commissioners have the authority to establish voter precinct boundaries and
- that the creation of these maps could result in split voter districts. Thinking through what that's
- going to mean, especially if we find ourselves not consistently on the same page about the whole process
- as the county commissioners
- Do we anticipate that that could present a significant obstacle? That I would not think so.
- I've not seen any, pretty much they know that by law, they recommend if I'm not mistaken, the precinct
- boundaries and as close as possible. So it would probably be election board that would end up doing
- that. And the county commissioners would sign, they've done it before for Ellitsville when we had some
- out and it was just a,
- going through the surveyor and saying, here's where the borders are, here's where the precincts are,
- do we need to move them over a street or whatever? I think that was last done in 2017 when I was on
- the election board. Obviously, price wise, I prefer the shop quote dramatically.
- not having the timeline spelled out in the quote and not having a written commitment to appear here
- and give a presentation. Those are both elements that I would want to have in writing in the contract.
- I agree. Well, did you want to delay this a week and we can have him add that onto there? Or do you
- want to just go with the other contract? Or do you want to go with this contract?
- Yeah, I mean. Can we say that we go with this one as long as he agrees to those terms? Okay. Yeah.
- Subject to. Yeah, subject to, yep. Does anybody have a motion? Let's not. I'll make a motion that we accept
- David Shelton's proposal for the $6,500 amended that gives us the timeline that works with the state
- requirements and what was the other thing? And is willing to appear? Oh, willing to appear. I'll second.
- Any further discussion?
- Subject to a timeline commitment and a willingness to come and give a presentation to the reorganization
- committee Okay, I vote. Yes Scott. Yes Jerry. Yes Mike. Yes, Kevin. Yes William Dawn. Yes motion passes.
- Thank you Comment
- So I think governance will probably be something everybody's interested in. We have a large crowd here
- tonight. One, we probably ought to mention when the next subcommittee meeting that we'll deal with that
- is. If people's interested in it, it'd be good to come. And then any extra information we could give,
- maybe it's not appropriate right now, but I think a lot of people will be interested in where they can go
- to find out more information about this. I think there are some subcommittees that people will really
- be interested in, obviously, how their representative, one of them, planning and zoning, I know is one
- that everybody's interested in, and obviously safety. So I just think that any information we can give
- them, either now or where they can go to get it, we should have that passed on.
- out of this committee here tonight. I'll reach out and if I hear back before the end of the meeting,
- I'll let you know. All right, now discussion of public outreach meetings. I don't know who. I put that
- on the agenda as a suggestion.
- maybe the board would consider having outreach meetings in different areas of the township. So I just
- thought that would be a good topic for discussion. I thought it would be a good topic for discussion
- to think about having outreach meetings at different areas of the township. Would this be after the
- plans developed as we get closer to November or
- or for input now? Whatever the board thinks would be appropriate. Either or both. You said meet with
- everybody you can as early and as often as possible in any context you can in the living room, at a
- fire station, wherever. Whether it's two or 200 people. And I think we're committed to doing that.
- And I'll say again, I'll be knocking on doors, going to people. I mean, not with this weather, but when
- it gets a little bit warmer. I don't think people even want to open their doors for people with this
- weather. But any, my contact information will email us is on the websites, on the town website. Anytime
- you want me to speak to yourself or a group or meet you for a cup of coffee, I'm very much willing to do that.
- And I feel the exact same way, especially hearing the feedback, hearing what you guys think, but any
- questions that you would have or concerns or, but mostly just hear what you folks think. Maybe that's
- something that should be put on our website is that, you know, if you have a small group or, you know,
- book a meeting. Well, should we try to schedule some?
- times and locations and publicize that? Well, I mean, we mentioned on the 17th, the planning and zoning,
- that is a public meeting where input is going to be asked, you know, or we're going to ask the public
- to come and tell us what they're thinking or what they might be worried about or what they'd like to
- change. Yes, ma'am. My name is Kathy Weller and I live in Richland Township.
- I'm just responding to the postcard. So I'm not really sure what all you're talking about. So could
- you just give a little summary of why I'm here? Okay. Yeah. Great question. Yes. Um, we see a lot of
- new faces tonight so that we probably should start off with that. First of all, um, I think that all
- of us should introduce ourselves real quick. We haven't, um, we've had the same meetings, right?
- I'll start. My name is Andrew Henry. I'm a resident of the town of Ellisville. My wife and our five
- kids live here. I own and operate a small business in Spencer and I was excited to join the reorganization
- committee because I think that reorganization has a lot of great potential for giving the Ellisville
- and Richland Township area more control over the future of the town. So that's why I'm volunteering
- my time to be here.
- Good evening, I'm Scott Reynolds. I am, I and my wife are residents of the township, a few miles outside
- of Ellitsville. My desire to be part of the Reorganization Committee was to be part of this investigation
- into whether or not this makes sense for all the residents of the town and the township, and to make
- sure that we talk about all the things that should be talked about. So thank you for hearing us.
- Jerry Sanders, I'm superintendent of Edgewood schools. I'm also a resident of Ellisville since 2019.
- So not that long, but in the time that I've lived here, I've really come to love Ellisville and want
- to see a bright future for our community. My name is Mike Kornman. I'm a lifelong resident of Ellisville.
- served on the town council previously in the 1990s, and on several committees of the town. And I feel
- like I'm pretty politically aware of what's going on with our state legislature, as well as local political
- issues. And I think it's time that this be viewed. And that's one reason I wanted to volunteer to be
- on board and represent the town. So thank you. My name's Kevin Farris. I've been here since 1998. And
- I'm a small business owner.
- I live in the township, a little bit past the school on Reeves Road. And everybody said what, the reason
- that I'm on this board. I'm gonna go next, because I'll explain. Okay, I'm Dawn Durnall. I am on the
- Richland Township Advisory Board. I live in the township and have basically a lifelong resident
- of Ellisville, Richland Township. And like Kevin said, everybody's
- pretty much said everything, but I do want to make sure that we're doing the best thing that we can
- for us now and for in the future. All right, I'm William Ellis and I currently serve on the town council.
- I've been a resident of Alexville since 2014, lived in the county since 1999. But the crux of the question,
- what are we doing here? At the state level, there's been talk
- as far as I can remember, at least since 2006, of eliminating townships, consolidating townships, meaning,
- you know, you have one smaller township, one larger one, put them together. That sometimes works, but
- sometimes you're gonna have townships that have different points of view on things, and it doesn't work.
- So when we're looking at this, we're like, Ellisville and Richland worked together for 79 years when
- it came to fire protection. We have a shared history and a shared vision of growth.
- So instead of changes at the state level causing us to have to react, we thought we'd be proactive first.
- And what this would do, this would actually reorganize the government of the town of Ellitsville and
- Richland Township into one system. So the borders of Ellitsville would pretty much be Richland Township.
- Everybody be Ellitsville, technically.
- Please don't quote me that we're changing the name, because that's been quoted. You could technically
- change the name. It's almost like the reset button on local government. We're starting from scratch
- on one hand. But on the other hand, we have ways that works. The township does things great, like the
- cemetery maintenance and poor relief. The town does things great. You probably saw the streets recently
- with the snow. The town's done that well. Fire protection for Richland Township, the town has done that
- well. So certain things we don't have to reinvent.
- So what we want to do is bring the interest of Richland Township in Ellisville, because a lot of what
- we do in Ellisville affects you guys anyway in the township. Problem is you don't get a vote on it.
- We want you to have an input on it. We want you to have a vote. And where this differs from what you've
- heard from annexations and stuff like that, annexations usually are, there's two types, super voluntary
- or voluntary annexations.
- which is what Ellitsville's been doing. People pretty much knock on the door and say, we're tired of
- the zoning and planning of the county, we wanna come into Ellitsville, welcome. But then there's other
- people that are not attached to Ellitsville that can't do that. But then there's the other
- type of annexations, and it's going through the court systems right now, that they force you in whether
- you want to or not. This, though, is a perfect solution because the ultimate decision is you guys.
- We started this in October with a vote, I think it was October, we voted on the town council, voted
- to pursue it. And then in November, the township board unanimously both said, hey, let's move forward.
- So we formed this reorganization committee. We have, I can't remember how many subcommittees,
- what is it? Six, seven? There's seven. Seven subcommittees, I believe. And those committees are, the
- goal is that if in November we've earned your vote,
- and you vote to do this, you're not gonna lose any services, but you're set on the path for success
- because one of the things I asked at one of the last meetings, how many people have lived here and had
- kids here go to the school system? Raise your hand. Okay, almost everybody. How many of those children,
- after they graduated, found a job here in Monroe County and stayed here?
- I see even half those. We want to change that because this is a community that's home for all of us.
- We don't want it just home to us. We want it home to our children and grandchildren. And that means
- a couple of things we have to do. We have to provide the growth to offer good jobs. We have to provide
- responsible growth so it doesn't overwhelm our infrastructure. And more importantly, we have to get
- the people directly involved. And this is the most direct governance you can have.
- So I hope that answers your question of kind of what we're doing. And I'll try to give it to why. I
- think we all have kind of a different focus as to why, but it all ends up in the same place. And so
- if there's questions, concerns, we want to hear them. What we don't want is January 1st, this to go
- through and us to say, whoops, we didn't think about that.
- We have a plan that we're working on from the town of Sheridan and Adams Township up in Hamilton County.
- They did this successfully in 2024. They did a phenomenal detailed plan on how they did it. So instead
- of reinventing the wheel, we followed something that's worked and people on this board went up there
- and talked to them extensively. I've talked to them and they are extremely happy. What was it they said,
- Dawn, they wished they would have done it earlier?
- Something like that. The trustee said that she wished that she would have done it two years earlier
- when the board came to her, the town council and asked. Yeah. So we want to give you an option, more
- control here. So if you have a problem, have a concern, you come to Ellisville. It doesn't matter what
- your zip code won't change. Your zip code won't change. That's a big thing for people. And your mailing
- address will not change. That is a postal thing. And it's already we have in the town of Ellisville,
- a Bloomington address, Gosport addresses, and Ellitsville. And Spencer. So that'll still stay as confusing
- as it is now. Something else that will not change, William mentioned that you won't lose any services.
- No services are gonna be forced on you either. So there's gonna be, there will be different tax rates
- for the town and the rural people. We will, those of us in the township that are not in town, we still
- are not gonna get brush pickup. We're not gonna get
- you know, whatever is offered to the residents within the current town that we don't currently have,
- those are not gonna be forced on us. They probably are not even gonna be offered. You won't lose any
- service. You will not lose any services. And another important thing about the process, this committee
- is working to put together a plan that we don't get to pass, we just get to give it to the Ellisville
- Town Council and the Richland Township Board, and both those bodies, independently of each other,
- have to approve it, and only after that does it go on the ballot for a public referendum for all the
- voters across the entire considered area in November. So it's a multi-stage process where the subcommittees
- now are doing all the research and discussion to figure out the implications for parks, for cemeteries,
- for roads and streets, for safety, for all the different services. We as a committee compile all those
- reports and come up with a comprehensive plan that then the township and the town
- which are gonna balance their own interests, both have to approve, and then everybody gets to vote.
- It goes to the state, and the state has to say this is a good plan also, and it'll work. When you talk
- about checks and balances, there's a lot of them, but ultimately the best checks and balances, you guys,
- and that's where it'll end up and be decided. Atlantic, several pieces of property,
- that were in the county to the town of Ellisville. I could do that because of boundary. Boundary's touching
- Ellisville already and address has never changed. The only thing, the reason that I did it and on several
- different occasions, I like the governing in Ellisville better than I like the governing in the county.
- The county's wasn't really receptive to what I wanted to do. Everything that I've done has been successful
- and well received, increased people's, not just their property values. It was good for all the neighbors,
- everything that I've done. So in the county was always opposed to it, but Ellisville always welcomed
- it. So that's why I annexed. And in fairness to the county,
- You know, we've got the commissioners and council. Richland Township, they have more issues and more
- voices than Richland Township they have to represent. And that's the way they're set up. And they're
- doing their job on representing those other voices too. But sometimes that conflicts with what Richland
- Township wants. This kind of lets us chart quasi our own direction. When you still have county government,
- that's not gonna change.
- But instead of them drawing a land use plan and saying how you can subdivide or what your slope should
- have to be, we can do that. And based on our growth and super voluntary annexations, I'd say it's been
- well received by people. There's differences in ideology to what the county perceives as the focus of
- their government. They've got this thing they call urban sprawl that they don't like. I don't think
- they understand it.
- I've been told by people a whole lot more knowledgeable, like Bill Cook, that they don't understand
- it. And they limit... they've got a plan already in place. That plan's been in place for decades of
- how they want to see the growth. I can tell you tons of stuff that I don't agree with that. And hey,
- you want to hear my opinion? Ask me.
- Let's get together for coffee. He'll tell you. Yeah. Why I want to see this happen. I think it makes
- sense. I think it's important at the higher level to recognize, too, that while people on this committee
- may have perspectives on the advisability of this reorganization, that ultimately this committee is
- not, the job isn't to persuade
- it's to present the best plan that based on the input of the public and the subcommittees, we think
- could be the best outcome. And then that's to be considered by the actual decision makers at the township
- and the town level and then ultimately the voters. And so a lot of these details are still to be worked out by
- these subcommittees, the meetings that you've heard about, ultimately by us integrating these things
- together with the assistance of council. But I think it's very important to ask a lot of questions and
- ask the hard, difficult questions. I mean, I'm a resident of the township, not the town. And I think
- it's also important that we understand kind of where things would change. I think it's already been
- sort of implicit in the comments that have been made.
- In the township, a lot of these decisions that would be, you know, subject to the authority
- of the reorganized town-township, you know, combination are, these decisions are made at the county
- level, things like planning and zoning. And so that would obviously, that kind of authority would move
- largely to this reorganized political entity. But the changes for the township
- are potentially much more dramatic than the changes for the town. And so I do think it's important that
- everybody have the opportunity to ask the difficult questions and get the answers. And I also just want
- to encourage people to do that and let them know that we're happy to have that done, just whatever our
- individual feelings might be. Kathy, did that answer your question?
- Okay. There are. That's awesome. Yes. That was a great question. And really, my opinion about all this
- is we're just, we're citizens like everybody else, everybody in this room. And I think everybody in
- this room wants the very best for our community.
- And that's what it's going to take. It's not just five or six, seven people sitting up in front of you.
- It's going to take everybody in this room to talk to your neighbors, to get the word out, have
- the conversations when you're outside. Well, you're not going to be outside with your neighbor these
- days, but yeah.
- you know, when you're at church or with some friends, having conversations. And those conversations,
- if we each one take this very seriously and go out and have those conversations, then that's how we're
- gonna reach more people and more people are gonna be knowledgeable. We don't want anybody to go to the
- voting booth in November and say, I have no idea what they're asking me to hear. We need to make sure
- everybody that,
- and our own personal circle of influence that we're reaching out and touching and making sure that everybody
- understands the situation. And we are just getting started. I personally am still learning a lot about
- what we're doing and why we need to do it. And so this is probably the hardest part of all this in terms
- of formulating our plan.
- and getting our input and knowing what our community wants and developing that plan and having those
- conversations. This is probably the hardest part, but if we do our work now, then when it comes November,
- it'll be an easy vote for us, I think.
- The next item that I had on the agenda looks like it says discussion of dates for subcommittees to make
- preliminary reports to the board. We already had that, right? I'll get to it. You said that the township
- people, which I remember, will be affected more than the town. Can you just give some examples and also
- how you mentioned the county would still
- Have some oversight. So can you just give us some examples of the county versus the township versus
- the town? What things would be different? Well, for one thing, the township is a lot bigger than the
- town, not just area wise, but also population wise. There's about seven. The populations are almost
- the same. New discovery. We found out. It's 87.
- 8,500 for the township and approximately 7,000 for the town. So it's come down from 17 to 12,000. You're
- not talking about that. We're using the most up-to-date census. Those are really good numbers. OK. So
- never mind. Yes, sir. My name's Dennis Pence, and I've lived in the city most of my adult life.
- I guess my question before you is to combine the township and the city. Is this a power struggle to
- keep the county from coming in and taking over fire departments and police departments? I know you say
- the services will stay the same, but it seems like this is a little bit of a power struggle to make
- us stronger to prevent the county from
- fighting us on, it's like they want to take us over as well. Is that something you're saying or is this
- just my? You mind if I take that? Everyone's looking at William. I think you've hit the nail on the
- head. The county and there's members of the county that work great with us, but when it comes to policy,
- this is where we have friction.
- Since 2017, 2018, every resident in the town of Ellisville has been paying a food and beverage tax of
- 1% on their food. We don't see a dime of that. And the county went up and fought against us getting
- the law changed last year at the state house. So that was a clear indication. They don't want us to
- have what they think is their money. They did let us say that if we wanted to pass our own additional
- food and beverage tax, we could. That was so gracious of them.
- Then this year the commissioners have made the same night that we had our first reorganization meeting.
- They decided to have a meeting same date and time for a fire district meeting. And what that would do,
- I mean they didn't make a decision on this, but they talked, it was advertised that they were going
- to bring town of Ellitsville and Richland Township into the fire district. First of all,
- No, it said Ellisville. The notice actually said it, even though they can't do that. Right, they legally
- can't do Ellisville. But that tells you the mindset. They think that they can. But then when we bring
- this up that we're wanting to chart our own course. We have a 79 year history between Richland Township
- and Ellisville providing fire protection.
- they are finding a solution to a problem that does not exist. And here's what that would mean to taxpayers
- if this does not happen and the fire district goes in. And Bean Blossom right now, the remonstrance
- from what I understand was 80% against it. They said tough, we're doing it anyway. And so we know that's
- not gonna work if the fire district comes in. But if I'm not mistaken and I could be
- a little off in these numbers, the tax rate for Bean Blossom, I think was gonna be 29 cents per $100
- increased for people for their fire protection. Granted, they are getting better than what they have
- now. They're getting the place staffed 24 seven, they're getting the equipment modernized. But for $250,000
- home, that's about 700 bucks more a year in property taxes.
- So let's take that if the fire district came into Richland Township. Well, they contracted Ellisville
- Fire. There's no equipment. There's no staff. They'd have to build all that from scratch. I think you'd
- be lucky to pay 29 cents per $100. Now, realistically, the elephant in the room, reorganization is going
- to cause a slight increase in taxes.
- We don't know exactly how much, but I tell you, it's not going to be 29 cents. It's not going to be
- that much. Based on kind of what we're looking at, back of the napkin things, based on the Sheridan
- plan, if we kind of overlaid them, probably what was it, five to eight cents per 100, Mike? And that
- depends on, you know, if the subcommittees and the public say, you know what, we want more services
- than we have, and we're willing to pay for it.
- The goal is not money, because we're trying to make this as close to revenue neutral for the taxpayer,
- the people in the township as possible. And because we want to really open the industry of new growth,
- where when new stuff comes in, they can be at the higher rate. And one of the biggest things I hear
- from town residents all the time, we do not want to have to pay for new growth. Well, the way you do
- that is have smart growth.
- growth that is commercial, light industrial. We're not necessarily attracting any, but we're not gonna
- stop that if you have 100 acres and wanna sell it. It's not our job to tell you what you can do with
- your land, to an extent, as long as it doesn't affect your neighbor. So to answer your question, there's
- a lot of pieces to that, but yes, this is a good way for us to say, we have our own identity, it's a
- like identity, we go back generations of the two. Ellisville is Richland Township,
- You know, we're fully in the township. I've actually, I think we have a little bit in Bean Blossom now,
- but for most of its history, it has been a Rifson township. And we wanna continue that. I'm in favor
- of finding the county in every way that we can and adding extra taxes, tongue in cheek, it goes right
- along with our school corporations, which doubles by taxes every year anyway, so.
- So thank you very much. Okay. These are great questions. And I, for me, actually, this is maybe the
- best meeting we've had because of your questions. Are there any other questions or comments?
- Whoever gets there first. Ladies first though. Thank you. I'm Linda Buckland. I've lived for 38 years
- out on the range road. I have a Spencer mailing address. My utilities all come from Spencer. The only
- services I get are fire protection, and thank you for that, and the county maintains and plows the roads.
- Those are the only services I've got. There's nothing that the township is providing me otherwise. But
- now that you're talking about development, I wanna hear some definitions because I'm up there on the
- hill and I hear everything that goes on down on that key heap property. There are backup alarms, there
- are ventilators, the trucks moving around because it all carries up the hill.
- So if you're talking about development, what are you doing to the quality of life for those of us that
- moved out there for the peace and quiet and the fact that we don't have a lot of noise and traffic and
- all the things that come with development? I mean, honestly, I'm on the alternate route between Bloomington
- and Spencer. And when 46 is shut down,
- and they have to reroute the traffic. It's all right by my front door. And two years ago, I had a guy
- lose control on that road and he went in between my retaining wall and the front of my house. Two degrees
- different, he would have been in my house. Now I haven't been able to get the county to re-bank the
- road and I don't think anybody's gonna take on that expense. So I'm still not gonna get this,
- the services that I need to fix it because the Chevron signs there on the road telling people about
- the curve just get taken down every couple of years because somebody plows through them. So I really
- want you to stop and think about defining your terms so we know exactly what you're talking about because
- when you say development, it means something entirely different to me than it may be to you because
- you're hearing dollar signs and I'm seeing loss of
- quality of life. And I think that's one of the reasons that it's important to be part of the town because
- we made a decision key that's affecting people in the township that you didn't get a vote on. You didn't
- get any anybody to talk to about it and you're kind of caught in that gray zone that we made the decision
- and you have the consequences. We want to avoid that as much as possible.
- We don't want people to say, well, you know, I want this. We don't want you to look out your window
- and see nothing but homes and shopping centers or anything like that. When we talk about development,
- that will be driven by what wants to come here and by the public. Well, the problem here, though,
- is to date, your communication with those of us out in the township has been abysmal.
- a brief notice by somebody complaining on Facebook several weeks ago, and then I got the card today.
- There has been no direct communication with any of us who are voters out in the township on the pros
- and cons of this, on the implications, on the unintended consequences, and that's all the stuff I wanna
- hear before I'm gonna go ahead with this, because it just looks to me like it's gonna make it a whole
- lot worse out by us,
- and it's still gonna be a tax increase and it doesn't matter if it's a few pennies on the $100 because
- it's a tax increase for something we're not getting any benefits from. So right now I'm not hearing
- anything that's making me wanna vote for this.
- We're not asking for your vote tonight or make a decision. But that's what I'm saying. I am not getting
- the communications that's going to change my mind. So you guys really need to up your game on notifying
- us of what you're doing, why you're doing, when you're doing it. Because you've been at this since October,
- and this is the first public meeting I've learned about. No, no, no. We started discussing it and had
- the first vote for the town council.
- You started working on this in October and the first official notification I got that any of this is
- going on is that card that came this week. That's four months. Four months and some of this stuff that
- you're doing already sounds like you're working on it's okay, this is what we're gonna go through with
- and it wasn't prefaced by saying this is a plan and a proposal. It was like we're taking contracts for
- electoral districts.
- excuse me, what? But yes, the governance committee has to draw a plan that this year is not for the
- electoral districts is the governance committee is going to have to say, how are we going to reorganize
- the township and voting? So they have to have a professional do that. That's what there was no buildup.
- There was no explanation. There was no preparatory work that you guys all know what's going on. We do
- not know when you hit me with you're debating between a
- $17,000 contract and the $9,600 or whatever the numbers were and then the URL or whatever it was for
- the website went by so fast I couldn't even write it down. There's no display telling me where
- the information is. You're not getting the word out to those of us that need to know. This committee
- was formed at the end of December. So we have not been working on this since October.
- We have had a few meetings up to this point and we had to get approval for funds to send that postcard
- out. So we are trying to spin that up. The website has only been up for two weeks because we had to
- get funding and then find a developer who could build it in under a month for us. So we're trying to
- get a bunch of things that don't have momentum going. I appreciate your frustration. And unfortunately,
- with the lack of local newspapers, it's just a shame that we don't have the journal anymore.
- But unfortunately, the biggest way that we've had to promote this so far is just on Facebook and social
- media, which I realize is pitiful. But without a newspaper, there's really nothing else that we could
- do until we got the funds approved. There are local radio stations that'll do PSAs. Well, I don't know
- that this... They do PSAs because I've worked for non-profits and they'll carry government PSAs too.
- I first heard about this process through the Herald Times at the end of last year, and I've been somewhat
- disappointed by the fact that they haven't continued to cover this. The B Square Bulletin is another
- local news source that made an initial comment about it but has not continued to cover it. So I would
- encourage everybody to reach out to those organizations and any others that you feel like should be
- providing coverage of this and encourage them to pay attention and make sure that this information is
- getting reported.
- Because I don't think it's, I mean, I just wanted to say to the person who was just here speaking who
- sat down that I live on Ratliff Road and so I have many of the same concerns when it comes to development.
- And so I think the only way that we get the answers on the table is to make sure that we do have as
- much attention on this as possible. So please do encourage media and others to attend and report. We
- definitely appreciate the feedback.
- We've ordered yard signs and we're working on a billboard and some other communication devices too.
- But up until the realization committee formed and we had a lead on what we should do, we hadn't gone
- there yet. So the communications that up your game, I wrote it down. I agree with that. And that's what
- we're doing. Yes, sir.
- Yeah, I'm Phil Shanoff. Wife and I, we've lived here for about 45 years now, so a couple three kids
- growing up and went through high school here. This lady that was here before me asked a lot of hard
- questions. You know, it's kind of an ambitious plan. I'm a skeptic, but I try to be open with these
- kind of things. And the thing that I think about is that
- we were talking about services, you know, and I heard what Dawn said about, I think it was Dawn, that
- what's in place is in place, and as far as township-wise versus what's in place town-wise, that'll remain
- the same. I guess the thing that I worry a little bit about is redundancies occurring. And what I mean
- by that is, you know, Monroe County,
- They do a good job with our roads. I'm in the township. I can't fuss. There's times that, but on balance,
- they do a very good job. And I guess what I'm trying to say is I kind of hate to see something like
- that. A service that you already have, you don't want to lose that by virtue of this thing. There's
- gotta be some kind of a cooperation where
- You can use, the county provides a fair amount of services. I mean, you don't think about it, but there's
- soil and water, there's surveying. I mean, I'm talking about in-house, different things like that. Mapping
- programs, but they do things. So I would just advise or suggest that you think about and try to, kind
- of a little bit of a tiff going on, but try to see if that can't get corrected because
- You know, it is the township. You know, there's a PLSS township, and there's a civil township. And I
- got the Senate Bill 270, and I took a look at it here, and I'm not sure if this is really what you're
- referring to, because they talk about attaching one township to another township, and one's dominant
- and one's not. But if Sheridan's already done it, and it's been through state law,
- It's been approved through state law? Okay, okay. Yeah, this is different than that. Yeah, okay, I'll
- let it go at that. I just didn't wanna. Sheridan is actually the third, Sheridan Adams are the third
- or fourth that have done it since like 2011, I think. I think Zionsville and Whitetown, whatever townships
- they've done it. Somebody said Bordersville, does that sound right? I think so. That's anecdotal, I
- don't know either. Right, yeah. And when I talked to people from Whitetown at one of the conventions,
- it was all before their time. So I didn't have any information, but they said they don't notice any
- problems, but they may not have a good idea of what was before. But no, you bring up great points. Well,
- it's just things that came to mind and I'll probably have more later, but I just wanted to say those
- things. And we definitely, I can tell you, I wish our county council was,
- I wish our commissioners was cooperative and work with us like the County Council. It's a difference.
- And keep in mind, if this doesn't go through, you're going to have a change to fire protection. You're
- going to have a major change and a major cost. They've already telegraphed that. That's something I
- was not aware of at all. I mean, I knew that Ellisville provides fire protection beyond the meets and
- bounds of Ellisville. I know that. Now, how that's compensated for, I have no idea.
- So the state gives funds specifically to townships that is for fire. That is the only thing it can be
- used for. So townships are basically a funnel for fire services, whether it's volunteer or a career
- department. So everything that Richland Township gets for fire goes straight to the Ellisville Fire
- Department, which is why Richland, that William mentioned earlier, Richland has no town fire
- department of its own, and in the Monroe County Fire. Van Buren does south of us. Right, so we have,
- so we are, so for 79 years now, the Ellitsville Fire Department has taken care of Richland. It's almost
- an, Ellitsville puts in a little bit more money than the township does from the state, but it's pretty
- equal in what they get. Okay, well listen folks, thanks. No problem, thank you. Thank you, Dennis.
- Doug Turnip Seed, lived here for many, many, many years. And I've got some concerns, and I'll just voice
- those, because I know this is extremely early in the planning stages. So I acknowledge that. But I've
- had some concerns with development and growth, which was brought up earlier. You're expanding into a
- bigger organization. And before I will vote yes on this, when that time comes, if it comes,
- I want to know for sure what the financial part of this is going to be. If you're going to expand the
- police department and other services or provide expanded services which are already low on funds, I
- don't believe, and I'm sorry, that a five or eight cents increase in tax is going to cover that. The
- other things that I've had happen, and I've been in here a couple, three times in the past, is
- the voluntary annexations, they're voluntary because the rules aren't as strict as the county. And that
- has good effects and it has bad effects. The bad effects that I have personally witnessed is the city
- council has given in to developers and those people that are building the infrastructure along 46. And
- that's been very disheartening.
- Because I feel like the focus has been on development and grading tax dollars and funds and leaving
- us Unrepresented and so that's a that's a hard pill for me to swallow I've watched the agreements that
- we've been in here and we've agreed upon just totally Undone And so that's been that's been a little
- disheartening. So when you tell me that you want to develop a
- You wanna grow and you wanna provide the financial base. I mean, I really wanna see a good plan because
- what I don't wanna see is more development happen and 46 get more difficult to navigate without there
- being an alternative way to get in and out of neighborhoods and on 46 in a manner that is safe. So these
- are the things that I definitely wanna see, but I want some assurances that once we agree to this, that
- we're just not going to
- let some stuff go because a developer or somebody with financial interests gets what they want because
- they don't wanna do what we agreed upon originally. So those are my concerns. As a member of the town
- council, if you don't want to publicly, but please let me know if there's something we have committed
- to that's changed. I need to know about that because I'm not aware of anything like that, but those
- are things we need to hear.
- Are you in the township right now or town? I'm in the township, but I'm surrounded by town. Right, and
- this would help you in a sense, have more direct representation too, because you're gonna be electing
- a representative from your district instead of all at large. You don't even get a vote on stuff we do
- that's next to you that could impact you. This would help with that.
- But yes, all those things you mentioned, before that plan is voted on by the council or the township,
- we've got to know that too. Because what we don't want to do is having, you know, January 1 say, oh,
- we didn't think about this, or we have to go back to the drawing board. We get one shot at it. Yeah.
- To back her, this lady before me is concerned, are you guys going to define what you mean by growth
- and development?
- I mean, I really like to know that because it affects me because I have to turn out on 46 every single
- day. You ought to get involved with the planning and developing subcommittee. Yeah, come to that meeting.
- When's that next meeting? The 17th? Yeah, I understand that. But my question is, is that going to be
- well-defined before the vote? That's my comment. Well, I will say our UDO currently for the town well
- defines those things. I can speak for myself when I say growth.
- The biggest thing I hear from residents in the town right now, because that's who I represent, is their
- taxes are too high. They're tired of the taxes going up. And right now we have kind of an imbalance
- of residential, more residential, which takes more resources and puts more taxes, more stress
- on infrastructure, than we do things like light industrial and commercial. I wouldn't want a bunch of
- strip malls.
- But like if Crane is always, that is a driver of industry in our region. And there are companies that
- support them in the defense industry that would like to do manufacturing similar to what's happening
- on the west side of, and for me, that's what I envision. And our UDO and when they'll be figuring out
- for the township,
- What we don't want to do, if you wanna keep your area agriculture, we're not gonna force you to change.
- But on the other hand, if you have somebody, I think I mentioned earlier, the 100 acres, they no longer
- wanna farm. Is it fair to tell them they can't sell it to someone that doesn't wanna develop that into
- an industry that's gonna bring jobs to the area, that's going to bring
- tax relief with the tax revenue, because, I mean, we could get $2 billion in new revenue. None of us
- are gonna make a dime more, so it doesn't help us, but it does help everybody with their taxes. It does
- help the schools especially, because they're able to get more revenue without their, but we also have
- to, the quality of life, because we don't want everybody to be so crammed together that you're spending
- 45 minutes getting from here
- You know, what you see right now, that construction at Sale Street, we don't want that to be a typical
- drive all the time. So those things have to be in mind. Harmon Farms, I believe, aren't they working
- as they build out, aren't they also working on alternatives like weight connection to the school and
- back way over there. So those are things we keep in mind. And we really, I agree with you, we really
- need to take the emphasis off 46. And I mean, for me, if I had a magic wand,
- unless there's a stoplight, I would not have any right or left turns off of 46, because highways should
- not. They're strode and they should. No, I agree. I don't want to see any more stoplights, but at the
- same time, I want to make sure. Yeah, not a ton of them. I'm saying that spotlight with French roads,
- those are things that I envision. And some of that's been worked into the UDO. And that's what he's
- talking about. I think ultimately,
- we can talk about the things that we might like to see or not like to see, but for better or for worse,
- it often comes down to what does the law actually say? And so I think that these are really good questions.
- You know, what's the relationship between the town's unified development ordinance and the Envision
- Ellitsville plan and the like, and how will that expand or be applied to the township?
- I don't think that any we can't really say right now because right we you know, but I will also be at
- the planning and zoning subcommittee because I'm as a citizen apart from being on this committee very
- keenly interested in Those discussions so I would definitely if you if you're able to I would try to
- attend and and make sure that those questions are raised To make that comment because
- I won't vote yes unless I know and I'm comfortable with it. And Scott, one thing I kind of like to brag
- on you a little bit. I hope it shows that we're not just trying to get people a rubber stamp. You've
- been concerned about growth in Ellensville. So we want that voice. So we have somebody on our subcommittee.
- And I'm glad.
- A quick recommendation for me, there's actually an interesting book called Strong Towns by Charles Marrone
- that I read last year, and I recommend it. It gave me a bunch more information and thoughtfulness about
- how towns can preserve their character and also responsibly support their financial obligations over
- time. And there's a lot in there about neighborhoods and growth and infrastructure. I own a small business.
- I run a small light manufacturing company.
- I've been really glad to be able to create jobs in this area. We went from four employees to close to
- 30 over the past five years, which I think is cool. But I also don't want to see completely unrestricted,
- no rules, Wild West, pave that, build that, do whatever, because that will destroy or diminish, degrade
- the quality of life in our area. To both of the speakers who have asked us to give a precise definition
- of what we mean by growth,
- That's hard to do in advance. It's largely going to be building a flexible and responsive but still
- constrained approach that can look at the available opportunities for growth that wants to happen here,
- companies that want to start here, local small businesses that want to begin here and grow here. And
- so we could probably pick some things we don't want to see, but we're also trying to give ourselves
- a direction that we want without putting the whole area in a straitjacket. And there's tension there.
- It is going to be, parts of it are going to be ambiguous. And we don't know for sure what opportunities
- will be available five years from now. I would rather have the residents of this area have more direct
- elected representation
- overseeing that five years from now, then have our hands partially tied by other things that we don't
- have a direct say in. So I trust the residents of Richland and Ellitsville to make better decisions
- about growth for Richland and Ellitsville than a more general purpose one size fits all approach for
- all of Monroe County. Does that make sense? Andrew, by the way,
- Some heads probably exploded from the town council that's listening, because I've been beating the drum
- about stronger towns for three years now, and I thought I was the only one that read the book. No, you
- recommended it to me, and I read it. I did? Yeah. OK. See, I've recommended it to so many people. I
- think you're the only one that's read it. I actually listened to it on Audible while I was driving up
- and down 46 to and from work. Was I right? Isn't that an amazing way of- Very helpful. Yes. Recommend
- it. Strong Towns by Charles Barone Jr. OK.
- to come back to one more time before we end tonight to see if anybody else has a public comment. But
- does anybody on the board up here have a matter they would like to bring for discussion? I thought we
- already did that, but the previous meetings? And Linda, you had asked earlier about the website. I said
- it very quickly earlier, and I apologize. It is Ellitsville Richland.
- info.org. Nope, all one word, Ellitsville Richland info.org. And that's where we're posting documents,
- we're posting video links to these previous meetings, we're posting announcements about upcoming meetings,
- and anything that we can think of that will be useful, we're trying to put it all up there so that you
- don't have to have a social media account, you don't have to notice a billboard, and you don't have to
- Wait, everything's gonna be going up there on an ongoing basis at let's fill Richland info all one word
- dot o RG Yes Yes, ma'am Yeah, so my name is Liz vital and I just happen to be on County Council So I'm
- happy to hear that you're not angry at everybody No
- So I hear a lot of conversation for some time now about the Sheridan plan, but I don't see anything
- anywhere that tells me or shows me what the Sheridan plan is. Is there a way to provide that information
- on your website or how would people find out what you have learned about them or what they are willing
- to share with you that could be shared? I will double check. I thought that was on the website he gave,
- but isn't it on the town website too, Mike?
- Okay, I looked on the Richland info when you're okay. And I didn't see it there. Okay, I will make sure
- within the next day or two, it's on there because that is crucial to give kind of everybody kind of
- a broad idea, especially for you being the fiscal body, the county to kind of know where that fits in
- with everything. So no, I think we discussed at the last meeting that needed to go on there. And I did.
- Yes, it's not yet in our resources section. Okay, yeah. So if that could be on there, I think that would
- be helpful because it must
- surely give the rest of us some idea of what you're thinking about, right, based on what they've already
- done. And is there, does the Sheraton plan or the Sheraton community, wherever they are, do they have
- anything or did you find out any resources about feedback from people that live there, what they're
- thinking about it, or does this plan talk about that? When they voted on it, it was almost,
- it was overwhelming. It was an overwhelming yes, that the people of the town and the township voted
- yes for it.
- Yeah. And so is there any current feedback about what they're experiencing now that you could share
- or they could share about what they're experiencing now as well? Because their plan is in action, right?
- Right. So if we had some current feedback on what it is people are experiencing now, I think that would
- be useful, right? Because they're living it now, right? We only met, the few of us that went up there
- met with just the former trustee who's now an employee of the town.
- and the town council president and their PR guy. And so we didn't, we haven't actually, at least I haven't
- anyway, talked to any actual just citizens to see what their thoughts on that were. Do you know if the
- town, Sheridan, I'm sorry I'm focusing on this, but I like information, right? So if they have taken
- maybe a survey of what the people think about it now that it's in place, I think that would be useful
- if there was something like that.
- I'll reach out. I do know they were lucky they have put some flexibility in the plan because what's
- kind of interesting is they had one of the reasons that they did this was to get more direct control
- too from the city of Carmel and the county wanting to over expand and put high density housing in the
- area. So it's kind of a little bit opposite in that aspect.
- but the people there wanted more control because you had an outside entity making these decisions for
- them and they didn't. So that was one reason the township overwhelmingly voted for. But when I say that
- the flexibility, originally they had contracted or had memorandums of understanding with the county
- to continue doing the roads and things like that. But I guess that as soon as it passed, then that all
- changed. But luckily they were able to pivot. And the original plan,
- with a suggestion was to eventually build out their Department of Public Works to cover the whole township,
- you know, in stages and the county would take less and less, but it ended up changing where
- they subcontracted for a lot of it, saved a lot of money on the taxpayers. So it offers some flexibility
- there, but I haven't, that's a good, I mean, I'll, I do know I've been on there
- We have Ellitsville high neighbor here for Ellitsville. They have a similar one for Sheridan. And I've
- been on their Facebook group. I haven't asked anything because I'm not a member there. I'm just kind
- of alert. And I saw a lot of the same concerns there around this time in the process as we're hearing
- here. But I noticed after the vote, I haven't heard anything on it. And there's nothing recent. Doesn't
- mean there's no concerns. It just means it's not
- there, but I will reach out to the town council president to see if they've done some surveys, or even
- public comment, because if you're getting more people involved, which this obviously is, if something's
- wrong with it, chances are within the first couple months, you're gonna hear about it pretty quick,
- even if they voted yes. So I will reach out, I'll commit to that. So speaking of different what's wrong
- or whatever, I heard tonight, I thought I heard tonight,
- Richland Township population was very similar, I thought, to the Ellitsville town population. But the
- numbers I've seen before in different reports, public reports, don't indicate that to me. So I'm wondering
- what the real numbers are for population for Richland and Ellitsville. Mike, do you want to speak to
- that? Yeah. So the real numbers are 8,000 to 8,500 people in the township.
- Our last census was in 2020 was 6,635 people. So we're pretty sure we're over 6,700 just based on new
- starts building in that. So those are the good numbers. I've got egg on my face because I was told the
- numbers were different for quite a while and I've been using them. And so if you want to come see me,
- I'll give you all the facts. But the first fact I give you was incorrect.
- But but those are the numbers. Okay, and that's very viable. How how it's on the census. Okay, and As
- everybody around here in Rowe County says now just Google it I think there was an email since his inquiry about the
- the numbers of Richland and Ellisville, and Ellisville's numbers are included in the Richland and Noble.
- I think that's where the confusion was. That's where the confusion was, yes. Double counting. So, yeah.
- Okay. Turns out the old numbers just turned out to be legit. All right, true. And so is there information,
- back to the Sheridan thing, is there information before and after their reorganization, or what do they
- call it, about the tax rates? Did they have
- Did they go up or down, or where's all that? They have that. Sheridan went up 4 cents per 100. Okay.
- And that can be shared also on your... Yes. I believe that's in the reorganization plan. If not,
- it was... It is. Okay. It is. Okay. Yeah. I couldn't remember if I read that or... In my opinion, you
- can't have too much information. Right. Well, exactly. Well, because you never know what you don't know
- until... Right. Yes. Okay. Well, thank you. The Sheridan plan is a good, almost a half inch
- So that's a lot of information. So you've got your information, yes. It's great because, yeah, you can
- find anything you want. We can't even email it, so it's so large. Thank you. Thanks. So this is probably
- a good time to say, for anybody that doesn't know, I'm the town manager and your utilities director.
- Michael Farmer I should have said somebody else so Sometimes people want information immediately these
- meetings are fine and they go from one week to the next and so we've made an offer when this all started
- to reach out by coming to anybody that has questions or setting in a
- in a room like this and spending as much time as I need to with anybody to tell them how we operate
- now. We have a pretty good idea of what will happen if we don't reorganize. So that's worth sharing.
- And so whether it's the county council or individuals, the reorganization committee,
- I will spend as much time as I can explaining the best I can of what we think's gonna go on. I can talk
- about how we look at economic development now as a town as opposed to a reorganized town. And I won't
- have all the answers, and I might even have a couple wrong answers, but I would spend an inordinate
- amount of time with anybody.
- This I carry with me all the time. It's a map of the township. If you lay that out between two different
- people and I'm there, pretty soon you're talking about a lot of things and you go pretty much in depth
- on what could happen here, what may happen here, and the plans that the town has now. Whether they meld
- with what the reorganization
- plan is in the future. I can't say that. I won't speak for that. But I would spend an ordinary amount
- of time talking to anybody because it's very important. Very, very important. And so you can reach me
- by calling the Utilities Office or the Clerk's Office. I'd give you my cell phone number, but I'm not going to.
- Also on the website, the email direct contact information for each member of this committee is listed,
- and you are welcome to contact any of us at any time with any questions you have. We had discussed earlier
- the idea of public outreach meetings, and that kind of tapered off when we moved on. I would be very
- interested to hear from those of you who took the time to come out this evening. What kinds of public
- outreach meetings, if any, where and when would you see value in those?
- You see a couple heads nodding. I mean, obviously, we meet on Wednesday evenings. Wednesday evenings
- aren't conducive for attendance for everyone's schedule. Some people have other things going on. And
- I want to make sure that anybody who wants to know more about it has the opportunity to ask questions
- in real time. That's very valuable. I'm happy to make time to meet with people, to come to an organization or come
- I will have fewer answers than Mike, but I will write down all of your questions because I want to know.
- Anybody have suggestions for where we could have outreach meetings? If you want to just form neighborhood,
- meet at somebody's house. That's how Sheridan did a ton of that. And of course, Lions Club and all the different
- community organizations, churches, something to think about. Yeah, don't have to do it this week, but
- we are interested in doing that. I'm interested in doing that. So if you'd like me to come sit down
- and talk with you, I'd be happy to. My email is on the website. And you also should mention podcasts.
- So we have a YouTube channel that's being run by Dawn Durnall from Richland Township. We're going to
- be recording some videos answering
- frequently asked questions and discussing them in a shorter, more concise format than having to find
- it in an hour and a half long tax video from a public meeting like this. And we would happily discuss
- and record answers to any particular questions you have. Questions about what do we mean by growth?
- That's a great topic for us to discuss and point out what we do and don't want to see. Ultimately, we
- can't predict the future. We don't get to call the plays three quarters in advance.
- but we do want to give you guys more information about what we're thinking, what we see in the Sheridan
- plan, the questions we've already been asked, our best take at the answers to those questions at this
- time, so we can refine those and get you more information. Hey, William, you had a motion last meeting
- about moving to weekly meetings. Are we gonna discuss that? I'm more than willing to. Diane, do you
- have anything?
- letter. I was told to stand further away from the microphone. I'm on reporting on behalf of the planning
- and zoning subcommittee. We've met two times and our first meeting was spent learning a lot about what
- is currently in place and I have to compliment Mike and Denise for
- answering many, many, many, many questions that we had about it. We all have copies of all the different
- zones and your concerns are many of our concerns too. I will share that with you. And the second meeting
- we, and I would encourage you just as a sidebar, before our public meeting, if you can have a copy of
- our objectives, the people that are going to attend that meeting, that will help you
- help us, I think, because these are the things that we're charged with doing. But our second meeting
- was last night and we got more detail and I have to compliment our community for the plans that are
- already in place. The Envision Ellisville plan was awesome and the current UDO is very specific and
- although it's thick, it's thorough.
- And most communities of our size don't have anything comparable to that. And they certainly don't have
- anything so recent. That's the other thing that's so helpful here. This is not a 20-year-old plan. And
- it is specific as to
- what is expected currently. Now our charge is to determine how much of that comes into play because
- we're now incorporating, that's not the right term, we're adding, we're adding a lot of more rural property
- than perhaps what this UDO was expecting. And that's where many of our questions were. And again, Denise
- has been very thorough in answering those questions and helping us, but we will need the input
- of the community as to the feelings and thought processes. But we are listening and that's why we decided
- as a group, we need to hear more, I hate this microphone. We need to hear more from community residents
- as to what are your feelings about it. But again, I think with Mike and Denise's help, they can explain
- thoroughly and completely
- what can be expected, you can't micromanage it, but you can be thoughtful with it, and I think what
- our entire community wants, the business community, the residents, they want it to be predictable, very
- predictable, and they want decisions made in a timely manner, in weeks or short months, not years. And
- I think that's what this group can accomplish
- as a part of the whole process. And that's it. So the date of February 17th, it would be good to have
- a packed house here, I think, for that evening. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. She didn't say.
- She did? Okay. Okay. I didn't know she did. You probably did. I mean, you did. That's it. It cut out
- just when you said that.
- Let me ask you, when we talk about growth, who wants more pizza places? No? Okay. Wait a minute. I'm
- going to add to that because it's a little bit of a joke, but just take a few seconds here. I was involved
- in my previous levels of fire chief three years ago to the market studies for Ellisville area. We were
- told we could have up to eight pizza places in the Ellisville area because we seemed to like pizza.
- And if anybody watched the roadways on a Friday night, you see them all down the road. So you see every
- place packed. So that's the nature of our beast. And we had one close, and there's two more looking
- to come here. What's your plan for the road? Peace? Yeah. All right, anything else before the board?
- Are there any other committee meetings? Yeah, I was just going to ask the same. Are there any other?
- I mean, we passed a motion last time
- says request, but you could also say direct each subcommittee to make a report at our subsequent meetings
- starting tonight. So it sounds like maybe not every subcommittee has a representative here tonight.
- Are there any other subcommittees that would like it? Public safety, maybe? I see. And finance. I see.
- Okay. Zach's right now come up for public safety and then after him.
- And maybe we can add a line on the agenda going forward, just to have a designated spot for these reports.
- Zach Michael from the Public Safety Committee. We met last Tuesday, and you got a lot of great information
- from the fire department, the police department, the building department, and each individual member
- of the committee is now working on drafting the plan, or parts of the plan. Just a reminder, Mike announced
- it earlier, but we will be having a meeting next Tuesday, February 10th,
- here from 6 to 730 to solicit input from the public on what they want to see from public safety. So
- that's our report. Thank you. Elaine Thompson, and I'm on the Finance Committee. And we've had two meetings,
- multitude of information budgets and tax lobbies and so on.
- And we meet tomorrow. We're going to put it all together. And I believe we will have a good rough draft
- for you on time. Thank you. Any other reports from subcommittees? Mike, do you have anything on the
- water, sewer and wastewater? I don't. I think somebody that's on the committees here, Terry, are you here?
- Yeah, Terry's here. He represents BBP Water. And of course, I represent the utilities in Ellesville.
- But we have not had a meeting yet. As I said before, fortunately, we talk amongst ourselves anyway.
- And their boards have long-range planning in place. Currently, Ellesville's going through a long-range
- planning for sewer to the west.
- You know, our water system, we have long range planning and we're probably 75% through it based on what
- we thought in 1998. And so we're kind of set. At some point, we should meet to reconfirm how we'll work
- together. Terry and I's had some discussions about how being BBP water
- And also water, we border each other. And as the town moves to the west, there'll be a time when the
- town will be interested in some kind of economic development project or a housing project that will
- involve how we go about our business. And yet we'll have to work with BBP Water for fire protection,
- make sure they have good water supply,
- for fire protection and a lot of times economic developments dependent on utilities and infrastructure
- already being in place. So that process was ongoing before this started. So I don't know who's in charge
- of the utility subcommittee, but we actually have been working on this
- years before now. And so I think we're in pretty good shape. I don't know what the expectations are
- for the utilities. But like I said, we have contracts right now working on our infrastructure plans
- for five, 10, and 20 years moving west. And we have in place an infrastructure study for the whole town
- as it is now.
- We had brought up earlier about, you mentioned about my motion last week about meeting weekly. Are you
- thinking we need to revisit that? I'm really grateful to see all you here. I'm really encouraged to
- have a larger turnout at the meeting. I know that there were some folks, partly because of the snow,
- some deliveries got delayed, some mailboxes weren't.
- as accessible, not everybody got their postcard as soon as we hoped. I got my postcard today. Some people
- only had a few days or a single day of notice from the postcard about this meeting. Of course, the postcard
- says that the next meeting will be two weeks from today, so I'm not... Yeah, I'm just throwing that
- out there. The postcard wouldn't give them warning if we added a meeting the next week. That's true.
- Unless we had a better way of getting that word out.
- Along the line, I was wondering if we should, Mike, talk to Fields and Company and have them take the
- suggestion of the lady that spoke earlier and get some PSAs out if we can on the radio stations. All
- the local ones that. Yeah, I mean, they asked me the other day if they wanted to reach out to HT and
- maybe ask them to come see us and do an article now. And so, yeah, we can do that.
- I just think, I think she's right. We need to get as much out there as we possibly can. I was not aware
- that we could do the PSA announcements. I know in one of the nonprofit groups I work for that was lobbying
- for ballot question, they would not do that since it was a yes or no ballot question. But they, I mean,
- it's not going to hurt to ask.
- So we will just for the meeting for awareness. We're not doing the actual for the battery. It's how
- they interpret it. We can try. Yes, we definitely will try because I think every meeting we've discussed
- outreach and better ways we can do it. And even between meetings, I've had conversations with everyone.
- What more can we do? And especially my keys. I'll get the yard signs out. I think the grounds going
- to fall next week. All right. So then back to our.
- back to our question that I didn't really mean to take away from, but about meeting weekly. Okay. I'd
- point out if you do go to every week, we may have a couple of conflicts with the fire territory meetings.
- So if you had a meeting at six, it'd have to have a hard stop at seven. Hard stop. I think the meetings
- would be at seven, so it'd be like a 650 hard stop. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well. Yeah.
- And you have a plan. I think you have some subcommittee meetings on Wednesday, too. I'm trying to look
- them up. So if he's going to go to every week, based on what Scott says, maybe it's good to plan to
- have them starting in March. And that'll get you away. And even in March, we have two dates for the
- fire territory meetings.
- 11th and the 25th. 25th, right? Yeah. Yes. So those would be hard stops, but there's nothing wrong with
- that. Here's a suggestion for the board. If we go to weekly meetings that the weeks that are not the
- every two weeks that the postcards say, that's when we do kind of what I'd say our organizational business.
- We get the report from the subcommittees. We can make sure there's certain ones there. We can have more
- time with that.
- some public comment if public shows up, but then on the two week meeting, kind of keep it almost the
- whole thing open for like we did tonight to hear from the public. To receive information. Yeah, to receive
- information because I don't think the public wants to, you know, as an example of us discussing the
- contract, I mean, it still would be a public meeting, but those that want to know more about what are
- you talking about or how is this going to impact me, this is more to administrative thing
- that won't really impact you, but what this is for will, and that would be a better time if we have
- a meeting just on those things, just a thought. And if we don't have any administrative things to do,
- then we don't need to meet that off week. To complicate the situation, I would say people will want
- to know when you're going to meet,
- and they want the information, but at the end of the day, if they want to get up and ask a question
- and they want to hear this back and forth that's going on, what I call meet to what is going on, then
- they'll expect it every time and they won't know which one's an admin meeting. No, I just said we'll
- still talk to the public, but since they weren't advertised on the postcards, we probably wouldn't have
- as much of the public. Just a thought. I mean, so that's... Touche.
- Well, I'm hard pressed to vote for double the number of minutes I have to prepare. Yeah, I'm nodding.
- I don't know. I mean, I'm happy to have other people push back. I'm not sure that a meeting a week from
- now will put us in a position of having a lot more information that we were able to share back, because
- I feel like there's a lot of work that's being done at the subcommittee level right now. I would rather
- people, members of the public,
- use that opportunity to go to those meetings where they're going to have some direct input into the
- thinking of those subcommittees. And then once that reverts back to us, then we'll have more meetings
- here. I agree with that. I'd like the public to know we're not afraid to do that. It's just we don't
- want to waste your time, especially. Yeah, but everybody has such limited time. I mean, we're all busy.
- So I would just rather ask people to direct their energies toward those subcommittee meetings and giving
- their feedback.
- And those subcommittees would be wrapped by March 4th. So then if you wanted to go to a weekly meeting
- after that, and you could even. Because then we can say to people, they said, what's your proposal for?
- We'll just say, roads, as somebody brought up. We can say, this is what the subcommittee recommended.
- We will be able to actually answer questions as opposed to just sort of talking. We're still in the
- process, yeah. All right, anything else? No.
- Anybody else from the public? Good evening. My name is Tim Crouch. I'm a lifelong resident of Monroe
- County and about a 30-some-year resident of the Ellsville area.
- Couple questions, first off, what you're doing I think is very ambitious if you're looking at later
- this year putting up, I mean I understand it, you're talking about a referendum later this year? Okay,
- you've got your work cut out for you. Okay, also it appears to be your focus is that you're very interested
- in getting public comment. I for one, and I don't know how many share
- My view out here feel like that I'm kind of still in the dark. Not a lot of information, and maybe I
- just haven't went to the right places to find it. But one thing is, has there been any kind of master
- or overall scope plan on what you're proposing? Why the issues it's going to be taken up into that process?
- the process itself, the timeline, the deadlines, anything like that out there that I have missed or
- I'm not aware of that would give me a better feel for why we're here, why we're discussing this, and
- what the intent is in the whole process. Number two, if you're coming back to the public,
- with intent of convincing us to vote either yay or nay on an issue like this, when is there going to
- be a final document that we can look at that actually we can dig into to find out what your, the ideas,
- the reasoning, the value, the other issues associated with to convince me that I'm going to, when's
- that going to be available?
- Darlin, Eric, we're looking at probably May or June. We need to get to Baker Tilly a draft plan so they
- can finalize it. And then we're hoping to get the reorganization plan to the council and the township
- board by end of May. Okay, so before the end of May. Very aggressive. It is. That timeline is because
- there are state requirements we have to hit. Right. It's not the timeline it would have
- ideally picked for work of the scope? Well, yeah, okay, I understand that. But again, it's very aggressive.
- If you're convincing the citizenry that this is a good move, okay? Well, that's just when the plan would
- be available and then you've got from then until November. Right, but again, if you're talking about
- a referendum in November, and then I assume that
- Once the final document's out there for people to digest, then you're going to have public meetings
- on that. So we can discuss what's in the document with you, clarify things, ask questions, raise issues
- that we may have concerns with, those types of things. So I'm just trying to wrap my head around how
- this is going to work. I'm very interested in being involved and want the best for the community.
- I'm not saying whether I agree that this is a good move or not at this point. The final question I have,
- and it's really more questions than anything, and that is at your subcommittee meetings, I assume that
- they're open to the public. Are those posted with information indicating the topics that will be discussed
- in those subcommittee meetings at the time, so me as a citizen can show up with that, with questions
- and issues centered around what
- the subcommittee focus should be? They've been on the website, haven't they, Mike and Denise? Yes, and
- we've been sending out postings when a meeting's about to happen, and it goes to website, Facebook.
- It's almost a weekly thing. A high neighbor, yeah. But the website that was mentioned, is that one central
- point that we can go to get all information?
- So on the subcommittees, because the subcommittees are made up of the citizenry, they've got to decide
- week to week when they're going to meet. There's not a hard, you know, because everybody's schedules
- differ. So it's not a, it's not something that you can plan from now until, what, for the next three
- weeks. What I'll do, tomorrow I already made a note, I'll talk to our people that keep the information
- out there and see if we can come up
- with a calendar that would be updated every day that a new meeting is scheduled because. And then I'll
- make sure that gets on the website so you do just have one point of information. Yeah, that would be
- great because obviously, again, if the intent is also with the subcommittee is to get public input,
- then yeah, as most and I understand coordinating people is difficult, scheduling is difficult, but
- Again, if the key is getting public input, then we have to have an opportunity to be able to provide
- that and know when to show up to do it. Generally, what are the topics or what are the general discussion
- points are going to be involved at that subcommittee level? There's seven subcommittees. One's planning
- and zoning, so they'll handle all the issues.
- I don't think those subcommittees are gonna be producing an agenda prior to each meeting. So no agenda
- outlining specifics or anything like that that we can look at beforehand. Yeah, there will be. They
- have the objectives that they have to follow. Yeah. Is that something we can post those objectives?
- I have to, let me see here, because committee members,
- The website doesn't, but it should have all the subcommittee members contact info on there also. I thought
- it did, maybe just, do you remember seeing? We never discussed putting contact info of private citizens
- on the subcommittees on that website. We put our public emails on it. Oh, that's right, yeah, that's right.
- I guess they can email us. I'm gonna try to just make sure we get the calendar as you guys book the
- stuff and have him put on the website, because you're right, we'd be putting, I mean, they're not elected
- officials or anything like that. They're- When all else fails, you can call the clerk's office. She's
- not here tonight. And you can call the clerk's office and ask for that information. It'll get to me and I'll,
- I'll get it back to individuals and like I said, we're gonna try to post all this too. But if all else
- fails and you're interested and you don't think you're getting the information, you call the clerk's
- office and you'll get personal service. Okay, well I would urge you to try to, as information is gathered
- and as the various groups interact, to try to put as much information out as you possibly can.
- if indeed you are, if you are indeed interested in public input. And we definitely are, because we can't
- do this without it. I can tell you, if you just come to the town hall every night at 6 o'clock for the
- last two weeks, there's something going on. I'm telling you, because I've been there. So you can almost
- not miss. And if you're lucky enough and the lights are out, you get to go home. I'll say at
- the subcommittees, we have finance, public safety,
- planning and zoning, there are longer names in it. Parks and recreation. And cemeteries. And cemeteries,
- yeah. Governance. Governance and water, wastewater and sewer. And I just wanted to make another clarifying
- comment because I realized that a lot of people attending are hearing some of this for the first time.
- I'm gonna ask somebody to correct me if I say something that's wrong here,
- As far as the role of this committee goes, we are tasked with putting together a proposed reorganization
- plan. Once that passes out of this committee, this committee is finished at that point. And then it
- goes to the town council and the township board, and then ultimately, if they pass it to the voters.
- Some people involved in this committee may then take on sort of a
- you know, an advocacy role I would imagine, you know, some may not as far as the plan goes. But while
- we have our opinions on where we think we're going, you know, ultimately our job on this committee is
- to find facts, put together a plan, and then we hand it off. Hopefully that helps. Am I correct in that?
- Sir, yes, thank you. If I may, I applaud you guys for what you're doing. I just want to be clear about
- something that I see is confusion, and that is the input from the public. And everybody wants information
- and all that, and you're compiling all this and you're making decisions. But when it comes down to the
- final, I would say that's the final.
- No more discussion of, well, why are you doing it this way or that? So when it comes September or whenever
- this is finalized, we get the final report. That's what's locked in. That's what we're voting on. Okay?
- That's what we're voting on. No more public input of let's change this and let's change that. Well,
- where did you come up with that at?
- That's what these meetings, if you're having it every two weeks, we should be here, we should be commenting,
- we should be informed. If you guys will have prepared some things that will give us information, because
- we're all wanting information. It's new to me, I wasn't even aware of anything until I got a postcard.
- And that's the reason I'm here. But once it's finalized, it's finalized,
- and we need to make the public aware there's no more input, there's no more discussion. So I hope that's
- the way it is. It's not gonna be changed right up to the day we actually vote on it, and then I don't
- know what changes have been made. Once it goes to the state, it's done. We cannot change anything.
- So in June, I think that's the date. And if there's something people really wanna lobby for, then the
- new council. I wanna know what's locked in solid before I vote.
- and there's no more discussion on it, okay? Thank you. Doesn't the language say that both the town council
- and township board have to pass substantially similar? Yes. So once those do that, and they're voted
- on, that would be what's submitted to the state. So everybody will have, it should be all their questions.
- I mean, I shouldn't say all their questions. Everybody's gonna have questions, but. And William, isn't
- that the plan is going to try to spell out the exact details of implementation
- for every single thing, some of those details will be determined by the reconstituted, reorganized governing
- body starting in January at the referendum passes. But all the big picture pieces and understanding
- of the general impacts across all the services, that has to be really clearly locked in for the document
- for public vote.
- Thank you. I'm Michael Richardson. I'm on the Subcommittee on the Planning. But I want to address the
- information. I also work for the United States Postal Service. And I want to explain something why those
- postcards were so delayed. We had a trucking company called 10 Roads Trucking that went bankrupt and
- kind of left the Indianapolis area without some possibilities of trucking. So the mail said in Indianapolis
- for quite some time, but we couldn't get it out.
- The snow was no help. Some of your mail set in Bloomington for four or five days before it even got
- to the routes. So I don't think no one's blaming for the tardiness of the mail. It was late, of course.
- But there were some hardcore reasons, and not because they didn't do their job, we didn't do ours. So
- I just wanted to address the reason for the tardiness of that mailing.
- Meeting's adjourned.