- We're gonna call to order the joint meeting of the Eltsville Town Council and the Richland Township
- Advisory Board. We'll start with our own roll call, if that's all right. Dan, we'll start with you.
- Just announce who you are and who you're with. Dan Squalford, Town of Eltsville. Trevor Sager, Town
- of Eltsville. William Ellis, Town of Eltsville. Scott Oldham, Town of Eltsville. David Welby, Richland
- Township Board. Dawn Durnall, Richland Township Board.
- Jay Thrasher, Richland Township Board. And I'll just certify that there is a quorum from both councils
- present. Ms. Brown, does this go to you or who begins this? I think it should go to Mr. Farmer. Now
- this is one of the public hearings for the fire protection territory. Okay. And this is a series of
- four. And we have Baker Tilly here this evening to make a presentation with regard to
- the impact, the financial impact analysis, if the fire protection territory goes through. Okay. Do you
- want me to start it? Good evening. I'm Kevin Patton, Fire Chief of the Ellsville Fire Department. I've
- got a short, it's approximately 12, 13 slides, just a brief overview of the Ellsville Fire Department.
- Our department's made up of 17 full-time personnel. We have an administration staff, which is fire chief,
- deputy chief, fire marshal, and an admin administrator. The deputy fire marshal and fire marshals take
- care of fire inspections, things of that nature. Let's see.
- We have, sorry, I'm not used to doing this, so. We have 21 firefighters that are part-time. Those personnel
- fill in when a full-time firefighter is off duty or when they're sick, something like that, they'll
- come in and backfill. We have two fire stations. The one here in Ellisville on the highway. That was
- built in 2004. And the station over on Curry Pike is station 81.
- If you're old enough to remember where Wetterall was, it's in the trailer court across the street. It
- was built in 1971. A map of the township. Currently, the Ellisville Fire Department covers the entire
- township through an annual contract with Richland Township, and we've done that since 1947.
- just a little on the left side, just gives you a rough breakdown of the types of calls that we respond
- to as far as through the 911 center. We do, you know, we'll get occasional calls for people that their
- water lines broke in the house, things like that, and they'll call and ask for assistance, and we do
- go help them. The top right gives you an idea of how many 911 emergency calls we respond to a year.
- And you can see since 2020, we've had 102% increase of those calls. That's just from growth, number
- of people traveling through our area. And of those in 2024, we had 265 overlapping calls. That means
- we've had both our stations out on multiple calls at a time. When that happens, we rely on aid from
- other outside agencies.
- I have no idea what that happened. Sorry about that. This just kind of gives you a breakdown. We've
- listed every fire station in Monroe County. That includes the city limits of Bloomington, and it's ranked
- from number one through the bottom based on how busy a station is.
- And you can see we're number two and three of the busiest fire stations in the county. We make a lot
- of calls. Uh, just to give you an idea, if you've ever watched the morning news and you see the Indianapolis
- fire department on a call for service, it's not uncommon for a residential see 30 or 40 firemen out there.
- Minimum staffing, they recommend around 20 firefighters on a call for a structure fire, like a house,
- something of that nature. Obviously, if it's a larger structure, you'll have more than that. Where do
- we get our funding? Through the town of Ellisville, through your property taxes.
- Richland Township through a contract that we renew every year, and we have since, like I said, 1947.
- The 2026 budget, that's what we are running right now. That includes the personnel, the equipment. And
- then the 27, 28, and 29, that's just an estimate. The state generally allows you a 4% increase a year,
- and that's what that reflects.
- This just gives you a real quick breakdown on what some of this equipment and basically where your tax
- money goes. You can see a fireman's pair of gloves is $100. We're allowed to use those for 10 years.
- If they make it 10 years, they generally don't. Firefighters turnout gear, helmet, all of that put together,
- you're looking at $7,000. All of that is good for 10 years. After that, it has to be replaced.
- A fire engine. A fire engine will last us roughly 20 years. That's based on call volumes, things of
- that nature. Obviously, if it's busier, you're going to get less time out of that. A truck is $1.3 million,
- and currently it's taken between two and four years to order one of those. If you need an aerial truck,
- basically a big ladder with a bucket at the end.
- You're looking at three to four years to get one of those, and they're running right around $2.3 million.
- What kind of equipment replacement have we done here recently? This year we ordered a new fire engine.
- That was paid for through the contract with Richland Township.
- We also ordered 50 sets of turnout gear. We do everything we can to try to save the taxpayers' money,
- so we do a lot of grants. Half of that was paid for by a grant. The total of it was $101,000. We purchased
- a new aerial, the latter with the bucket on the end, almost two years ago. That was paid for by the
- TIF district, which is the
- Basically the factories on the west side of town, west side of Bloomington in the southeast corner,
- Daniels Way, Curry Pike, things like that. They paid for that truck completely. Did not cost the taxpayers
- of Richland Township or Belletsville any money. Let's see. The station on Curry Pike, that's the only
- thing that we're looking at relatively soon, looking to need to upgrade that.
- Like I said, that was built in 1971 when there was one firefighter on duty over there and we made roughly
- 150 calls a year. Now we're housing three firefighters in there. It gets a little snug besides it's
- 50 years old. It was also purchased by the West Side Industries, the Wetteralls, Cooks, General Electric.
- They paid for the building, paid for the firefighters there for the first five years.
- no tax money costing by for that. That was completely paid for by them. Just challenges we have with
- the current, not unlike anybody else, overlapped calls just from nature, the volume of them, population
- increases, work, driving, so on. Huge decrease in volunteerism.
- We're not getting the volunteer firefighters into the department like we used to. When I joined 37 years
- ago, there was roughly 40 volunteers. We've got like five now. Everybody's busy. The net assessed value
- for Richland and Ellisville is right at $1,800,000. That's what we're protecting currently.
- What we're wanting to try to accomplish, basically bring the two governmental entities together into
- one. Page from Baker Tilley will cover this in more detail. Just makes things a little smoother. Your
- town council still has input into what's going on. The advisory board does. It's they work together
- to accomplish this rather than two separate boards.
- And that's all I've got. I can turn it over to Page unless the council or anyone has a specific question
- for me at this time. Questions from council? And seeing none, any from the public on the chief's
- presentation? Seeing none, we'll move on to Page.
- Good evening, Paige Sansone with Baker Tilly. So my presentation is a summary of the financial impact
- analysis that we prepared for this proposed fire territory.
- So you can go ahead to the next slide. So we and by the way we do have handouts up here at the front
- desk if you'd like to pick one up after the meeting. So what is a fire territory. It is a legally established
- consolidation mechanism for providing fire protection and it is a way really to
- bring two adjoining taxing entities together to create a fire territory. So it can be two townships,
- it can be a township of municipality, it can be fire districts, but there has to be at least two and
- they have to touch boundaries. So why would we form a fire territory? Really, probably the number one
- reason is to create a sustainable and dedicated revenue source for fire services.
- Also, to spread the cost equally across an entire tax base so that we don't have people out in the township
- paying a different rate than those within the municipality.
- Improves operational efficiency and response times it can enhance firefighter safety and resources having
- additional Revenue can help with that getting additional Staffing etc getting better equipment and it
- meets the growing service demands as the chief mentioned. We're seeing this on
- all over the state, if not all over the nation, that lack of volunteerism. It's not that people don't
- wanna volunteer, they're just too busy to volunteer. It's not like in the past where a lot of employers
- would allow people to go out on runs in the middle of their job, in the middle of the day. We see a
- lot less of that now. So it is really a lack of having those volunteers.
- So the process to establish is at minimum we have to have three public hearings to present this information
- and we will present the same exact information at all three public hearings. Tonight is public hearing
- number one. February 25th will be public hearing number two.
- and March 11th is the final public hearing. On March 25th, the fiscal bodies of the township, so the
- township board and the fiscal body of the town of Ellisville, which is the town council, will vote to
- either approve or deny the proposed fire territory. If it is approved,
- I don't know why this is cutting out. If this is approved, then we will send a petition to the Department
- of Local Government Finance asking for permission to levy property taxes beginning in 2027. So once
- we send that petition, it will be up to the DLGF, the Department of Local Government Finance to approve
- or modify that request. If you go back to the previous slide,
- So previous, yep, right there.
- So the proposed fire territory obviously will be made up of the town of Ellisville and Richland Township.
- One of these units has to be designated the provider unit. And in this case, that would be the town
- of Ellisville. And that just simply means that the town will levy the property taxes on behalf of the
- fire territory. And the town will be responsible for preparing and approving the annual budget, but
- there will be a fire territory executive board that will recommend, will prepare and recommend that
- budget to the town council. So that executive board will be comprised of at least one member from each
- participating unit. So they will have a voice in this, they will have some authority in preparing that
- information and really running the fire services.
- So again, the property tax levy, if this is approved by March 31st, will be levied beginning in 2027.
- And then after that, starting in 2028, it will grow by the same levy growth factor as all other taxing
- units in the state. Now we can move on. So the first thing, and we can move on to the next slide.
- The first thing we like to show is just a comparison of the funding as it is now. I know the chief had
- already showed a little bit of this but just to show you how much each unit currently generates in revenue
- that is specific to fire services. So the town of Ellisville generates about one point five or one point
- six million in revenue.
- in Richland Township generates about a million dollars in revenue for fire services. So jointly together,
- it's about 2.6 million in revenue. The next slide is the tax rates. So right now, an individual or a
- taxpayer with property in Richland Township pays about 14 cents for fire services. A property
- located within the town of Ellisville pays about 19 cents for fire services. The next two pages
- is a detail of the fire territories proposed budget. I'm not gonna go through all the detail again.
- We do have handouts up here at the front, but I'll go to the next page that shows kind of the total.
- So we have a total operating budget the first year in 2027 of about 3.8 million.
- And so that would cover the day-to-day operations, staffing, utility costs, all that kind of day-to-day
- recurring costs. The fire territory is also allowed to have what's called an equipment replacement fund.
- It's very similar to a township cumulative fire fund or a town cumulative fire fund. That generates
- a certain amount based on a maximum rate of 3.33 cents. So 3.33 cents for this fire territory would
- generate about $505,000 that can either be accumulated or spent on an annual basis. This slide kind
- of puts everything together. So the first thing we do is determine what
- needs to be funded. What is the operating budget? What is the capital budget? And then we can determine
- the total levy that is needed to fund that budget. And from that, we can go on to calculate the estimated
- property tax rate for the fire territory. So as we go down through here, we see that we need net property
- tax of almost $4 million. There is some circuit breaker
- losses that will be incurred right now. We're estimating somewhere around 179,000. So what that means
- is there are some taxpayers that are hitting the tax caps, especially within the town of Ellisville.
- So no matter if the property, no matter if this fire territory is approved or not, those types of taxpayers
- will not pay any more on their tax bill. So that generates additional credits
- that are reducing the overall property tax. So we know going into this that even though the Fire Chief
- has proposed a budget of about 3.8 million, it's possible that there will only be about 3.7 for operating
- because of those, or 3.6 to 3.7 because of those estimated circuit breaker credits. So we have to keep
- that in the back of our minds that we may need to do a budget adjustment.
- The capital will have about five hundred and five thousand to operate with so both of those combined
- about four point two million So we need a levy of four million one hundred and thirty nine thousand
- I'm just rounding up there if we spread that over each $100 of net assess value that is a tax rate of
- point two seven four four and
- After the first year, it's just going to grow by the normal growth factor, which we're assuming is about
- 4%, which is very typical. We have the budget growing by the same growth factor, 4%. So really, there's
- not going to be much of any changes after the first year. It's just that initial year where we'll see
- some impact. We do need to let you know that there is some current.
- outstanding debt for an aerial ladder truck. The remaining balance is approximately $1.8 million. The
- township has no outstanding debt. Please note that any pre-existing debt like the debt I just mentioned
- does not roll into the fire territory. That debt will continue to be paid by the current funding source
- that's paying it right now.
- The provider and participating units may issue debt after the fire territory is established. There's
- no immediate plans to do that, but just to let you know that either one or both of the participating
- units can issue debt on behalf of the fire territory if later on down the line there is a big capital
- purchase that needs to take place.
- Now for the property tax liability impact. So we need to determine how this is going to impact the district
- tax rate because that is what your tax bills are based upon. If we can figure out what percentage increase
- this will cause to the district tax rate
- That will translate to a percentage increase to your tax bill if your property is not hitting the tax
- caps. So Richland Township is impacted a little bit more than the town of Ellitsville because the district
- tax rate is lower. So the district tax rate for Richland Township is 1.6407.
- Right now, the tax rate for fire services is about 14 cents, so we can subtract that out before we add
- on the fire territory rate of 27 cents. So the net impact is about 13 cents for this fire territory.
- That increases the overall district tax rate by 7.9%. So again, that translates to that's how much your
- tax bill could increase. That's the maximum it could increase, 7.9%.
- If you're not the tax caps if you're at the tax caps you should not experience any increase in your
- tax bill and we are going to show some examples here in a minute. In Ellisville there's two taxing districts
- in Ellisville they have about the same tax rate they're a little bit different but it's pretty close.
- So we would first take off the .1862 that's currently charged for fire services, mainly out of the general
- fund, and then add in the 27 cent rate for the fire territory. So the net impact is about nine cents.
- So that's a 4.2% increase to the tax bill for those living in Ellisville, the maximum. So now we are
- gonna go on to some illustrative examples.
- So we're gonna start with residential homestead property. That's what people are mostly interested in.
- We've got three different property values. So we're gonna start with $150,000 residential home value
- located in Richland Township. So the 7.9% increase would only be about $7 a month or $80 annually.
- If we look at a 293,500 residential home value, which is, by the way, the average home value in this
- area, you're looking at a $16 monthly increase or about $193 annually. And then a $350,000 home value,
- it's about $20 increase, which is about a $238 increase annually.
- Okay, so now we move on to Ellisville. Both taxing districts in Ellisville have the same impact.
- So $150,000 home value is not at the tax caps, so it would see an increase of $4 monthly.
- or four and a half dollars monthly, and about $55 annually. Now notice the $293,000 and the $350,000
- home values. Those values are hitting the tax caps. So if you have that value of residential property,
- you would not
- see an increase due to this proposed buyer territory. I have listed in the notes down here towards the
- bottom when homes hit the tax caps in these three taxing districts. So in Richland Township, you'd have
- to have a pretty high home value before you're hitting the caps. It's about 1.1 million. But in Ellitsville,
- in both taxing districts,
- Your home doesn't hit the tax caps until 228,000. So if you have a home value above 228,000, you should
- not see an impact due to this fire territory. That's in Ellitsville. If it's below that, you will see
- some impact up to 4.2%. Okay, moving on to other property types. So we have a $100,000 piece of agricultural
- land. If it's in Richland Township,
- The 7.9% increase equates to about $11 a month or $130 annually. That property value
- in Ellitsville is already at the tax caps. In fact, all 2% properties, which would be agricultural land
- and residential rental properties are at the 2% caps. So they are not going to be impacted if they're
- in the town of Ellitsville. I realize there may not be much ag land in the town of Ellitsville, but
- I'm sure there's some residential rental properties in Ellitsville.
- Moving on to a $300,000 residential rental property in Richland Township the monthly increase would
- be about $32 or $390 for the year and then commercial property of 500,000 would be about $54 monthly
- 650 a year for up for Richland and then Ellisville $37 monthly and $441 annually. So again, those are just some
- some examples, but really all you need to know are those percentages and if you're at the tax caps.
- And you can get your tax bill from the county GIS and whatever you're currently paying, you can just
- multiply it by either .079 or .042 and that will give you the increase unless you are at the tax caps
- at which point you would have no increase. So moving on.
- Couple slides here, continue, continue. So we need to talk about, or we are required to talk about the
- impact on the overlapping taxing units within this area. So property tax caps, I did mention that. Those
- are credits that limit a taxpayer's total property tax liability to a fixed percentage of the gross
- assessed value of that property.
- So we have three tax caps classifications in the state of Indiana. One is residential homestead, which
- is capped at 1% of the gross assess value. So for an example, if you have a $100,000 gross assess value
- home, it's capped at $1,000.
- Other residential rental and ag land capped at 2% and commercial properties capped at 3%. So it's a
- higher cap, so it takes a higher tax rate to get those taxpayers to the cap. There are exceptions, like
- if there's a school referendum, you have to pay that in addition to the cap. So there are times you
- could go above the 1% or the 2% or 3%, but that's referendum rates would only push you over that.
- So how does this proposed fire territory impact the units? On this slide, it shows every unit within
- the county and how the units would be impacted. And quite frankly, it's not that much of an impact except
- to the fire territory, which makes sense because the fire territory is levying additional taxes and
- it's pushing some people to the tax caps. But if you look at the county government, their tax caps may
- increase about 21,000.
- Richland Townships will actually go down on this schedule. If it's a positive number, it means your
- tax caps are going down. And that's because Richland Township will not be levying taxes for fire anymore.
- So you could see a benefit for that. The town's property tax caps will go down because a portion of
- the town's maximum levy will be reduced because you don't have to cover fire services out of your general
- fund anymore.
- But then, of course, we know that the fire territory will have a tax cap starting right off the bat,
- and they understand that adjustments may need to be made. And you can see the school is affected and
- the library. So this is minimal impacts, considering the fact that we do have a lot of taxpayers in
- the town of Ellisville that are hitting the tax caps. All right, so the next thing I need to talk about
- is local income tax.
- So Monroe County has several types of local income tax. Some of these local income taxes are distributed
- based on how much each unit levies as a percentage of all the levies in the county. So when we have
- a provider unit of a fire territory, levying more property taxes because now they have this new fire
- territory, that might mean that
- local income tax gets redirected towards the participating units, the town and township, and away from
- some of the other units. So we had to analyze that. So that will be in a slide that follows, if you
- can go to the next slide, please. Before I get to that slide, I'm getting ahead of myself. I wanna tell
- you a couple things about local income taxes. One, that there was,
- legislation that was passed, SEA 1, that changes the way local income tax will be distributed. But I
- do believe that's going to be delayed. The legislation as it was written in SEA 1 says that we'll have
- a new local income tax structure starting in 2028. And the distribution is based on a multitude of different
- factors, but not levy.
- But here's the deal, the short legislative session, I think they're going to delay that to 2029. So
- therefore I am gonna have to show you that at least 2028 will be impacted. There's a year lag time.
- So the levies that are based on the distribution formula or the distribution formulas that's based on
- the levies is the year previous. So if the fire territory starts levying tax in 2027, it won't affect
- local income tax till 2028.
- And then if we have a whole new system in 2029, it's not gonna affect that one. So I think at probably
- most, this fire territory could impact the 2028 distribution. So let's go to the next slide and see
- how that might impact things. So again, 2027 is not impacted because it's based on 2026 levies. So there's
- no impact there. Where this could impact if
- the legislation delays the new structure is in 2028 only. So the participating units based on the formula
- that's in the statute will get a larger share of local income tax because of the way the formula is
- written. It basically will look like both
- the town and the township is levying tax for the fire territory. Really only the town is levying the
- tax. But the statute is constructed in a way to give benefit to both participating units. So that said,
- Richland Township could see an additional amount of local income tax of 275,000.
- an additional amount on top of what you're already getting. And Ellitsville could see an additional
- amount of about 290,000 or 291,000. But where that additional amount comes from is a reduction of all
- the other units that have this. So again, going back to we are required to show you an estimate of how
- it will impact other units within the county.
- Moving on to local income tax, same thing. It's distributed based on levy, at least for the
- 2028 distribution. So Ellitsville could see an additional 289,000 of local income tax. Richland is not
- a part of this one because remember, public safety lit is only distributed to the county unit and the
- municipalities. So Ellitsville could see a benefit there.
- Economic development, which, yep, on the next page, this one in this county is based on population.
- So this is not impacted. So this fire territory will have no impact on the economic development
- distributions. Okay, vehicle excise tax is the last piece of overlapping information I need to give
- you. Vehicle excise tax is the tax that you pay when you go to the license branch to register or renew
- your vehicle.
- When you pay that tax, it gets distributed out to all the taxing units in the county based on how much
- each taxing unit levies. And there is no lag.
- time year. So in 2027, there will be a change in those distributions. You can go on to the next slide.
- So it stands to reason that the fire territory will get that additional amount. There's no stipulation
- in the statute like there was with the local income tax where the participating units will get additional
- shares. It's just since the fire territory now has a property tax levy,
- they will get about 207,000, which we've worked in as the revenue for the fire territory, but the other
- units will see slight decreases because it comes from the rest of the units. So that completes
- my presentation. I think at this time we can accept public comment if there is any. And I wanna make
- clear to the public
- because we've also, we had a reorganization meeting previous to this, it's either or. This is not in
- addition to reorganization. If the reorganization fails at the public ballot, or we don't submit it,
- it's not on there, this would be in its place. So you're not gonna get hit with, when we come out the
- reorganization numbers, I don't want anybody thinking it's reorganization plus the fire territory, it's
- either or.
- Other questions? Comments? Seeing none, we'll move to the public. Any more questions or comments?
- Seeing none, we'll go to Mr. Farmer and ask where we go now.
- and pass a resolution and ordinance to join or to establish a fire protection territory and then approve
- a fire protection territory agreement. And just for the record for the public, the additional hearings
- are on February the 18th, February the 25th, and March the 11th, all in here, all at seven o'clock,
- correct? Correct. Okay. Go around again. So for those that remember, same bat time, same bat station.
- I would say if anybody has any questions directly to me or myself, probably through the clerk's office,
- and you can utilize the clerk's office to ask questions and we'll get back to you with information.
- The town clerk, right, the town clerk, not county clerk, correct?
- One more time for the council. Any questions, comments? Anything else you want to discuss? Well, we
- haven't mentioned the Monroe County Fire District or Fire Territory. Yes. That has set their sights
- on Richland Township. They said in the meeting in January. And you were there. I was there.
- December 22nd. 5 p.m. I remember that. I was there.
- and they flat out said that they intended to add Richmond Township and Salt Creek and Polk, maybe,
- in April. Well, again, that's kind of, I will say, worrisome for the fact that we've held a contract
- in force between the two governmental bodies since 1947. There remains a contract in force, and this,
- quite frankly, seems like a move with other reasons behind it.
- And to be clear, the fire district, do any council members from Alexville to town, have they reached
- out to the fire district and said, we want to be part of it? No. Has anybody from the township reached
- out to the fire district and said, we want to be part of it? No. And the fire district with Bean Blossom,
- the last one that they did, Kevin, what was the, they had remonstrance, didn't they? Which means the people,
- either vote wanted or not, and I think was it 80% remonstrated against it? That's what I was told by
- the Trustee. Correct. And the commissioners overrode that and said we're doing it anyway. And their
- tax impact is on a $300,000 home based on their tax rate, about 1,080 a year. So this would,
- both reorganization or this would stop that.
- may just be temporary, because this I think is more up in the air based on state guidelines with what
- they do in the future. Consolidation would be the best of the two options. Reorganization. Potato potato,
- right? Nope. It's not? Reorganization. Okay. So again, any comments, questions? I would like to add
- to what William said that Richland Township has always
- With that, Scott mentioned the agreement. For 79 years, the township has always used the funds that
- we get for fire for Ellitsville. That's why we have the agreement that Ellitsville covers the entire
- township. And with that, the fire district, if they were to take over Richland Township, would have
- to start from ground zero.
- no land, they have no buildings, they have no personnel, they have no equipment. So our taxes are going
- to have to be utilized to come up with that money. On just a record, it would only be the taxes from
- the township. It would not be taxes from the town because the town is on fire. Correct. That would greatly
- impact the township residents. Correct. And in the grand scheme, impact the town residents because of
- the lack of funding, but it would grossly
- over impact those in the township. Correct. Thank you. We have one gentleman rising for comment. Hi,
- Andrew Henry. I just quick one on clarification on the actual process because William had said it's
- either reorganization or this. My understanding is there are four required public meetings.
- This is the first. There are three more in February and March, at which point the fire territory would
- be established by a vote of both the township and the council separately.
- it doesn't go on a ballot referendum in the fall. That is correct. But if reorganization were to happen,
- it would supersede the territory. But in terms of order of operations, the fire territory would be decided.
- Yes. And then if your organization is approved by the public ballot, it would then be dissolved and
- superseded by. That's correct. Yes. It just wouldn't take effect, isn't that? I don't know if it would
- be dissolved. I don't know if we would have to do anything to dissolve it, or would it just by nature
- not exist? Basically, at that point, we wouldn't have two bodies.
- Capable of forming the fire territory because it would be one joint government, right? So we wouldn't
- even qualify for this to go into effect if reorganization is passed by the voters. But we would know
- at the time of the referendum on reorganization that the fire territory definitively had or had not
- already been passed. It's been established. That is correct. Thank you. And again, I will speak for
- both boards and correct me if I'm wrong. We feel that the public is the better determiner as to who
- runs the town and township as opposed to
- outside entities that we necessarily didn't elect to tell us who's going to provide fire service. So
- with that said, one more time, anyone? The only thing I might throw out, what I heard that the fire
- district had planned to take Ellsville in April. It's a municipality, they can't. Oh, it's Richland.
- Yeah, well, they advertised Ellsville and Richland. Okay. Yeah, and they have no statutory
- ability to do that, but I think that just kind of showed their true intentions that they want, they're
- coming after Ellisville too. That's just my opinion, but I think this is one of those cases, and I know
- we got sick of hearing it all through COVID, we're all in this together, and I think Richland and the
- town really this, because the town doesn't escape from this got free if the district comes in either.
- And to be clear, the district, you're not gonna get bad fire service.
- those are great guys, they have great leadership, you'd just be paying that much more for equal to what
- you got now. And yeah, it's a solution in looking, looking for a problem. All right. If there's no other
- comments, we'll stand adjourned for this evening.