- to order the Monday, July 28th, 2025 meeting of the Elstville Town Council. Marshal, would you do the prayer? Our heavenly Father, we come before you again this evening to thank you so much for this wonderful little town we serve. We ask that you be with us tonight if you make the decisions that affect all those that live here, work here, and those that are elected to be officials. I ask that you say in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Jesus. 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. And when you have time for a recall, please. Pamela Samples. Trevor Sager. Here. William Ellis. Here. Dan Swofford. Scott Oldham. Here. Now we'll move to the public hearing on the award goods for the Heritage Trail pedestrian bridge.
- crossing Jackson Creek we're open and taken under advisement the bridge is part of our nation our next level trails grant
- on july seventeenth my farmer a copy can i met in review the kids we would like to work in fox construction company incorporated you had a little bit of five hundred forty one thousand three hundred sixty three dollars condition that they not proceed at this time we're in some difficulties with uh... dnr and uh...
- We actually got to stop work on us right now and have for some time. That would be my question for Darla. Do we award this bid or do we hold off? I think you can award the bid and just hold off on the notice to proceed. I guess we'd have to understand depending on how long the bid. How long is the bid price good for? That's something I'll ask him and if he you know will be very
- flexible about the end date and all that, and I'll have to talk to him about it and explain our situation. I think the council knows, depending on the length, it may be a little bit more than... Yeah, that's why... Do we award the bid? I think we award it. My thought is we award it because that way if we get the situation taken care of, we can just go ahead and start. We don't have to... Your thoughts?
- If you award it and they can't proceed, then you can just, you know, wait two more weeks and I'll go talk to him and tell him what's going on. I would go ahead and award the bid. Okay. Other questions from council? Questions or comments from the public? Since this is an unusual circumstance. Okay. And we're back to the council.
- I move that we award the bid for the Heritage Trail pedestrian bridge crossing Jax DeFeat Creek to Fox Construction. Is that the actual correct name of the, is it Fox Construction? Yes, I believe so. Okay. Fox Construction Company. Fox Construction Company. And the motion includes holding off on the proceeding until. Yes. We hear. All right. Yeah, I'll second that.
- Just a correction. That is correct. Your motion does include that. Yes. Yes. I just forgot to add it when I. All right. And we have a motion to second when you're ready. Trevor Sager. Yes. William Ellis. Yes. Scott Oldham. Yes. Motion passes. We'll move now back to accounts. I'm sorry. Action. Sorry. One more time. Action approved minutes for July 14th meeting. So moved. A second. Even though I wasn't here, I think I can still vote on minute approvals. Correct. I think that is correct.
- All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? Now the action to pay accounts, payable vouchers, and payroll vouchers. So moved. Second. Motion to second. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstaining? There are three resolutions this evening, the first of which is resolution 18-2025, additional appropriation for the general fund. Yeah, I'll take this.
- We've asked for an additional appropriation from the general fund of $100,000. We have a need to put in a professional service line, $50,000. In the town hall, we have additional costs of $25,000 that'll get us to the first of the year. I can explain this if you like. And then $25,000 for professional services.
- for engineering and design for VS Engineering and Bienvenu Associates Engineering for the trail in Stewart Park. I explained it, I sent you guys an email and I can go through questions if you like on why we're doing it. Questions from council? I just don't know for the public we should just maybe bullet point
- Well, bullet points. The town hall is pretty easy. During a rate case for the water rate increase, IRC decided we could not finish this year paying our rent from the water only. And then there's additional costs like electric. Yeah, because water was a percentage of all that. Yeah, all that. And it came to.
- Almost $25,000, so we just rounded it off. Everything that we don't use is encumbered and goes right back to the general fund. For the professional services, I have a list I'll not bore you with, but it's like probably 30 or 40 different instances where we needed professional services already this year, dealing with TIFF, dealing with
- dealing with SB1 legislation, some fire issues. I can read them off if you want. I have the list. I'm okay with that. These are not for the public and for my own. These aren't reoccurring things we're always going to have year after year that are not budgeted that we'll have to do this for. That is correct. We'll be able to bake these into budgets going on. That's all I was saying.
- And then lastly, the $25,000 for professional services for engineering and design. That's just requirements that DNR has asked us to address. Done. Okay, any other questions from council? All right, anything from the public?
- a motion to approve resolution 18-2025, additional appropriation from the general fund. Second. Motion is second. Are you ready? Scott Holden? Yes. William Ellis? Yes. Trevor Sager? Yes. Motion passes. Next is resolution 19-2025, additional appropriations from the park fund. I'll take this as well. So we have a current cash balance
- $101,000 in the park budget and we need to ask for $24,500. The bullet points are $3,500 for sand and timbers and upgrades to the flutter garden. And $6,000 for furnishings and office equipment for the Herdy Center, which we've got to go ahead to proceed and finish.
- And then $15,000 for outside landscaping and ancillary outdoor furnishing, such as benches and basically mostly landscaping. So this comes out of the parks budget. And Jimmy, you guys have it in your fund, right? Okay. Okay. And once again, any money we don't spend will be encumbered and it goes back into them. Okay. Questions from council?
- Public back to council. I make a motion to approve resolution 19 dash 20 25 additional appropriation for parks. Second motion second. You ready. Trevor Saker. Yes. William Ellis. Yes. Scott Oldham. Yes. Motion passes. Thank you. Next is resolution 20 25 transfer funds in B.H. restricted to local road and bridge matching grant. Guess I'll be me with.
- EMB paving kind of getting ready to wrap up with what we've got going on for the community crossings grant this year. We need to transfer from my restricted line into the matching grant for the local bridge and road to bill pay them when they're done. And it should be my 25% match.
- resolution 20-2025, transfer of funds, MVA restricted to local, road, and road matching. I'll second. Motion to second when you're ready. Scott Willem. Yes. Liam Ellis. Yes. Trevor Saver. Yes. Motion passes. Next is resolution 23-2025, authorization to open a new checking account. I will take this.
- To keep our interest that we have been approving high, I was asking permission to take $250,000 from the general fund that we currently have at People's State Bank and move it to Old National. In the checking accounts that we have at Old National, or at People's State Bank, the current interest rate is 2.96, and the introductory price at Old National for an account is 3.75.
- So forgive my lack of on-the-spot math skills. What is the difference throw off in a year? It's not substantial And have we approached people's with potentially see if they elevate the rate to match that so we did on the CDs which we were able to move a couple of them up to
- So they were all at 4.6, and then they dropped down to 4.16, and then we increased a couple of them up to 4.29. Okay. Other questions from Council? No. Anything from the public?
- I'll make a motion to approve resolution 23-2025 authorization open a new checking account. Second. Motion and a second. Scott Oldham? No. If it's not going to offer us anything substantial. William Ellis? Yes. Trevor Sager? Yes. And Darla, where does that leave us?
- It passes because it's not an ordinance. If it were an ordinance, you'd need three votes. All right. Speaking of ordinances, there are no ordinances on first reading, second reading, and there is no old business. So we're going to jump straight to new business, which is the Baker-Tilley contract for utilities with a 30-day filing. Yeah, I wanted to make the board aware that I've asked them to start a 30-day filing to increase the hook-on fees for water. They haven't been raised for some time. I can't even tell you.
- want to raise them last, but it's been several years because of inflation and the price of brass and copper and all that. We need to raise the price of the hook-on fee. And to be clear about why we're doing it is the IURC does not want us to make money on a hook-on fee, but they don't want us to lose money either. So whatever the cost to put a new service in, it should be borne by the person hooking on.
- By making it a break even, the current customers are not impacted because they helped pay for it and the new person doesn't have to pay any kind of profit on it. They just pay for a new hook line. So with that said, the current price for putting an existing new service in, and we do all the digging, is $1,510.
- going to go to $2,225. And that is penny for penny, just so everybody knows. And if it's a bore, it goes from $1,960 to $3,425. So as you can see, we have two other ways you can pay. If you do your own excavating, it was $1,180, and now it'll be $1,725.
- and water only, which is a meter, so you don't pay sewer for irrigation and such. It used to be 600, and it's going to 1,100. And we've always discounted that to encourage people to get water only meters so that they don't have to pay the sewer. And is that consistent with the hook ons with other areas? No, actually it'll probably be one of the highest ones around. Any other water company that's not taking care of this
- is not doing their current customers any favors and If there was any critique of this process it was we probably should have done it eight or ten months ago Questions from council We're just a comment Mike. I think I'm wrong, but we've been talking about doing this for a while and kind of the conversations that Are part of the public loud and clear says we don't want to pay for new growth. Well, this is a way of
- On this aspect, they're not paying for the new growth. They're not subsidizing these hook-ons, correct? That's correct. And as you can tell by the difference in the current price and the proposed price, the inflation in the last 24 months has just been super inflationary, and it's really hit our industry because it's all metal and those kind of things. So it's a hit, but it's what it takes. It's penny for penny. And this is just for new hook-ons?
- That's correct. Yeah. Have no effect on current customers. Any questions from the public. So you know what online no one rising in chambers will go back to council make a motion to approve the contract between Baker Tilley and utilities the 30 day filing. I'll second motion and a second. Yes.
- I believe during the process Darla write up a resolution an ordinance an ordinance and on that will be all the other fees that we have I could send you a list such as if somebody tears a line out we have to send out a service truck and a man and back on
- And labor those fees will be all in that too. So we're updating everything but these this hook-on fee was kind of leads away Yes, we have one full-time position that's open We'd like to bring the name of Cody modern to you guys for a contingent offer full-time employment
- pending a positive perf physical. It is a budgeted position, it's current. Okay, action from council. Go ahead, Trevor. Make a motion for the fire department to hire Cody Modder pending the perf physical. I'll second. Can I make an addendum to that?
- that we extended a conditional offer of employment pending satisfactory. Do you have a motion and a second with the agreed upon amendment? Trevor Sager? Yes. William Ellis? Yes. Scott Oldham? Yes. Thank you. I think the next one's right back at you, Chief, for the MOU between the Richland Township Fire Station. I think I will pass this to Darla to explain.
- As the council is aware, the town needs to replace its Curry Pike fire station, and the Richland Township Trustee Marty Stevens is willing to finance the new building. So what the council has before it is a proposed memorandum of understanding between four parties, that being Richland Township, the town, North American Minerals, which owns a four-acre parcel at the intersection of West Vernal and North Heart Street Road, and the Rogers Group.
- North American Minerals subleases that parcel to the Rogers Group. And those two entities are willing to sublease it to the township for a 99 year lease, sublease at a dollar a year for the new fire station. So this memorandum of understanding states in relevant part that that four acre parcel at the corner of Vernal Pike and North Heart Straight Road will be sublet to the township for 99 years at a dollar a year.
- The township is willing to finance the project and at some point in time the town will convey to the township fee simple ownership of the old fire station upon the execution of a further definitive agreement. Right now this is just an agreement to agree to kind of set forth what the parameters are. So the township will serve as lead party with respect to the project. The township will issue the bonds.
- and the town will provide all accurate information to the township for the project as requested. Questions from the council? Just one of the things I've mentioned to Kevin and I think others, my heart burn with this is the fact we'd be trading real property, something we own, and we're getting a building on land. Not only do we don't own it, the township doesn't own it.
- Ask a question what you just said So darling and again, I'm gonna give you a for instance Probably hypothetical you can't answer yet, but I'm gonna try So our governor and our legislature stated intent is to do away with the townships Yeah, so as I understand it the theory behind that is that the townships cease to exist That then false all that they had falls to the county
- Is there anything we can write into this, or have written into this, that if the township no longer exists, that the property now comes to the town? I can circle back around and put some suggested language in there for the next meeting, if that's a concern. My concern, and I'll just go on it, is all of a sudden the county owns it, and they're saying, you know what, Ellsville, get out. We're gonna put our own fire department majority in there. And I don't wanna see that happen.
- Maybe something in there that gives an option for the township to sell it to us for a dollar or something like that. So if it looks like this bill's gonna pass before it does, they can. We're never gonna own it. It's leased for a dollar. Well, on the building that sits on the building. Just as the township. Whatever township rights they have, we could buy is what I'm saying.
- If it looks like the township is going to go away. That's that's the overall issue with several of our things here. And again I would love to think that all this would work out to our benefit. But we proved in the past that's not necessarily the case. Like something in there that if that looks like it's going to happen that we can structure like what we do with the fire trucks that we own them. They're paying for them. I'm completely good with that.
- But as I understood this, they own it, they pay for it. Correct? Yeah, I'm not sure. Much like the old fire station downtown here, the trustee owned the ground. We had the building built, maintained it, and all that, but the town never owned the building. I have no issue whatsoever with doing business with trustee, and we've done that successfully for 30, 40 years.
- My heartburn to borrow his term is with the county. No, I understand that. So I don't know if the town can own a building on property that they don't know. It's possible, but it's unusual. Well, cause the sewer, we own the sewer plant, right? And that we, that's just a parcel, not even connected to the town that's part in Alexville. I think it's annexed in. It's annexed in, but there's nothing around it in Alexville.
- It's not contiguously annexed. No, but... It was annexed under special statute. But if we know... Yeah, I don't see any reason why we couldn't own a building on leased land. If the township owns it, then we could own it too. Because currently, we don't own the building that Station 8 sets off. We own the building and the property, but it's not annexed into elsewhere. Oh, okay, I see what you're saying, yeah. But the proceeds from that...
- that we sell can go towards this. But what I don't want is like whether it's when the county takes over in 99 years for the musical chairs to stop and for us to have nothing. I'm not so worried about the 99 years. I am worried about the whole. Yeah, I think in 99 years you might want a new building anyway. No, no, we definitely would. But we would have no land. We couldn't just. Right, right. You couldn't just tear it down and rebuild off the parcel.
- I'll be here so I can be. You probably will be. In that same chair, yes. And I don't want in 100 years some council saying, I can't believe they did this to us. The only other thing that I know to do is to physically look for a different parcel, one that the town could own the ground outright. I've got no issue with all how this is structured. No, I understand.
- Other than the stated intent from the legislature and the governor's office to do away with the townships, which would then push it to the county. If there's just something we write in here that should the township cease to exist, the same deal exists between the Ellisville and the landholder instantly, I guess giving us an automatic way out. If you do away with the township, that's fine. It now falls to the second tier, which is Ellisville and this building corporation, not the county. I'm sure Darla can come up with authority we need.
- I hope so. I'll come up with something. So with that said, is there a motion? Well, we're gonna wait till we see some, I don't know how we. Motion to table. Again? Yeah. I'll make a motion to table the MOU for Richland Township Fire Station. Second. Motion to second to table. Chair Seger?
- Yes, yes No Next to the agenda is the new roof for the fire department open quotes and discuss financing So you have three bids. The first one is from AMI roofing out of Bloomington and
- Total estimated price, $93,500. The next one is from Integrity Exteriors, also out of Bloomington. $116,589.15. And the final one is RCV Roofing.
- they're above the monthly fees if you want to do it monthly. Well, yeah, I was wondering how they broke it down. It's in small print. Okay, quote, subtotal $192,823.29. Or, and that is for the ribbed metal roofing, which would be an estimated $2,530
- If you go with textured ribbed metal roofing, the quote is $209,563.79 or $2,757.81 a month.
- All of them are metal. I've had conversations with all three of them the first one There's a lot of items they left out of their quote Yeah Yeah, the second one Just glancing through it. It looked like everything was on there the third one matches the second except in the
- cost and I'm not sure why there's almost 100,000 difference pending a review by both legal and other staff to make sure we're getting what we want. Yes. We want to make sure that scope of what's in there is what we need. And I'm going to have to ask the question. Sure. It's been less than 25 years since we did the last roof. What what guarantee was there on that one?
- Basically just with the new building the the issues we're having with it when the building was constructed They used half-inch plywood and it's delaminating So if you recall we had to have structural engineers come in and do some work on it so I contacted the town structural engineer he came out and looked at it and said what we need to do is do a complete single tear off and re-deck the entire roof
- and then go back with a metal roof on top of it. So he's confident that will fix for many, many, many years. But the shingles that are on it are literally failing because when the deck is separating, it's actually cutting the shingles when it pops up. And so when it rains, it does inside. Okay. So was there any type of guarantee on the building
- That's gone and that was supposedly fixed when they came out. It was back when Chief Davis was there. Let's go back 10 or 15 years. We had some substantial work done on it and that was all covered by the builder and then there was a significant amount of hail damage 12, maybe 12 years ago and we had it re-shingled and the
- decking that was damaged then or separating was repaired. But now there's more sheets of it doing it. How old is the building? 21 years old. Doesn't seem that old. What type of guarantees do we have on this? The first one was a five year, the second one was a 10 year. And I think the third one, I can't recall if it was 15 or a 20 year on workmanship.
- That may also count the difference in cost. Again, that's why, again, I'll make the formal motion to table pending review by staff and legal. And I'll second. Whenever you're ready. Trevor Sager? Yes. William Ellis? Yes. Scott Oldham? Yes. Motion tabled. And if I may add one thing to that, the second part of that,
- We go with the first or second one if we do an additional appropriations out of my cumulative building equipment fund. I can pay for half of it this year and then the balance of it next year, because I don't have enough in there to cover the whole thing. So I'd have to maybe get a loan from an internal loan. If we end up going with the third one,
- It'll have to be financed because there's no I don't have that kind of funds in the CB&E line. OK. All right. So if you when you guys look at it if you evaluate from cost what we need you know those. All right. Now we move to privileges for having business for the council is not part of our normal agenda. I just noticed this on my way in.
- I was looking at the, I wanted to look up the town council to check meeting times. And when I pulled up the website on my phone, in big red letters it says, permanently closed. And under it, Ellisville town council is permanently closed. If you can, if that's wrong, suggest an edit. And I thought maybe you just call your attention to that. Is that on Google? Mm-hmm. Okay, who has the Google business?
- Log in for the town. I don't know who has it. Anyway, I would have called you tomorrow instead. Yeah, they have to fix it, whoever has it. Thank you for doing that. Anyone else, privilege of the floor? Seeing none, we'll move now to supervisor comments, beginning with the town manager. Yeah, I've got a couple things. So just so the town board is aware,
- The 17th, I believe we met with Jamie Nebel and EMS and Red Cross. They went through our building. We've asked them to evaluate how it can be used during a national or a local emergency or during a weather event for shelter for our citizens or for whoever. And so they're gonna do an evaluation, come up with a plan, we'll present it to the board. And then if everyone's okay with it, we'll become part of
- inventory of places that can shelter people during hard times. The other thing I have is we need to make sure that everybody's set for August 25th for our work session. And that would be prior to the regular meeting, scheduled meeting. And I want to make sure everybody can come
- everybody can come. We need everybody to be in attendance because the budget is already a concern because of what we're not going to be able to include in the budget and yet we're meeting with Baker Tilley tomorrow and I'd say they'll have a concern with the amount our budget is with all that said.
- So we really need input. I think this should be board and department heads working together to figure out how we navigate the new financial workings of SB1. And everybody's either predicting doom or worried about doom in the future, especially in year 27 and 28. It's a little over my head sometimes.
- That's why we have Baker Tilly and staff. But it is going to be important that we make a decision together and we make the right decision. So moving forward. So anything that compounds, any decisions we make where we compound costs year to year, we need to think long and hard about how we go about it. What time do you have for that work session, Mike? Well, 5 o'clock okay.
- gives us an hour and a half. On what date? 25th. I'd like for you to all encourage everybody to be here. That's all I have. I'm sorry, that's it? That's all I have. Okay. Chief? Okay. Move to council comments.
- I just want to thank Kip and Highway for, we had a lot of complaints when the state first started their bridge thing. You guys worked with the state and got that pretty clear so people could see which lane went forth. So I just want to thank you for that because they had pedestrian pointing things that were conflicting and confusing drivers. And I knew it wasn't us, but you took care of it, so thank you.
- Well then thank you, Mike. Thank you, whoever had, anybody that had anything to do with it. Thank you. Okay, at this point, no further business. We'll stand adjourned. Sounds good.