The first reorganization committee for consolidation of Richland Township and the town of Ellisville
is called to order. Does with the they like to lead a prayer and pledge? No, well. Pledge first prayer
first prayer first. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you for this season. We thank you for
the camaraderie and
both the town and the township, we pray that this would be done in accordance with, that the meetings
would be conducted in accordance with your will and that everybody will be civil and friendly and love
on each other. We pray this in Jesus' name for his sake and his glory, 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. So I guess I will ask our attorneys who have researched
the process for this, what are our first steps of? Want to introduce them? Yes, yes. This is Darla Brown.
She is the town of Alexville attorney. And Eric Cook is the township regional
Well, Eric and I had a conversation this morning and we kind of came up with a list of things that the
board might want to discuss at this, its first organizational meeting. So I believe everybody has a
copy of the preliminary timeline that was presented by Baker-Tilley. If you don't let me know and I
can make sure everybody gets a copy of that. But I think the first thing the board needs to discuss is
how you want to conduct your meetings going forward. And I mean that in the broadest possible sense,
because I think you have discretion on how to do this, whether you want to meet weekly, bi-weekly, in
the evenings, during the day, here, at the township offices, in the fire department training room if
it's available, in the Eltsville utilities office, how you want to handle your meetings. If you're going
to have an agenda, who's going to
take responsibility for posting the agenda and or the notice of meeting 48 hours in advance? Do you
want all of your meetings to be recorded or live streamed on CATS or through, do you want to set up
somebody who knows more than this about this and we could help you like a special YouTube channel for
this or how you want to get information out to the public? Do you want to have public comment meetings, if so,
Do you want to set time limits? Do you want to allow public comment at every meeting, every other meeting,
once a month? And I think there was some suggestion at some point that maybe some of the board members
meet with some of the individuals up in Sheridan and Adams Township to discuss with them generally how
their reorganization went and maybe to get some ideas from them.
And then I believe maybe there was also some discussion about picking a seventh person so that you have
a seventh member on your board. So what's the board's pleasure? I wanna make it clear. I'm not trying
to run this meeting. I'm just trying to, instead of all of us looking at each other. I'd like to meet
every other week, twice a month. I would agree. And I think to do it here and do it before your meetings,
before the council's meetings,
That way, if anybody wanted to be present, then they could be here and be present for the council meetings
too. I have had the public request a later time because five o'clock, a lot of people are just getting
off work, which obviously that wouldn't work for Mondays because town council's at 6.30. And we also
have the regional development commission traditionally here at five o'clock on Mondays, the first of
the month.
First of all, how's everybody feel about two weeks? I'm good with two weeks. I'm good with two weeks.
Yes. Yes. I would say that with an adjustment, if we find out we're getting a lot of information that
we need to meet more or we're in an information roll, I like seeing you guys, but I don't know if we
all just want to say we have no business, but I think it's important for the public to know we have
a schedule. So two weeks are agreed upon, it seems like.
Um, take any votes. We need a secretary to tally the votes. So. Well, I know who I'd nominate for secretary.
Would you be okay with that, Andrew? Sure. All right. Actually, should we introduce ourselves to the
public? Sure. Start down there with Mike. The one and the only, the renowned. Yeah. Sure. I'm Mike Gordon,
the lifelong resident of Elton.
My name is Andrew Henry. My wife and I and our five kids live here on the east side of Alexville. I
own and operate a small business over in Spencer. I've been in the Bloomington area since I moved here
in 2002. My name's Kevin Ferris. I've been here since 1998 with my two sons, their wives, my
nine grandchildren, of course my wife, and we're also business owners here in Alexville. William Ellis,
a servant of the town council, moved here in 2014.
started serving in the council in 2019. Had a small business for Wadham Regional Plaza. Still running
out of my own now, so I guess technically still a small business in Ellitsville. I'm Dawn Dornal. I
have lived here since before I was a teenager. I grew up in Ellitsville and currently live within the
township. We raised our two boys here, and I am a registered nurse.
but I'm also a massage therapist and homeopath with my own business. I'm Scott Reynolds. I was born
in Indiana, but I've lived in Monroe County since 2009. I'm a resident of Richland Township, just a
couple miles outside of Ellitsville. Small business owner, lawyer, you know, person who raises wild
grasses on my property.
A lot of different things, but I'm happy to be here. Thank you. All right, so I would recommend that
we take a vote on the two weeks just to get it on the record. Is everybody in agreement with that? Sure.
OK. So Andrew, if you want to call a roll call and start with who makes the motion and then seconds
it before we call the vote. All right. Who wants any? I'll make the motion.
Second. All right. Okay. And the motion is that we meet two times every two weeks. Every two weeks.
Every two weeks. Okay. So Mike? Yes. My vote is yes. Kevin? Yes. Yes. William? Yes. Don? Yes. Steve?
Yes. Yes. Thank you. All right. So the next thing is what day? I broke this up in case they both don't
align. Just a thought.
So I guess I should ask, Mike, what evenings is this chamber free? Well, I know the Plan Commission
meets. We have BZA meetings. Plan Commission meets second Thursday. First Thursday. BZA is the second
Wednesday. OK.
Now we're starting this two weeks, so it'll be the first week of January. Yes, I would think so. Would
you guys start in January? I'll throw that out. What's Tuesday feel like to everybody? Tuesdays and
Thursday evenings would be tough. Generally, Thursdays are usually OK. Tuesdays, I have at least one
monthly commitment that I can't move.
So Wednesday, what was that Denise again for the BZA? Second Wednesday. Well, if we could leapfrog over
a Wednesday, how does Wednesdays look for when is that the first week of January? Your next meeting?
14th, the second. So if we did the first. So it would be the 7th would be the first one. I'm available.
be the 21st. So we'd miss theirs. Wednesday the 7th, January 7th, and then starting the two week cycle.
Been there. So that consensus is
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
So we would be meeting every two weeks on Wednesday with an eye to not conflicting with BZA.
That's correct. And this should prevent that because it would be the first and third Wednesday. Okay.
And the time. I'm in favor of moving it later to make sure it's accessible to as many members of the
public as possible.
I agree. Should we hear from the public on what time? Any public want to chime in on the time that would
be good for us to meet? Six, okay. I see a six. Second. Okay. All right. So six o'clock. First.
All right. I'll make a motion that
We will be meeting every two weeks, six o'clock on Wednesday. All right, Mike? Yes. Oh, should we get
seconded? Nobody seconded yet. Seven seconds in. All right, Mike? Yes. Me, yes. Kevin? Yes. William?
Yes. Don? Yes. Scott? Yes. Thank you. All right. So what do you think the next thing on are? A discussion
about who's going to be responsible for the agendas and who posts them.
It might be a good job for the secretary. I'm not good with the judge generally. I would prefer if someone
else would take that responsibility. All right. Can you get that out? Yes. We'll get the notes from
the meeting out. Okay. And who will maintain the website and where is information about the meetings
going to be posted? I assume you're going to post them on both the town and the township's website.
Yeah. And Mike, I have no access to the, none of us here have access to the town website.
What process do you want to do for that? Well, if we could get a list of everybody's email, we can get
access to you tomorrow. OK. Is that what you want? That sounds great. Yep. Or if somebody else could,
if Hammer, somebody from his office could do it. My wife's got to retrieve my emails for me. OK.
As long as we have a routine for supplying the information to you well in advance, would it be difficult
for somebody from the town to post it if we provided it? It will not. We also have people that do some
of our public relations and we can also have them handle it as well. Okay. So we can make sure we get
out to as many people as possible. Great. Okay. All right. So that's that we can do. All right. So what was next?
but is that the way you want to do it well I'm good with that well since one of us needs to get it to
what about you guys does that sound good to you guys I'm good with that we can if I may so if if we
put it out on the website and make public notices to Facebook and perhaps high neighbor we also can
send it out we have a large email
address, we can send it that way via email as well, and it goes to the local media and county governments.
Do we have to post it to the same places that the township have already designated that they would give
notices to annually that they did? I would, yes. Okay, you want to explain that for them?
Each year, the town and township have to notify the public where they're going to post their information
and who to. And then you can be on that list as well. So if you're already on that list, then that's
who they're going to get. Maybe we do others too, but that's the minimum we have to do as recommended
by Darla is to keep the same with the town and township do so. All right, they usually do it the first
year or somewhere. I think it's about the first year, so. With that, how long
before the meeting do you think would be reasonable to get an agenda to you? Well, for a Monday meeting
like we have tonight for the regular schedule board, we send it out on a Thursday afternoon. Okay, so
Wednesday. So, I mean, it's up to you, but if we send it out on Friday, everybody would be notified
before the next Wednesday.
It's entirely up to you what you prefer. So long as we have the agenda, we can set it out whenever you're
ready. From this board here, who would like to be the point of contact to get to the town for the agenda?
I'll volunteer for that. So if there's an agenda item you want to discuss, just let me know and I'll
put it on the agenda and I'll send it out to you guys first to make sure we didn't miss anything.
or whatever, before we get to the town and township, obviously. Township-wise, how will that be? I do
not have access to the website or the Facebook page, but Samantha, our office manager, is happy. She
told me that she would do anything with that, so I can just keep her updated and send everything to her.
Okay. All right. And as far as meeting minutes recorded, each meeting was submitted to everyone here
on the committee for review and then approved at the following meeting. Yes. And is the, when we set
up, if we do a Zoom, does the transcribing from that, is that accurate enough to, for us to have minutes
sent out? I'm not familiar enough with the platform to know. Do you know?
You're talking about the out transcription. Yes. I think it's pretty good most of the time. But if we're
reading and approving and we can catch any correct glitches, OK, so I would suggest we definitely have
this on zoom. That's what I would like to have the meetings recorded for sure. The question is how detailed
we want the minutes to be wanted to be only move seconded to active motions or is it going to be a general
list of everything that's a good question.
For you two, what do you suggest? I think you generally probably wanna put a little more detail in the
minutes than the actual motion and the vote. I think it's, at least with the town council minutes, I
know the clerk tries to put a synopsis of the discussion in, so I think that's appropriate. Okay.
Is it expected that all names of members of the public who speak are included in the minutes? Typically,
yes. Okay. Thank you. I'd ask them if that's okay with them, with the public. Yes. Because if they don't
want their name mentioned, but they still want to say something. But it'll still be recorded though.
It's going to be public. It's a yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they'd have to give and they have to sign name
and address. Yeah. I mean, I would say if somebody from the public really does not want their name,
I mean, we can take that on a case by case basis, but understand that if it's on zoom and right now,
like this is being on cats, it's out there. So all we can do is control the minutes here. So that expectation.
So we've decided that. Seventh member. Yes. Should we discuss the seventh member now? Cause that's.
How many people through their hats in the ring? Mike, how many total we have pardon? How many people
total did we have for the town? Do you know through their hats and applied for the reorganization committee?
I think I had 22 names, but some of them were redundant. I thought it was 22. I was just taking them
as I got them, as I received them. 25. And I will point out that some people applied via email. So there are.
We have two or three of those that applied. So they actually applied. Well, it's a pleasure of us how
we want to handle the seventh appointment. I guess, first of all, we want a seventh appointment, right?
We have to have one, yes. Tiebreaker. And if the Sheridan-Adams merger plan, which is what I've been
looking at kind of,
They use someone kind of that is not part of the town, not part of the township. They use somebody from
their school system. That makes sense. So I know. Was it school board superintendent? The doctor, Jerry
Sanders. Yeah, he he's he's expressed. He doesn't have the time commitment. He was on our list and I
think was.
the town council had talked about, I said I'd nominate him, but when I had conversations with him later,
he said, I really don't think I could do it, time-wise. Well, didn't you say that? Didn't we all say
that? Yes, yeah. Okay, what about... Did you talk to Dr. Schiff? Yes, he's willing to. That's the only
one I reached out to.
Dr. Steven Shipp, he's the headmaster at 7th School. Sorry. All right. I guess first, how do we wanna
handle the seventh appointment? Do we want to vote on it? Do we have to vote on it at this meeting or
can we do it at our next meeting? If you wanted to wait, I think you can. Okay. Did we wanna take more
applicants for this position?
Or well, if we're going to do somebody from the school system, has anybody talked with anybody else
that showed any interest? Yeah, I have not said I've only talked to doctors. I'm in favor of including
somebody from the school for sure. There are going to be plenty of subcommittee slots where we need
lots of people with expertise, so it's not for the choice between this one slot to be involved or not.
What's up to you, do you wanna wait? Mike. Are there any other actions where having that seventh member
active by the next meeting would be critical? Not unless it's a tie vote, but then we can always just
table that to the next meeting. Okay. Or the meeting after when we have that seventh person. But I'm
thinking that since this is a new board, if we,
specifically ask people from the school systems that are interested to let us know, then we have over
the holidays until the seventh to be able to consider. Making sure that we leave here with a plan of
action, as opposed to getting back here in two weeks and saying, looking at each other being like, did
anybody express interest? And then, yeah, finding ourselves where we are. So I mean, I think the general
consensus,
We're all in agreement, though, by the seventh, we do need to to appoint that seventh member for sure.
Yes. There's so all right. They're set up a question that for the town had questions at Ellisville dot
Indiana dot gov for those that were interested in being appointed for a town position. And what was
your email address?
It is, it's richlandquestions at gmail.com. Do you want to just use these email addresses and open it
up to anybody in the school systems in Richland Township? Sounds good. That's who we're looking for
specifically. I do, yes. Obviously anybody can apply for this. Right. But we would like to
have representative of the school district to make sure those interests are heard and protected.
Would any public like to comment on this? Okay, seeing none. Darla and Eric, do you think we need to
take official action on our thoughts on this or the general consensus of what we're looking for? Is
that enough? I mean, do we need to take a vote that we're not appointing the seventh today? No, I think
that's fine. Your general consensus on that is fine this evening.
I would just add, you may want to think about in the coming days whether that seventh member would have
any roles or responsibilities such as, is that going to be your presiding officer? Is that ultimately
going to be some kind of quasi-administrative function? So you may think about whether that individual's
responsibilities may be different or the same. In other words, they're not here, so let's assign them.
There's a secretary position. Yes.
So you might think about that. I'm not necessarily recommending that. No, I'm okay. And that would be
good if they have, if they kind of, if they're interested, I mean, I think that would be good if they're
kind of the chair. That way all our members, it's not like the town appointees a chair or the township
appointments a chair. It would be an independent. How do you guys feel about that? That's a good idea.
If the person yes, obviously and that was a model as we believe in Sheridan, right? That's what I thought.
I just wasn't sure what they called it. President chair or whatever. The joint appointment. Yes, yes.
So then the person just needs to be under this understanding that if they are willing to take it,
that is. The expectation, yeah. OK. So again, if you're interested and we're specifically looking
members of the school systems in Richland Township, but that does not mean others cannot apply because
there's going to be so many subcommittees. I can almost safely say most people are going to find slots
for, but either email us at questions at ellitsville.indiana.gov or richlandquestions at gmail.com.
And one question is that we've had is do we need our own
separate email addresses for this. I think it'd be best practices for public records requests,
wouldn't it? Likely so, yes. Okay. If you could set those up, that would certainly make things easier
down the road. What's the thought, Senator, by just doing a Gmail address or something instead of anything
else will cost either the town or the township, which ultimately means it costs the taxpayers. So I'm
just thinking,
So just pick a convention and each of us gets a Gmail account. Yeah. Okay. And we could even do shared
documents on a Google Drive, which of course would be open to public access disclosure and everything.
So, but that way both the town and the township are not like, who do we contact for this? Who do we
contact for that? There's one point of information. Perfect. Sound good to everyone?
I would recommend when you send out the agenda, list all the board members with their Gmail accounts
on it. Absolutely. Now one thing Sheridan did that I would love to do, but it's turning out to be a
lot more cost prohibitive than I originally thought was they had postcards mailed out two weeks before
all their meetings. That's a lot of mail. That's a lot of mail. Yes, it is. And what was the quote we
got, like $12,000?
per mailing or something? Okay. We do have a list. We finally got it from the clerk for all registered
voters in Richland Township. I would like to do that, but understand it's going to be very cost prohibitive.
So I'm really wondering if we should, once we have all these dates, is send out an email with all the
dates on them.
or not an email, but a postcard, do a one-time thing with that. And if there's any other, I don't know
if the public can donate for that or any businesses, I don't know how that would work, either town or
township, but I'm really leery of using public funds, that much public funds, especially as tight as
we all are, to promote this. For every meeting. Right, to every meeting.
I like your idea of sending out one postcard at the beginning and then maybe you send out another postcard
right before you have your public hearings to notify the public that your plan of reorganization is
coming up for a public hearing. That still sounds like a lot of money to me. It will be, yes. I don't
know that there's any way to get around that though.
to at least as Darla said to do too, because I've talked to several people who live in the township
and they're not ever on, they don't have Facebook accounts and they have no idea this is going on. They
don't have Facebook, that sounds nice. And in addition to the list of meetings, there could obviously be
web addresses or other opportunities to bookmark information and sign up for email distribution lists,
that sort of thing. Mike, is the town and with the attorneys, is there any problem with the town utilities
putting that for the water bills? I was gonna recommend that. It won't get everybody because some of
the township is served by, well, served by two other water companies. We might look
to them and see if they have a message board, but we do have a message board on our bill, and we can
put some ancillary information on there as well. That's a good idea. Is that high enough visibility
to actually accomplish certainly what we want? Well, that would, I think, be in addition to the postcards.
That's my understanding. Want to see if the public has any suggestions? Now, this is something we're
relating to the public
go offer suggestions because we don't know what we don't know. Anybody have some suggestions for how
we can get, because we definitely want everyone to be able to chime in on this and have their voices
heard for the main meetings, but also importantly, the subcommittee meetings, which we haven't even
touched yet on that. So does anybody want to give some suggestions on visibility on how we can get this
message out? Yes. If you can come up to the,
the podium, please. That way it's on the record. Number one, if you're on Facebook, if you're on Facebook,
there's what's happening in Elstville. You could use that. That's free of charge. There's also emails
you can use. It's called Nextdoor. And they're all free. I don't think you'd be charged with them.
Use them. They don't charge those.
We will, if you could put your name and sign in there too. And we will definitely, one of the plans
and what we were doing to promote this meeting, I don't think next door, but we definitely did on Facebook
and the Ellisville groups. But as it was pointed out, some people, they're not online. So we'll need
to figure out for that too. Thank you.
I hesitate to have us think about putting all our eggs in social media baskets. And so I do think that
to do at least one postcard is worth every penny we have to put in it, because it says this is official.
And we all know that when we're on social media, we have to separate truth, fiction, and rumor.
Secondly, is it possible to do a flyer and just have it disseminated through mailboxes, you know, with
kids or a volunteer group to just go through and stuff? I mean, I know that that's a federal box, but
I wonder if that's an option as well. And that would not be that expensive because I'm sure that we
have philanthropics who would be willing to help.
I like the idea of having a unified email, and I do agree that you don't want to cost a lot of money,
but I sometimes wonder if that Gmail does not insinuate that it is an official email. So if I want to
send you something, do I still want to send it to the town council and to the Richland board, or am
I going to feel that Gmail's good enough?
I just might want to think about the quality. We do want this to be a very quality thing. And professional.
Okay. So with the emails, we have an IT person and we could probably look to them and see what kind
of emails we could get for the Brioard committee.
It would be secure, and it would be under all the security protocols that we currently use for Elitzel.
So if you want me to look into it, I can. I would rather have emails about this business be sent from
governmental email addresses. I agree. Ben's email. And they'll see how to incorporate the township
as they see what you can come up with so they realize it's coming from both the township and the town.
And then when it comes to the mailers, if I could be so bold, we do have money in ED for economic
development. And so I think some of the money, if not all the money, could come from that. I do think
that everybody should get something sent to their door at least once or twice. And it would be worth
the money as pointed out. So at some point, you
as a committee probably ought to be talking about how you might share some of the costs. That's something
you guys need to talk about, but I do think from the town standpoint, the LED money that we've been
saving all this time is now, we found something we need to spend it on. And also the public relations
folks, if they would have recommendations of how it's worked in the past and
Let's talk with Sheridan in the other places and see what. Yeah, Victoria is in the audience tonight
too. So if you stand up and say a little bit about yourself. Well, we got somebody at the podium right
now. I'm kidding. I'm just going to say real quick, if you're depending on Gmail or emails to send out
to people, if you're going to be sending it to hundreds of people, it's going to go to spam. So most
people aren't going to, they don't, I don't ever check my spam unless my says, hey, check your spam.
The physical mail, I mean, I wouldn't even know about any of this if it hadn't just trickled down through
the grapevine saying, hey, did you know about this going on? And there's been no notification.
I'm with Dawn. You know, three-fourths of the people I talked to in the township have no clue that this
is even a consideration. So just speak it up and open yourselves up for a lot of heated debate if decisions
are made and people are saying, I didn't get notified. And I'm sure that's a question. We're definitely
trying to avoid that.
I don't think we're planning to do email blasts to people. I think we're just talking about having emails
for us. Yes. I'm sorry, Scott. I think the sooner that we get the postcard or the mailer out, the better.
I mean, I dare say that there are plenty of people in Richland Township who don't know they're in Richland Township.
I've talked to some folks about this, neighbors, and they're like, well, that doesn't really affect
me, right? And I said, well, it affects people all the way down to 43, practically. I echo what the
comment that was just made. The further this goes without everybody at least feeling like they saw something
about it, the more likely we're going to have a lot of upset people, regardless of ultimately the direction
that it goes.
So we have been working with the town of Ellisville for about six, eight months on some of the rebranding
work and now supporting communications. I think some of the questions that we've had is how we can help
support the reorganization process.
Where that feels appropriate, we would be more than happy to help with the communications plan around
this effort. Mike and I have been talking about that already. So trying to figure out where there are
opportunities for physical signage. I think that'll be a really important one in addition to some of
the other things that are not just on social media. So we're happy to put that together, especially
like perhaps before the next meeting, some ways that we feel like we can try to reach people
I think that would be great to see a plan. I agree. Should say anybody object to that. All right. I'll
make sure that everybody has access to Victoria's email as well so everybody can talk without having
to go through it. All right, so any other public like to talk about
Ways to get the message out, because if your neighbor doesn't know we're doing this, we need to do something
more. And that's kind of what we're trying to do. We want an informed public's the best public.
All right, seeing none, what was the next topic? You answered one question. If you plan to meet in this
room, which is where the town council meets, then you are required to live stream your meeting. So that
takes that out of the mix. You'll have to decide if you want
on cats or if there's some alternative platform you want to use but they have to be live streamed. Does
it default to cats? We have to make an appointment with them. Yes you have to have a contract with them.
So we might just do zoom. Can cats upload the zoom as the meeting Dino? No else? Shaking their head
yes. Okay thanks.
And do we have a town zoom or township zoom we can use to record? No. No, okay. What about town? Is
there any problems using the one we use for the council? Is that a specific zoom just for the council?
I don't see any reason why we couldn't use it. Okay. I didn't know if there's any legal issues that-
I don't see a problem with using it, but- Okay. Zoom sound good to everybody else?
In terms of ease of access, would that mean that all of these meeting recordings were intermixed with
a whole bunch of other recordings from other boards and things in the same channel? No, well, on cats
it probably would not. Okay. But that's a good question. Certainly, having tried to find recordings
from specific meetings in the past myself, having some be here and some on this channel and all these
things intermixed makes it
It's pretty cumbersome to find the specific thing I'm looking for. So what if we had a YouTube channel
just for this? Is that something that's? I'd like to. I just don't know. I don't have the know-how to
do it. The office manager at the township does, because she set one up for us. Well, if you think you
should be willing to do it, I'd love that. That way people have a one-stop shop.
to see all these meetings. Yeah, that way, like Andrew said, they don't have to sort through different
things to try to find just our meetings. I'd be in favor of one stop to find all these meetings in order
on a single channel, if possible. That sound good to everybody? Yes. I can't believe people would volunteer
for that. Well, I think she volunteered.
I'm gonna ask her. And you know, I don't know that she can come to the meetings, but she can tell me
what to do. And we can take care. And we can work with the town to set up, log in to Zoom here to record
with our owl, which goes back and forth to each person. Cool. All right, so next on our- Public comment.
Public comment. Or do you want to think about it? As in what the rules for public comment is.
I definitely want to see public comment. I want to know what everyone is thinking, but I do think that
we need to have a time limit. Just about everything is five minutes, no longer than five minutes. I
think we've limited to three, but I think three is pretty common. But I could go either way. We can
amend that rule at any point if you want. Yes.
I'm in favor of public comment at every meeting, and I would rather see the limits set at five minutes
for these initial meetings because there's going to be more open-ended questions about what's involved,
and I do not ever want to give the impression that we are clocking people and cutting them off early
on in this process. One thing I'm a stickler with public comment is... Civility. What's that? Civility.
Civility, but also this.
What I don't want, and I hate, is public boards. The public pours their heart out, offers a bunch of
suggestions, and they sit there like zones. Thank you for your comment. Basically sit down and shut
up. I don't run that way. If people ask me a question, I'm gonna answer it. As long as it's not a loaded
gotcha question, a civil question. Because the public comes to these not just to give their opinion,
but to find out information. And I think it's very disingenuous of elected boards
and I'm so glad we don't do this as a council or any of the boards I serve on from Ellitsville, to just
listen to people, have valid concerns, and not address those concerns. So I think that in that time,
if in our response, like you said, we may have to extend it, if we're giving a long answer, I don't
wanna pull that away from the public comment, but is everybody comfortable? Yeah, I concur. Okay.
I agree. I would just add that some boards take public comment at the top of the meeting, others take
it at the end of the meeting.
What's the what's the will of the committee beginning or the end? Yeah, I always liked it at the end.
Let them see we lay everything out. If you do it in the beginning, then nine times out of 10, they want
to do it at the end, right? I agree at the end, but also I think there's certain times when we want
to call for public comment. Like if we're deciding what subcommittees or something, but that gives us
the latitude latitude to do that. Or before any vote.
Okay, so that probably would need a vote, wouldn't it? You mean now? Yeah. It won't hurt. Okay. It's
better to dot too many I's and cross too many T's than... All right. I move that we have public comment
at every meeting at the end of the meeting with five minutes of time allocated for each speaker. Board
to have discretion to request public comment at any time during the meeting. I'll second.
Mike? Yes. My vote is yes. Kevin? Yes. William? Yes. Don? Yes. Scott? Yes. Okay. All right. Next, Donna.
At some point, it doesn't have to be this evening, but at a meeting in the near future, you will have
to start thinking about who you want to serve on your subcommittees. So you're going to have several,
planning and zoning, public safety,
which is going to include police fire, ambulance service, streets, roads, all those types of subjects.
Yeah. Okay. I think that would be a good second meeting. Yeah. The second meeting when we point that
seventh member, uh, I think that'd be a good one to get these subcommittees all.
And if there's that, we can do additional subcommittees also, correct? Sure, I think you can do what
you want. Whatever the board's pleasure is. What we don't want to do is have this reorganization go
through in January 1st and say, oops, we forgot something. So if there's something we don't know, we
need to know. I guess, should we ask the public about public comment? And you certainly want to be sure
to cover all the services that are provided by, of course, the town and the township. So poor relief,
Cemetery maintenance those types of things that aren't typically taken care by the town right and vice
versa Because we have to have a plan Well, you just asked if we should have asked for a public comment
about the public comment policy. Yes, we asked for that Yes, I think we should Come on up here and We're
a know-how here for you take your time people say
comment on your public comment policy. So let me reopen mine. Give you a chance to catch your breath.
Jim Perry, town of Ellitsville. I've been to many local government meetings over the years. I dislike
our three-minute rule. I find that offensive.
Partly because I'm often, when I get up to make a comment, I'm reminded before I get to the podium,
by the way, you only have three minutes. And I also dislike reserving the public comment to the end.
And this is a group that's going to be preparing something for the voters. And this is a much larger
group than you have at a town meeting. Absolutely. And I think there's interest. But I think the interest
is going to wane quickly
if you move the public comment to the end of the meeting. So I was prepared, although I have other things
I do, but to sort of prepare a list of things that I find useful for generating sort of public interaction,
public comment. But I certainly think five minutes makes more sense than three, particularly given some
of the issues you need to confront here. And I also think it makes more sense at the beginning of the meeting
the end, because if you want public comment, you want to put the public first, and I lost, oh,
it's back up. Yeah, public first rather than the public last, because it's sort of a, you know, I find
when I get up at the end of the, or I'm asked to comment at the end of the meeting, all the sort of
the important deliberations are already finished, and I find that to be difficult for real
Meaningful public comment, and I've you know chaired budget committees. I've been on a finance Commission
for towns much bigger than Ellitsville And I was an intern so public intern city intern going back to
1978 so it's not like this is my first rodeo But I've sort of observed it over the years, and I know
some local governments get great public input and
The public input in the town of Ellisville is pretty poor. And partly I think related to your rules
that I think send subtle messages but real messages to the public. So that's my comment. What do you
guys think about having public comment both at bookend meetings? Have it at the beginning and the end?
Yes, here's more from the public and then we can
Discuss. I thought I heard you say you were going to ask for public opinion during the meeting as well
if you had a particular interest. So I think in the long run it's covered. I've been reading the Sheridan
plan to do my homework, to be fairly informed. But one thing I would like to see is when I talk to people,
I'm a business owner in Ellitsville, but I'm a township resident.
And when I talk to people in the township who I have contact with, they say, I think you made the comment,
they don't even know they're in the township. Is there any way that we could get perhaps a definitive
map that's easily seen or handled or acquired? That I was trying to pick one up online, resolution wasn't
real good, whatever.
And that's the one thing I thought was a mistake in the Sheridan plan of some of their things when I
went back to their town, not just the handout, but when I went back to theirs, was I'd like to see more
of that visual. I'm a visual person, so maybe that's why. Thank you. That sounds reasonable. I mean,
we can have a website or something.
Well, Jai, go ahead. I honestly don't know. I have been on the Township website quite a bit, and I don't
believe that there is a map, but I think that would be a perfect place for us to put that, so I will
talk to the trustee about getting that put on. You can actually Google and ask for Richland Township
limits, and it provides the map I have here. It's pretty definitive, too. Just about anything.
is a map. Right. Yeah, exactly. But you say more. Well, if you Google Google Earthland Township, Moreau
County, Indiana, boundaries, it'll bring up the boundaries. And if you look at your specific specific
property, if it ends in 11 or 13, you're in Richland Township, 11 being in the township area, 13 being
just in the
in the town of Ellsville. Is that on GIS? Also 18. What's that? 18 and 13. 18 and 13. Well, 18 is being
blossomed. Ellsville. Yeah, it's Ellsville town. That is correct. So 11, 13, and 18. 18, yes. I forgot
the 18s have snuck in there. So back to the question of public comment at the beginning of meetings.
I'm in favor of
Deliberately doing whatever we can to encourage the highest quality public engagement possible and so
as the secretary apparently I'm gonna be working hard to get the meeting minutes out quickly and make
it so that we can have a Detailed and thorough agenda as far in advance of each next meeting as possible
So the public has time to ask the individual members questions to do research to compare the agenda
with previous items in the Sheridan plan and come to the meeting informed I understand
the value of comment before the meeting, the only reservation I have is that sometimes it can dislocate
the agenda by initial public comment, pulling items from later in the agenda forward into immediate
discussion. I'm not opposed to comment at the beginning of the meeting. I was curious, do you have any
thoughts on how to make those opening comments as productive as possible? Offhand, I don't. Okay. One
thing I will say that I searched
very diligently yesterday for the Richland Township budget. I could not find it. If I wanted the Richland
Township of Pennsylvania, I could find it, but there are a lot of Richland Townships. So Googling Richland
Township doesn't get you where you want to be. It would be useful to know what monies are being spent
in the township so that we can think about
convergence between the town and the township, and maybe where they can support one another properly.
But unless there's sort of clear budgets that are articulated for both jurisdictions, pretty hard to
have a conversation. The township does have a published budget. It is on the State of Indiana Gateway
website. Yeah, the Gateway website is very shoddy.
because you pick up about three different gateways and the information on the first page of the gateway
is lousy. You do have to figure out how to navigate it because I've been on there, yes. So if you want
to discourage public input, go to the gateway because it'll get you nothing. I can only do so much,
I'm a board member, I'm not the trustee. We can look at finding a
better way of getting the budgets in one area for the reorganization committee. I don't know how easy
that will be, though, and I don't want to let the perfect get in the way of the good. But I assume that
none of us want to be individually answering and re-answering the same questions repeatedly. Correct.
So it's in our interest as much as we can collect publicly available information and provide links to
it or screenshots like this is where we're getting our information, this is where you can get the same
information we're getting.
because we might just need to link to the budget. I was gonna say, we can probably get a link on the
Township website that will take you straight to the Township budget. I can look into that. I will do
my best to get that done. And if it's not an easy thing, then I will do my best to get it so that it
is easily found. The first page of the,
The first page I went to was a township website, but I didn't get the satisfaction that I could get
the budget there. So getting a link there would be helpful. There's also the local government, it goes
by the acronym, LG. DLGF? Department of Local Government Finance. Department of Local Government Finance,
yeah. And maybe they have some clarity, but I don't know. I think that's under the gateway portal. I
think that's who operates the gateway portal. I agree. They obviously don't want anybody looking carefully
No government wanting to highlight is doing with money on her shot face. It takes quite some time to
find exactly what you're looking for on there. That is for sure. All right. Other things we need to
move. Did you want to revisit? I wanted to do the question. Yeah, do we want to revisit the the thing
about doing it at the beginning is that's a shotgun approach. And if you've got seven different items.
And if you're doing a menu,
approach and you get the shotgun that you never know. You get to their talk. They're bringing things
from the agenda that we haven't even discussed yet. And it's not in order, right? So if you did, if
you wanted to do it at the beginning, do it at the beginning of each one. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.
Or do it before you know, does that make sense what we do at the councils before any votes?
That's what I'm just gonna recommend is after discussion so that they know what's upcoming because they
may be asking a question that we will be able to answer in our discussion that we have up here. Yeah,
I think before we make any votes, anything binding, maybe that's when we solicit the public opinion,
public comment.
And it could change. Yeah. Well, the nice thing is we can adjust it later if we want. Right. I'm in
favor of putting in some slot for public comment at the beginning of the meeting. So if someone really
wants to speak, then maybe they can't even stay till the end of the meeting. Maybe they have a schedule.
That's true. I want to make sure that they have the opportunity to be heard. But we can also say we
will be asking for comment before a vote on this agenda item and before a vote on this agenda item.
So if they have a particular item they want to speak on,
we can let them know at the beginning of the meeting we intend for public comment on this. I love that.
Yes. You asked, I think maybe framing some specific questions at the outset of the meeting, because
I sent some questions in yesterday. To whom did you send them? That's what we have here. Gotcha. There
are some fundamental things that need to be discussed early on. I still have not seen Fritz and someone make
And I looked at the AEM website. And AEM is the acronym for Accelerate Indiana Municipalities, which
used to be the Indiana Association of County and State Governments. But they have a very useful summary,
executive summary, and then discussion of the legislation.
But there are lots of still unknowns. But one of the issues I've not seen addressed anywhere is what
are the fiscal consequences of Senate Bill 1? We don't know there is exactly yet. The township or the
town. Without that information, it's pretty hard to frame a plan to respond to the legislation that
was passed.
Mike, can you address that? Well, Senate Bill 1, as it relates to the town's finances, we have Baker
Tilley, who is our accountant, has taken care of us for a few decades. They've walked us through the
process. And we know what the outcome will be by 2028. And it's nothing but negative.
I don't know that we want to go through it all right now. I mean, this is something we're going to have
to talk about at some point. Every once in a while, a citizen should be able to come in and talk to
somebody about this whole process and be able to get a one-on-one and ask individual questions so they
can come prepared to the meetings. And so the information is there, but in a nutshell,
Our budgets for the next couple of years are going to be flat. There's no raises. We've not been able
to rehire safety people we have now. And with that said, in 2028, we'll be a half a million dollars
in the red no matter what we do. The state has set us up to fail. And so this is one of the reasons
we're looking at reorganization. Reorganization itself will create a windfall of money.
but it is a way to stabilize the situation. It's exactly what the state wants us to do. I'd be glad
to show you the bottom line. And I think the subcommittees. I would like to see sort of the fiscal analysis
has to be part of this. Well, that is one of the things. Rather than sort of generalizations like
It's negative. This is not negative for the people who are getting the property tax break. Yeah, Mr.
Perry, the subcommittees will be, when the plan is put to us, I don't think it'll go 10 years out, but
the financial impacts will be part of that plan, correct? Yes. Because we have to have some type of
fiscal plan when this is submitted for approval of both councils. So this- We might be able to publicly
send that to you, the analysis, if you will. It won't be, you know,
You won't get every nut and bolt that's involved in the analysis, but we can send it to you.
And like I said, it's a negative. It's positive for the property owners now, but the intent of the state
is for the towns to recoup some of that money through local income tax. And so it's pretty complicated.
And we can send you the information, but. I'd be happy to get the information, because I haven't seen it yet.
All right. Do we need to go back and amend our motion on public comment at meetings? I don't think it
will hurt to amend it. Okay. I move that we amend the motion to have public comment at the beginning
and end of every meeting with a five minute time limit and the board to have discretion to request additional
comment at any time during the meeting. Second.
was yes Kevin William yes Dawn we have somebody who is wanting to make some public comment yes sorry
my name is Clark Greiner I'm with the Bloomington e-commerce corporation I come to a lot of public meetings
the one thing that it's strongly encourage you is to have a certain amount of
Protocol procedures and decorum with this because let's do the math really quick here You're going from
7,000 people to 22,000 people gonna be included in that if you have 50 people show up Whether it's in
favor or against they all wish to speak. That's 250 minutes 250 minutes divided by 60 is over four point
That's over four hours of public comments that you are ready for so I would encourage you to say everyone
has to come to the mic and
Right? No talking from the audience. Number two, a certain amount of civility has to be required. But
I would keep it very structured because of the size and the magnitude of this. If it's too loose in
the front, then it's going to be very, very difficult to address all those questions. And you'll exhaust
the meeting. And you'll lose as many people on that side of it from what would seem to maybe be less
organized than it would be as if you have specific topics you want to talk about and cover those. And
so I would just.
offer that from an exercise of caution and think through that strategically, because the important side
of this too is also to make sure you're getting the message out and that all parties get heard, whether
you're in for or against. So I didn't just really encourage you to think about some of those things
when you're thinking about addressing the public in a greater way, because this is very important for
everybody here. Don't wanna burn the public out. No, no. I think it's important too that
questions or comments. A question should not take three minutes to get to the question. I mean, honestly,
if you're making a comment, give the information in the background. But some people say, I'm just asking
a question, and 10 minutes later, you still don't know the question. I'm not saying that will happen
here, but I've seen it in other places. So I think that's just something we're going to have to monitor ongoing.
I appreciate your input. Thank you. Yeah, I don't want to burn the public out or burn the board out.
I do want to make sure that we have the most open approach possible when we begin and then see how it
goes. If we had 150 people in this room all of a sudden, that one meeting might be really difficult
to get through. But I don't want to close off the option until we see
who and how many people start attending the meetings. That might be bad. And with all of the subcommittees,
any of those happening simultaneously and bringing all that information all at one time, all of this
is new. It's just gonna have to be played by ear. I'm really, really excited about finding out how other
people handle it. The other folks that have done this, whether,
whatever the outcome was, how they handled it, especially the fact, the fact-finding part of it, how
they handled the meetings. And I'm sure it changed. I'd love to see 50 people out there. I know.
I love this. I love seeing all these people. I've seen it before. But usually it's not a good thing.
Usually it's a bad thing. What do we do now?
We're in the middle of a vote, though. We were in the middle of a vote. Do we want to resume from the
top on that? Mike was a yes. I was a yes. Kevin was a yes. William was a yes. Dawn? Yes. Yes. And Scott?
Yes. Knowing that if we find that it makes the meetings too long or early, we can amend it. We can amend
it. Yes. Change it later. OK. Correct. We don't want the public to think they have to stick around till
midnight to make a comment. All right. Any other?
I do want to say that in the beginning when we were talking about the making this board, I was in contact
with Michelle Junkins. She was the former trustee of Adams Township and now works for the town of Sheridan
in the same capacity. And I did set up a meeting for, I had to, I went with the,
the attorneys and the town council members and the trustee board members just to get a date between
them and us what would work. So I do have a date of January 9th at 2.30. We will be meeting whoever
would like to go from this board. We do have a meeting with them on that day. Are we going up there?
Yes, we are going up there. You're gonna try to fool?
the carpool. Yes, yeah. It doesn't make any sense for all of us to drive that far. No, I agree.
But that way, and she's going to have. Sy will be there too, right? Yes, Sy, there will be. He's the
council president from Sheridan that I've spoken with on this. And her as the trustee in both positions,
and I think there's gonna be maybe a couple of other, a board member and council member. And she did
say that if we want future meetings with public safety and there are different people, that that would
be an option too.
I want to go. Yeah, definitely. All right. So I don't think we have anything else for to do. We need
to elect the president and we have a public comment. I think, yeah, that's kind of what I, that's what
I know. So hello, I'm Liz Spinal. I'm also county council at large here in Monroe County.
But I also kept thinking about, since I heard everything and I wanted to see if I had, I made a list
here, so I only have two things. And so I wondered if working with the county's GIS department would
be helpful in working with you to get maps? Yeah, I can reach out to Trone. I think they would be very useful.
And then as far as disseminating information, postcards are great, but I also, you know, I come from
a long time ago, and so billboards were pretty effective. They go up, you control the message, there's
no misunderstanding what it says because you control the message, and all of that. So that's a 24-7
advertisement. So if you could put something up about meeting whatever you're doing the first and the
third Wednesdays, whatever the time is, where it is,
who to contact, just some kind of simple information, and maybe websites where they can get information.
You can get quite a bit on a billboard. So I think billboards are a good bang for the buck.
I always have. And you have plenty of them going up on 46 here. And then you would have people begin
to talk about it. Did you see it on the billboard? That kind of thing. So I think that would be useful.
Those are my two suggestions on what I've heard. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you for coming here tonight.
I do have a question. It has been said that it's every other week, but it's also been said that it's
the first and the third Wednesday, which does not exactly align with every other week. Right. Let's
just do every other week. I think every other week is okay. And if we have to adjust for a BZA meeting,
we'll do that. There you go. Every other week. Yes, every other week. It works out twice a month until
April, I think. And that starts on January 7th.
starting January 7th, correct? At six. At six. And here? Here. We voted on that. Do we need to amend
that? We voted first and third Wednesday of each month. Now we want every other Wednesday starting January
7th. That's what I'd say. We can either do that or wait for the seventh member to come in. And that
way they have something to vote on. We have to keep in mind for the next meeting, I would recommend
that we have, start getting names.
from both the township and the town people and the public. I want the public to start submitting just
if you wanna be part of this process and list kind of what your area of expertise is because we will
need to start these subcommittees. We're gonna need to appoint them pretty quick and get them up and
running fast. I don't want the next meeting to say, well, we'll do the subcommittees the next meeting.
We really don't wanna get this tied up in the process
So I would suggest that we have a great pool of names to go through as a council. And that way we can,
when we're talking about with the subcommittees, we can go ahead and start recommending people to those
subcommittees. Thoughts? I'm in favor of getting the subcommittees.
Set up as soon as we can. And I think it would be good, you know, when we're posting in the Ellsville
High Neighbor and whatever we can put on the township and the town regarding our next meeting is that,
you know, we're looking for, these are at least our current subcommittees that we're thinking about
having. And if you have any expertise in those areas that we would like for you to apply. And that's
one question that was asked to me. Do we want to limit this just to Richland Township residents?
Yes. I think so too, because they're the ones that- They're going to be affected by it. I don't think
that people who don't live here should have- Okay. How big are we thinking about the subcommittees needing
to be? Obviously, if each subcommittee had seven people versus three people- I think they have- How
many, do you remember the subcommittees, was it five that they have?
The number of subcommittees, there were six subcommittees. I don't know how many people were on each
committee, if that's what you were asking. Do you know, Mike? Well, you're gonna need them for land
use planning, safety, police fire. I know, but I'm talking about how many members per subcommittee.
Oh, how many actual members? Right. I don't recall seeing that in the land. I can find out. Okay. We'll
just try to mirror that, and again, we can adjust that. And with the subcommittees, if, you know, just,
again, this is my thought, is,
if we decide on subcommittees and then find out the next meeting, oh darn, there's another one we hadn't
thought about, we reserve the right to, it's not like they all have to be done at the same time. I mean,
you guys all agree to that? If there's... Because we might find out when we go, I mean, our meeting
is gonna be on the seventh, and so our meeting with Sheridan's on the ninth, we might find out that
there's something else that would be good.
We covered everything we need to legally tonight. Is that correct? Pretty much the other topic you might
think about is how much assistance you want from either Eric or I or both of us and from Baker-Tilley.
If you intend to use Baker-Tilley to help prepare your report that has to be filed with the DLGF, how
often you want us or them to attend meetings. It may not be every meeting. It may be every meeting.
But just think about what you would like to see from us.
I'd say wait until we get more facts. Yeah, until, are there any statutory subcommittees that we have
to appoint? Are those just recommendations that can share? I think those are recommendations. I mean,
there are certain, yeah, there are certain things. It would make sense. I mean, why would you not do
a road, you know, where public works? But I just, I don't want for us to miss one and then find out
right before the process is done, if not legally. The process seems pretty open-ended, doesn't it? I
think the legislature left it open for you to have wide discretion in how this is handled. So on the
topic of attorney representation, do we need them at our next meeting? Do we want to have them one,
two, vote?
I don't know how we want to do that. I don't know how we would do it without both. What's that? I don't
know how we would do it without both. I just think it looks better with both. This is both township
residents know they have the attorney for the township board there and town know we have our attorney
there. And I think something that might be useful if others agree, especially once we
have the seventh person identified would be to have perhaps a short training, a presentation of the
process and the overview because different people become aware of this and engage with it at different
times. I'm guessing that the seventh person may be even less aware of the overall process. So just to
help us to be on the same page in terms of
the process procedures, how we're moving forward, and I think that would be useful for the public as
well. Does everyone on this committee have a draft of the copy of the Sheridan-Adams merger plan? No.
Okay. I'll send it to you. All right. Because I think that's crucial to kind of- Any valid doubt, and
I have my companies in my track. All right.
back to the question of when we meet. You had said earlier that you would like to have a postcard before
the next meeting. That postcard cannot include our schedule if you don't set the schedule. That is correct.
So every two weeks. I'll move to amend the meeting schedule that it will now be every two weeks starting
January 7th. I'll second. Okay, let's roll back up. Every two weeks.
That's more room there. All right, Mike. Yes. Me, yes. Kevin. Yes. William. Yes. Don. Yes. Scott. Yes.
Okay. And Mike, for the first postcard at least with our meeting schedule, do you think there would
be, I mean, we'll have to bring it up to the town council, obviously, but does the town have the funds
to do that? We do.
Because we'll have to do that. The turnaround time's got to be quick. Now when you say you have the
funds to do that, are you talking you have the funds once or you have the funds twice? I'm pretty sure
we can make it twice. Twice, OK. And at some point, we need to talk about costs incurred until the end
of this. It won't be a small amount of money. The second mailing was not going to be needed until later
in the process, though. That's correct.
Anything else do you guys think? All right. Well, we have our town council meeting coming up in 10 minutes.
So does anybody want to say anything? My name is Pamela Davidson. I've lived in the township probably
45 years. My kids are proud.
Edgewood graduates. I'm an attorney, but I'm also a fundraiser. And here's what's missing, all of you.
I've listened to process. I've listened to procedure. I love that stuff. Eric and I eat that up. But
in fundraising, every nonprofit has to have a mission statement. Why are we doing this? And I think
this is the missing ingredient. Those of us in the township know
that this terrible Senate bill is ripping dollars that are needed from all sorts of public entities.
We are well aware of that.
And I know this group is saying, oh, the township can help us do this, but what is the mission statement
of the merger that benefits both? And I would add to this, because I'm in an area of fundraising called
charitable gift planning, and we're all about raising money for endowment in the future. What's the
vision? I've said several times on Facebook, gosh, there's lots of empty properties for sale
Ellitsville, there always have been. I've lived here for decades and decades. Have never really seen
a robust downtown. Thank you, caffeinated cook and some other things that have come around. The library
is fabulous, all those things. But our own backyard, the town of Ellitsville has issues in its own backyard.
So those of us in the township said, hey, what's in it for us? Because if you haven't managed your own
backyard well,
to expand and say, you can help us raise our revenue problems, and have this, you're the panacea for
our issues. So I would say, what's the vision? Because communication, meetings, all those things are
wonderful, but what's the purpose of the merger in terms of the well-being of both entities, and what
does the vision hold for making that a better thing than not merging? And I would say, you gotta start
with that.
Because without that, you really can't go anywhere because otherwise it's just spin and process. So
that's my conclusion thus far and I'd go back and take a big step backwards and go into that first because
if you can't enumerate it or elucidate it, then you can't convince anybody. So that's my sense thus
far. Have you seen, Pamela, have you seen the, what's on the,
It's on the Ellitsville page, their website. It doesn't actually say mission statement or vision, but
they have some facts about the overview, the purpose, the key benefits, important context, and it does
talk about it having to go through a public referendum. But it's on the Ellitsville website.
I will look at that, and I'm glad you pointed that out to me, because that's what I would work on, because
you've got to make a case for support. That's what we always say in fundraising. What's your case for
support? I want to temper expectations. This merger will help stabilize the funds for both the township
and the town. It's not going to fix the hole. It's just going to help make sure that both are unified
together and we don't have the hole get bigger for each of us.
So I mean, it's one of those things that together we're stronger and we'll also give more direct
representation for everybody in Richland Township. Right now they have one person that actually represents
them that lives in the township representing their needs. This will give them, not ignoring the township
board at all, but they have a very limited control of what they can do. But this is gonna give them
more direct control of their local government. And I think that more direct control
from the public on what they want for their community is always gonna be more important than putting
it out to someone else, be it in the courthouse, be it in the state house, or be it in DC. Thank you,
I'll look at that document, thank you. And we are going to need to adjourn. So Dawn, would you like
to bang the gavel and adjourn? That's my favorite part. All right, we're adjourned.