- I'm gonna call to order this work session for the Monroe County Board of Commissioners. It is Thursday,
- November 13th. I'll note for the record, all three commissioners are here and present in that U Hill
- room. And first item is DAG agreement with the election board.
- Good morning. Good morning commissioners. I'm Kylie Ferris, Monroe County Election Supervisor. So the
- blue DAG is a compliance survey contract for polling locations. This is a partnership with the city
- to ensure compliance at all polling locations in Monroe County for voter access. This contract was approved
- by the Monroe County Election Board with unanimous vote on November 6, 2025 to be presented
- to the commissioners. And then I am here if there are any other questions.
- And then Greg, same was here as well. Thank you so much. Well, first, we'll start with questions from
- my colleagues. Anybody have questions? No. OK, well, that was easy, Mr. Crone.
- Good morning, commissioners. I've just begun the process of vetting the software from Blue Dag. I was
- involved in the process previously. I did have an opportunity to review their user agreements and I
- had some concerns and some questions. I would like to reach out to the company first before I put my
- seal of okay on this. That meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at noon, so I'm not looking to delay process,
- but I'm looking to make sure we have our answers
- questions answered and make sure we're secure with this new software before we move forward. Okay.
- I'm sorry. What meeting is it noon tomorrow? I have a meeting with Blue Dag. Oh, with them. I was a
- part of the process and I need to vet this. So I've reached out to the vendor. They understand that
- I have questions and so we're meeting at noon tomorrow to address those. Great. Okay. Yeah. So we look
- forward to hearing about
- about this and your take on it. And obviously it's not something we're going to hear until December.
- So there's not a urgency here, but clearly it's one of the key questions relates to
- for me is who uses the software and how is it used? Can you explain it a little bit more? Because I
- haven't watched that meeting yet.
- yeah so um michael charmas from the city did come over to do a really great demonstration and
- some information about it i'm sure he'd be open to doing a demonstration for commissioners as well i'll
- just go back and watch that meeting i have not done that yet um but the software itself would be used
- by um our office so myself would be one of the administrators for the software as well as an individual
- in the city um office she i
- can't think of her name right now. I believe it's Jessica. But she would be working hand in hand with
- me on setting up the software, figuring out the way that we want it to process, what key features we
- want to make sure are included in the surveys. And then it would be our staff individually. We would
- go out to the polling locations to do the survey on an iPad or a cell phone and get all the information
- that way. OK. So it's like the old ADA compliance tour that instead of paper pencil forms on a clipboard,
- it's online and you can kind of cultivate the the correct yeah okay so the software will also give
- give the exact things that are incorrect that don't meet the ADA compliance and show all the violations.
- It'll also give you remedies on how to improve those so we can give them to each of the polling locations
- to use to make the changes. But we're going to be using them primarily for the temporary fixes to ensure
- that Election Day is ADA compliant as much as possible. OK. OK. Gotcha. OK. That makes sense.
- Other questions from my colleagues or? OK, great. Thank you. We look forward to hearing about it.
- And yes, they'll give you plenty of time if we consider it December. Yeah. Yeah. I will say that Clerk
- Brown did want to try to get it as soon as possible. So the December 4th meeting will be great because
- we want to try to get it in this year's budget that way we have plenty of funds for it. Got it.
- Thank you. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Thanks for waiting today.
- All right, next item relates to, oh, here's Mr. Roddy. Good morning, this is about an appraisal for
- litigation. Yes, good morning, Justin Roddy from the Minerva County Legal Department. I'm asking the
- Board of Commissioner today to approve an agreement for services for an appraisal of property that the
- county is currently involved in litigation over. Litigation concerns, allegations of taking
- or otherwise invalid zoning determination. The contract is for $5,500. It will have us an appraisal
- by the end of the year. It is subject to a 90% reimbursement from our insurer. So once we get that,
- the actual cost of the county should be about $550. Okay. So I bring the money this year for
- to do this appraisal next year? Or you just want the contract done? We want the contract approved. I
- have been in contact with Mr. Figg from Figg Appraisals. I have let him know that this money will come
- out of next year's budget. He was OK with that, but we need to have the appraisal by the end of the
- year due to discovery deadlines. Thank you. Thank you for that explanation. Other questions, Ford? OK,
- so you said 550.
- The contract that we would have to pay up front is for $5,500. We do have in our insurance agreement,
- it's a 90% reimbursement for litigation costs, including the cost of experts and depositions. OK. And
- that's coming out of legal? That's coming out of county general legal? Correct. OK. So I'm asking those
- questions because I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve the contract with Fig Appraisal
- Corporation for case 53C01-2407PL
- for a total cost of $5,500 coming out of fund 1,000 county legal. Second. All right. We have a motion
- and a second. Any public comment on this item?
- see none all those in favor of approving the fig appraisal corporation agreement signify by saying aye
- aye motion carries three zero there you go okay next we have ah a ratification did we already hear this
- okay all right um then it wouldn't be a ratification
- This is regarding Smithville Telephone utility reimbursement from Moores Creek Stip Road for stormwater.
- Why don't you explain that? That'd be great. Thank you. So I talked to Dave yesterday with the legal
- department. This cost was anticipated in the Moores Creek Stip Road project. We had a utility reimbursement
- agreement with Smithville at the time of the creation of the project. I believe it was signed in 2024
- by our previous project manager in stormwater.
- The agreement at that time should have came to the county commissioners. The work has been completed.
- We have been working with Smithville to get this invoice for a long time. We finally did receive it.
- We need to pay it. The work was completed. It was in relation to our project. After talking to Dave,
- he referenced Indiana Code 34-1-4-16 that you could ratify the agreement on behalf of the employee manager
- that signed it at the time. Got it. That's why the word ratification is in there. OK. Light bulb is
- getting brighter. Thank you so much. Any questions for my colleagues?
- Okay. So I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to ratify the Smithville telephone utility reimbursement
- for Moores Creek, Stipp Road, fund named Stormwater, fund number 1197, the amount of $87,486.78. Okay.
- We have a motion and a second. Okay. Anything else? Let's see if there's public comment.
- And to keep this very transparent, we will mention it again at the stormwater board at the beginning
- of December. And then we also will take it to the council for an additional. We have funds sitting there,
- but we know that's tied up for the construction that will be completed in the next two weeks for that
- whole project. So we want to just move forward to get it all completely appropriated and get it off
- the books. Got it. Thank you so much.
- public comments. So all those in favor of ratifying the Smithville telephone utility reimbursement for
- Moores Creek Stip Road signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries 3-0. Thank you. I'm going to skip
- it. Mr. Myers, if you don't mind, I'm going to skip ahead since we have Ms. Ridge here and we have Mr.
- Schilling here to go into the should be quick
- Mr. Myers, thank you for your patience. Resolution 2025-49. I don't know who wants to start. So we were
- reached out by Bartholomew County yesterday. After we do a paving project, we have bought a piece of
- equipment for road widening. It's basically putting a shoulder on the edge of the road in places that
- it's allowed and can fit. The equipment in Bartholomew County quit.
- yesterday. So they reached out about borrowing our equipment. So we wanted we reached out to Dave about
- taking the proper steps on loaning out that equipment through the commissioner's process and the proper
- agreement. Excellent. Did you have anything to add, Mr. Schilling? Yeah, the to make this effective.
- the board of commissioners of Bartholomew County will have to adopt a substantially similar resolution.
- And so this becomes effective by the terms of this, it becomes effective once the Bartholomew County
- commissioners adopt it. And it's a seven day borrow. Correct. And no money changes hands and they're
- responsible for any damages to the equipment basically.
- and we're not responsible for any insurance trouble they get into using our equipment because it's not,
- okay, got it. All right, questions from my colleagues? Nope. Okay, well, that's pretty easy. Any public
- comment on resolution 2025-49? See, we promised y'all there's more inner county cooperation going on.
- Her agenda. I don't see any public comment.
- All those in favor of approving resolution 2025-49 signify by saying aye. Aye. Motion carries 3-0.
- Thank you. All right. Now, Mr. Myers, you're the patients of a saint. Thank you for waiting. We have
- ordinance 2025-41 rezone. Tell us all about it, please.
- Thank you. All right, so I'm going to bring it up here on the screen. And I'll have a formal presentation
- slideshow ready for the formal session. So this is the 8383 SVRLLC rezone.
- and it's 2025-41 also known as REZ-25-5. It's at 8304 and 8383 North Stitesville Road as well as 8436
- West Hedrick Road. It's multiple parcels and the entire acreage is 221.98 acres. Currently the property
- is zoned mineral extraction and with some areas of the whole acreage being zoned agricultural residential.
- through conversations with the applicants and the petitioner. Basically, staff identified those specific
- areas that are zoned agricultural residential where the petitioner is seeking to rezone to
- mineral extraction. However, just to be safe, the applicant was firm on applying the rezone to the entire
- property, the 221.98 acres. So therefore, the rezone is technically
- Mineral extraction slash agricultural residential 2.5 all solely to mineral extraction itself. We're
- in Bean Blossom Township section 20 portion of the property is in the Indiana quarries and carvers type
- E subdivision. That
- that subdivision will soon be vacated as a follow-up to this rezone application and be replatted as
- one large lot and that will be called the Big Creek Lime Soad Administrative Type E Subdivision. So
- there's multiple parcels at play here all owned by the same property owner and they are wanting to go
- through this process first to make sure all the zoning is great and then they'll go through the plot
- vacation and Type E subdivision process to combine all of those parcels into one
- large lot of record. Alright, so I'm going to go into a little bit of a summary and background here.
- Let's see.
- The property is exhibiting current quarry activity at 8304 and 8383 North Steinsville Road, which includes
- approximately 189.79 acres. The remaining 32.19 acres at 8436 West Hedrick Road also contains a portion
- of land utilized for quarrying purposes. This 32.19 acre property was established as tract one of the
- Indiana quarries and carvers type B subdivision and that's exhibit six in your packet.
- In conjunction with this rezone, the petitioner submitted a new administrative subdivision application
- to vacate that tract and eventually consolidate all remaining parcels into one large lot of record,
- as I stated before. Before the Indiana Quarries and Carvers Type B Administrative Subdivision happened,
- which was recorded in September 2020, the property at 8436 West Hedrick Road consisted of 22.8 acres,
- and this actually received a rezone from agricultural residential to mineral extraction
- via Ordinance 2011-27. And this ordinance included some conditions of approval that are on the screen
- now. I'm gonna zoom in a little bit. And you will see that some of these recommendations or conditions
- of approval, I should say, were carried over into this rezone's conditions of approval in order to make
- sure none of those get lost in the transition.
- So I can come back to those. On the screen now is a zoning map. So you can see the areas highlighted
- with the white circles and ovals, the difference of the zoning. Sorry, the light just turned off in
- this room. We're just going to keep going. And the agricultural zone is here on the left side of the
- screen as well.
- Ordinance 2011-27 here shown in the mineral extraction that was rezoned like I said in 2011. So only
- these portions that are circled are technically zoned in agricultural residential and the rest of it
- is mineral extraction. But again, they are requesting a rezone of all of it just to make sure no other
- areas that are missed and get those rezoned appropriately.
- So on the screen now, I have definitions for the agricultural residential zone, as well as the mineral
- extraction zone. And then chapter 811-11F also provides conditions that are applying to the mineral
- extraction use. Planning SNAP does not have a commercial site plan on file for this petition site. And
- these standards that are on the screen were included as part of the CDO passage on December 18th, 2024.
- Okay, so urban area analysis as one of those conditions or standards, I should say that were mentioned
- on the previous page. This hatching was provided by planning staff after analysis, utilizing the urban
- area analysis, which dictates an area within a quarter square mile of eight
- residences and those areas are prohibited from occurring with mineral extraction. So the petitioner
- is aware of this area that is prohibited from any mineral extraction activities based on that urban
- area analysis. And then here's another page showing some of that analysis done by planning staff.
- On the screen now is the location map. Like I said, we're in Bean Blossom Township. The property has
- frontage on North Sinesville Road. That's where they receive their primary access point. It does have
- frontage technically on West Hedrick Road through this soda straw or flagpole extension here. One of
- the conditions of approval from the original rezone in 2011 was that only agricultural and residential
- use is allowed to
- operate within that or utilize that access point, and that is being carried over into this rezone application
- as well. And the petitioners are aware of that and are consenting to that as well, that there is to
- be no mineral extraction access or mineral extraction activity through that portion that fronts West
- Hedrick Road. Again, here's the zoning map. So you'll see that
- This map is not showing that ordinance 2011 detail, but I did include that in that previous map because
- that was approved, but just was missed in the current zoning map itself. So let's keep scrolling here.
- site conditions and infrastructure. One of the conditions of approval for the 2011 ordinance as well
- was that rock crushing is prohibited on the subject site and that was specific to the 22.7 acre property
- before the quarry and Indiana quarries and carvers type E came through. So the recommendation, one of
- the conditions of approval for this rezone is that that rock crushing
- requirement or condition of approval also be included as a prohibited nature in this 32.19 acre parcel,
- this whole parcel down here. And the petitioner has been able to agree to that as well. Highway Department
- comments as well as stormwater comments on the screen stating basically that they have no really comments
- at this time.
- And I think that is most of the information that I wanted to cover during the work session. Does anyone
- have any questions? I will go back up to the top where we have the conditions of approval listed as
- well as other details. Hi. Thank you so much. Let's see if my colleagues have any questions.
- at this time okay no thank you for the enlightening presentation um sorry that your overhead lights
- went dim during that enlightening presentation i kind of expected predator to come out of the background
- there with the red glow it kind of looks like the northern lights together night really i love you yeah
- yeah they were that color red they were yes um so one of the things that we had talked about in
- The plan commission meeting was having some sort of map or something created or a site plan for the
- property where they would indicate where they could or could not do rock crushing, for example, and
- also where the karst features are. Do you feel like that's sufficiently covered here?
- Yeah, I will go back and look at that request. I believe it was stated by the petitioner that they do
- not have a mobile rock crushing equipment and that rock crushing is located elsewhere on the property
- and that it's not close to the prohibited site that is being requested here in the condition of approval.
- right but I but I had asked for maybe a site plan that just generally identified so that if in the future
- somebody goes by that property or they get a complaint you could say look here's the map here's what
- they agreed to and he was amenable to that at our meeting so I just if you could check on that I would
- appreciate it okay yeah I can do thank you so
- When would you like us to hear this? Our next meeting is December 4th. Or we could do the 11th. Do you
- have a preference? I do not have a preference. I'm not sure if the petitioner would have a preference.
- I would expect that they would say sooner rather than later. OK, well, I will let you contact them.
- Figure out the best date.
- to get us on, get on our agenda and then please do so. Okay. We'll do. And if my colleagues have questions
- in the meantime, or if anything comes up, we can connect via email and ask questions or however it may
- be. Yep. Excellent. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Okay. Anything else for our work session?
- Oh, Mr. Cockrell.
- Yes we have a notice bid opening for next Thursday the 20th and you guys aren't meeting so I was wondering
- when we get the bids if you if you guys would designate me as the right the person to open those bids
- it will still do it in this room still do it at 10 a.m. it's just
- those bids for a couple weeks doesn't seem fair to people who are giving those bids. A lot of times
- like to know what their competition is and what they said. And the bid opening is for which department,
- sir? The assessors. It's for their reassessment program. So, yes, any concerns or issues with that?
- Are we good? Okay, so there's a consensus here that
- at 10 a.m. on November 20th, which is Thursday, we, since the commissioners are not meeting, that the
- bid packet opening shall proceed, and we do ask Mr. Cockrell to be here and present in the NATU room
- to effectuate that bid opening. And I'll open them, read them aloud, and then we'll take, and then I will
- We'll take whatever information you need for a decision at the next meeting or maybe even potentially
- the one after with the holiday. Okay. For clarification, for TSD, they will need to be here for that.
- To record. Yep. Yes. That would be great. Thank you, TSD. But at least it'll be a short meeting.
- Thank you. Got a thumbs up over there. Thanks. All right. Anything else for the good of the order? See,
- I forgot that. So anything else I forgot in the last two minutes? Okay.
- Alright, with that we are adjourned. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Stay safe, be happy, be thankful.
- Great vote for you all.