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.