- food and beverage tax advisory commission. It is Friday, September 26th. Could someone do a roll call,
- please? Commissioner Cassidy. Is it? Commissioner Zulek. Here. Commissioner Feidl. Here. Commissioner
- Thomas. Here. And Commissioner Knapp. Here.
- We have five commissioners present. Quorum has been established. Thank you. Our first agenda item relates
- to the organization and I'm going to go ahead and follow our tradition and nominate Sydney Zulik as
- the chair and Liz Fiddle as the vice chair of this organization.
- We don't need to do a roll call vote, do we? We don't have anybody online? No. OK. All right. All those
- in favor of approving the chair and vice chair, signify by saying aye. Aye. It's your meeting.
- Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. So it looks like next up on, do we need to do vice president still, or
- did we do that together? I did both. Thank you. Next up on our agenda is adoption of agenda. If I could
- get a motion.
- second. We need to do a vote on that. Yes we don't we don't do that we don't do it that way
- in the commissioners meeting so I guess we could we should probably do a vote. Right yeah. All in favor
- hi hi. Opposed same sign. Passes and now okay moving on to agenda item number five approval of summary
- minutes from
- Can I get a motion? Has everyone gotten a chance to review them? I'm going to move approval, but ask
- that they be revised to indicate which Thomas is speaking at various points. There's more than one Thomas.
- Yes. Oh, okay. Thank you. We'll figure that out. Thank you. We'll need a second. I second. Thank you.
- There's been a move of approval with the revision that each Thomas speaker
- is identified. All in favor? Aye. All opposed? Same sign. Okay. I'm going to abstain since I wasn't
- at this meeting. Absolutely. I'm sorry. You don't have, you're just voting that the minutes are there.
- You don't have to be present. That's the way the, and I'm just interrupting because this is the way
- the county council does it.
- You're just voting that, as far as you know, these minutes are accurate and ready to move forward for
- that. It doesn't have to indicate that you were part of it. You're just approving that, yes, these are
- the minutes for that period of time. But you guys can talk about it however you want. I'm just saying
- that's what we do for the county council. Thank you. Well, I've abstained before, and I would still
- like to abstain. OK, thank you. Number six, we have our update on food and beverage revenue from Megan
- Miller. Good morning. Um, since our last meeting wasn't since, you know, last year in November, I wanted
- to provide the 2024 end of year numbers as well. Um, so the city revenue end of year totaled $4,171,248.29
- and the county revenue for the end of 2024 totaled $488,408.24.
- And then our cash balance for the county, as of December 31, 2020, totaled $2,121,794.69. And then Jessica
- McClellan from the city was kind enough to provide the city's cash balance as of December 31, 2024.
- It totaled $20,738,037. Repeat that last number, please.
- $20,738,037. And I'm happy to provide all of this in an email as well to all of you, since it wasn't
- included in the packet. That would be wonderful. Yes, no problem. Moving on to 2025, January through
- present, as far as the city's revenue totaled
- two million seven hundred sixty six thousand three hundred twenty one dollars and seven cents so far
- the county's revenue has totaled three hundred and seven thousand three hundred sixty nine dollars and
- then The county's current cash balance as of today totals two million four hundred seventy one thousand
- fifty five dollars and seventy two cents Then the city's total
- cash balance as of today totals $18,195,244. That's all I have. Thank you so much. Does anyone have
- any questions? No, but I don't think the county's totals correct based on the number red for beginning
- of 2025 or the end of 2024 and then the amount since
- January, uh, so i'm not worried about it if the numbers are accurate on their own piecemeal i'm not
- worried about the total Thank you Thank you Okay moving on to Did you have a question? Okay, great moving
- on to agenda item number seven a request for a recommendation regarding city funding Which is the city
- resolution for the 2026 cib budget
- I believe Mr. Weickart is here to discuss the CIV budget if we have questions. Are there any questions
- for Mr. Weickart? I have any questions. What else would you like for us to know? I'd like for you to
- know that Jeff Underwood is on the meeting virtually who can answer the controller for the CIV who can
- answer any specific questions.
- What you're looking at in the resolution, you can see by the budget, part of the budget is for professional
- services, if you will, for the project. The other part of the budget, the lion's share of it, is for
- what we refer to as soft cost. The hard cost for construction are from the bond.
- The revenue bond soft cost, as you can see on the list here, are for things other than construction
- costs. So you can see it's for utility connections, environmental testing, communications, security,
- the arts, 1% for the arts, signage, relocation services, furniture, fixtures, and equipment, et cetera.
- So it's a large budget request of over $8 million,
- the majority of activity and construction for the project is happening in 2026. So moving into 2027,
- we will have, at that point, hopefully, not hopefully, we will have cut a ribbon and you'll see these
- costs have declined because the money's already been expended and used. So we would appreciate your
- support and your recommendation back to the city council. Thank you. Any questions?
- I don't have any questions. I just want to thank the capital improvement board again for their hard
- work. It's a lot to deal with. I'm going to move approval for the city's request for the use of the
- food and beverage tax. There's been a move of approval for the recommendation regarding city funding
- in the city resolution for the 2026 CIP budget.
- All in favor, please say aye. I think we should. Aye. Public comment, maybe? Oh. If there is anyone
- in the public in chambers who would like to speak, please let us know. And on Zoom, please raise your
- hand or message the host. Oh, on Teams. Thank you. Eustacity. Any takers on Zoom? Oh, I'm sorry.
- Any takers on teams? Any takers in chambers? Okay. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed,
- same sign. Great. That passes. Thank you very much. Yes, and congratulations on putting steel in the
- ground. Yeah, things are moving along out there. Thank you. Now we are moving on to the request for
- a recommendation regarding county funding.
- I'll go ahead and put it on the floor. I'd like to move approval of the Monroe County plan for the use
- for food and beverage funds for 2026 2027. Is there a second? What exactly are we? I'm just putting
- it on the floor so I can discuss it. Oh sure, yeah, I second. Thank you.
- We met, Menorah County Commissioners meet every week, just about every week, and we had our meeting
- yesterday and approved this plan. So I apologize for the late addition to the packet. In a nutshell,
- it lists out the funding that we've utilized to date, and we do have the Quarry
- project, which is an economic development project, much more than a park, that includes limestone history
- center, indoor, outdoor. But the information is there. That's actually the same as the information presented
- last time. But we do have
- a general outline of planned use for the funds, and there's a committee that's meeting and beginning
- work on this project to set the timeline and parameters to make a recommendation for a master plan consultant
- who's going to do a lot of community work, seeing what the community wants on the project.
- with our justice complex going in at North Park, some of the delays and the changes in the amounts from
- previous years has to do with the planning for that project and how it's impacted access to the quarry
- property, which is 99 acres of old quarry site. So we're really
- We're really excited about this opportunity, and we think it's going to be a jewel for the community.
- So we're really excited to use food and beverage funds for that project. So we'd appreciate your support.
- Thank you. Do we have any questions or comments? So would you just say publicly what the amounts are
- you talking about? Yeah, so the total is $1.6 million.
- that we have a master plan. Master plan estimated costs 750,000 and, um, initial development costs of
- 850,000. Thank you. And I assume you anticipate there will be some other for future costs as well to
- actually build out and develop this. Absolutely yes. And the plan is to go gradually. Once we have a
- master plan.
- in what order we're going to add it. So I mean, we envision arts and limestone symposium, limestone
- carving competitions, and of course, the history center indoor outdoor facility. But that initial cost
- is just access and parking to begin with. So has there been any survey done right now with the public as to
- what these funds should be used for in the county, or have we just decided this on our own? So the plan
- to do the limestone history has to do with the fact that there is existing historic equipment on the
- property. We're talking big pieces of equipment related to limestone.
- that would be the southwest corner. Of State Road 46 and 69. And part of that fill site
- And that has been delineated as historic portion of the property that will not be impacted by the film,
- and they've agreed to donate the equipment to this quarry project. So the only thing that we know we're
- going to do for sure is that otherwise,
- we would have the consultant help determine what's going to go on to that property. But that will take,
- no matter what we do, it will take a driveway and parking and things like that. I guess I was more asking
- just the amount of money we have in the food and beverage tax fund for the county. We are
- you're recommending that we put it towards this quarry park. But did we survey the public at all about
- what they would like to see in the county period, like outside of that project even? Well, we do have
- other park projects, but we're funding them with other funds. So there's a very specific delineation
- of what we can use the money for, and it's related to tourism. And so that's why we've been focusing on this.
- So maybe I'll ask it a different way, which is I think what he's asking about is what's the public engagement
- process? To what degree is the public aware of this plan? And I see that it was approved by the commissioner.
- So you probably had some public discussion at a commissioner meeting, but I'm just trying to judge whether
- folks in the county will be surprised by this, whether they've seen some public discussions, been engaged
- in some way, what kind of the resident awareness of this plan is. Well, that's what this
- to engage the public in what kinds of. Of activities go on on this property. Um and that's what that's
- what the role of the consultant is. So.
- So I understand what I hear you saying is that part of the public engagement process for developing
- the plan would be done by the consultant. But the question we're really asking is before we commit to
- spending $1.6 million of your $2 million or just a little over $2 million that you have set aside for
- the county,
- we're devoting a considerable portion of that and personally as a resident of the city I just want to
- make sure that I'm doing right by my friends in the county and that residents in the county you know
- will not be surprised by my vote and and that they've had a chance to say yes we want to devote a chunk of our
- I'm just trying to do my due diligence here. Sure. No, I appreciate that. I see. I see the question
- now. I'm sorry. I misunderstood. Um, so, um, this has been in the plan for quite a few years. So, um,
- again at, um, you know, we've we've had.
- that we've been working on. Um suggestions or recommendations come up and found other ways to fund and
- they were typically parks projects. And then we've got the new nature preserve opening and that we're.
- We have funded as well. So I think, um. You know, we haven't heard other suggestions or recommendations
- over the years. Um so we're planning to
- property. It's not a buildable property. So. This has been in the plan since we bought that property
- years ago, so can you remind us about when the purchase was made about? Oh gosh, it was over a couple of
- Um years, so I I might I well we started this we started the Look at this and the review of this property
- probably in 2017 And it really I heard your question and I would say in 2018 2019 2020 there's probably
- a lot more public awareness of this because that's when we were going through analyzing the
- There are basically five or six different parcels and we were going, working with the county council.
- We had extensive meetings on purchasing this property for this type of use, right? So the plan for the
- property has not changed although it is kind of, it's not very well detailed, right? It's always been
- kind of utilizing this for that. And so I think we ended up purchasing it,
- I want to say in 2020, I think it was during the like the first part of COVID. It was either late 2019
- or late or sometime in 2020.
- pre-COVID is a little bit different than it was back then. So I would say we started looking at these
- properties in 2017. And I think at that point, there was a pretty robust discussion between the county
- council and the county commissioners about these properties and the use and quite frankly, some of the
- environmental issues with that area. I think even at that point in time, not only were we discussing
- a limestone, but I think there was public requests for
- you know, giving its nearness to a former Superfund site, whether it be an educational component about
- that Superfund site as well included in this. So that's kind of the history. And then, you know, once
- COVID hit, we had the property purchased, you know, it slowed everything down quite a bit. And I think
- we're trying to reengage that process.
- And that last piece, I think, was much later, and we had a funding component from Regional Opportunities
- Initiative that we lost out on because one of the parcels wasn't purchased until late, and because of
- that, we lost a little bit of funding as well. But I do think there are other, as I noted in here, I
- do believe there are other potential, and less so now than before, but there are some other potential
- I think it's been a very long process. So. Very helpful. Thank you. Can you remind us when the food and
- And so I think it started 2018, maybe officially being collected. So was it discussed prior? I apologize
- for not knowing. Was it discussed prior that these monies for food and beverage might be used for this?
- It's been in the plan all along. Yeah, it has. I'm not sure it was discussed prior to.
- the food and beverage tax being it right being approved because that discussion happened for quite a
- long time as well. All right. So we've had a food and beverage. This has been in the plan. We'll do
- it that way. Yeah, if that helps. Yeah, thank you. And I guess I would still suggest that that a public
- survey go out and we say we have money to use for tourism in the in this county. And what would you
- like to see? Here are some options. I think that that
- That would be a reasonable thing to do. Yeah, and I think we could do this is part of a wider we could
- do a wider engagement process with our consultants Sure Any other questions or comments Okay,
- in that case, we'll go to public comment if you're in chambers and you would like to comment Please
- raise your hand if you were on teams, please raise your hand virtually or contact the host. I
- Do you have a virtual comment? Okay. Great. Thank you. If you could unmute them and whenever you're
- ready, if you could state your name for the record and do we have time limits on comments here? Usually
- three minutes. Okay. You will have up to three minutes. Please go right ahead. Thank you very much.
- Jeff McKim, former county council member.
- And I just wanted to remind everybody that actually, as Commissioner Thomas has mentioned, these discussions
- have been going on for a very long time in public regarding this project. And in fact, this very body
- approved back in January of 2020, approved $500,000 specifically for the Quarry Park. So it is actually
- already. Now, after COVID, there was a long pause. And then we've had, as Commissioner Thomas described,
- we also had
- a pause more recently related to the justice facility, but the expenditure of the county share food
- and beverage tax for the quarry property has actually already been discussed and vetted by this body.
- So thank you very much. Thank you so much. Any other public comment? OK, in that case, I'll bring it
- back to the table. Any last words?
- I guess I'm not ready to really decide personally, just decide on this, especially without Mark here,
- a business within the county. I would just be interested to see if there's more time to process all
- this and vote on it in a future meeting. Other thoughts on this?
- with the hope of getting some survey data you're talking about, or what's the goal here? Mark, I don't
- want to speak on his behalf, but he's expressed the need for help for county businesses and tourism
- places. I'm just not sure a limestone park would be the best use of that. There's a lot of requests
- for more recreational facilities that could attract larger sporting events and tournaments that could
- bring revenue in and business for county operations as well.
- I think we should consider other options as well, since we have this chance. Is there any idea what
- something like that would need to be funded at what level? Do you know what some other parts of the
- county might need funding for? Well, I think I've expressed last year, I mean, the large portion of
- land that was donated to the county on the southeast side of town going towards the lake.
- I think there's there should be more consideration there. That's quite a bit of land. And I think that
- could be used for some other purposes as well. So I think that could be considered. Yeah. Well, the
- commissioners would have to approve something else. And the commissioners have approved this as our
- plan. So I understand the interest in other opportunities. We've utilized a lot of funding for
- the karst athletic fields project the. Monroe County nature preserve on the.
- property. We have our development plan, and we have a mechanism to fund access to that site, but it
- is a nature preserve, so that's not going to become athletic fields. It is a nature preserve, and it's
- going to also, I think, attract a lot of business interest, as well as residential interest and visitor
- interest to our community. So I think we've
- We've done our due diligence and we have a committee meeting and working toward providing a recommendation
- on a consultant developer, master plan developer, I should say, not a developer, master plan developer
- for this property. And given the longstanding support
- As Mr. McKim pointed out, I think it's important to continue with this project. So it seems to me like
- there will be more money coming into food and beverage also as time goes on. So there will be more money
- to draw upon, right? Absolutely. Yeah. OK. Yeah, I guess just
- just to respond. Basically, I would just ask for more time. I don't even know if that's possible, and
- apologies for my lack of understanding for how these meetings are run and stuff at times. And I don't
- know how often we meet, but I just haven't been aware of this. I mean, obviously we voted on it last
- year, but we don't meet often. And I think that I personally would need some more time, but completely
- understand if everyone else is ready.
- And I would just invite you or anyone else to contact us with other suggestions or ideas that we can
- incorporate, because there is money left over, and there's obviously going to continue to be money coming
- in. So this isn't the end of the road. This is the beginning. But this is a project that has been underway
- in our thoughts for quite a while, even if we couldn't act on it, because we were waiting on, with the
- location of the new justice center, that was actually going to be the entry point for the park.
- but with the way the road is now designed, we're actually gonna have to use a different entrance. So
- things have, you know, we've been waiting on other things to fall into place as well. So I would appreciate
- if we could vote on this today. Do we, we still need to meet again in the next month to create our report,
- our annual report?
- I don't know what would change in 30 days, honestly, because we, as I said, we have a committee meeting
- and they'd like to start working through requests for proposals from master plan developers and to get
- surveys done and of the public and to have public engagement meetings on the use of this property sooner
- rather than later. So I'm not sure what 30 days will buy.
- you know, if it would be possible to leverage the public engagement for unfolding this project to say
- also, you know, this is the source that we're using to do this, the work that we're doing on the quarry,
- we're paying for this public engagement. And as part of that process, we'd be interested in knowing
- what other kinds of attractions, you know, the public would be interested in seeing that relate to tourism
- and development. That might be a nice opportunity to kind of
- that's where we're at. Yeah, I know. I'm totally on board with that, and it's something that we've discussed,
- so. All right. Well, I move that we recommend. The county resolution for county funding. I don't know if I've
- Yes, second. Okay. Um, Mr Cockerill, would you please call the roll? I will do my best. Commissioner
- cash. Can I sustain here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Commissioner Nat. Yes. Commissioner Zulek. Yes. Commissioner
- Fiddle. Yes. Commissioner Thomas. Yes. Uh, motion is approved. Four zero one. Thank you. And it looks like
- That is the end of our meeting. Oh Auditor, gregory Just um, excuse me just a point of clarification.
- Um, miss miller ran off the um total um county funds cash balance as of today which included um Funding
- that came in since the packet was distributed Got it. So the number that you have in your packet is from
- September 24th While the number she read today is from September 26, so it is the correct number. Thank
- you Thank you. That's very helpful. Yeah, and we do have to meet before the end of October to approve
- an annual report and That's something that our auditor's office works on. Yes or with the city controller
- I believe in the past the council office has worked with us, but it's typically a council office report
- is my understanding. It actually varies because it typically is one year the county council rep guides
- it. The other year the city council rep guides the preparation. I think at one point one of the city
- council who was putting it together put together a pretty in-depth kind of template.
- that. Yes and it is actually the city's turn to provide the report. Sorry because we provided it last
- year so. Can someone make sure that I have that template please? Thank you. And then if you need the
- numbers for the county side that would be from our orders office in the city numbers obviously. That
- would be great. Thank you.
- Any other comments for the good of the order? So we're going to have to do a doodle poll or something
- to set our next meeting before the end of October. That is correct. OK. We'll send out another doodle
- poll for October. Thank you. Thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you. And I have a question. So we're going
- to do that report in October. So we might want to do it closer to the end to give her time to get it
- together. OK. Sure. I'm just making sure. For sure.
- I think Jeff said we just have to have it to the state by the end of the month. I think we need to have
- the commissioners are the county puts together a report and I think the city of Bloomington has to put
- together a report that they submit. This is much more of a public facing document. I don't think there's
- any statutory requirement for it. Okay. But typically it is
- put out around the same time those two reports go out, so. Okay. And we know the state has been interested
- in getting our reports. Oh, absolutely. They're keenly interested in us. Okay. Okay. In that case, we
- are adjourned. Thank you so much.