Call to order the Monroe County Three Development Commission and would you call the members? Commissioner
Keesley? Yes. Commissioner McCarty? Yes. Commissioner Jones? Yes. Commissioner Tucker? Yes. I have three
voting members and the school board representative present, so we have a quorum. All right. And we did
not hear from Richard, did we? Is that what you're telling me?
from anybody that they were not going to be in attendance. Okay. Okay. So do you want to wait with selection
of officers? Well, I think he's just walking in. There's no traffic downtown. The bypass is packed all
the way around.
Well, I'll go ahead with the election of officers since we have five of us here. And I'd like to move
that Richard be president. Okay. Do we need to have a vice president, I guess?
you have to have a president and a secretary, but we've always had a vice president as well. Right.
You have to speak up a little bit. I hear you, but I lose you. We're required to have a president and
a secretary, but we have always also had a vice president, which is allowed. Okay, so I'm... Who would
like to be vice president? I could do that again. I nominate Iris. Okay.
Okay, anything else? All those in favor of Richard's taking president and Iris Kicely being vice president,
please say aye. Do we have to call the roll on that? No, you do not have to call the roll since we're
in person, but you also need to have a secretary. Okay, well that's passed. Richard, you want to do
the meeting dates? Sure. All right, we're down to item number three. Well, I think we need to have a
secretary.
Yes. Oh, so you're the VP. You're going to be VP. Who wants to be the secretary? I can do that. I guess.
Mr. McCarty is going to be secretary. Congratulations, Colin. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye.
Aye. OK. You have that down? OK. Good. OK. Now we can go to the number three. All right. I have number three.
Meeting schedule for 2026. Is everybody okay with this kind of third Wednesday, 430? That's what I have.
There's one I think that we might have to miss. Which one did we decide? The March meeting is during
spring break. Yeah. So we may have to change that. We typically will do the fourth Wednesday that month.
Right. So it's third Wednesday except March.
Send out reminders to Jeff. Yes. Thank you. Is everybody OK with that? Yes, I'm OK. Transfer to Ivy
Tech. This is maybe more of a heads up. I thought we did this. Well, we did this with the pain building,
which is a nursing school, but we also. Yes.
I remember what it was called when we purchased it. And I remember it because it was going to be the
nursing school and it wasn't entitled to pain building. And so I found that to be extremely ironic,
but the county owns the building, the life science center building, the redevelopment commission owns
that building, but not the ground underneath our lease with them. I think terminates in 27. However,
it can be terminated earlier.
if we pay off the bonds which have been paid off. And so I was talking to Chancellor Coyne and we think
that since we have the process in place from last year, we should probably just go ahead and get that
taken care of. Okay. Sounds good. So you're going to proceed with the effort to do that? Yes. Okay.
And how long would the extension be? How long would the extension be?
A renewal, right? Or are we looking... Okay. Our current lease agreement says that once the lease terminates,
the building goes back to Ivy Tech. So they would be the full owner of both the land and the building.
We're transferring. Yeah. So we have to make a motion to say that that happened or we just leave it
alone? I think you guys just need to be aware that we're going to move forward on that. And if you had
an objection. Well, let's show it in the minutes then, please.
Will we have any other obligations out there then? Or is that it? I think that's the last of the property
we own. OK. All right. Item five on our agenda are minutes. And we had two minutes in the packet, one
for September and one for October. And then we had canceled meetings the rest of the year. Correct.
Are there any additions or corrections to the minutes for September 17th? They were okay. Or do we have
any additions or corrections to the minutes of October 15th? I didn't see any there. They're okay too. Okay.
Do I have a motion to approve the minutes for September 17th and October 15th? I so move. Second. A
motion and a second to approve the minutes for September 17th and October 15th. Do we need a roll call
on this, I think? We certainly can do a roll call. Commissioner Kiesling. Yes. Commissioner McCarty. Yes.
Mr. Jones. Yes. Mr. Martin. Yes. Motion is approved four to zero. All right. Then claims. We have one
claim. This is for the town of Ellisville. If you flip over the form, you'll see that it's the annual
payment for the firetruck. So this is our second payment on the firetruck. Is that correct? It's semiannual.
I think it's the third.
The third. This is the final one? Or do I have one more? No, it's five years. Okay. I just couldn't
remember at this point. Yeah. So there'll be two more after this, you believe? There'll be one more
this year. And then this will be the end of the second year after this. And then we have three years
beyond that. Okay. Right. Good. It's half a million a year.
for five years to 2.5. That's what it was. Yep. Yep. Okay. All right. Do I have a motion to approve
claims? I submit. Okay. Do I have a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the claims
for the town of Ellitsville for $249,945.28.
Please call the roll. Commissioner Kiesling. Yes. Commissioner McCarty. Yes. Commissioner Jones. Yes.
Commissioner Martin. Yes. Motion is approved four to zero. That we have committed to doing it for five
years and this is the whatever one this is. This is the third one. This is the third. This is the third one.
So easy to forget that, so that's better to document. No, the fire truck was over $2 million. $2 million,
OK. So that's where the semiannual for five years. I think it was like $2.2 or $2.3. More expensive
than you thought. Yeah. Yeah. This is President Cassidy.
It actually happened one time. That's what happens when you're not here. Do you want to make, since
we have public comment now, why don't you start? Congratulations to the Hoosiers.
Amazing. Absolutely amazing. That's where it was an unbelievable situation. And when we look at it from
Monroe County and we look at it from the city, we have to take into consideration that we now have to
take a look at what we have as a community and how we're going to grow now that we have that national
attention. Absolutely. Absolutely. It falls to each and every one of us, the elected officials in the
city and the county to get the same kind of level cooperation and teamwork that we've seen
out of the Indiana University Hoosiers. And it's colder here than it was in Miami. I said it's colder
here than it was in Miami, but it's just as exciting. And we travel much better than I ever anticipated.
It looks good on TV. That's okay. The Sea of Red was amazing.
Okay, we're on to public comment. We don't have any members of the public here. Is there anybody online
that wants to make a comment? I don't see anybody, do you? No. I don't see anybody. Okay, so there is
no public comment. All right, staff comments. My first comment is that Lisa Ridge doesn't have a working
microphone, so she's not going to be able to give staff comment tonight. I think we're just
I think the what would have been my staff comment is dealing with the property transfer. I do believe
that I've also received and. I think. Hey, you can speak. Hey, how about that? They gave me permission.
That's what I was waiting for. Well, can you hear me? OK. Sorry, I just want to briefly say that we
did make it to the end of 2025 and got our distribution in December, so we're not so broke.
Also we have the curry pie phase one of the reconstruction out for bid. So we expect to get those on
open nose on February 5th at the commissioners meeting and then we'll take those under advisement and
everything and then bring them to the board in February before anything's awarded.
I wouldn't anticipate anything happening until later in the summer. So we would have our second distribution
in June, our first for 2026. So I just wanted to give you an update on that project. And if you have
any questions on anything else. I do not. How are you set for if we get a slow dump in the next two days?
Well, I was out getting salt delivered from a dump truck after the garage closed and was guiding in
a dump truck. So we're down to the wire of still having materials delivered. The problem is the whole
Midwest is pretty well out of salt after the December storm. So we are getting what we can get and it's
trickling in everywhere around the state, but we just hope it can be replenished after this weekend storm.
the numbers that I saw right now with our app was around 10 inches between Saturday night and Sunday.
So, but it's still the track of the storm is still yet to be confirmed. But I do think we're gonna be
in the path of some heavy storm, heavy snow. Good luck. Thank you.
And then the other thing I was going to mention is I believe I got the contracts for our annual reports
from a financial solutions group. I believe they're the same amounts as last year. I wasn't in yesterday,
so I couldn't forward it to you guys. But assuming that's the case, unless you guys object, I'm going
to go ahead and get it run through the commissioners and get them scheduled to start their work. Yep.
Sounds good.
send us send us copies so we know what what you said to the commissioners question for staff um now
that that the property on curry pike that cook had owned has been transferred to um simtra and they've
done all that demolishing and the stuff that they're doing what is the status you know i know we're
trying to pay off whatever was on that had been brought against that bond what's our status on all of that
I don't know exactly where we're at, but I wanted to say that the bond, they actually pulled only about
$100,000. And I think we've been paying the last couple of years, I think we've been averaging about
20,000 a year. So I guess it would either be about 40 to 60,000 left, but I can confirm that with the
financial solutions group and get that answer. Are there any obligations that they have from that bond
since they didn't pull all the money, things they were supposed to be doing. I think it was all based
upon them pulling money to do specific projects. But those projects are obviously, some of the projects
got done, some didn't. And I don't think they have any obligation to do any of the other projects. Only
if they pulled the money. Only if they pulled the money. Right. So if whatever they pulled, it would
have gone through the Redevelopment Commission to approve the claims for that work. Right.
Does that bond transfer to the new company? Or was it to a specific? It wouldn't transfer. It wouldn't
transfer? OK. So that's all taken care of then. And actually, when we were going through that process,
we had talked about whether that was something that they would find useful. Right. And we would have
brought that back if they had. Right. OK. That's just one to make sure we had all the I's dotted and
the T's crossed there. OK. All right.
I think we're on to Commissioner's comment. Mr. Jones, do you have any comments? Mr. McCarty? Just echo
what Randy said earlier, and we are not prepared for what's about to hit with IU. Because when you look
at glimpses of games this previous season here at home, it was hard to get around town, hard to get
a place to eat. Hotel rooms are going to be high.
There are going to be a lot of people at that first game, for sure. Homecoming could be very, very busy,
too. But we have to prepare for that. And yeah, the attention it brings will bring interest in the area.
The second comment, and one that's a little close to home, literally, while I don't live in Richland
Township, certainly own a sizable business in Richland Township,
And I think it's up to the people of Ellitsville and Rissland Township to decide their future
in infrastructure and especially fire services. And it is discouraging to hear that the commissioners
will take this up in the spring in terms of the fate of Ellitsville's fire department, which is a joint
fire department with Rissland Township.
It really is up to us. We're, well, I'm not a voter, but property owner, and I certainly support the
reorganization committee work right now. I think they're off to a, from what I've seen so far on CATS,
a good start. There's been some tension, and I think that's good. This is a big deal. And, you know,
it's just about consolidation, reorganization,
of government there and just leave it to the people. Don't make any rash decisions at the county level.
I don't think that's necessary. All that destruction from
the old GE building was there. I thought, boy, I used to walk around that building on the inside and
just not there anymore except the concrete. And I wonder, where are they taking all the concrete and
all the stuff they tear down? Does anybody know that, where that's going these days? I think a lot of
it gets pulverized and reused. Could be, but I don't know if that's what's happening to it or not. I
have not heard that. Have you?
be something to ask somebody sometime. I do know that when the individuals and the company and SEMTR
and the responsibility that they're taking, it's being dealt with in the right manner without any questions.
So I have no doubt in that based upon the individuals I have met with that organization and even with
the construction people. It's very, very controlled and
taking care of in the proper manner, because as it's been put, we make pharmaceuticals for people. We
take the same care with the facilities we build. They're not kidding, they should. But it was amazing
to see all this concrete sitting there. It had been a very nice building inside and out. That's about
what it was. Sorry about that.
around to be recycled is amazing, which at that point, the recycling of it. Several new buildings there,
too, though. I noticed that. Brad, do you have anything? No, I just kind of echo what Colin said. The
recent townships off to the reorganization meetings, and I appreciate from a school standpoint
Dr. Sanders was asked to be on that group of seven. And hopefully, they can come do some commonality
and let the voters make a decision at that time and place. And hopefully, you guys have a good meeting
tomorrow night with the potential jail justice center. OK. I want to recall from last year,
meetings I sat in on that had to do with infrastructure for the airport area and an opportunity that
we county had and probably has missed to attract the business out there because we didn't have infrastructure
in place. But it did get me thinking about where we might locate some kind of TIF opportunity on the
western or southwestern side of the Bloomington jurisdiction going into the county. There's quite a
bit of property out there that is developable. Some of it has been developed. One of the things I learned
as I was going through it was that there's actually some sewer connection capability through the sewer
district, which has been unused for 20 years, but has been sitting there. And that
That area, I think we should look at that area more carefully for a residential TIF opportunity.
We are, there's quite a bit of building there already. There is some commercial that's there already.
So we can expect some property appreciation. May not be great, but there will be some. And that might
be sufficient to get something off the ground if we've got 25 years to work with
TIF project out there. So I think that's an area that we should start thinking about how to approach
what might work as a TIF area out there. I don't know how far north or how far west or how far south,
but I think we could consider what might happen out there. Is that all in Perry Township, you think?
Most of it's probably in
But I bet there's some in Van Buren, too. Yeah, I think so, too. As a matter of fact, I think you're
right. Yeah. But I think that's an area where we could expect to see some growth. And we might be able
to help facilitate that in a reasonable way. I mean, there are certainly some environmental constraints
out there to deal with. But I think we know where they are, and knowing where they are, and planning
can deal with how to manage that.
that that's an opportunity we probably ought to look at, because I don't see any more opportunity going
towards Ellitsville. I think we've got that up to them, and they're going to move on from there. There's
nothing going east or north. The other opportunity would be south somewhere. And I don't really know
how we would facilitate that area down there, because I don't know how much actual ground is available,
because you're getting into some
topological features. Is there a lot of quarry in that area, I think? I remember that some of the quarries,
the areas that had been designated for quarries, actually got taken out of designation because they
couldn't be productive enough for them to actually
go in and start extracting. There's a couple there, I think, that I can remember. Because I was down
there, and I was realizing that I'd forgotten all the cores we had. Yeah. But those are areas that I
think we ought to try and take a look at this year and see if we can't make something work in that area.
We did have that one. And the other thing, I think it'll happen this year. I think this annexation stuff
will get resolved this year, which may open up some other opportunities or help
get some cooperation between city and county government available again in terms of outlying development
areas. That's my comment for the today. Randy. As you said, from a redevelopment standpoint, we're looking
at and when we look at the rules of what the residential tips are and identifying the areas is going
to provide us with growth, but also with the density we need because correct me if I'm wrong, Jeff,
but part of the residential tip
Allows that we can have some multifamily in there. Yes. Oh, yeah. Right. Will allow us additional tax
revenues, take care of the infrastructure that's necessary because as we stated before, given the national
attention and such, it's not only the quality of the community, but it's the affordability of the community
that we can provide for the residents are here.
To your point, Iris, as you put about GE and used to walk through this big building and what we had,
it's now been condensed. But for us to be able to afford to put the workforce housing, provide not just
the infrastructure by looking at residential TIFFs and the infrastructure that's necessary between the
roads and the sewers and the drainage, how we also work cooperatively based on the planning of it because
While we can designate a residential TIF, we need to specifically make sure that the process is in place,
that when people come in and say, we want to do this, we're able to lead them through the process, not
stop the process. So to Cullen, Brad's point with the Richland District and our communication, I think
at this point being the Redevelopment Commission of
Monroe County. We need to help set that example by saying here's the area and here's how we can make
it work. We've got the right attorney. We've got the right person in the highway to show us
the infrastructure. Now it's how we help designate that because we're going to have to get the cooperation
moving forward. We we as a group here have already designated significant dollars to the Ellisville
Richland Township Fire Department.
When we look at that from a cooperative thing, cooperative nature, need to let the voters make the decision.
Because that is where our voice finally is with the people. And right now, when I see the number of
people that cannot afford to live in this county because of the economic basis of not having enough
jobs, and then the requirements that we put in order to build a lot,
We have lots now that are 65 to 85,000 and a part of that is the regulatory hurdles. And while it's
important for us to take care of our environment, our community and make sure it's safe and secure,
we also have to look at the affordability. And to Richard's point dealing with the residential TIF,
we may be able to help put that in place, which will help make it cost effective for the residents here.
So I know I ramble, I don't necessarily talk succinctly, but the idea is to get affordability and employment
in our community because good, caring citizens that can afford to live here and have the pride in the
future will build the businesses that stay. When I, to your point, Iris, we walked down Curry Pike,
we had Westinghouse, we had GE, we had Otis. Oh, we have Sempra.
And SMPTER is doing a great job, but the more of those type industries we can have located locally just
helps our economic community, it helps the pride in our community, and it even cuts down on the environmental
impact because we're not having to drive so far and the safety. Richard, I have a question in the area
on the west side that you're talking about. Has that been zoned for anything other than whatever?
Parts of it have, parts of it haven't. You know, as you are aware, kind of zoning kind of follows where
people are going. I know. And if you want people to go someplace, sometimes you've got to make it possible
for them to get there. And I know a lot of that area, because of the environmental constraints, has
been zoned fairly restrictive.
I think we'll have to, certainly we'll have to work with the planning commission to see what they've
got in mind now, what might be possible in the future. Remember, our timeline is 20 years, 25 years,
where their timeline from a zoning perspective is three or four years, because that's what they're looking
at in terms of their workload and what's gonna come before them. So we have these different time scales
that we're looking at.
that you have to be aware of as well. OK. Any other comments for today? I think we're done then. Any
other comments from online? I guess she's gone. All right. I think we're done. With that, is there a
motion to adjourn? So our next meeting is on the 18th, February 18th.
February 18th should be. That's the third Wednesday. Yeah. They interfere something with other schedules
and I want to make sure we get. Yes. Well, now that we've got this, we can set out a calendar. That's
what I was doing. So that's why I asked that. Okay, good. All right. I move for you, Jerry.
We are adjourned.