I can call to order the meeting of the Waste Reduction District of Monroe County Board of Directors
for Thursday, December 11th, 2025. Mr. McGlassen, will you please call the roll? Piedmont Smith? Here.
Thomas? Wilkes? Here. Jones? Here. Swofford? Here. Thompson?
Madeira. You have a quorum with four in the room and one present virtually. Thank you. So the first
item on our agenda is the executive committee meeting minutes. This is not a voting item this is just
for your information. Did anybody take a look at these and have any questions. Seeing none we can move
on to the numbers.
Three, which is approval of board of director meeting minutes from November 13th. So that is a voting
item. So if we could get a motion. Move to approve. Second. All right. It's been moved to approve the
minutes from November 13th. Are there any questions or comments from directors? Seeing none, Mr. McClassen,
will you please take a roll call vote? Jones?
Yes. Swafford. Yes. Piedmont Smith. Yes. Madera. Yes. Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimously. OK, those
minutes are approved. And then we will welcome our controller, Teresa Goins, for the cash flows. Cash
flow summary is on page eight of your board packet. Here are the balances as of November 30th for the
following accounts. Operating them.
$4,339,608.27, debt service $16,502.53, capital $46,133.74, landfill closure $820,265.62. The individual
cash flow statements for each of these are on pages nine through 14 of your packet.
And the operating fund graph is on page 11. What questions are there on the account balances? Are there
any questions regarding the cash flow? And I will note, we still have a significant chunk of money coming
in from property taxes this month. So our cash flow looks pretty good.
Let us go on to the payroll and claims. On page 15 of the packet, you have a summary of the pre-approved
payroll and claims since your last meeting in the amount of $219,116.83. The backup for those numbers
are on pages 16 through 41. The payroll and claims for approval this week were sent in an email on Wednesday,
the amount of $122,834.80. Documentation was included in the Wednesday email. That brings the total
of all payroll claims that we are recommending for approval to $341,951.63. Also noted in the email,
we had two new vendors not on the approved vendor list, Richard Small Engine
for a mower and mire trucking equipment for snow plow. These were mentioned in the executive committee
meeting as we are taking on in-house mowing and snow plowing. Are there any questions regarding the
claim? Thank you. Are there any questions on payroll and claims?
a question on page numbers. So I do have a question. There are three items. This is in the page nine
of the packet that was sent to us by email yesterday. There are three payments to DEQ, Inc.
from the landfill, totaling about $9,000. What is that for?
The SCADA computer that we use to operate the leachate treatment plant out at the landfill, the software
package on that has become outdated and is no longer supported by the company. So we've had to purchase
a new software agreement and pay the vendor to come up and install that. And so the various charges
associated with that are split into three payments due to applying the
the types of service provided to the appropriate budget line items. Okay, so that's an unusual expense.
It's not like we'll see this every year. Correct. Okay, great. Okay, any other questions on payroll
and claims? If not, I'll entertain a motion. Move to approve. Is there a second? Second.
And I cannot see Commissioner Jones. So Mr. McClassen, if she raises a hand, please notify me. I will.
All right. So I don't think there are further questions. So could you please call the vote, Mr. McClassen?
Before we do the roll call, I would ask Commissioner Jones to turn her camera on, remind the board that
one of the rules of virtual participation when voting is to be seen and heard.
Yeah, I know that my camera doesn't. I I don't think my camera has been enabled. So TSD, can you confirm
Commissioner Jones camera is enabled? She has the correct permissions. Is it just is not turning on?
I can try to log off and get back in and see if that helps. Okay, yeah, why don't you go ahead?
All right. Well, I'm glad we got snow plows. We may need them soon. Yes, I don't believe Mr. Long is
looking forward to tonight.
Commissioner Jones back on. I do see her back on. Technical difficulties, always fun.
I can see her there. She is muted and still no camera on. Now she's unmuted. No, it's not. I'm unmuted
and the camera won't turn on. And I'm afraid dealing with this kind of thing is a bit beyond me.
So I guess I'll have to leave the meeting. Well, I think it's fine for Commissioner Jones to stay on
and participate in the meeting, just not partake in action or voting items. That's right. Yes,
that's right. OK, great. Thank you. Well, seeing as Commissioner Jones will not be able to vote, we
can do a voice vote on approval of payroll and claims. So all in favor, please say aye.
Any opposed. All right those are approved. Thank you to our controller. Next we'll move on to resolution
twenty twenty five dash twenty four to establish a community grant program. Yeah this is a field recall
back to our budgeting process. This is something that
some board members have acquired about previously, and we were able to appropriate funds in the twenty
twenty six budget to make grant funds available to Monroe County organizations and businesses within
parameters outlined by the district. So so what this resolution does is establish that program to establish
the criteria and the process by which grant funds will be awarded.
I would note for the board this what you're looking at as has been through a couple of iterations with
the executive committee. And this is this is where staff and the executive committee wound up with a
program that we thought would serve the purpose that we were looking for and be something that could
be utilized by local organizations within the county to help further the district's mission.
Thank you for that overview. Can we get a motion on the table please. Move to approve the resolution.
OK. It's been moved and seconded to approve resolution 20 25 24. Are there any questions about the community
grant program. OK. I don't see any any comments.
Yes, Mr. McClassen. I would just, assuming that the vote is affirmative and we do pass this resolution,
would note for any public watching or listening that we're a little tight on a schedule for doing this
this year. So if the resolution is adopted and we implement the program,
Staff will attempt to, as quickly as possible, open up the application process and expedite the review
and awarding process for grants so that people applying and awarded grants or organizations applying
and awarded grants would have ample time to implement their project and seek reimbursement in the calendar
year 2026, as that is when the funds are available, and that should the grant program continue in future years,
Uh, the, the idea would be to have the application process occur, uh, late, uh, in the year prior to
when the funds are available so that, um, grant awardees would, would have the bulk, uh, if not an entire
calendar year, uh, to implement their project. Yes. Counselor wealth. So can, do you have an idea of
when, if this is approved, when,
the due date, the cutoff date for applying might be? I don't know if I've thought that far ahead. Ideally,
you know, we would have applications out and available before the end of the year and would probably
give the month of January to get applications in. Would note that for the review process, as established
in this program,
The CAC has a key component of that of doing an initial review of applications and making recommendations
to the board for award. So that would probably put us in the March board meeting to bring applications
and recommendations to the board for the board to vote on awarding any grant funds. Yes, go ahead. I
just would, if you would make sure that we all get
the information so that we can kind of promote it as well. As soon as you know about the application
and how and when that would be great. Thank you. Certainly. Any other questions. If not let's go to
the public. Is there any public comment on the resolution to establish the community grant program.
Okay. All right. We will come back. Any final comments before we vote? All right. Do we need to do a
roll call for resolutions in any case or can we do a voice vote? You can do a voice vote for this. Okay.
All in favor of approving resolution 2025-24, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?
I think that passes 4-0. Next, we will move on to resolution 2025-25 to establish the board of directors
meeting schedule for next year. Mr. Mclassen. Yeah, and this I just would note that a little unusual
for us to seek to establish the board schedule via a resolution, but just
Given how involved it is these days scheduling meetings with the virtual component to them and working
with room reservations and working with county tech services to get teams meetings set up, I thought
it would be more efficient for staff to have the resolution to take to the various county entities needed
to coordinate and schedule the board meetings for the year.
Can we get a motion on the table regarding this resolution, please? I move to approve resolution 2025-25
to establish 2026 Board of Director meeting schedule. Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded.
Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on the proposed meeting schedule?
Seeing none, any final comments from directors? I will just say that we may, that Councillor Wills'
term does end on December 31st as does town council members Walford. So we may have some new members,
we may not, but we can, if there are conflicts, we could
discuss those. The meeting schedule can always be amended at the, yeah, at the will of the board. Councilor
Wilson. I just will say that we try to share this information amongst our body so that when people volunteer
or say, hey, I'm interested, they have the meeting schedule in front of them. So we try to make sure
that that's not something that comes up and has to happen. Terrific. Thank you.
And I missed who was the second on the motion. Thank you. All right. We already went to the public right.
Yes. All right. So all those in favor of resolution 20 25 dash 25 please say aye aye. Any opposed. And
that resolution passes with a vote of 4 0.
on to a report from Garden Quest who received financial support from the district for the festival food
waste pilot project. So I think we have Mr. Austin to report. Mr. McClassen what was the
amount again of this award? Was it $5,000? $5,000, yes. Yeah. So we found this to be a very successful
project. There was a lot of interest in the food waste. There was a great response. Could you introduce
yourself just for the record? Thank you. Matthew Austin, volunteer at Garden Quest, standing in for
the executive director because she, Ellie Spear, because she is out of town.
So the community festival food race pilot project we found to be very successful. We had very good attendance
at the various training trainings at Will Detmer as well as the community orchard. And we were finding
we were getting increasing numbers. I think the max we had was about 19 households at one training.
And from that 19 households we had seven that adopted Bokashi buckets.
So we're finding increasing percentages of more people adopting it. And there was a large amount of
interest at the taste of Bloomington. We added on the food waste collection.
And that was a real, I guess, surprise as to the success of that. It was multiple hundreds of pounds
of food that was going to get wasted that ended up going to those in need in the community. And one
thing that we discovered that was unexpected was the commingling of waste and recycling. And so we've
made the directors of the taste very aware of that. And that is something that can be greatly improved
because we don't think that any of the recycling
The recyclables probably ended up in recycling. They probably all ended up in the landfill.
people coming through, we see that as room for real improvement in their waste management plan.
So GardenQuest has talked to various entities, one being Coke Consolidated, hoping that they could help
fund some signs and some other things to help with that collection in a more efficient manner. There
were many people that came to the tent, to GardenQuest's tent, and to find out more information about
what was going on.
The exposure of the idea of Bokashi to residents was very successful. And then we really found that
having the National Honor Society students from Monroe County was also fantastic. Their excitement,
their volunteering, it just really brought another level of energy. In fact, some of the work, and this
doesn't relate to this, but there was a child who,
their birthday and eight-year-old at Marlin that asked for a Bokashi set to start Bokashi-ing at home.
So that's a really good feel, good thing. So there definitely is some momentum here. And then working
with Will Dettmer to get all the food waste out there, there were three more pits dug that are open
and ready for additional food waste. And so Will Dettmer really likes the
the soil amendments and that aspect. And so we're still working on getting some of the members of the
community who garden at Will Dettmer to start adopting Bokashi and then they would have that area to
bring their food waste to. So overall, we saw a great response from the community. And yeah, it's step
one in building this to make it a habit in our community so that people are fully responsible for their
food waste.
What questions can I answer on the report that we provided? Thank you. Are there questions from directors
about the Garden Quest report? I don't have a question on the report necessarily, but where do you envision
going for the future? Well, we hope to find funding to work with the Taste of Bloomington again.
because we definitely see a lot of improvements that could be made there. So that would be one. Two
would be expanding and having more trainings. But with those trainings, people sign up and they don't
show up. So it would be having more, I guess, marketing to the community so they know that this is there.
We constantly are
putting out more information because we've tried to cover all the what ifs, but there are things that
we haven't run into. And so we're constantly updating our best practices because if somebody gets a
couple of fruit flies in there, which is normal with food waste, and they find the little bugs in there
that could dissuade them
from doing it. So we're working through all those aspects, but it's really just continuing to help people
adopt it, hold their hand through the process, and then it would be more like, actually, some of the
real benefits was ERI approached us. Mother Hubbard's Cubber, they want to be a community hub for
So we're working to set up a training with them so that they can then be a training center. So it's
really expanding and having other leaders take it on, and then it spreads through that. So that would
be the idea, expanding into other nonprofits and having more captains that take it on for their
neighborhoods. And we have neighborhoods that are interested
They just haven't found enough people to qualify as a captain yet. Yeah, you're welcome. I have a question.
So on one of your last slides, you have the financial summary. And the total expenditures were $3,200.
Does that mean that you didn't draw down the total $5,000 of the grant?
Yeah, we did not draw down the toll. I think the total was 4700. And I think that that number is that
is for the for all the hours and the rest was for the supplies. So I see 3200 for garden quest training
and management and then 2500 in kind.
Donation, right. And then the remaining, I think the check was written out for 47 and change. I forget
the exact number. So we did not use the entire 5,000. And the remaining was for all the buckets.
And actually, that was the other thing we found out is that we thought that more people would be interested
in the non-spigoted buckets. But we've ran out of the spigoted buckets. And we find that we actually
have a waiting list for spigoted buckets at this point in time. So because it's a four-month cycle,
once that four month is up, those get returned.
give those to the next folks in the waiting list. So as part of our next funding ask wherever we look
for funding is going to be specifically for the spigoted buckets because we're having more demand for
that than originally anticipated. So I'm a little confused because you said forty seven hundred. So
so the difference is was for all the spigoted and non spigoted buckets for the try it program to be
able to hand those things out.
So you had about $1,500 expended on buckets? Yeah. Based on these numbers, that's what I'm saying, yeah.
Mr. McClassen, does that track what you've seen as far as the claims coming in? Yeah, they submitted
one reimbursement claim. And I apologize. I don't have it in front of me. Roughly $4,700.
what I recall, somewhere in that range, the report, the invoice that was submitted under the agreement
that the board entered into. I don't recall how that broke down. You know, that claim obviously came
to the board to approve issuing that check, but and Ms. Goanzer, I could certainly
pull that information back out and get that forwarded to the board members if that would be desired.
Oh, that's OK. I just wanted to see if your recollection matched what Mr. Austin said just to make sure
that we're all on the same page. All right. Any other questions about the report or the Garden Quest
Bokashi program in general? Yes, Councilor Wills.
I'm looking for here what I was trying to find. You mentioned that one of your considerations for future
trainings revolves around attendance after registering. And I'm wondering on two fronts, have you thought
of charging a small fee for attendance? I do a lot of training in-
we've found that that actually increases attendance in some cases because people have literally invested.
Just a thought. They've skinned the game, yeah. Yeah. And the other is you used one of the county parks
as a location. Have you looked into partnering and becoming part of the parks and recreation departments
programming either for the city parks or the county parks so that
that might help with advertising and getting the word out? We have not gone that route. The county has
been much more accessible and easy to work with. We've been trying to work with city parks for a while
and we just haven't been getting a response. But we love that idea. As for the charging, I feel like
my sister would not
like that because we want to make it accessible to everybody. But I do understand the skin of the game.
So maybe it's like two bucks or something like that. But we do have interns that we now have and they're
helping us with the follow up. What we've been doing is we just found we just started sending a follow
up email to find out if people why they didn't sign up for buckets or if they're signing up for buckets
how it's going. And that feedback has been very valuable because we've been finding some
best practices that we need to institute because of that. So the follow-up is very important. But yeah,
I do like the idea of potentially being programming for the county as a way to market it more. I think
that's a great idea. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions or comments? Again, I can't
Maybe if anybody's got a hand raised as far as Commissioner Jones. Nope. Okay. All right. Well, thank
you very much. We're glad to hear that of your success. Thank you very much. All right. Next on the
agenda is CAC report. We have Mr. Austin again.
My name is Matthew Austin and I'm the vice chair of the CAC and I have the report for October and November
2025. So in our regular meeting October 16th we had Daniel Duncan with Richland Farms provide a presentation
explaining the services and options that they offer residential commercial industrial around food waste
collection and event services. When I say event services they offer plates bowls cups
Cutlery and that's all been fully approved for them to compost so like a hundred hundred percent turnkey
services essentially CSE membership was very encouraged by the presentation with Richmond farms now
offering service in Monroe County So I highly encourage you to to review his presentation. Do you see
what what they offer and how they're working? And They have already had their first
customer pick up a bin from the waste reduction district. And then we discussed the proposed waste reduction
district $20,000 grant. We were very excited about that. Joe Winnia gave a notice that he would be moving
out of Monroe County and thus stepping down from the CAC. Yes, I agree with that face. We are very saddened
by that because he has been a champion in our community and we wish he would stay longer and continue
to champion, but we understand.
And then we talked about the AIS WMD Association of Indiana Solid Waste Management District Conference
attendees, reviewed takeaways from the conference, including potentially joining the Indiana Compost
Council, the impacts of SB1, co-consolidated recycling efforts, and more. And then we discussed items,
new materials, management plan, and how that impacts the district's future plans.
So that was from the October regular meeting, from the December regular meeting. We discussed the 2026
meeting location since the usual room is under construction. We confirmed availability of CSE members
for the joint meeting with the board of directors today. And then we continued our discussion on the
items, new materials, management plan, and how that impacts the district's future plans. And that is
the end of my report. Any questions?
Thank you very much. You mentioned you discussed items new requirements. Do we actually have those yet
or just this was like a theoretical theoretical theoretical about how if they don't have their plan
out how can the district have a plan when that could just all be for not. We are wondering the same
thing. Other questions for the CAC.
Thank you very much. Thank you. I have a question for Mr. McGlassen related to the CAC. Do we need to
reappoint the three members who are willing to be reappointed? Yeah, I do apologize. We had discussed
that at the executive committee meeting. And as we were all, sorry to hear that we actually only had
three members that did ask to be reappointed.
Uh, we could, we could certainly do that via a voice vote. I could present those verbally. Uh, but my,
um, as I was going to report in my department report, uh, you know, the staff has, uh, actively promoting
the CAC. And my hope was that, uh, if we, if we brought this to the board in January, in addition to
the three members that had requested reappointment, we might also have some new members, uh, to appoint
ahead of their January meeting.
But if you would wish to go ahead and make the reappointments now, I can identify those. I think I would
prefer to do that. OK. Lest we lose somebody else. You're going to get them committed now before they
have a chance. All right. So for 2026, current members,
John Arnold, Matt Austin, and Brad Lucas have been asked to be reappointed. All three are on the committee
as Monroe County residents, as opposed to a waste industry representative. Thank you. Would somebody
like to make a motion to reappoint those three? I move appointment of the three existing
CAC members for the coming year. Second. All right. It's been moved and seconded. Any comments, questions?
All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. We thank the three members who
are continuing and we also thank the three who are stepping down for their service.
So now I think we're ready for department reports. All right. I guess I will, since we just did those
reappointments, I will, I guess, publicly identify the members not returning, Joe Winnie, William Goins,
and Paul White, and thank them all.
for their time and their service while they served on the committee. They have all been valuable members
of that committee during the terms that they served, and we thank them. As I mentioned, we're actively
promoting the committee and trying to recruit new members to bring to the board for appointment. I would
quickly follow up. Matt Austin in his report referenced Richland Farms. They are offering curbside.
compost collection in Monroe County at this time. I do know they have at least one residential customer
at this point and some business customers at this point. So they are they are active in the community
and there is a link on the home page of our website to their website for anybody interested in looking
at their services and what they offer and what it takes to subscribe.
And I'll let Joey give you the details. But last, I'll just report that, again, this year we will be
accepting holiday trees for recycling, composting at all the district recycling centers after the Christmas
holiday. With that, I would take any questions. Are there any questions on the administration report?
Oh, Commissioner Jones, we can see you.
I don't know what happened. A little late in the game. Did you have any question about the report? No,
I didn't. All right. I just have one question. When I clicked on the Richland Farms link and I looked
at their website, it looked like they were only serving Northern Monroe County. Does anybody know? Is
there a line?
There is not a definitive line. You know, their focus right now is the city of Bloomington just because
of the potentially concentrated subscribership that's in that area. And what he has said is, you know,
depending on, you know, how quickly they get subscribers and where those subscribers are and how frequently
they have trucks running routes in the area, that that service area would potentially expand.
Thank you. All right, if there are no other questions on that report, we can move on to recycling and
household hazardous waste with Mr. Long. TTSD, we're going to need Joey Long and Lee Paulson to be able
to speak and have video.
Hi, everyone. So I'll start off with our recycling centers in the rural sites. We will be doing a holiday
tree recycling from December 26 to January the 17th. We will be partnering with Blue Stone Tree Service.
They will take the trees, grind up, and you'll eventually be able to get them back in mulch form at
some point. We also will be doing snow removal in-house for the first time at all five sites. And we'll
be doing the mowing at all five sites in-house.
taking that in and adding that to the staff. The household hazardous waste, everything is operating
as normal. We slow down in the winter time a little bit, and that's about all I have for you guys. So
if you have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. Thank you, Mr. Long. Are there any questions
for Mr. Long on his report?
If somebody at TSD could click the little down arrow so we can catch up with our closed captioning here
on the screen. Thank you. I do have just a small question. So I believe you accept Christmas wreaths
too? Yeah, so any live form of, go ahead, sorry. Oh, I was just going to say even if they're on wire,
do you accept those? Yeah.
Yes and no, we don't want, we don't want very much wire, but I mean, if there is some pieces, they said
it would be okay. You know, we want the trees and reefs to be as naked as possible, you know, back to
natural form, that way they can easily grind it up in mulch. They have told me that if there is a little
bit of tinsel or something in there, they're not gonna complain. All right, that makes sense.
Thank you. Thank you.
If there are no other questions, we can move on to landfill and environmental compliance with Mr. Paulson.
Good afternoon. Outside of what's in the report there, I just want to let everybody know that we got
the treatment plan up and running last week. Weather conditions have now been wet enough that we got
enough water in the pond to keep things going, and now we're getting ready for a big cold snap.
The only other thing to highlight is that the groundwater samples have been all received into
our Statistician Group Atlas, and that usually takes four to six weeks to eight weeks or so to get the
stats report back from them before we submit the item. From what I saw with that stuff, nothing really
looked out of line for our November sampling, so we'll see what the bulk of that data shows and what
they come back with. But other than that, everything is going pretty well.
You guys have any questions? I'll be happy to answer. Thank you, Mr. Paulson. Thank you. Any questions?
All right. Seeing none, I believe we've reached the point in the agenda when it's open to general public
comment. Does any member of the public want to make a comment? General comment. Yes, step right up.
All right. Hello once more. Joseph Winnia here, CAC member of five years and now departing member and
also operator of One Sustainable Joe. And I just wanted to take the opportunity. This is the last board
meeting that I expect to attend. So I just wanted to express my gratitude one more time to the district,
particularly Board of Directors and Executive Director McGlasson, for all of your engagement with the CAC.
and efforts on waste reduction initiatives. It's been really satisfying to work with you all. I've been
very grateful for the opportunity. I hope it gets to continue in the future. And I want to also note
a quick update with respect to that going into the future. The Back to Earth Composting Program onboarded
two new properties in the last month. There's, for a total of, I think it's 20, no, 34 new participating members.
And to just give you a bit of an idea, the overall current running totals are 8,500 pounds diverted,
which is about four and a quarter tons. That's about 2,000 times that people have emptied their compost
into the system, and there have been over 160 participants involved in the program. And a couple of
sites have actually stopped weighing in their data over the course of this past year, so I can easily
approximate that it's over 10,000 pounds diverted by the program since it started. So about five tons.
So thank you so much for the opportunity to get this started and also to the district staff for supporting
it going into the future as well. And also I wanted to say thank you to the CAC for all of their membership.
I think everyone's been here for at least two or three years and it's been great to work with you all
as well. So I hope things continue to go great in the future. So thank you everyone.
Thank you very much, Mr. William. And now we'll move to comments from directors. Any of the board of
directors want to make a comment at this point? Councilor Wilz. I just wanted to thank you all for the
opportunity to hang out.
and distract folks at the recycling center. I went to the one on Dilman Road on the America Recycles
Day and felt very welcomed and lots of questions were answered and I greeted lots of people and was
kind of impressed by the range of items
that were being brought and at one point exchanged among folks. One person's trash was literally another
person's treasure sort of thing. It was kind of cool. And anyway, I was glad that you facilitated that.
It was a cool experience. Thank you. I certainly appreciate you taking the time to spend at one of our
facilities and other board members that did as well.
Any other comments? If not, I will. Commissioner Vergara. I just wanted to say thank you for a great
first year on the commission. And I just wanted to say I'm really happy that our county takes the time
and resources to do a lot of creative things that a lot of other communities do not. So I look forward
to the next three years.
Right, and I would just like to add, I also enjoyed hanging out at the America Recycles Day at the South
Walnut Street location. But really, what I'd like to focus on is how valuable Joseph Winnie's contributions
have been for the last five years to the CAC and to the district as a whole and, dare I say,
to the community.
He was really instrumental in shoring up the CAC as far as creating bylaws, leading that group for several
years, and also working on our five-year plan, which we're going to review in the next meeting, and
working on the rebranding, helping with the new website.
such a broad range of ways that he has been of service to us, and we're going to miss him a lot.
So thank you. If there are no other comments, I think we can go ahead and adjourn. And we will meet
again shortly for the joint meeting with the CAC. Thank you.