- All right, I'd like to go ahead and call to order this meeting of the Waste Reduction District Board
- of Directors. Are we on Teams live? Has that been activated? Okay, great. So the Waste Reduction District
- Board of Directors meeting for Thursday, February 12th, 2026. Mr. McClassen, will you please call the
- roll? Yvonne Smith. Here. Wilkes.
- Thomas? Here. Madeira? Here. Thompson? Here. Jones? Do we know who will be appointed from Ellisville?
- It was on the Ellisville town council had the appointment on their agenda at their meeting on the second,
- I believe. And they tabled that appointment to their next meeting. So I think the roll call is complete.
- Thank you. We have a quorum. All right. So the next order of business is election of officers for 2026.
- Are there any nominations?
- if we're doing them all at once, I would at least like to put on the table, Jody Madeira as vice chair.
- I'll second that. Commissioner Thomas, were you thinking we would do a slate? So if people could add
- names to your combination. Yes, please.
- and I will put forward as a bill Piedmont Smith as. And I will put forward counselor Kate Wilkes as
- the secretary. So does anybody want to make a an overall motion please? I'm I move approval of the officers
- for 2026 as
- Isabel Piedmont Smith, Chair, Jody Madeira, Vice Chair, and Kate Welch, Secretary. I will second that.
- All right, we have a motion and a second. Any further comments or questions? Sorry, who was the second?
- Commissioner Madeira. Any other comments? All right, can we do a roll call vote?
- Edmund Smith. Yes. Thomas. Yes. Thompson. Yes. Madera. Yes. Wilts. Yes. Motion passes unanimous.
- Thank you. We will, I think we'll have to schedule our executive committee meeting
- later via email, since we do have a member who is new to that committee, Commissioner Madeira, so we
- can discuss that via email perhaps. I will get an email out in short order and we'll work to get a schedule
- together for the Executive Committee. Thank you. All right, speaking of which, for your information,
- we have in the packet the draft Executive Committee meeting minutes of December 30th. Did that raise
- any questions for anyone?
- We'll have to approve that at the first executive committee meeting of this year. Okay, and then our
- next action item is approving the board of director meeting minutes from January 8th. Move approval.
- Second. All right, it's been moved and seconded to approve the board of director meeting minutes from
- January 8th. Mr. McClassen, will you please call the roll? Thomas. Yes.
- Wilkes? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Madera? Yes. Motion passes unanimously. All right,
- thank you. Moving right along, we have a controller's report. Ms. Goins, are you available on? Yes.
- Yes, I see you on Teams.
- The year in 2025 updated cash flow summary is on page nine of your board packet. Individual cash flow
- statements for 2025 are on pages 10 through 15. The balances as of December 31st were operating
- $5,076,110.75. Debt service, $149,236.46.
- Capital was $46,148.34. Landfill post-closure was $8,222.873.48. The 2026 year-to-date cash flow summary
- is on page 16 of your board packet. Here are the balances as of January 31st for the following accounts.
- Operating $4,984,000
- $404.29. Debt service is $101.46. Capital is $46,161.62. Land sale post closure is $825,415.57. The
- individual cash flow statements are on pages 17 through 22.
- Are there any questions on the account? Any questions for our controller from board members?
- Seeing none, we can go on to the payroll and claims. On page 23 of packet. A summary of the pre approved
- payroll claims since our last meeting.
- and the amount of $195,298.96. The backup for those numbers are on pages 24 through 56. The payroll
- and claims for approval this week were sent in email on Wednesday and are an amount of $4,111.17.
- Documentation was included in the Wednesday email.
- This brings the total of all payroll and claims that we are recommending for approval to $199,410.13.
- Are there any questions regarding these claims? Any questions on the payroll and claims? I just have
- one small question. When we pay for the copier slash printer rental for Canon,
- Does that include toner cartridges? Okay, it's 323.40 per month. Is that a monthly? That is a monthly
- fee. And it does include, and off the top of my head, I don't recall the number, but a set number of
- pages for both black and white and color. And it will occasionally be higher than that if we go over
- those page counts.
- And if we need service or toner, that's all covered under this surprise. Is it just one machine?
- All right. Thanks for those details. That is quite a lot when you add it up over the years. All right.
- Well, let's get a motion on the table in regard to payroll and claims, please. We have approval of payroll
- and claims as presented.
- I'll second that. Okay, do we go to public comment on this item? I don't remember. Yes, I should know
- that by now. Is there any member of the public who would like to comment before we vote on payroll and
- claims? I do not see any. All right, could you do a roll call vote, please, Mr. McClassen?
- Thompson? Yes. Wilts? Yes. Piedmont-Smith? Yes. Madera? Yes. Thomas? Yes. Motion passes unanimously.
- Thank you. And thank you to our controller goings for those reports. Next we have a request for appointment
- to the Citizens Advisory Committee. Mr. McClassen?
- Yeah, refer to the memo on page 57 of your packet. See, this is a request from Joe Sears, who some may
- remember a longtime owner operator of Sears and Sons Waste Removal Services, and is currently an employee
- of Republic Services. Okay, if we could get a motion on the table to approve this appointment. I move
- approval of Joe Sears.
- to the advisory committee. I second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? I just want to thank
- him for being willing to step up and do this. It's good to get somebody in there. Anyone else? Yes.
- Yes, for any member of the public who may be watching this, we need additional members of our citizens
- advisory committee. So if you're interested in helping us try to reduce waste, please contact the district.
- Any other comments? Is there any member of the public who would like to comment on this appointment?
- I would just say that I believe Joe's son Lazarus is the Director of the City of Bloomington Sanitation
- Department. So the legacy continues in various ways. Mr. McClassen, if you could please call the roll.
- Thomas? Yes. Wilts? Yes. Madera? Yes. Thompson? Yes. Piedmont-Smith?
- Motion passes unanimously. Thank you. And then we are ready for department reports, starting with the
- administration department and Mr. McClassen. I will just refer you to the memo on page, the beginning
- on page 59 of the packet, and do have updates on a handful of the bills that are mentioned in that packet.
- House Bill 1003 did have its first reading in the Senate on February 5th and was referred to the Senate
- Rules and Legislative Procedure Committee. As of today, that committee has no hearing scheduled, so
- not sure what the plan or the schedule is for that committee. House Bill 1231,
- which was a battery bill that we were, you know, solid waste districts, waste haulers, there were a
- number of organizations that were very interested in that bill and in support of that bill. And you'll
- note in the memo in the packet that because the bill created a fund, it had to be referred to the Ways
- and Means Committee. And unfortunately in the short session,
- By the time that happened, there was not time to get it scheduled. There were some efforts made by some
- lobbyists to work with the author of some other bills that were moving to try to get that battery bill
- language amended into those bills. And unfortunately, no agreements were reached to get that to happen.
- So unfortunately,
- The battery bill as proposed, although from district perspectives, not perfect was certainly a good
- start and something we were in support of is dead for this session. But the association of solid waste
- districts, as well as some of the other industry groups that were in support of this bill, I have pledged
- to work to get a similar bill moving for next year's legislative session,
- Hopefully, given that it'll be a longer session, we'll have a little more success and hopefully get
- some of the language added that we were working to get added to for. And the Senate Bill 91, which is
- for the syringe exchange programs, on February the 10th,
- that did pass out of the Public Health Committee. The vote was a do pass to amend a nine to four vote
- on that. The proposed amendments that the committee was looking for was to limit exchanges to one sterile
- syringe for one use syringe. It did change the expiration date from July 1st of 36 to July 1st of 28.
- meaning that the program would again have to be reviewed in two years. And also a requirement
- for participants to be residents of Indiana and provide a valid ID. So what that committee was looking
- for as that bill moved through the House for passage.
- Senate Bill 163 is scheduled to be heard in the House Ways and Means Committee on February the 16th.
- And then I guess the big one from our perspective, Senate Bill 277, which we affectionately refer to
- as the item bill, did pass out of the House Environmental Affairs Committee yesterday.
- and- do pass a man on a six five vote- it was- I was able to- to watch most of that hearing- and- it
- was- it was a battle- Mr obviously- a slim margin on a vote- would note that there were two members
- of that committee- that were absent- and did not
- has a lot of support from industrial groups and associations, manufacturers predominantly, and I probably
- ought to bite my tongue on what it's doing. So not necessarily in favor of all the changes that are
- being proposed here. So we will watch and see what happens with that.
- as it says in the memo, we will continue to watch all of those bills. And at this point, I don't know
- that there's much chance for inactive bills to be amended into bills that are moving since it's a short
- session, but we always watch for those things to happen as well. So before I get onto some general things,
- any questions on any of the legislation that we've been tracking?
- Mr. McClassen, so the SB 277, the IDEM bill, is it still in the environmental affairs committee? If
- we wanna give feedback to it, would we contact that committee? That's the meeting you were talking about.
- It passed out of that committee yesterday on that 65 vote. So it goes to the full house next? Yeah,
- there was no reassignment or referral to any other committees that I'm aware of, so it should go back
- to the floor.
- Thank you. Any other questions on the bills tracking? All right, Mr. McClassen, you want to go ahead
- with some other announcements? Yeah, and then I would note under the general updates, we received one
- application for our community grant program.
- It has been provided to the members of the Citizen Advisory Committee and we'll get a copy of it to
- Mr. Sears as well and ask that they discuss and review that at their meeting next Thursday and be prepared
- to provide a recommendation so that that application can be brought to the board at the board's March
- meeting to consider making an award on that.
- And the website waste reduction district orders.com is live so people can place orders for rain barrels
- and compost bins that we are planning to have. Scheduled to be picked up or for district distribution
- of those to begin on April the 24th. And then lastly, we did apply for another waste tire grant.
- for this year and we do still have some funds from last year's grant available. That grant term is still
- active. We are planning to do another tire amnesty event this spring and then hopefully we get that
- grant and we can do additional events later this year and possibly into spring of 27 as well.
- Thank you. I would like to note that you have been elected chairperson of the Association of Waste Reduction
- District. Congratulations. Thank you. I hope that comes with some compensation. Double what they paid
- me before. All right. That's an optimistic way of looking at it, yes.
- I have a question about our website. I just went to it right now to check the link for the rain barrels.
- And I noticed right on the home page, it has click here to learn about the Citizens Advisory Committee.
- And it has that in red over turquoise. And I'm fearful that somebody with visual impairment would not
- be able to read that.
- routinely when you update things on the website, is there an accessibility check list that you go through
- because we want to maintain it as accessible as possible? And that is a discussion we had a meeting
- or two ago, and we're familiarizing ourselves with Google, the county tech services gave us a quick
- tutorial on Google has a number of tools
- to do that with, and we are running those and familiarizing ourselves with those, and that may be one
- that we didn't catch, but we can certainly change that color contrast. That's an easy fix. Great,
- thank you. Yeah, I'm glad that you're learning more about those requirements and ways to check our documents
- and website.
- Are there any other questions or comments about the administration department report? None, we can go
- on to recycling reuse, hazardous material to rural recycling centers, Joey Long. Mr. Long, you're up.
- Hi, everyone. With the recycling reuse, we have received back almost all of our GBN green business network
- contracts for the year 2026.
- With that being said, we're always looking to expand. So if anybody knows any small businesses that
- would like some recycling, we would love to meet with them, talk to them, or see how we could help them.
- The materials for the arts, we've got some thank you letters back. I've included one. It's always nice
- to get thank you letters back of how we're helping the community in different ways. So it's nice for
- the staff to give. The hazardous materials,
- Every year it's something we do, we reach out to all the vendors and see about new packing requirements,
- shipping requirements, if anything's changed for the new year. So, you know, we've been reaching out
- to all of them, make sure we're up to date on all that stuff. And the rural recycling centers, the extreme
- cold weather has caused us some problems with the compactors that's sitting outside, the metal, hydraulics,
- it just freezing up.
- But time we get stuff unthawed, it's been so cold that stuff's just freezing right back up on us. So
- we appreciate the community working with us as we get through the problems. That's all I have. If you
- have any questions, I will do my best to answer them. Thank you. And I see in our packet is included
- a very nice letter from Kelly DeBecchi at Wander Lab.
- about material for the arts, so I'm glad to see it continues to be very useful for our community. Are
- there any questions or comments from directors? Looks like Julie has one. I do. Thank you. Have you
- been able to make any progress on looking at the potential for beginning the hefty program for
- plastic bags and other plastic materials that we don't accept right now? We have reached out.
- Right now, it's not offered in our area. The other problem is they use the orange bags, so it would
- conflict with our orange bag trash. But as of right now, it's not offered in our area, but we have reached
- out to Remke about it.
- I would just encourage you all to talk to Rumpke because I think this is a really great community service
- and really important. I think even though the bags are orange, they do say hefty on them when you buy
- them and it would be very clear where those go. I'm not as worried about that as I initially was. I
- just feel like
- This is a shout out to Rumpke. Please, please, please help us out. I know the stuff has to get to Cincinnati,
- but let's figure out a way to do it because this stuff is just sitting in landfills right now. Yeah,
- we agree. That's why we did reach out. Hopefully sooner versus later it is offered in our areas. That
- way we could take advantage of that. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it would be wonderful if we could get
- that program going in the county.
- Any other questions or comments? All right, thank you, Mr. Long. We will move on to Mr. Paulson and
- Environment and Landfill. Good afternoon. Pretty much what you see there in the report is what I've
- got for you today. Looks like I spent the morning out there with the technician to get
- our valve situation hopefully be taken care of and should be up and running with the treatment plant
- next week. I was able to find a temporary replacement valve until the one that I'm waiting for is completed
- and shipped. Unfortunately, that area that it's coming from is the Minneapolis, Minnesota area, so I
- don't know if
- whatever's happening up there had anything to do with the production of this, but we should at least
- be up and running next week to at least start treating water instead of hauling. But past that, we're
- hoping that as the warmer weather gets a little more mild that we can get out and
- Start to clean up some roads have been able to do that for a little bit with the weather and snow at
- least and Unless it's something dumped directly in the middle of the road. Just not been safe So but
- other than that if you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer Thank you any questions for mr.
- Paulson Yes, counselor wealth Why are some of them why are some of the numbers on the table?
- Red. Oh, I think that was Joey Long's data that had some red numbers. I was curious about that too.
- Sorry. I think Mr. Long is still on there. Yeah, I can answer that. So it's the red numbers is when
- we switched to Rumpke versus when we was using Republic. It's just an easier way for me to track what
- I'm doing. Makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. I had a question for Mr. Paulson.
- When I see the environmental compliance cases for January of this year, there were 17 new cases. And
- then when I look at the total for 2026, there were 17 total cases. So I'm a little surprised at that,
- that the number of cases for one month would be the same as for a whole year. Well, that would be the
- year to date is,
- We've only had one month of 2026. Oh, my goodness. Okay. I'm sorry. I was looking at that as for 2025.
- Well, that does make total sense. Yeah. Yeah. That total by the end of the year, hopefully, will be
- a lot larger than that. So, yeah. So, last month at the end of this, like in January's budget or board
- meeting, I would have had the total for 2025 on that one. I can try to look that up real quick if you want.
- I think we're in the real real close to the 300 number 300 cases for the year, but not not exactly.
- Okay, thank you. Sorry, I was just misreading that. All right. Any other questions or comments on this
- report? Seeing none. We will go to open public comments.
- Any member of the public want to make any comments about the waste reduction district business?
- And none. Are there any comments from directors? I also see none. Okay. Well, I'll just give a shout
- out to staff.
- who braved the cold and the snow at our rural sites and at our main site. And it's been a tough few
- weeks. So thank you for hanging in there. If there's no other business, I think we can adjourn. Thank you.