- to order this committee meeting of the Vice Reduction District of Monroe County. Mr. Glassman, could
- you please call the roll? Edmund Smith? Here. Thomas? Here. Willis? Here. All are present. Thank you.
- So first we have the executive committee meeting minutes of September 30th. I did
- make a couple of small corrections. That's all I have in the version here for signature. Okay, great.
- Move to approve. That's our executive committee, right? Yeah. Okay, all those in favor of approving
- the minutes say aye. Aye. Opposed? We have
- Just for information, the October 9th Board of Director meeting minutes. I think a couple minor corrections
- there too. Any other comments on those? Then we will go to the resolution to amend the district's fee
- resolution.
- So I get this introduced at the last board meeting. No changes in what was presented at the October
- meeting. It's 20 of the packet. Commissioner Thomas and Esparza side by side comparison.
- of the current and proposed pricing. Is that what you were looking for? On page 20. Oh, yeah. Yes, because
- I think with the line-up, sorry. That's what you were looking for. And then also at the floor,
- Councilmember Wilts had asked about doing an asterisk for fees that would be residents would be subject
- to and redoing this thinking about it. So that CESQT and universal waste priceless, that is not applicable
- to residents. That is specific to those businesses that are small quantity generators and out of county
- residents. So all of the fees that any Monroe County resident would be subject to are in the text
- of the fee resolution. So are there changes to those? Just the latex paint and the copy services. Everything
- else in there is just kind of reorganizing and some language changes for clarity. So anything affecting
- residents is that? The latex paint fee is the primary.
- change residents and that's talk about the meeting. That's if they choose leave it with us to manage
- if they want to try it out on their own. Disposal with their regular trash and that's perfectly OK.
- Now that makes sense. Thank you. Then just just for clarity.
- When you look at the side by side person on page 20, you have one gallon paint, a quart paint, and five
- gallons in a pail. But then you have the list of prices, which is per container, which is kind of weird.
- I would just take out the per container. I don't know. It just seems weird. I agree with you. That's
- an omission, I think, on my part because I think if you look on page 15, which is the new proposed,
- we did modify those descriptions a little bit to core. You have the container listed.
- Got it. Right. We accounted for there are more than just quart gallon and five gallon excises. Got it.
- I'm just curious about this question. Can you tell me the difference between non-filming aerosol cans
- and filming aerosol cans? Yeah, so anything that will actually when you spray it out foams, so like
- a wall spray sprays out the foams versus a spray paint that just goes as a mist. Anything that foams
- we have to separate now
- Oh, got it. Thank you. That was it. So for the latex paint larger than one gallon, up to five gallon
- container. For CSQG, it's $36, but for Monroe County Restos, it's $35.
- I look at the top of page 14. That is an omission error on my part. I did not update that in the text
- of the resolution. Up to one gallon is seven. Yeah, seven is correct. Section three.
- that's an error on my part. I would tell the correct 36 with what we have been. So I will need to change
- that for what goes into the board. Pricing should be the same. And that's all based on. When we ship
- it out, we pay per gay board. So that's pricing is based on how many of those containers can we fit
- in a cable box.
- Yeah, I figured it wasn't per gallon. Any other questions or comments on this? If not, we can move on.
- We don't need to vote to forward this, do we? We can move on to the community grant program.
- Okay, this is based on the request that was made during the budget operation to include a budget line
- for a community grant program, which we were able to appropriate $20,000 for such program. So the budget
- has been approved and adopted. So if we want to spend that money, we need to have a program to do that
- with. So, and I just, this is,
- This is my stab at it based on information I got predominantly from Hendrix and Boone County that have
- had such grant programs in place for some time using their information as templates and a guide. I've
- put this together, so I don't necessarily expect the board to approve it at this meeting. If they're
- happy with it and they want to, that's great.
- Kind of anticipated that there would be some discussion and maybe some revisions requested and bring
- it back in December for final approval, but. The sooner the better, because if it's we're trying to
- spend $2026 here, so we need to get the program in place. We need to get ample time for an application
- in a review and award process and then for the recipients to complete whatever projects are going to
- complete to get
- reimbursement requests submitted so we can get the money out issued in 26. All right. Well, thank you
- for preparing us. Let's start with feedback questions. So I did have, I think maybe it was a typo on
- page 25 of the packet.
- in the first sentence, that's projects that may be considered. Yeah, I caught that one earlier today.
- Excellent. And then in the grant review process, which is the next section, it says the board will review
- applications and the recommendations provided. I wasn't really clear, is the board going to review all
- of the applications or will it be just the forwarded
- recommended ones or I wasn't. Well, and that's again. Like I said, this is what I put together based
- on the other district programs that I was able to get information on. So. It can certainly tweak that.
- The board can. Request all or only.
- recommended ones. I have no idea how many to expect in a given year, the long first year. But yeah,
- obviously, we don't want to bog down a board meeting reviewing 25 applications and we're only going
- to take a whore phone to find them. But I will say that I have this was
- The review process was put out to the CAC at their last meeting, and they voiced no objections to being
- involved in that process. I think that's a good activity for the CAC to be involved in. How many people
- are on the CAC? Six currently. We will have five that have requested to be reappointed for 26, which
- will come to the board at the December meeting.
- because Mr. Winnia is moving out of state. How many seats are there? 15. The membership is, by the bylaws,
- the membership is capped at 15. Are there qualifications that people have to exhibit? Just be a resident
- of Monroe County and either work in the waste management industry or have an interest in things related
- to our mission. That's pretty broad. It is pretty broad.
- anybody on caps listening or watching, we are always interested in peaceful inquiring and pressing interest
- and being appointed to the CAC. But the review process is certainly something that I think the board
- can weigh in on and have that be whatever the pleasure of the board is.
- person when you think it's great if CAC takes a first look. Yeah, I was loving it. There were more people
- on the CAC. That's always a goal, always something that we work toward. The one thought that has crossed
- my mind, if the board only looks at
- those applications, which the CAC and staff, if that's how it's written, are going to recommend for
- an award, then how are we going to justify those that weren't recommended if somebody questioned it?
- There needs to be a rubric. Whoever's doing it, there should be something. And that is not something
- that the other programs I looked at had.
- We could just delete that sentence and leave it kind of hazy. Just say they were forward recommendations
- to the district's board of directors. The board will then determine which projects are most worthy of
- the funding based on the pre-determined selection criteria. What are those? Well, they're listed later.
- I don't know what good financial standing means. I know proposals may
- include recycling, environmental education, et cetera, that's fine. But that may include, doesn't mean
- it has to. I don't know what good financial, environmental, health, and safety records are if I don't
- know what that means. And I don't know how much money this is, and I don't know when we're doing this.
- So it's up to $5,000. Right, but I mean total.
- I mean it's not. Yeah, where are those.
- It's right in the middle of the fallacy section. It's it. Yeah, it's in there, but it should be innovation,
- effectiveness, sustainability, transferability, impact, use of recycled reclaimed of cycle materials,
- cash or in kind matches. Yeah, they make me miss more. And then we can. They should all have sustainability.
- But if we were at the yeah, there's a way to pay. Yeah, I mean, well, you just this is not a finished product.
- just create a way to, I mean, you could have each process. Wait, like if you're grading an exam or something,
- you would do the same thing. So you would define what is effectiveness, what does it look like, which
- is awesome, what does it look like if it's not so great, and then have each member of CAC
- rate each one on them, give them points, then it's a quantitative, dispensable. Easy enough to create
- a rubric based on those criteria. If those criteria are satisfactory, even if we do need to make some
- definitions of what we consider innovative, sustainable, what have you.
- but that would be something that I would ask, you know, the committee or the board as a whole, is that
- dependent on definition? Is that list of criteria adequate, acceptable? Is there more or less? It depends
- on how you define it. I get it. I get it. I mean, it could be defined as like the number of residents
- that's part of the application. That's part of the application. Yeah, which is why that's a good way
- to like I think it should be linked to things you've asked them. Yeah, so. How many county residents
- do you expect to include people in the program? I'm looking at. I mean. In the interest of not reinventing
- the wheel, I'm looking at the Bloomington.
- Commission on Sustainability to see what their grant program application asks for. Sorry, I didn't do
- it. Well, that's something that I can certainly require. Matt Austin with the CDC also sits on that
- commission and is familiar with their process. Well, it might be easier just to look at their form.
- I have a more basic question for you. It's why are services not allowed? Why is payment for service
- not allowed? It seems to me that's the biggest thing for the buck is to have. Human beings or native
- things. Well, I mean, that's the we're talking. We're not paying for somebody's rookie or Republic built.
- No, of course not, but we could we pay for somebody like one sustainable Joe to
- continue a composting program, coordinate a composting program. It's the time that's expensive. I don't
- disagree with you. Let me look back at the statue. The way I would, just not having looked at it super
- recently, but the way I would think about that is if
- Joe was applying, then yes, because the person, the applicant would be the service. If, if, if, uh,
- people from their time, I think that gets into all the areas. But we didn't. And it wasn't a helmet
- mess. Um, okay. I thought when I interpret the no services being,
- We're not going to pay this organization to pay for a service. So a secondary. Oh, that's the way I
- interpreted it. I would agree with that. But Tom, is that the way you meant it? He just made up the
- definition. I'm going to pull it up real fast because that's there is.
- So the statute says, the power to make grants or loans of A, money, B, property, or C, services to public
- and private recycling programs, composting programs, or any other programs that reuse any component
- of the waste stream as material component of another product with a primary purpose of activities undertaken
- under this subdivision to carry out provisions of this art which is solid waste management district.
- Wait, so those things are allowed or those things are not allowed? That is out of the statute. We have
- the power to make grants or loans of money, property or services to public or private recycling programs,
- composting programs or any other programs that reuse any component of the waste stream as a material
- component of another product.
- if the primary purpose of activities undertaken under this subdivision is to carry out the provisions
- of the article. So services are included, and so composting programs are in there. So if somebody wanted
- to apply for a grant to use somebody like one sustainable job to establish a composting program at their
- business or their apartment complex, I would say that would be allowable.
- So if that's allowable, but maybe not preferable, then that could be indicated in the criteria that,
- you know, and I don't know if that's the case, but it's, um, you know, because it was listed as not
- allowable, maybe that's something to think about. Like, so under project guidelines, it says bold and
- underlying grant funds may not be used for payment of service. I think, I think maybe that.
- That section needs to be clarified a little bit that you know, secondary services that we're not. We're
- not paying for your waste hauling, recycling, hauling in disposal. But you would pay system you pay
- somebody. Like so we pay somebody sample Joe, which how is that different? Or is it more paying them
- to develop a recycling or a composting program for that business?
- So what you're saying, I mean, I mean, I think what you want to differentiate between is a service that
- we're paying for as a contract versus a community project, which is a grant. But I think you just need
- to be clear about what they can do with that fund, because if you say, for example, oh, you can put
- recycled bins at
- whatever location, then the question is who picks that up? Well, is that pretty business network? Okay,
- well then how do we pay for that to be picked up? So let's say it's somebody that wants to put something
- in their apartment, then how do we pay for that? So I think it's just differentiating between somebody
- that's a grant award and somebody we contract with to do some work.
- that's not the same thing. So, right. But it's as simple as saying we won't pay for a contract. Now,
- we can't say contracted service. Yeah. We're going to pay somebody to establish a composting program.
- That's a contract, and sure. Well, but that's the grant. That's not a contract. OK. That's different
- than contracting with a waste hauler or the green business step. Right. I think that's what the difference is.
- you see that written down probably because I'm not sure if all of that entirely. Yeah, it's one place
- to be as well. But it's okay. In the implementation,
- of selected grant projects. So at the bottom of page 25, it says that they're going to get an award
- letter. And what will be in the award letter? And the next sentence says, the board may place constraints
- and stipulations on the project, and it gives examples of these things. And it was unclear to me if
- what it was saying was these constraints and stipulations will be in the letter, or if just randomly
- at any point, we could be like, hey, don't do that. I just thought we should clarify. Well, I just like
- to be clear at any point. Well, I would like to, but I just don't know if that's really the right thing.
- No, I understand what you're saying. But that should be clear. And I apologize, I did not have them
- to put into the packet. But in the Dropbox folder for this meeting, there's a subfolder for the community
- grant program. And there is a draft, grant agreement, and award letter in that folder, which can be
- included in the board meeting packet. That's what is decided. I think it's less important than the things
- that you already provided, but yeah.
- I just wanted to make it clear that we're going to give you something akin to your contract in this
- letter. It's going to set me what you can and can't do. And then at any time we might request that you
- appear before the board. My next question. Do they have to report on outcomes at all?
- I. Dennis, the other districts that I talked to, they do that on a case by case basis, depending on
- what they're making you work. And if there is a board does wish to have a progress report or end of
- project report that would be in the agreement. See. I think that would be. A good practice, even if
- it's just inviting doesn't have to be presented to the board
- as a presentation, but at least some report in writing. For any recipient? Yeah. Yeah. Because you need
- to be able to track those receipts and spending and at the end consider was that worthwhile or not.
- I think that the Hendricks County, if somebody gets a grant to buy recycled plastic benches for the
- park, the director just
- that's what you need to do. You need to provide documents that reports to the board project and that's
- right but but sometimes the grants are and so I think it's based on on what the project is and I think
- that that is something that would be part of that.
- Yeah, that should be in the page 25. That's a summary that may or may not include an actual presentation
- to the board. That would be a case by case. Yeah. Yeah.
- So the description of the community grant program is the third paragraph in the introduction to supplement
- these efforts. The district is pleased to offer community grants. And then this phrase to help conserve
- natural resources, decrease dependence on disposal, demonstrate the importance of sustainability and
- generally promote improvements, blah, blah, blah. It seems like that, whatever language we put there,
- should also be in the resolution as the purpose of this program. It should be consistent, I think. So
- the fourth warehouse clause, or another warehouse clause, I don't know. But the fourth warehouse clause,
- I see whatever grants us the power to
- I think it would make sense to add a whereas between. Would become the fifth whereas before we say the
- district has established a budget line.
- You can say and whereas the districts mission is and he could put. This beautiful little gem. Throw
- on the next page, here you go. I'm in that fourth whereas clause. I understand now that you were quoting
- from. State code. But I'm thinking there may be programs that are not covered by this language.
- that we might want to support, and I don't know if that's allowed or not, but I was thinking, you know,
- if there's a program to help local businesses reduce their packaging or a program to add love, fix it
- fair for small appliances, so you don't just throw them out, you can fix them. Even having a appliance
- or a clothing swap or something, just to prevent things going into landfill would be nice to support,
- Are we allowed to do that? I would ask the attorney for an interpretation of that section of the statute
- and where such programs would fit into that. So it does say any other programs that reuse, but what
- it's what you're saying is more of a divert thing. And so that would be like the specific question.
- It says for you. It's a reuse.
- But reducing packaging is just- Reusing the waste stream as a material component of another product.
- That is the entire statement. Yeah. I think one of the reviews has to be legal as well of whatever the
- application is and their application in case there's a question about whether it fits the statute or
- not. What I've seen.
- reviews of applications that come in. Maybe include legal. Maybe. Because you have to make sure that
- it's statute. Some eligibility or criteria paragraph, I should probably say, meet the requirements as
- laid out. I see. Yeah. Insight that by heart.
- Never will. Right. And I mean, Julie is right. What does it mean? They must have good financial,
- environmental health and safety records. I don't know. And that's probably the language I took from
- one of those other programs. Well, I think one of the other things too is if this is something we plan
- to continue into the future that somebody who's received a grant in the past
- to have completed all the reporting. That's true. But it's also a question that I don't know the answer
- to. The rhetorical question is, do you want to keep giving a grant to the same organization for the
- same kind of work over and over again, or do you want new people to apply? And so that needs to be addressed
- in there as well. Preference will be given to first-time applicants,
- first we have somebody who's never received the award. If that's the case, I don't know what the answer
- is, but it's a lot of hoopla for not a lot of money. Well, but it's taxpayer funds and we have to be
- careful with them. Yeah. I mean, $5,000 is probably the average amount of the Sophia Travis Grant award,
- even though it's total is a lot more. Yeah.
- that grant prioritizes giving to as many as possible as opposed to fewer or more. We'll aim all of this
- out, but this is our first tab at it. I guess I tried to word the resolution, the now there are four,
- you know, says that established beginning of the calendar year 2026 and appropriations be budgeted annually
- as funding allows to continue the program until such time as the board wishes to modify or terminate
- the program or funding becomes unavailable. So, you know, I did try to make it a recurring thing with
- the ability to, you know, adjust the amount based on what we can budget for, you know, that
- we can appropriate for this.
- appropriate more money in a given year than maybe the maximum goes from $5,000 to $7,000 or $8,000.
- Or if we run it one year and we only have two applicants, maybe we can increase the maximum. Yeah, and
- that would be- Or is there some kind- I don't know that there would be a way to encumber that money
- because we wouldn't have an invoice or anything on that. Maybe something to look into.
- If we don't have enough applicants to expend all our grant funds, what's the ability to carry that into
- the following year and add to next year's total? Well, I was looking at it more from the point of view
- of just not having enough applicants and increasing the amount for each award because- Let me ask legal,
- what would happen if we don't have $20,000 worth of applicants?
- Can we adjust that $5,000 cap? No, I still think you're not getting it. I'm trying to communicate here,
- sorry. If we only have two applicants and their total projects only add up to $12,000. No, their total
- projects add up to, let's say they add up to $25,000, but we're only allowed to give them each $5,000.
- We could give them each $10,000. That's right. If that's what I would ask legal, if we put that up to
- $5,000 in the application, what does that mean if that scenario occurred? Then I would check with them,
- but my guess would be that if we have 20,000 budget and if the board decides that there's
- you know, projects out there that warrant awards up to $25,000, then we should just be able to transfer
- the funds or do an additional appropriation as we would with anything else that went over budget. Yeah,
- we'll have to see how it goes the first year. I mean, I hope we have sufficient applications, but it
- could be that we end up giving $10,000 to two different projects.
- which would exceed that $5,000 a year. But it wouldn't exceed the $20,000 a year. Sorry, I'm not expressing
- myself. No, I think that makes sense. I think it does make sense. The question is, if we put that in
- the application, does that not leave us any wiggle room?
- Well, we can say we're targeting this amount. We expect to have to limit the amount. If the board wishes,
- we can take it out. If a bang-up proposal comes through that's $20,000, we can do one award for $20,000
- if that's what the board wished. But the $5,000 also encourages them to leverage and to. Yeah. I think
- it's a good idea as what to ask for too.
- I think it's important to at least in some way, shape or form, let applicants know there's a cat here.
- Yeah. There's a ceiling. Yeah. Looking up around health and safety and audits. That language makes sense
- if you're talking about it.
- a business. I can tell you in my mind, if we're dealing with a business that has item violations, well,
- guess what? You've not met that criteria. But some of those things are going to drop. There are some
- applicants that we would want to check that on because we know that they're subject to regulations.
- that are environmental in nature. So when we develop, or whoever does, staff or CAC or border, and develop
- that rubric of evaluating the applications, I think that could be something on the rubric. If it's a
- business, look up Better Business Bureau, look up IDEM, look up whatever. If it's nonprofit,
- check nonprofits. Even if we're nonprofit, we're subject to environment regulation. Right, right.
- So is that something that you would want on the application? What regulatory agencies oversee your work
- or something? I don't know how to express it. And then they can tell you. At least you know where to
- look if you wanted to.
- Yeah, maybe under grant review process. It would be on the application form. I will say too, part of
- what went into the application was trying not to make it a novel.
- I didn't want a five-page application. We came out of the gate with all kinds of like, hey, what about
- this, but this and this and this, but it's awesome. There's a lot of details you want to make sure we
- thought through. We want the application process to be as short and sweet as possible, but we also don't
- want to omit pertinent information. Well, and that italicized paragraph could be separate.
- a paper of a separate form, right? You don't need to put all those definitions in the actual application
- form. You can just attach whatever rubric you're going to use, and that is, yeah. Oh yeah, that would
- be the most helpful. I mean, that's what I do for a second. Right, and I. And that rubric may change
- year to year, depending on what the goals and priorities of the district are.
- On the application form number nine, where you're gauging the impact, would it be helpful to add nonprofits?
- Because it could be an organization that helps nonprofits to recycle or helps nonprofits to compost.
- You could put businesses slash organizations. Yeah.
- can separate them up to nonprofits. It's slightly higher in my book than health to businesses.
- This is true. Then number 10, does the project utilize recycled content materials or products to achieve
- its goals? What about recycled or repurposed content or materials?
- Sure. That's part of what's already in there with taking materials out of the waste stream to use as
- a component for another product. A rain barrel and making it into a garden. Recycled content and or
- repurposed materials product.
- wondering if on number 13, if we might give them an opportunity to explain. If we can only give you
- 5,000 and you asked for eight and you say, well, no, projects won't continue in its current form,
- But we could do this. You know, I just would like to know. A little bit more about that answer. Yeah,
- it's. Swear that's all I have. Slare well and then number 14. Force I'm not done yet. Yeah, no number
- 14. They may not be requesting items so.
- It should be required if they are requesting to purchase things. But if they're not requesting to purchase
- anything, she can have to make something up. I know, he wanted it two pages. Well, I mean, that's just,
- you have something in there for each requested item, you must. There you go.
- else on the uh community grant program and how shall we continue this? I will uh Joe India did suggest
- uh since the application was a separate document to add the district's mission statement to it. I have
- a version that has that added just
- just a couple of signs that are number seven. Make it fits. A couple of blank lines off. The other thing
- he suggested, which is going to take some investigating, but it was an online application process. That
- would not be opposed to that. I have to work with our website host on how we can incorporate that site.
- be a little different form, like a type form we use to report illegal dumping, where about an octave
- would be better. So time-wise, would approval at the December board meeting be soon enough for you?
- Yeah, even January might work. That's all that's going to depend on. The applications would get dependent
- on how long they need to complete the proposed project.
- So we could review the revised version of these documents at our next executive committee meeting. Is
- that in sound? Okay. So did you not want this in the packet for the November 4 meeting? It's if you
- don't have time. I think it's just money's the water if we have all the suggestions in there. Unless
- you want to
- unless the other two executive committee members want to delegate to me to look over the revised ones
- put into them. I don't think there's a hurry. Pardon me? I don't think there's a hurry. No, I agree.
- I agree. I think it's now. It's the voices involved that makes it harder to bring it all together in
- a timely fashion. OK. It's published up for December.
- Thank you, though, for your work. I appreciate that. OK, so we can move on to the district holiday schedule.
- Yeah, that's you know, just like we do every year. However, I will say for 2026 with two election days.
- On page 32 of the packet, when you have 15 admin holidays, everything comes out real nice. I saw that.
- and I think. Usually happen. I have to say I found that table fascinating. Everything's just. It didn't
- look like that last. This year, but then just because we do routinely compare ourselves to the county.
- The county is giving Friday, January 2nd holiday. I like to.
- I already had this together when the commissioners adopted that, but 16 holidays is going to muddy it
- all up. Plus, our facilities being open on the Friday after a major holiday, I think is something that
- warranted. That's 2026 anyways. It's what? It's 2020.
- 6-27, it's a different holiday schedule. Are you talking about this year's or next year's? Thanks to
- 2026. 2026, the county to January 2nd. That's the Friday after the New Year's. Well, we have the people
- who work on Saturdays too. It would mess my table up. After the New Year's holiday, cans and glass,
- people need to go do something with.
- And you accept trees too. Yes, and we will be doing the trees at that time as well. Live trees. Yeah,
- well, they're not really alive. They're sort of hanging on. Unalived trees. Yeah, but otherwise it worked
- out real nice and neat this year and. It's it's the same as we do every year. The three different schedules
- for the three different
- different types of facilities and different operating and work schedules. This might be my favorite
- table I've ever seen. Can I just tell you how satisfying this table is? I am! The only thing that could
- make it better is if you put it in Excel. That's where it came from. It's just, you know, the wonder
- packet I needed in the PDF. So, yeah, I mean, what I like to see is the
- The scheduled hours relative to admin being the same as the paid holiday hours relative to admin. We
- have that 57.5% for the rural sites. And the holidays per workday are 5.8 across the board. I know,
- it's so beautiful. All right, any other comments or questions about this one?
- Then we have the ordinance for fixing salaries. Yep. And those are, as indicated in the memo, the wages
- based on the budget that was adopted. The 1,180 increase for salary employees and $0.57 an hour hourly
- employees. All current employees are at a maximum fixed rate.
- What is the longevity payments? Could I see at some point what the longevity table is? I'm just curious
- because we don't have that recently. You have a longevity on top of this? Yes. It's built into the budget.
- I could send that out to the three of you if you'd like showing you what
- How it broke down for the 2026 budget and the table. I'm just curious, like, after how many years do
- people start getting additional longevity? What are the 5, 10, 15, or how does it work? I think it's
- 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25. I think it goes just. We're now at only 25 in max now. 25 in max now, OK.
- That's been with us since day one. Yeah. She's been there 30 years. I think she told me she maxed out
- 25 acres. Is that Mary? Yeah. She's been there 34 years. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Extra bonus. Any
- questions on the salary for this?
- resolution. It's so funny. So it's a resolution, but the title of the resolution is ordinance fixing
- salaries. That's the language I inherited. That's how we've always done it. If you want to change, we
- can change it. It's fine with me. It's just on the city council we have.
- Something is either an ordinance or resolution. Right. Same. Yeah. I didn't even notice that.
- That's why. You might want to check with people on that. Yeah. Yeah. I would be curious to know. Yeah.
- Because anything we vote on always says resolution of top. If that's fine, then.
- I know. But legally, ordinance has a different meaning. And I don't know that the district board is
- empowered to adopt an ordinance. I don't either, but I don't know. It is the salary ordinance. Yeah.
- Well, I will have legal take a look at that.
- the report packet out. Okay, shall we move on to Garden Quest report? So Garden Quest provided, it's
- PowerPoint, but I put it in slide format, hand up format to get it into packet, reporting on the
- activities that have taken place with funds provided by the district. They are happy to present at the
- board meeting or just be present to take questions, whatever the pleasure of the committee. Everyone
- thinking would be awesome to have a presentation.
- didn't make it all the way through the slides. And it looks like it had a body piece of something. It
- done a lot of things. And I actually did attend one of the Bokashi workshops that they did at the community
- orchard on the Y city. And actually,
- was he held himself a reporter, but he was with Ida. I shared it on our Facebook page. Ida Maxby produced
- a video based on that. I think I saw that mentioned in here. Yeah. On their Facebook page that didn't
- get shared on our Facebook page. Honestly,
- I'm just looking at the agenda for today and you have a double asterisk next to some things that we
- didn't vote on. I'm confused. Probably because I was doing this meeting in the board meeting agenda
- at the same time. The only thing we really needed to vote on were the minutes. The only thing you need
- to vote on are the executive committee minutes. I apologize. Any other?
- I agree with Kate that it would be good to have them give a presentation. I will let Matt and Ellie
- know. I wonder, though, if we should give them a time limit. Sometimes presentations can just go on
- and on. What do you all think? We would take 10 minutes to present. That's what I was thinking. Everyone
- wants to ask questions for.
- This is short? No, it's fine. It's fine. I wouldn't know how to do it in percentage. I'm sure no one's
- shocked. Well, this will also be in the packets. I don't need to read everything. I don't need to go
- work for work. Right. That brings up something I did forget to ask when we're doing the fee resolution.
- So we will have the public hearing that was advertised in the paper on October 29th. But the public
- hearing was advertised for 4 p.m. because that is the board meeting start time. Do we want to put that
- first on the agenda before we do minute approval so that that happens as close to 4 o'clock as possible?
- It makes no difference to me. I'm just asking if. I mean, I doubt that anybody will comment, but in
- case they do, I guess it would be. Courteous thing to put it. I will note for the record that I was
- in Dropbox this morning looking at it for some reason, and according to Dropbox, there were two other
- people and they're looking at it at the same time as me. Really? Anybody has access to Dropbox? Well, that was.
- The public notice and documents to be reviewed that it's in the public document archive section of our
- drop box so that people that wanted to look at it before the public hearing could do so. OK, interesting.
- So we might get some. They were just listed as guests that didn't give me a name, but. Well, I don't
- think changes for. Future. I mean, I didn't are any of the changes.
- ones that you would expect to cause a little bit of consternation? I mean, you weren't doubling the
- price. Right. Right. No. I mean, it's hard to get guess because it's, Joey, if I would know more than
- I do about, you know, regular recurring CESQG customers that we have and what they're bringing to us.
- We don't have very many
- CESQD businesses anymore bring them to us because we started reading out the large quantity versus the
- small quantity, you know, helping them learn the laws, make sure they're abiding by what ones they can
- and can't do. Most of our customers that would be paying would be out of county. So it's, you know,
- we do a lot of out of county stuff where it's not offered in their county. So, you know, a lot of them's
- happy to pay because they're getting rid of it.
- I mean, they drive from some distance sometimes. Really? To like drop off the fridge or whatever? Yes.
- That's crazy. There's a lot of counties that don't offer that stuff. Yeah, and there's a lot of ravines
- with fridges, I know, so that's true. And the Freon and TVs, there's not a price difference whether
- it's paid from in county or out of county. It's more for the chemicals, the paints, and the hazardous
- stuff like that, that this focuses on.
- To me, there are no significant price hikes in here. A few things actually went down. Like I said before,
- in putting it together, we really looked at two things, our cost and trying to avoid pennies. I can't
- clean up the ends there. Well, I think a periodic comparison of our costs with our fees is good.
- You don't want to subsidize people who are not from this county. Okay. So we'll put that number one
- on the agenda. Is that okay with everybody? So all other items deemed appropriate now at that part of
- the meeting. Is there a preference on where a garden pledge falls on each end?
- their presentation. It's probably, I mean, polite, since we don't have other staff coming to present,
- might as well have them go early so they can do their thing. Unless we have quorum issues. Public hearings.
- Yeah, but sometimes we have quorum issues. We have voting items and I will need them. It's a report,
- so it should go at the end. We'll let them go. Okay, so any other items deemed appropriate?
- I have two things. One is all three things. One is a quick question. Are we meeting in December? Are
- we meeting in December? At that point, my plan was to have CEC reappointments planned for that, but
- I think that I have
- All of the CAC members have expressed their desires to me, so we could add that to the November agenda
- if you think there's an interest in not meeting in December. Do you mean the board meeting or the EC
- executive committee meeting? I don't know why we wouldn't meet.
- At this time, I don't think. Other than the CAC, if we do the holidays and the salaries in November,
- then really the CAC reappointment of the remaining action item here. The whole stuff we do have the
- community. Not just what we had said. That's right. Yeah, we should meet. Um.
- Any update on the Hefty program for plastic bags and other recyclables? I was able to get a hold of
- Hefty and they asked where we were and what our interest was and then said, Rumpke's our recycling partner
- in that area, contact them. Okay. So I contacted Rumpke and Derek, our recycling rep is
- Inquiring within Rumpke about what it would take for them to start offering it here. Well, that's odd.
- OK. I mean, it seems like if Rumpke's already doing it, that that would be a really good fit for us.
- Well, they're doing it in Cincinnati. Right. And the way, I guess, Humpty Whitner, hefty, hefty, hefty,
- regionalizes the things that it's
- however far Rumpke wants to expand it out of Cincinnati is up to Rumpke, it sounds like. We'll finish
- that and we'll see what we can get them to do. That'd be really good if we could do it. I just continue
- to hear from people about plastic bags and other plastics that are not recyclable styrofoams and things
- like that. I was in Oregon recently, I wanted a bag, I had to pay for it.
- I went to pay for a plastic bag when I was in Oregon last week. Where are we at with the solar stuff?
- RMI did say that they put us out there blindly and they got some
- interest expressed. And then they emailed us. We all said, yep, sounds good. Let's move it. And I have
- not heard anything since. OK. And that was for somebody who would actually do the install. That's for
- a developer. Yeah. OK. And then connect with Duke, because that's what we do. Right. Yeah. There is
- absolutely no chance of getting this done through REMC, correct?
- And that's why not because, yeah, but I think that Graham C wants to mess with it. Okay. Well, just
- keep us posted because we're, you know, I think Menorah County is interested. Obviously, there's an
- upfront cost, but
- It would give us a flat rate on utility bills in the future, and that's very valuable. I did get it
- from Rumphees at this time, does not have any closed landfills in the area that they would be in. Right.
- So Maduro is still active and they're not open to that. Yeah, even the closed section. Yeah, it's not
- a big deal.
- something that would be good for them. That was a big stumbling block to have more off-takers. To be
- up to $50,000 a week. We have the county, we have state-limited utilities. Maybe I knew. Maybe I knew.
- That's no real other sense. I gather from IU that they're not going to eat that $50,000 a week.
- I don't know that we're producing enough energy to satisfy more than one off-taker. The thing is, is
- that between city and the county and I knew there's more need than there will be in how we're generating.
- And so you don't want more off-takers. I mean, I don't know why you'd want more. You would want more.
- you know, you want the number that's going to utilize everything they can. Yeah, you're not going to
- be, even if you're, you know, all they have to put in 10,000, you're not going to get anything for it.
- So that's been worthwhile. I'll reach back out and see what they're, where they are, what their plan is.
- We might expect to meet and good options if we're going to move that forward. My question today is about
- the accessibility guidelines that are coming down from the federal government in April.
- All our packets have to go through more steps to make them accessible to the public. The city council
- staff is very concerned about this. They have a consultant that's working with the city to make sure
- that we are compliant. I want to see where that just changes that. Well, with regard to packets and
- other documents,
- that wind up on our website and or the public document archive. We aren't real far into that yet. I
- think that we've identified a service to use for the website, investigating what that service can do
- for documents.
- I would ask you to talk to Great Chrome, who's our TSP director, because we were paying for that service,
- but now that we're on the indiana.gov website, we no longer pay for it, they provide it. So if you start
- using our website to upload your packets,
- Is that an option for us? I think it might be. Our packets are already on the website. Then they become
- part of that accessible group. I would just talk to him about it before you start spending money on
- stuff that we don't use the money on. You can upload non-accessible PDF or whatever.
- somebody operating the website is going to make your document accessible? It's not somebody. It's done
- automatically. It's a processing service. And that's what we had been paying for at the county to make
- PDFs, OCR, or text to audio capable.
- Well, we had been paying money. I don't like $4 or $5,000. So I don't know that beyond that, and then
- if you load it into the IM.gov site, then it becomes an Indiana issue, not a county issue. That's my
- point. Yeah, I just surprised. Okay. Well, what other requirements that
- I guess they don't add alt text if you have a graph or something. You have to add alt text or any graphic
- or image. The way it was explained to me earlier today by our council attorney who has been meeting
- with our city IT department is that all the council packets will have to be webpages. You have a web
- page that has the agenda and then
- On that page, you click another link, like resolutions 2025-10, click that link, and that goes to another
- web page that has that resolution. Text only. So no PDFs, everything on the website. That's what she
- said. I will investigate this further. Yeah, it needs to be investigated. That's one way of handling
- it. You can make your PDFs accessible. Well, we have been, but apparently not to the level that will
- be required.
- Wow. But the state of Indiana is going to have to follow. So if the state is not following it,
- then who is? So if you use our website, it should be fine. That makes sense. But using the website,
- or are you supposed to do PDFs through the website? I think that's two different things. Yeah. I think
- that it's not necessary. The topic, right? Yeah. I will investigate, starting with Greg.
- and attorneys at BP. Thank you. Anything else before we adjourn? I guess there's another meeting coming
- up. There is a five-year. Yeah. Theresa, do you have anything for other items? No? Okay. Thanks for
- coming, Joey. You're welcome. All right. I feel like Ron and you guys wouldn't have a lot of questions
- if I didn't. There you go. She'll be helping you about the feedback. It's not burning your umbrella.
- Great. Okay. We are adjourned then.
- Thank you all.