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.