- All right, so I'll call to order this meeting of the Executive Committee of the Waste Production District
- Board of Directors for Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. And Mr. McClassen, would you like to do the roll call?
- Piedmont-Smith? Here. Madera? Here. Willets? Here. Do you have a quorum present in the room? And Commissioner
- Madera on the line.
- All right, so the first item of business is approval of executive committee meeting minutes from December
- 30th. When it was just a counselor Wilson myself from the executive committee who attended that meeting
- so. I mean that we approve those a second. So roll call vote on approval. That's the number counselor Wilts. I.
- I will vote yes. And we don't need Commissioner Madeira's vote. And she was there anyway, so.
- She's there now. Do you want to vote on those minutes? I did read them, but I cannot say yes or no because
- I was not at the meeting, so abstain. Okay, fair enough. All right, okay. Motion passes to one abstention.
- Next we have the board of director meeting minutes from February 12, which we just kind of review and
- see if those are OK to pass on to the board and hold. Um, saw some edits. Yeah, I did some typo edits.
- Are you the kind of person who can't read something without correcting typos? Yeah, yeah, yeah, so that's it.
- Losing in a curse. Yeah. Curse on the people who are sending me things. That's good. I didn't, um, so,
- um, maybe we can, Joey Long is here and Kayla, uh, Strandis are, they're both here. I just, I didn't
- want to ignore you. You're here. Welcome to the meeting. Um, and maybe you're here for some of the,
- uh, items coming up, like a cornbread composting. So.
- Mr. McClassen, you want to go launching to that one? I can't. So the memo on page seven of the packet
- introduces this agenda item and I still recall at the end of last year, Mr. Winnia advised that he was
- moving out of state and had some new complexes ready to sign on. So the district via the board agreed to
- take on assumed responsibility for the partner period for those two new complexes. And so Ms.
- Tran and Mr. Long are here. They have done the bulk of the work associated with that. And so we kind
- of wanted to initiate and we've kind of discussed this briefly. In the last year, you know, what's the district?
- going to do with this program? What is the board's desire with this program? And having having gotten
- into this, you know, we have found that Mr Wenio was still also providing some service to complexes
- that were beyond their partner period. Predominantly repairs to bins, but also maybe some training for
- some new tenants that came on.
- So I kind of wanted Mr. Grant and Mr. Long to talk to you about what their experience has been in a
- couple of months that we've been doing this and kind of look at down the road, what are we going to
- do? Are we going to finish out the partner period for those two new complexes and then be done with
- the program? Are we going to continue this program
- in the same manner that one sustainable Joe was operating this program? Are we going to do something
- somewhere in between? Because one of the things that we found is the complex is beyond the partner period.
- Mr. Winnier was, if he was doing repairs to the compost bins, he was billing them for that. Well, we
- don't have a mechanism in our fee structure to do that.
- done some of that over the past couple of months just because they needed to be done and we're trying
- to keep the program moving, but we kind of need the board to understand what it is that we're getting
- into and have the board tell us what they want us to do with this program moving forward. So I wanted
- them to come here and kind of explain to you
- time commitment that's involved, the kind of expenses that we're seeing, decide if we need to change
- our fee resolution to add a way to invoice those complexes when we do repairs past the partner period,
- but also look at the time commitment that's involved and think down the road, particularly if we're
- going to service complexes beyond the partner period, what happens when we have
- 15 participating, 20 participating. Do we have the capacity and the resources to service those with
- our current staff and budget? If one of you wants to take it away. Sure. So most of what I've been doing
- has been continuing the contact for the two partner sites, especially.
- They were still doing training for new turners coming in. Most of the training for new people coming
- in is automated. That's just a when their information gets populated into the form that's on the website
- for it. I have to go find their information populated into the form that we keep in the Google Doc for
- them and then send the training out to them. So the rest of the-
- module. Yeah, it's an online training module. I think there are a few videos with it. And then Turner's
- have another training module. And then if they have questions, I believe Joe was doing an in-person
- training for Turner's as well. And then any questions or concerns for the site leads and communication
- with them as everything changes. And then whenever a partner exits, that same form gets filled.
- I have to go and take their information out and then repopulate the info for each person in each site.
- And repair work. We've had to do a decent amount of it in the last two or three months. One bin is falling
- apart. One is repaired now. It was falling apart. All the rain and snow melt kind of washed out part
- of the corner.
- and it collapsed one of the bin sides. And to be fair, that was an incredibly full bin. So I'm not very
- surprised that the extra rain hindered that. But it's been some other small repair work here and there.
- A lot of it seems to be because of snow melt and the weather getting warmer and the weather exposure
- to the bins.
- their repair work. Part of the problem is when you use untreated wood and it gets wet and dries out,
- it expands and shrinks. It was put together with like a one inch brad nail. So it pulls apart really
- easy. And you use wood screws. There are some, but there's not many. And they're aluminum. And the other
- problem we found is while I was out repairing one of the places, I actually, the lady
- I showed how to turn it with a shovel and because there's no structure on the outside, if you imagine
- three U's, so it's a U shape as they fill up and they start moving and turning the stuff, it spreads
- out. But then you can't get the wood to come back together. So we've adapted ways to put removable boards
- on it that will hold it all as one unit. We're spending two guys about four and a half to five hours
- repairing them and that's a cost
- about $70 to $80 per unit. One of them is a fairly new one, what, a couple months now? I think that's
- the church site. That was November. Yeah. And the other one is it's out of its commitment. I believe
- Joe told him before he leave that we would repair it. Right now we're waiting on the ground because
- where it was placed, it's on a slope. The ground is not level.
- It's over full, so it's lifted up and it's expanded out. So we're gonna have to dig that one completely
- out, replace some boards and screws, add structure to it, make it all one unit where it's tight, then
- put it back together and show the people how to turn this stuff the right way. We're also having trouble
- with like there's signs on top. So they have to remove the signs as they fill them up. Like
- as one compartment is done, they have to move
- at the church, you know. We've shown them how to move the signs that way, they know what band they're
- using, because that one was also over four. We had to dig it completely out, fix it, fill it back out.
- Just started. Mm-hmm. Well, that's the thing is, you know... That one's, I think, is the fastest build-up
- one. Yeah, that's the one that's... New peoples. And that's at a church, and that actually has the most
- participants of any of our sites. Yeah, I believe it.
- And it's also they have a lot of brown, so they should break the ball, the leaves and put in there.
- They have large quantity of browns that Joe was trying to fix with them before he left, and they just
- never quite got that mix fixed. And so by the time the leaves and everything froze, it was already over
- full, and it couldn't compress down because everything was frozen. I don't necessarily think that,
- you know, that any of this is
- unreasonable or even to an extent unexpected, but these are the types that if we continue the program
- as is, these are the types of things that if we're going to, particularly if we're going to do service
- and maintenance beyond the partner period, this is the type of stuff that we're gonna run into. And
- then what cost estimate
- If we sign a new complex on, what's it going to cost us to build that three-bin system? So I technically
- have built one not using brad nails and using the same wood and stuff just to see. We're roughly at
- about $220 plus my time. So material is $220, maybe $225, let's say. Is that including the tools and
- the weight? That is not. That is not including a shovel, a pitchfork, or a rake. Which you give to them.
- Yeah. Yeah. Scale. But that's the three wooden bands built. And it would all be, so the first design
- was, as anything's new, as you design something, you know, as it fills up and you work with it, you
- learn the flaws. So the way I've designed this one with the same thing that Joe did was mine's all one
- unit tied together. But you can remove the boards and do what you need to do, then put them back together
- and it ties it all back together so it doesn't lose none of its strength as it fills up.
- and somebody can still get in there and move the dirt around and shovel where you're pushing on the
- sides of the front and back. And it's still going to be structurally sound. And hopefully, I don't think
- we would have to repair it for a while. I don't want to say a couple of years, because you never know
- if a board's going to get broke. Somebody's going to treat something. But with shovels and everything,
- I would say high side, $350. Including your time? Not including my time.
- And it took me about six hours to build it. And I know we are talking too about the possibility of adding
- additional bins at some of the sites. The church in particular. When Joe designed was a three bin system
- where you have an active bin, a bin that holds your grounds that you mix in as the food goes in and
- then the empty bin when the active bin fills up, you can build that. Well, like the church filled up
- the active bin in three months.
- So they may need four bins, because otherwise... Are you going to be able to use all the combos that
- I think you use? Well, I... They've had a lot of members that are interested. Yeah, I think they have.
- They have quite a few that are going to stay on the site this year. Another parishioner wants some of
- it for home garden stuff, and they have...
- areas on site that they can use it. Do they have space for maybe putting the browns in something larger
- and separate, like a cage? Possibly? We could build a separate bin for the browns, then they could have
- three. That's what I was thinking. How fast are they filling it up? How long does it take for a full
- bin to reduce to soil so we can empty it out and start using it again? We may
- You know, there may be situations where we have to go, you know, to the floor bench system or construct
- a separate grounds bin. Especially if I'm getting that much this time of year. It takes so long to break
- down. I will say, me and another guy who was there digging them out and repairing them, there were three
- or four customers wanting to know if they'd be able to use it within an hour. It was like, we hoped
- to have it back, you know, because we didn't completely repair that one. We got it back structurally
- sound where they could keep use of it.
- And we had it done within an hour. That was at an apartment? That was at the church. The one at the
- apartment, we are going to have to completely have to remove, dig out, fix, and put it back. And it
- makes sense for theirs. They have a community garden on site maybe 20 feet away from the compost bin.
- So they are actively using quite a bit of it. It's getting... At this particular apartment? Yes. We're
- helping them. It's getting very full.
- But they put the compost bins probably 100 yards away from the community yard. We're hoping they'll
- let us move it to the community garden. Does it make sense if that's what they're going to use it on?
- It'll be closer. And the spot it's in right now is going to age it faster. It's in a drainage area.
- So the woods swollen a lot more than expected. And the one I built, we do have on hand. That way,
- you know, if we need to show somebody one, we have one on hand.
- at South Walnut Street. Well, I don't know if we want to be in the business of building and repairing
- bins. I mean, it almost seems like it's more in our wheelhouse to provide the expertise and explain
- how to do it.
- than to be carpenters and ships. And we have been doing that. Kayla and us and the staff at South Hornet
- has worked together and we're saving brown paper right now because some places doesn't get enough leaves.
- So, you know, I know Kayla has set up boxes of brown paper for them right now. Yeah, that and our restitution
- workers worked a lot with that too. Yes, we get restitution workers. It's a great job to have them do
- it. Restitution workers. It's community or when somebody
- orderly community. Yes, we have that. So yeah, we had a self walnut. We we did that. I accept up to
- 10 or 12. At a period of time, depending on how active they are. Really? Yes, so sometimes you have
- 10 or 12 people. We don't know. I mean, I have 10 or 12 that scheduled could be there, but we don't
- try to get that many 10 to 12 is about what I have on hand.
- Two or three at any one time. Any questions? Yeah. They send us all information, how many hours and
- stuff. You don't have to know that. I didn't know it until recently. And we have some criteria on the
- types of offenses that we will accept. Just because they are with the public and stuff and work.
- hands-on. I do have also one volunteer from Stone Belt right now. I do actually stay and he comes in
- and does an hour or two depending on how things are going. But those folks probably are going to run
- this whole program for you. And you can't count on them for that later. It is helpful to have that though
- because right now I'm having to
- we're having to save brown paper aside and then rip it up into manageable pieces, because we don't have
- anything that can rip it up. And otherwise it's coming in with sprinkles or these sheets. Yeah. But
- I don't think that any of us want to see it just go away. But I don't know that what we're doing right
- now is sustainable for us.
- moving down the road, like I said, if we have 15 or 20 complexes, schools, churches, whatever, participating,
- and they're all expecting us to do repairs on bins, they're all expecting us to do onboarding for new
- tenants or new participants, I mean, when you get to that many participating complexes, we just don't
- have the staff and the resources to be able to do that. So, you know, I think we need to
- I don't know the magic number, but we need to put some sort of a time limit. And, you know, the department
- complexes in particular, they have a maintenance crew or maintenance contractor, and there's going to
- come a point where you're going to have to take this over. And we'll be there as a resource. We can
- help with education and stuff. But, you know, we can't come out and, you know, take care of every little
- maintenance need that you have related to expense.
- I was secretly hoping that somebody would apply for a grant program and say, I can take this
- over. Ironically, I was thinking if either we or say the UU church applied for like a Sophia Travis
- or Jefferson, Jack Hopkins, one of those grants to then fund their participation in it. So we changed
- the model a little bit.
- And if we apply, it would be to pay for the materials to do this for the community, the locations that
- we have. If you apply, then we would maybe have to set up sort of a fee thing for managing their post.
- And that could be a model for other.
- And I think, and right now, I'm not saying this has to go to the board next week and the board has to
- tell us what we want to do. We're good where we are right now. The only thing that we're probably not
- doing right now is actively recruiting new participants. The six or seven participants that we have
- right now, it's not burdening us to take care of them right now.
- Two in a partner period. Is it just six total? Pretty sure. It's six total, but I thought we had three
- in a partner period. Yeah, two. It's the newer apartment that I showed you guys, and then the church.
- Yeah. And we probably could do some recruitment. And if we brought a handful of new ones on,
- as long as they weren't all at the same time, we could probably manage that. But I don't want to get
- too far into this without having an idea of what the board's expectation is going to be moving forward.
- I mean, that's a lot of labor hours and a lot of material costs that are totally replacing something.
- Well, but Jeff, I mean, we, we give Joe $20,000 to do, to put all this together and set, you know, provide
- the initial bins and tools and training for all the complex. It was the idea that it, those complexes
- would keep going. Right. But the idea that they would be taking care of themselves and
- to some degree it's happened, to some degree it's not happened. And I think, well, I guess, you know,
- Joe was still servicing ones out of the partner period, but he was billing them for those services because
- they were beyond the partner period, which was beyond the term of the funding that we, the city would
- provide. Would there be anybody to repair things? I don't know that. Were they like expecting
- I don't know. The district to do this? Or were they just like? Well, I know that I don't know, but I'm
- not sure. You didn't really have that discussion with with Joe. No, the one apartment complex they expect
- us to completely fix it, right? Which one? The one where the grounds and level because Joe was already
- doing that. He was doing the repairs and charging them already. So they already had that set up with
- him and they
- they expected to pay to get that done. But we don't have a mechanism. We don't have a mechanism to build.
- Yeah. By mechanism, you just mean like policy. Yeah, we don't have anything in the fee resolution that
- we could use to build it through this. I mean, that's certainly possible unless it's just beyond
- capacity or will? No, I mean, we could amend the fee resolution to include carbon composting,
- multi-participate. How do we want to term it? You know, a fee structure to build them for services rendered.
- As I said, the question is, do we want to set an expectation that five years from now we'll be doing
- this work?
- reason why I built one was the idea behind it is if we have it on hand, maybe somebody from the apartment
- complex or someplace can come live and we go over it with them and they can have some money do the work
- if they can see what needs to be done to beat things and stuff. They need to get a better idea of how
- much each part costs us. And if they're willing to pay Joe or pay us to do it and they have their own
- maintenance crew, we'll gladly show them how to do it.
- It sounds like that would be preferable, would be to let them graduate from the program so to speak.
- Wish them well. Some guidance. Yeah. The worst case scenario that we don't want is that it just sits
- abandoned and disintegrates into nothing because then we've wasted however much time and money during
- that period of time.
- And most of the sites are very excited about it. Like, especially the church is extremely excited about
- it. And then apartments present a little different challenge because of turnover. And with the church,
- you're going to have people that are going to be there and doing that for a number of years, you could
- imagine. Church members don't leave and go to a new church every year. Some do, but most of them don't.
- The main church, I think,
- That's a good, if we were able to continue the program with more new partners, I think reaching out
- to some other churches is probably a good idea. I can't remember if it was Joe. Or faith communities.
- It could have possibly been Matt and the Bokashi stuff that they do, but one of them had talked with
- another church about doing something
- at the church property. I think the First United Church would be a good place for people's worship.
- So then we can certainly do that, but what are we wanting to do with this program? I don't want to get
- us committed to things that the Lord's not prepared for us to follow through with. So we were already
- line-iteming
- $20,000 annually to make this happen, right? I think it was 25. It was 25. We did have, and the city
- did. I mean, it all funneled through us. The city just, you know,
- gave us their hand of the contribution and then we did all the finances with Sustainable Joe. How much
- of that $25,000 was actually drawn down by Sustainable Joe? Was actually what? Drawn down, like how
- much did we actually pay out based on the full amount? Yeah. Was there a limit on the number of participants
- under that amount?
- There was not a hard limit. There, I think, was an expectation each year to get four to five complexes
- signed up. Obviously, that wasn't that because we're only at six right now. But all that you could do
- is present it and you can't force somebody else to do it.
- It seems to me that it's more important for the district to get more sites than to keep babysitting
- the old sites. Especially if we focus on churches or other like. Yeah, I would agree. Or other,
- you know, big bang for the buck kind of sites.
- The way that we increase the impact of the program is to get more sites up and running. That's how we're
- diverting the material. Yeah, we have limited resources, so I'd rather spend them during the end of
- the week, if I've said anything. No, I'm just listening because I didn't know very much about this program
- since I came in, you know, to office part way through. So yeah, I really like it. I'm just wondering
- if there's
- ways to grow it. Well, I think there are, and that's with one sustainable job being done, that means
- that it's us having to go out and identify and recruit new participants. I wonder if we can partner
- with the high school, like Hoosier Hills. You know, and I actually, I don't remember if it was about this,
- I've had discussions with, and I can't think of her married name, but Katie Frue, who used to work at
- Purdue Extension Services, and now is at Food for Builders, about this. And she had interest, and it
- would fall, and it would fall under her program. It might fall under it, I do. Food for Builders, vocational?
- Katie Frue works with FFA, so that's part of it. My son would have loved something like this, because
- you get the building, and you get the farming,
- you get, or agriculture, or egg science, and you could almost get the marketing in there too. So I could
- certainly reach back out to her, and this may not be the right time to start something she may want
- to shoot for next August, start of next school year, but. I think it would take that long to get it
- prepped, but there would almost be like an entrepreneurship or a business club that could help to pitch.
- So you can get a group of seniors together to pick up where one sustainable job left off after they
- or partner with IU is a capacity, you know, maybe. I mean, if we if we take the product on and continue
- it, is there interest that you want to keep doing the work? That's a question.
- I enjoy it and it's definitely needed. It's one of the biggest gaps that we have that we get asked about
- constantly is some sort of composting somehow. And it's a good idea and it works better. I think part
- of it was just, there were a few things that the design we needed to change to make the building material
- last a little longer. And I definitely think, especially with me having to input each person
- as they come into the program, moving that off to the site leads of the sites, all of that is gonna
- help a lot more. Or having a different outlet for them to buy browns or something along those lines.
- Well, what Joe started the program with was they were only using leaves. And a lot of the sites either
- didn't rake their leaves in time, or there's no way for them to keep that many leaves in storage to
- last the entire year. And some of that's education and training with the participants. Don't recycle
- or throw your newspapers out. Put them in the grounds. Or the packing papers. Most of what we've got
- is brown packing paper. Yeah, right. And I know one site uses straw.
- though Joe didn't recommend the straw because it takes longer to break down. And I was going to tell
- you, if they go to Rilken, I think because Rilken gets most straw with a lot of the first part, they
- throw it away. So I was told that if you go stand it up, you could get something. You can go sweep their
- straw for free. That's fine. Yeah, some sort of outlet for them to buy browns or something that we can
- do for that. And I think the education and all that is definitely good. We just need to find a point
- where once we set you up, get you going. Yeah. Where do we launch them off and let go? Yeah.
- At some point, you know, we got to move on to the next customer. It has to go beyond residents. Yeah.
- You know, you have to have an employee, I mean, you know, someone at the site who's not moving. Right.
- And yeah. And, you know, like I said, apartment complexes should have a maintenance crew or a maintenance
- contractor
- that they can get set up to do this. Churches, and it's kind of, oh yeah, you got a parishioner that's
- a weekend carpenter that can do this. I mean, most of them have an on-site staff.
- I'm sure there's at least one person who can delegate it to someone there. But I don't think any of
- those are insurmountable. Yeah, I don't know how many would be there. At some point, we would have a
- full time position just taking care of them. So we need to get away from that. Between all of us,
- that's what? I think easily we could get up to 10 to 20 units between me and Kayla working with somebody
- at each location, we could handle that fairly easy. At that moment, it might be an hour a week for one of us to
- to help somebody, we could do that. I think we kind of need to, if we're going to move this forward
- in a similar or same fashion, we kind of really need to redefine what that partner period is. And maybe
- it goes to two years, to 24 months, and then it's a hard stop. Was it two years? It's 12 months now.
- Oh. So we kind of need to redefine that and say that is a hard stop.
- At the end of that, and we're going to, you need to make sure, we're going to train your staff or whoever
- you identify, the bin construction and the maintenance, and they can understand the design of that so
- they know how to fix it. Yeah, because it possibly can't grow. Right, if we stole the bins, if you can
- make them on site, I get fee structure, blah, blah, blah, but installing them.
- Because they can pick it up or we can deliver. They're fairly large. I mean, you can build them and
- install them, but that's not so much the problem. Again, it's how much do we have invested every week
- with each unit? That's where our problem is. And when you say unit, you mean site? Yeah, each site.
- So I would hit the three things. That's one unit. So. Yeah, I just wonder, I mean,
- and storing them. That's going to be the other issue. Oh, yeah. And we provide a certain amount of technical
- assistance. I'm just trying to not drop them. Well, no, I think that we're always there as a resource.
- But we can't always be there to go repair a bin, particularly if we get up to 15, 20,
- participating complex. Say after two years, you can call. But if you have a new tenant, a new resident
- participant that has questions, yeah, have them call us. We can do that stuff. Why do we need to keep
- track so closely of the people who are participating at each site?
- I believe part of it, well, so the system he has right now, training partially, and the system he has
- in place right now, they have each person has a code, and that code is a QR code that is associated
- with them. That is how they are tracking the weight of the compost for each site. When they go there,
- they're supposed to use the app and that QR code, scale their weights, and then they dump their compost
- so that we can keep track of the weights of each site. That's how we measure.
- The impact of the program. Each one has the impact. And I know we've talked about moving to some sort
- of average per person. Because when we met with Joe, before he turned it all over to us, he was pretty
- confident that many of the places, many of the participants had kind of quit weighing
- Yeah, I would be looking at the data even so far for this year from the church's one and the little
- bit they did last year. There is no way that even a quarter of their people, I think it's barely a quarter
- that away because that volume is not weighed it. You don't still want me to track each person. I mean,
- you could just track the site and the people tracking is is how he's he was keeping track of
- their number for that weight and if they've done the training. He wasn't giving them the information
- or the bin codes until they completed that training. There's a lot of things I think I would tweak about
- this whole process to make it easier on you all. Yeah, yeah. Making it easier on the participants. Yes,
- for sure, yes. But I do think that we, and what Kayla and I had talked about was we set up somebody to
- And you tell them, okay, for the first three months, everybody needs to weigh and we're going to get
- an average per person. Each dump into the bin averages two and a half pounds. And so then we just need
- to know how many participants don't think how many times a week and we can estimate this is how much
- weight we're doing. Yeah.
- Or I mean, honestly, we could do calculations just based, we know the depth, we know the dimensions
- of the bins. That's exciting. We know how much brown, roughly, that we're putting in. We could do an
- estimate calculation just based on how full the bin is. And what happens in the church, the three people
- weigh it, they just have to do it. Yeah, I don't think any of them are weighing it hardly at all. But
- we need to have some way to estimate that difference. Yeah. And that is because we have to track everything
- we do? We have to show some impact and how, and this is to justify it.
- If you look at your estimates of how full the bucket is, we could. We could do the buckets that we're
- providing them, compost buckets that have the QR code on them to scale. We could do a volume calculation
- based on how full the bin is. Some of it is also anticipating state reporting requirements coming down.
- Yeah, that's fine. You haven't promised any specific entity, specific types of data at this point, right?
- But it's also, yeah, reporting requirements, or if there becomes a grant that we can then become aware
- of, maybe, you know, say, hey, this is working, but when you want it to continue, we need that data.
- Yeah. But yeah, not for a person. But like I said, you know, this is not something
- that we need the board to provide direction on next week. I think after this discussion, I think we
- can go out and we can start reaching out and we can try to find, you know, try to recruit some
- new participants from the apartments or churches or- I mean, honestly- or whatever. We have some great
- businesses that I know are interested in that before. But I think, but I, we need to make the board
- aware of this and what we're getting into and that we need, you know,
- In the near future, we're going to need some sort of direction on where this program is going to go.
- So we did budget for this for this coming year, right? Yes. So we did. How much? $12,500. The city has
- $12,500 budgeted, but it's not given that up yet because we don't know what we're doing. Well, that's
- a good idea. When the city give us $12,500 to manage the program,
- I don't know, I'll have to talk to Sean Mia and see what, you know, explain to her where we are and
- what that means for the city's portion of the funding and what they need to see, what data they have.
- I'll have to reach, I can reach out to Sean and explain to her where we are, you know, at least in the
- short term, how we plan to move forward and,
- What does that mean for the city's agreement to help fund this? Yeah, let's continue to think about
- and maybe put this on the agenda again the next executive meeting. Do we not want to put it out to the
- board? Oh, I don't care. I don't care if we bring it up to the board next week or not. I don't know
- if they have. Yeah, but I think we need to make them aware at some point that
- what we've gotten ourselves into and stacked up like some direction on where do you want to see this
- program go? Well I wonder if can we use the CAC also for studying how to make it more efficient or have
- an extra committee like how are we going to move forward with because I hear two things first of all
- we need to have some more clear timeline cutoffs
- And this is after that date, we will give advice, but we won't do X, Y, and Z. And then on the other
- hand, from what Kate said, there are things in the program itself that we should make more efficient.
- So how are we going to move forward with those? Just as an executive committee or? You guys are the
- ones that have been doing.
- Well, I mean, and I, you know, um, you know, I mean, in the packet was chose participant agreement is
- scheduled. That was basically the scope of service. You think you could go through that and, you know,
- suggest some tweaks revisions that will make it easier on us, easier on the participants. We could sit
- down tomorrow or the first day and go through and talk about it and see what we can do to present something or
- somewhere you know what we feel comfortable with we could do and handle and what our options are because
- we don't want to kill the program it's just we need that clear we just need a more hands-on way of handling
- yeah especially the later participants we see that eventually it's going to get out of hand we can't
- do it with what we do we hope it grows to that point yeah yeah i mean it's it's not like any of the
- business plan at this point but it
- it does need to be articulated, you know, what you are committing now, what you are willing to commit,
- but also like the budget for that because time and $25,000 on the one hand seems like an awful lot to
- do composting for just seven sites, but I do six sites. Oh my God. You know, on the flip side, I also
- know time is money and
- You know, you all are being paid right now. I hope to talk to us. And so, you know, there's a lot to
- it. Yeah, that's again why we built one on hand so we know what it's going to cost to build one. And
- if we could just be there as education and get the business to take over the church or what organization
- to take over for us, then they have the expense of keeping it going and we can just be there to help
- them maintain it. That's why I say hands off. What we're doing now is fine, but if it grows,
- and we get 10, 15, 20 participants and we're still doing this for all of them. We have other duties
- that we have to take care of. Maybe when you talk to the city, they might be a little, and I don't know
- what they're thinking at this point, obviously, but I would think they would wonder
- about the $25,000 for seven, six sites as well. I mean, it is sort of the elephant in the room and what
- can they, can we look at it as here's what it costs to do it. We're not here to like profit and here's
- what it'll cost as we add two more sites or four more. And then your conversation can be a little bit
- more specific around need.
- Am I making you less hard? No. No harder than anybody else. I do a good job of that. Okay. So wait,
- so the total spent has been 25,000? Or was it more than that? Because we did one year and then we did
- another year. So we've done two years of it. Right.
- I know that the first year was $25,000. The second year may have been less than that. I would need to
- go look at the count, right? But I think without question, we can do it in house cheaper. It's just
- a matter of graduating those participants so we don't get overwhelmed.
- Wow. Yeah, I mean, if we think if this is a combined city and district, we spent $50,000 on this. I've
- seen it, right? That is not the marketing that we go with. No, no, no. But speaking of marketing, and
- this is not necessarily my favorite, but I assume we would also need to think about how to
- sell the idea that this is worth Mr. Apartment Manager, Mrs. Apartment Manager time to do. And there
- are things I think you could say about reduced cost for what's in your dumpster, but. Well, I know that
- two of the current complexes are both owned slash managed by the abode.
- And that's, they did their first one and it worked well. So they, and I think that's one of our, it's
- going into the parking period is their second complex. And, you know, so dealing with those management
- companies that have multiple conflicts. So they say, let's make, let's pilot it here. If it works, then
- let's move into this one and then this one and then this one. And, and then when the other companies
- see that they're competitor. Yeah.
- attracting residents by offering that, then that was kind of the hope all along that it would become
- a recruiting tool for, you know, a pitch for tenants that, you know, hey, we do this, nobody else did.
- There are lots of ways we can get past one or two, especially with like the buckets and everything else.
- We can move forward where we are now. I want to say one more thing. I volunteer at New Hope Preschool.
- They waste so much food. So I mean, that's a nonprofit, but you know, each kid gets their little breakfast.
- and some kids eat one bite and the rest goes in the trash. Well, that's, and I bet that's not the only
- principle. We modified the terms of the agreement with One Sustainable Joe to allow the church
- to participate. And I think that modification was certainly not specific to churches or faith institutions.
- It was more broad than that.
- I was talking with Harmony School and so we tried to put the language in there that would allow for
- a variety of different things to fit into that. Yeah, I was thinking of the four-year-olds to distinguish
- that they're going to put their food leftovers in one place and their snotty Kleenex. Isn't that what
- the volunteer is for? And that's going to be the point too because
- The way this compost program is set up, we don't do dairy, or high citrus, or meats, or anything like
- that. Anything cooked in meat technically shouldn't be composted in this program, in this system. It
- takes like an orange. Technically you're not supposed to put citrus, because it kills the composting
- bacteria. I mean, this is... Yeah, the acid kills the bacteria. This is in essence backyard composting
- on a little bit bigger scale. We're not commercially composting, and we're not generating the heat,
- to take care of a lot of... The bacteria from meat and dairy. Things that aren't compostable, we just
- don't want to put in there. We also don't want to attract animals. Oh, I have a story for you. How about
- for the board meeting agenda, we just put a Back to Earth program update
- and we can face, you know, Jimmy, Kayla, and I can teleport the same things that we've told you. And
- if you can put some of those things in a PowerPoint, I think the visual always helps if you have time
- to do it. I have pictures from the pairs and stuff too, if we need them. Did you let us know about the spool?
- Like I can, or I guess it doesn't matter because that was a contract with somebody else and it can be
- whatever you all want now. Getting your little kids on board. That was the contract for sustainable
- Joe that kind of placed restrictions on him on what he could use our money for. We, you know, as long
- as the board says, okay, we can do whatever we want. Is composting at all?
- Anymore, you know? I don't know. I don't know. I don't have kids in school anymore, but that whole day
- I stood there and I was like, that goes in there. See, now the other thing that we have to be conscious
- of in this is the item regulations regarding composting facilities. So we've got 300 square feet. So
- if you get into too big of an operation,
- and your compost pile goes beyond 300 square feet, you're now suddenly subject to item regulations.
- Part of the purpose of this was to keep them, I don't know. I've seen the cafeteria at North High School.
- I think in weeks they could get over 300 square feet. Yeah, the program I had experiences with
- We took it off site, collected it and took it. Does Katie do that at Hoosier Hills? Because she does
- the FFA and they have the greenhouse and all the garbage. No, I don't think she does. A couple of years
- ago when we were talking about getting something like this going, I reached out to her and said I'll
- reach out to her again. Maybe she would have the ability to work with the cafeteria staff and say limit
- what we're going to take so that we get the right stuff and that we're not getting too big.
- and still give her students some sort of a worthwhile experience. That could be really good, because
- then you're also educating the teenagers who are in that program. Take that forward. Yeah. And they
- have a building construction and building class, so they could actually maybe get them to build a box.
- That's exactly what I was thinking. Because I go to the building church through them to build habitat.
- They're really, really good, too. Yeah.
- Okay, we'll put an update on the agenda and kind of review everything that we've talked about and let
- the board know that we'll probably be coming back at some point when we have a better idea of what we've
- gotten ourselves into and make sure that we're all on the same page with what direction it's going.
- Great, thank you for coming and letting us know about that. So next we have one applicant for the community
- grant program.
- that we can take a look at. Tom, you want to give an intro to this one? I can. Remember on page 19,
- the CAC did discuss and review this and score with that rubric that they rescheduled reading last week.
- But they didn't scramble and get a meeting in so they could do this. Do plan to have a written summary
- and then with a recommendation for the board for the board package. At the meeting, they all seem to
- be in agreement with recommending to award the grant to the board. And next, they'll get a summary and
- that recommendation in writing. Unfortunately, beyond that, I know the person that applied for this
- grant, so I cannot comment.
- It was unexpected. I'll say that much. I didn't think about this as a way to reduce waste. I did not,
- but I absolutely love it. I think it's amazing and kudos for someone for thinking about it. That's all
- I got. I didn't do the rubric though. I did not either since we only had one. Who's buzzing, Cindy?
- It's not me.
- Yeah. Do we have a sense of how much they could purchase with $3,000? They included one sheet that had
- some products in it. I don't know if I'm trying to get down to it. So there's pricing on the sheet that
- they included. So if you think $30 a product, and they've let $3,000, so 100 things,
- Yeah, they said that between 100 and 200 people would be in packets. Because these are the cups, and
- I don't know what the end of our stock could cost. For the board packet, I will look there. They weren't
- active, but they did. I got page 23 of the packet. There are two different links.
- products. I will put those into a web browser and rent off to the board what it looks like. Yeah, it
- looks like the underwear could be between 10 and 20. Well, yeah, I mean, if you were able to get 100 people to
- stop using disposable feminine hygiene products. Or even I'm not. Yeah. That's a lot that can be visible.
- Especially if they were using pens. Especially for schools and stuff like that. Like, even janitorial
- costs. Like, such an impact. Yep.
- What is the, can you remind us time of the process? The whole board receives the input from the CAC
- and then votes on it. Well, yeah, we set the application deadline and then time that so that the CAC
- would have a chance to review the applications prior to the board meeting and provide recommendations
- to the board of the award.
- to any grant applications that were received. So we're aiming to do that. So we're aiming to do that
- next week at the board meeting so that the CAC said they would have had the written summary of their
- review and discussion and their recommendation to include in the meeting packet. Are there four or five
- people on CAC then? And the irony of four men reviewing, yes. I was just about to say this was the female.
- A format and then there's three on these and we have one on the executive. I did not think it was going
- to be on their agenda anyway. That's awesome. So any concerns about this? No.
- had some kind of report back, right? At the end of the grant period, they're supposed to report back
- on the input. Yes, yes. That'll be interesting. Before we move on, then I will also, one other thing
- that CAC did discuss, because we appropriated $20,000 for this grant program for this year, and we only
- received one application that's asking for $3,000, the CAC also is going to suggest
- then we reopen an application window to see if we can get some additional applications for other projects
- that might be able to be completed in this year so that we can still utilize some more of that. So that
- would be another question put out to the board next week if they want to set up another grant window
- till the end of May or something like that.
- see if we can get any other interest. All right, any other comments or questions on that? Then we have
- a review of internal control policies following the accounting entry correction we had to make in January.
- Yeah, it was I asked about, you know,
- our internal controls and there was anything in there that might have lead or could be tweaked to prevent
- the entry errors that resulted in those adjustments needing to be made. And Ms. Owens is with us online
- here. And we've reviewed that. We also talked about
- policies and procedures that the consultants that we use help us reconcile and figure out what those
- adjusting amounts would be. The consensus really was that no, that there's not. It was the way things
- were input and managed by the previous accounting software and the current accounting software. Theresa
- can probably explain better than I can,
- handles this all different and this should not happen in the new software. Theresa, do you have anything
- to add? No, I just, I mean, I've been monitoring it monthly ever since we got the adjustments. So far,
- I know it's early in the year. The bank is always balancing. It's just the balance between the fund
- and the bank.
- And that's, if anything, it's the payroll claims stuff that would be off, which is adjustable once the
- items are paid. And then there was consensus that the bulk, if not all, of that adjustment was related
- to payroll liabilities in a way the previous accounting software
- either the way that that handled it or the way that they were entered into and handled by staff. Both
- of which have been correct. Yes. May I jump in? Yes. First of all, I read the whole report that you
- have here on your internal controls. And I
- I really appreciate you sharing this with us, you going through the review. And I have to say that I
- was pleasantly surprised that in such a timely manner, you responded to the request to do this. I just
- really appreciate it because it wasn't really, it doesn't always happen when you just say, hey,
- you know what, it would be really good if you like checked into this so that we were sure. And so I
- really appreciate it
- I mean, I know it's stuff you already had and you already are doing, but putting it together, pulling
- together, checking and presenting, I really appreciate it. If I don't do it when I'm thinking about
- it, you would have been asking six months from now, what happened to this? That's what I'm doing. So,
- you know, it's notable. Yeah, I think it can make us all rest easier that
- The problem won't occur again. Yeah, thank you, Twisa, too. Yeah, you're welcome. All right, any other
- questions or comments about your two internal controls? Do you want, I think it could be just a part
- of a department report or something, but do you want anything reported to the board about the internal
- controls? Because I believe the question was raised at a board meeting.
- I can just put in my department report that staff and executive committee reviewed and determined that
- internal controls are adequate. That was not the problem. Yeah, it makes sense to make that part of
- your report. Right. Any other items deemed appropriate for discussion today? Yes.
- I do, but I will gladly wait, defer if anybody else has anything. Go ahead, Tom. Okay, we've got a few
- things. I will give you the good news first, and I can't remember off the top of my head. I don't know
- if Teresa does or not, but apparently, once upon a time, the district participated in some Indiana public
- risk management thing or whatever, and
- The state is shutting that down, and they're sending us $92,000. What? Say what? So we paid into something,
- and they're? We have the email correspondence confirming that we are the correct entity, because it
- obviously came to Monroe County Solid Waste. Right.
- Teresa, do you remember what department we were communicating with on that at the state? No, I don't
- have it right in front of me. No. We have the email correspondence confirming that we are the correct
- entity. So we filled out their requested paperwork. They are processing our, I guess, refund or reimbursement
- after they're terming it.
- And it's for participating in a risk. It was an Indiana public risk management. I can't remember. I
- like to manage those kinds of risks. Yeah.
- It's fascinating. That's awesome. Well, yeah, we were pleasantly surprised. I was like I said, that's
- I made sure that I did. Last thing I wanted to do was get this money and have to turn around and give
- it to somebody else. Are you sure we're right? Um,
- That's the right one. Was a member of the Indiana Political Subdivision Risk Management Commission?
- Yeah, that's it, yeah. Managed by the Indiana Department of Insurance. Yeah, and the letter was from the
- Deputy General Counselor from the Indiana Department of Insurance, and that is who confirmed that, yes,
- you are the correct identity. Go ahead. The city and the county governments aren't getting anything.
- Well, that's your good news. That is good news. And then, just a heads up.
- getting everything together to send to William Ellis and welcoming him to the board. When I sent him
- the bylaws, I realized they've not been updated since we changed our name, since electronic participation
- in meetings was allowed. So next month, we'll have some revised bylaws to consider. Sorry. Next month,
- like April or? March. It is March. Next month is April.
- At your next meeting, you will have revised bylaws to consider taking to the full board to three. How
- about that? So our board bylaws. Set aside some reading time, is what you're saying. It's wide margins
- and generously spaced, 10 pages. It's not too much.
- Uh, and then the last thing I had, uh, and one of the other, the other reason that, uh, Kayla is here,
- um, you know, there have been, been some questions, concerns, you know, expressed about the district's
- website and meeting the new accessibility, uh, standards. So, um, and, uh, Kayla's,
- done the bulk of the work going through our website page by page and running an accessibility scan tool
- on those and making the necessary adjustments. I did have a meeting with our web host and developer
- that developed our current website and they said we're on the right track with what Kayla's doing and
- they're still
- to help in any way that they can, but they're pretty confident that the platform that it's built on,
- there shouldn't be any issues getting things updated. The big heavy lift is gonna be the meeting minutes,
- document packets and all of that. But the web developer said that our platform that we're on
- has a feature for blog posts. And his recommendation was that as we move forward and have those documents
- that are necessary to meet the new requirements, that since the bulk of those are originally drafted
- in Word, we just use PDF for combining everything into packets and stuff that we
- just take those original documents in the Word and copy and paste those into the blog post, and it should
- be searchable and meet any accessibility requirements at that point. As long as the Word document originally
- was accessible. Right. Yeah, and I wonder about tables. Yeah, I mean, there's still some caveats.
- This way you have a lot of reports. In the meeting packet, when you do the claims, those are PDF files
- produced out of the accounting software that we scan and put them on. So there are still some kinks
- to work out. But Matt, the website developer,
- confident that we'd be able to figure these things out. He's done them for other clients and things
- will be okay. What is the platform? Squarespace. That's Squarespace. Yeah. Yeah. So our website is also
- hosted by Squarespace. It is now. It is now.
- Is it Lambert Consulting that's still helping us with? Lambert Consulting is the host. And Matt Aldridge,
- and I forget, he has a company name, but it's him. He's the one that built the website, developed the
- website. And he works for Lambert? Our partners with him. I guess when I say web host, that means the
- website is on Lambert's server.
- That's who we pay to have space on their server to house a website. And that is the one that built the
- website. So do you think that we'll meet the deadline in April for the new existing? Yes, sir. Well,
- in researching all of this,
- You know, looking at ADA websites and what do we gotta do? What are we gonna do talking with Andrew
- and Matt yesterday? I stumbled across a fact sheet on the ADA website that had two different compliance
- dates listed. One of which was for special district governments and that compliance date is April 26th
- of 2027. Wow, that's a big difference, isn't it? Our attorney is out of town this week.
- So the question is, how does the ADA define a special district government? And do we fit that definition?
- Fascinating question. No. I don't have to answer it. But regardless, you're working on it.
- Are you documenting that you're working on it? Is there any way for somebody if you were? Because there's
- no accessibility police. So the only problem is if there's somebody who does an audit,
- as part of like Monroe County or local government finance or something like that or you get sued because
- somebody's tried to access information and couldn't and usually it's a complaint process and show all
- you have to do is show that you're working and you are actually doing it. I mean we do have copies of
- the old pages of the website. Yeah well so we there is some email correspondence between Kayla and I about
- know, where do we stand on this? How are we managing this? What are we doing? Because some things we
- just had, we had to basically redesign the page. So we have some email correspondence. And
- then in Squarespace, you have the currently active page,
- that may or may not meet the accessibility requirements. And then you have unpublished pages where she's
- working on redesigning that page to meet the accessibility requirements. And only one of my pages is
- live. Only one of them is accessible. That's why I think we can easily show that we are working toward
- meeting these requirements. Awesome. Well, thank you, Caleb, for checking that out.
- It would have been slightly faster, but we've hit hiccups with the composting and then everything else.
- And I will say the- Thank you. But Bron, I think you- I do. I am now the catch-all. That's right. County
- IT referred me to a tool in Google Chrome that does an accessibility scan and rating.
- The majority of our pages are upper 80s to a little bit 90s on that score. So we're not far. Right now
- we're not far away from that. I know you sent me the version of the minutes and I said that's the bigger
- lift is dealing with those scanned PDF documents. But the web pages themselves,
- are pretty strong, as we said, but we're still doing what we can to increase the scores. Do we have
- any statement on our website that if any of the linked documents are, if anybody has problems accessing
- linked documents, please call us or something? You know what, I think that there actually is, because
- I was looking at that today, and it's maybe not the most obvious thing in the world.
- But it is there. So, let's see. It says, I can't be reached. WasteReductionDistrict.org, right? No, .com.
- Oh! So, if you go on the top menu bar under Get Involved, there's a link for meetings and public records.
- And then at the bottom of that page, the asterisk note for the link under Access Archives. At the end
- of that, it says, if you are unable to locate a particular record, please contact our office to request
- the copy. That may not be exactly what you're looking for, but that's what we can. We can change that
- in a matter of minutes.
- Yeah, maybe add something about we are currently working on inferring accessibility of our documents.
- If you are unable to access something, please contact us. Because this is more about timing. We will
- upload them when they're ready. Yeah, I just read you the last sentence of a larger statement. But yeah,
- we can certainly
- add another statement on there about. I would put it on the front page. We can do that. Or down in the,
- a lot of places do it right here. Your signature, though. And then it's, you know, put whoever to contact,
- we contact them. You can look at other websites, they're all. Which one of your cell numbers do you
- want us to look at? 5555. Yeah.
- Go away. I think the website is, it looks really nice. I've always been impressed with this website.
- I don't use any assistive technology, so I don't know about that, but it looks great. Well, I know we've
- had some colors that we've changed and probably some more that need to be changed. In other words, I
- think the bigger one,
- The graphics or picture links don't have the description to them so that if a visually impaired whoever's
- their mouse over it, it doesn't tell you what it is. None of our kids currently have alt tags for them.
- None of your what? Our images currently on the active website have alt tags except for the one page
- that I added today. Which one was that? The printable under resources. So the printable you showed me
- that? Yeah.
- Yeah, that's the only one that's active at the moment that I've changed. And that one got a 96 on the
- accessibility score. Do you have an accessibility information section at all, like about not the website,
- not electronic, but accessibility of your sites and services? Yeah. No. No, we can. I think that would
- be great to put on your to-do list.
- I'm going to get kicked out of this place. This catch-off. That's a good point. What if you are somebody
- with a disability and some folks can drive? And to be fair, we do get calls. Can they get help with
- putting their stuff in the bins? You're right. I mean, the rural sites are all gravel lots. That's probably
- an important thing to know for somebody with a physical disability.
- Yeah, cause I can add it to the site page and I can see that adding it to our Google listing, but that's,
- that'll be fun. Yeah. Again, I would say check out some other websites to see how it's boarded and stuff
- because there's some pretty boilerplate language. Um, but yeah, description of what to expect is always
- lovely and depreciated.
- can't predict when there's 15 inches of snow in the room yeah and they don't shovel the sidewalk ever
- that's not me no although you'll be pleased to note that it is rising up the ranks of city council priorities
- for next funding cycle we do the sidewalk for our site yeah and that's because city ordinance requires
- us to do that
- And luckily, the bus now will drop them off pretty much at South Walnut. Very good. Anything else for
- the good of the community? Yeah. One other thing, Tom, about the board member's signature for the bank.
- Oh, yeah. So, yes, because we generally have always had the three board officers as signatories on the
- bank account.
- and we have a new officer. So I guess now, so to get Jody added to the bank means we all have to do
- signature cards again. So which is fine. We've done that every time and we can certainly do that or
- we can take Julie off without doing everybody's
- Can we do that, Teresa? To get Julie off, do we have to all do it anyway? Maybe we do still have to.
- I can't remember what we did when I had the... I guess when Teresa were talking about it, we were thinking
- that we could get
- Remove Julie without redoing all the signature cards and then did was the executive committee comfortable
- with two out of three or do you want to go ahead and redo all the signature cards and after you have
- it. Does that involve going to a bank? No, in the past they've
- given me all the signature cards and let me track everybody down to get signatures. Yeah, I recall it
- was fairly painless for us, but it was just right. And it's fine. And actually, why don't we just do
- it? Because if I tell the bank tomorrow, I could probably have all the cards at the board meeting next
- Thursday for signatures. Yeah, let's continue the practice of having all three officers on.
- Because we're going to have a check, one of you will have to sign next week. Shall we order the orange
- bags? The big ones. It's a big one. All right. We will take care of that. Thank you, Tom, for doing
- the life work. Well, if everybody comes to the meeting and I have them, it's easy. All right. And our
- new member, I've
- Assume can come to our board meeting. He I emailed them, you know, send him, you know, copies of bylaws,
- internal controls and I mean by some of what our meeting schedule was, and he did not indicate there
- was any conflict there. I assume they talked about that. What do you think? All right, well, I think
- that's it. So we can adjourn.
- Thank you all. Thank you.