- I will call to order this meeting of the Executive Committee of the Waste Reduction District of Monroe
- County and Board of Directors for Tuesday, December 2nd. Mr. McGlass, could you please call the roll?
- Piedmont Smith? Here. Thomas? Here. Will? Here. All are present. All right.
- Theresa, can you hear us? Can you hear me? I can't hear you guys now. Hey, Tom, you have the mic unmuted
- for a minute there. But it's not going to be sound now. I can hear now, or Jason. Can you hear me? Oh,
- OK. Yeah, I can hear you now.
- Okay. All right. Thank you. Starting on page 10 of the packet is the actual grant program followed by
- the application that we previously looked at and I had gone through those and made the changes that
- or attempted to make changes that we discussed at the last meeting. I should have brought my notes with
- me. I apologize. I guess one of the big ones that was on the application was trying to define the criteria
- that had been listed.
- So between Ms. Piedmont-Smith and I, we did come up with some definitions to those criteria on the grant
- application on page 13 of the packet. I'm trying to think of exactly what I said. There was language
- about the good financial standing or something to that effect. I just took that out.
- But we did in the in the grant application I did add page 15 a number 15 on the application asking about
- regulatory and oversight agencies.
- have jurisdiction so that we can match up records for compliance with those agencies. That was something
- else that I recall being discussed. And then I think I mentioned it at the last meeting, but we didn't
- have it on the document. At the top of the grant application is the district's mission. It was Mr. Winnia's
- suggestion. So that is on there now.
- still looking at. He had also recommended trying to look at a way to have the application process available
- virtually on our website. So that is something that we're still looking looking at and how that would
- how we could incorporate that into the website. It can be done. We already have online inquiry process
- there. The application is a little bit different but the host
- The host developer said it wouldn't be that much different than what we're doing there. On the application
- form, well, let me ask a general question first. So we had talked about that this shouldn't be used
- to pay for waste disposal. Yes, yes.
- Can it be used to pay for staff time? Like if they're an entity and they're launching a new program
- to, I don't know, awful recycling and Bloomington Housing Authority or something. And most of their
- expenses are gonna be staff time. It says no administrative and I would call that administrative. So
- is that just by Indiana law? We can't fund that?
- look at that and ask the legal. But the other flip side of that is that is something that they could
- put into the application as a match. They could use it. We anticipate 20 hours of staff time at $20
- an hour and that's a $400 match. I don't think you want to be paying for staff because it's a slippery
- slope because how much and how many hours and
- you know, it's hard to quantify did they really spend this, you know, versus we bought this or we paid
- for that. You know, it's just so hard. And yeah, I feel more comfortable if we left compensation for
- time out of it. I would agree. I think it's fine to offer that. I get your point that yes, the biggest
- expense may be, but I think Tom makes a great point about matching.
- I did page 10 of the packet, the bottom of that page, the bolded part of what you were referencing.
- And I did rewrite that section based on the discussion we had last month. So I also wanted to ask about
- in the eligibility, if we could specify, and I put this in the
- in the work document on the drive, that an entity that has previously received a grant from this program
- must have fulfilled all commitments related to that grant before it would be considered for another
- grant award. Does that make sense to everybody? Where is this at? What page? Oh, it's not in there.
- I'm proposing to add it under eligibility as the last thing under eligibility. That an entity that has
- previously received a grant now has to have
- fulfilled all the requirements. It does say that under eligibility. Well, it says it's previously been
- awarded a grant for the same project that they would only be awarded if funds were available after all
- the other awards were considered in essence. And you're proposing what? An entity that has previously
- received a grant from this program must have fulfilled all commitments related to that grant.
- before it is considered for another grant. That's what we say for Sophia Travis. Yeah. I think it makes
- sense. Then that sentence that's in there under eligibility maybe needs to be tweaked a little too to
- make it clearer. Well, I think they're saying two different things. They are. They are. I get what you're
- saying, but when I read it, I read it differently.
- It's a hard, I had to read that sentence. I knew what I was trying to say. I didn't know how to write
- it down. Once you say that, it makes sense. Just revise it. I don't disagree with what you're proposing
- to add either. No, that's fine.
- said, if you look at the document in the drop box, I apologize. I didn't. I got the minutes. Well, I
- did it in the last minute. Are we prioritizing some organizations over others when we're thinking about
- this grant? So, for example, the not-for-profit versus the business.
- I think the impact, the criteria that we have include impact, and if it's just gonna be for a business
- that impacts 10 employees, that's not gonna weigh as heavily as, this is a public park, it's gonna be
- for the people. In writing the document, that was not something I considered. There was no way to do
- that. But I guess you could certainly,
- The information that's asked for and the criteria that are in there, it could certainly skew that way,
- perhaps, depending on what's proposed by what type of organization. So when we, if somebody then receives
- the grant and I see that letter
- here. Yes. Hold on. Let me get to it again. I would say that, for example, if they say, oh, we're going
- to install recycling bins at the beginning of the summer at whatever park, then I would put in this
- letter that we want to report at the end of the summer. Right. So you would put a date in here and say,
- oh, in November of
- 2026, we'd like to see you report. It depends on the grant, right? Yeah. So I would ask that that be
- included in the letter because it's very just sort of like, oh yeah, we want to report. Well, let's
- give them very specific guidelines in the letter because they're accepting the grant. I don't know.
- Well, that could be done either in the letter. I mean, both the letter and the next document, the grant
- agreement,
- They're just templates. They're not set in stone. Right, right, right. You could put that on either
- one. I put it in both. And I think they're both. And then I would state when you expect the report.
- And again, it depends on the grant. If it's a one-time event, oh, it's at the fair. OK, give us a report
- in September, because that would be July. Right? I mean, you know what I'm saying? So you could just
- say instead of having to think it through on each thing, you could say within 60 days of the spending,
- final spending of funds. I don't know how to word this. Except that's December. Always. That's always
- the end of the year. Yeah. They don't spend their funds until November 30th. They need to get that report
- sooner than. Yeah. I was going to say, or the end of the year, whichever comes first. I'm actually trying
- to. I think it's finished, I guess. Yeah. There was a different. Well, I would say January 1st of the
- next year.
- Well I actually put in in the in the excuse me in the grant agreement I request it's on page 18 of the
- packet the third section in request for reimbursement of expenses covered under this grant or shall
- be submitted no later than December 1 because we have to dispense the money before the end of the year.
- Right. Right. But that's right. And then what I'm saying is the report
- If you want all the reports to come in at the same time, you could ask for the report in January of
- the next year. Right. But I'm not sure that that's... But if somebody's grant, if they say this project
- will conclude on August 31st, well then let's get the report in September. Let's get the report because,
- yeah. I mean, more October, November, whatever. But yeah, I just feel like it's...
- dependent on the grant. If it's a one-time thing or if it's a seasonal thing versus, yeah, if it's the
- end of the year, fine. Yeah, and I think those requirements, what the requirements are and when things
- will be due is going to vary grant to grant, depending on what's proposed and what timeline they propose.
- And I think the committee, whoever that is, should make that decision as they review them. Yeah, so
- the template would have to be revised. Yeah.
- Yeah, it's not set in stone and it will be modified to fit each grant based on what's been proposed
- and what the expectation is of the award. One thing I did put in the grant award letter is a deadline
- for returning this grant agreement. I mean, I put my XX date in it. Right. Yeah. And I apologize.
- I created a rubric and I guess it didn't make it into the packet. That would be interesting. Let me
- just apologize. It's nothing fancy. It's pretty much based on the criteria that's spelled out.
- Are all the categories weighted the same way? The rubric is laid out with the criteria that we've just
- got, innovation, effectiveness, sustainability, and then score on a scale of one to five, one being
- poor, five being excellent, and then you just, and there's the right-hand column to total up
- the score of each of those criteria to give you a score of 30, 28, whatever. And then also a column
- for whoever is involved in the review process for each person to make notes based on their, or to explain
- their score or whatever. On the list that is in the application, there's innovation, effectiveness,
- sustainability, transferability,
- two different kinds of impact, and then the matches. Is matching one of the things on the rubric? And
- how is that scored? Good question. Yeah, cash or any kind of matches. What is the value of the applicant's
- contribution to the project? And it's the same, a section for notes and a score of one to five.
- just that we could have very different scopes of projects. We could have a very small project where
- they just want to buy, you know, a compost bin or something for their business. And they're not concluding
- anything. All they want is 50 bucks for, you know. Or there could be this huge project where we would
- expect to have in kind. Well, we could, we could, I guess, alter the
- the definition that we put in there and what is the value relative to the estimated cost of the project
- in total? So even- That'd be good. And meaning that a better application would be contributing a higher
- percentage of their own money toward the project whole? I wouldn't say a better application, a better
- score on that criteria,
- be a higher percentage. Again, depending on what's being proposed and what are the options or opportunities
- for the applicant to do a match at any time. That's hard for us to evaluate. Yeah. I kind of feel like
- that one stands out as different in the way we have to think about it because it is so unique.
- to the situation and the applicant. I do think we need to note it. I think it does impact what,
- you know, the strength of the application in some ways. I just don't know if it can be rated on the
- same scale as the evidence, I guess. Do we basically want to just, on the rubric,
- Is there an in-kind match proposed? And then just what percent of the estimated total cost? Yeah. And
- they're proposing an in-kind match of 25%, a 50%, whatever that comes down to. And you don't score it
- one to five or anything. It's if it's there or it's not. And this is an additional criteria to take
- into account. Do we ask them?
- about their ability, what can they do if they're not granted the full amount? Are we doing thumbs up,
- thumbs down? Are we doing partial, if possible? One of the questions does say, would you be number 14?
- Would the project be able to continue if only partial grant funds are provided? Yes, no, explain. That's
- part of it.
- And then I also did, I thought, I also did change page 13 of the packet, the first page of the application.
- Number seven, I didn't mean to ask about this, but we originally had 5,000 in there. And then we started,
- you know, talking about what, what could you do with that? And what happened if we didn't get applications
- that total to 20,000? Could we bump that up? So.
- know I just I put in there $20,000 as appropriated for grant awards and the amount awarded may be capped
- depending on the number of applications received which is probably not the best necessarily way to word
- that but I did make that change based on that discussion and did want to ask Todd's ideas suggestions on that.
- just say the amount of each award may be capped depending on the number of applications received. Do
- you want to leave the 20,000 in there or just say the amount of each award may be capped? Is it not
- said anywhere else how much money we have? No. I think it's very important that people are given some
- idea of the scope.
- I think I agree. It has to be this that way. And I guess I put it in the application thinking that the
- total appropriations in a given year may fluctuate year to year based on budget. And then instead of
- rewriting the whole program every year, we just redo the application. Yeah, I think that makes sense.
- So your phrasing of that was the amount of each award may be capped based on the number of awards, the
- number of applicants. Depending on the number of applications received. So I just changed it very slightly.
- And it also relates to the criteria. I mean, all right.
- Well, how much you're going to give somebody relates to the criteria. We don't want somebody putting
- in an application for $100,000 project. So the idea is that
- on an annual basis, assuming that we move into the future with some sort of thing. The applications
- would be due early in the year and awarded early in the year. In my mind, ideally, we would
- do the application process at the end of the previous year. So that they could have a calendar year
- to implement.
- Yeah the effective date be January 1. They can start spending money or whatever that they could be reimbursed
- for. There is a there is a clause in the agreement that you know if they spend money before the agreement
- is executed they can't get reimbursed for that. And we can and that's something that we can tweak year
- to year if we want to.
- establish a start date. But yeah, in my mind, we're doing this at the end of the year for the following
- year's awards. And
- we obviously don't want somebody putting in an application and then seeking reimbursement for something
- they spent six months prior to applying for the grant. And it's 100% it's a totally just reimbursable
- grant. There's no other there's no like cut them a check and have at it. Well there's there's a there's
- in the grant program it says that if like if somebody's if
- If one of the Parks and Recs Department wants to buy recycled plastic benches for a park, we would prefer
- for the district to deal directly with the vendor they've identified and cut the check to the vendor.
- We'll buy it. We'll make sure we get our tax exemption on it and all of that stuff. If that, for whatever
- reason, can't or doesn't happen, reimbursements will only be made to the organization awarded the grant,
- not to any individual.
- that that's all spelled out in there. I did see something about that, okay. But it's not, there's no
- instance in which we would cut a check to the organization for the total amount they've been awarded
- for them to go do their thing. Only if that was to purchase an approved product
- that couldn't be purchased directly by the district for some reason. If their grant was $10,000 by $10,000
- worth of those benches, and for whatever reason they had to buy on the set of us doing it directly,
- then we once they submitted invoices and receipts and proof of purchase, then we would reimburse them
- for that. That's reimbursement, but would we give them $10,000 and let them go shop and now buy? No.
- That's what I was asking. No, because we have to go through the state law. Yeah, no.
- Um, is there any other reimbursement possible other than purchases? Like if they were going to make
- copies or have a website or something? Well, a website would have an invoice. I guess those copies are
- purchases. So the copies. Don't the Sophia Travis grants just go out as checks? Uh, we do and it's, um,
- I can't see all of your face, but I saw enough of your face. I'm not comfortable giving somebody a check
- and saying, go spend it. Because we're not just doing not-for-profits here. Well, that's true. We have
- people that don't have 501c3s, civic organizations that may not be traceable, could be a neighborhood group.
- Yeah, I mean, the mission is a little bit different, for sure. Like Sophia Travis grants, we were trying
- to be, at least when I was on it, as low barrier as possible to, you know. And social service. Yeah.
- The city, Jack Hopkins grants are done on a reimbursement basis. So I just came back to the grant agreement
- document. So number one says the purpose is to enable the district to award a grant of X dollars.
- for the purchase of something. So there's no, you don't envision any way it could be for a purpose other
- than a purchase. Where are you? The grant agreement. Agreement, okay. I was thinking of changing the
- word purchase to purpose, but if they're all
- No. The only thing eligible would be a purchase. Well, because, I mean, if you look at. The examples.
- Yeah, I mean. Purchases. Well, there's purchases, but. Trying to see. Under page 10 of the packet,
- project guidelines at the bottom. Proposals may include but not limited to projects related to new or
- expanded recycling programs food waste diversion initiatives environmental education programs waste
- related public outreach initiatives recycled content purchase initiative. But when you're dealing with
- educational programs and public outreach programs that's not necessarily a purchase depending on what
- they're proposing to do. But then you get it.
- If it's not a purchase are we paying for somebody's staff time. You could be paying for a contract with
- a consultant. Right. And that's and we talked about that at the last meeting too and I suppose that's
- you could say that's a purchase but that's not necessarily a purchase. So. So I would change. For the
- following. The purchase.
- Well, it's the the. The sentence is just this is the purpose of the grant agreement is for the purchase
- of and I was proposing to change that for the purpose of and then you could still fill in the blank
- to say for the purpose of purchasing, right? The purpose could be purchasing or the purchase. The purpose
- could be contracting with. Yeah, somebody to do.
- a survey of people about something in order to then to phase two of the implementation. Okay. Yeah.
- Administrative expenses wouldn't fall under that, right? Like I don't know what administrative. I don't
- think so because administrative expenses to me implies the day to day expenses of running their business
- or agency.
- That's operations in my world. Yeah, okay. That's what I think it means. Is that what you think? Yeah.
- Yeah, I think it is. Where does it say that, that they can't use it for administrative? Just at the
- bottom of this. How did you program description? In the bold. What was that? Bottom page.
- I don't think that that was explicitly in the last version that way. That bolded section was changed
- based on our discussion last month. Is there any other feedback on this? So were you saying, can you
- bring this to the December meeting? If the committee is agreeable to that.
- And if there's no questions or concerns of taking it to a vote, then we can hold off. So I also make
- just a few little typographical corrections in the dropouts. On my documents? I know. I've got nerves.
- I guess in a broader sense, I mean, I understand
- the impulse to do this project and to take on this. But it feels like there are things that the Waste
- Reduction District could be working on itself or might want to focus on or might want to add to. And
- now there's $20,000 less.
- So I'm bigger picture, 10,000 foot view. Is this really what we want to do? I get it. I think it's hard
- to say what applications we'll get. If we only get things that benefit a small number of community members,
- then maybe we won't do it again.
- And we did vote on the budget for it with the understanding that we would do it for at least 2026. Maybe
- it's something to evaluate afterwards. It just seems that... I'm trying to be delicate here. It just
- seems that it's an unusual thing for the council to add something to a budget.
- to the county council to add something to the budget and say, oh, this is what you should do. The council
- didn't. The council didn't. So where did that come from? It was in our budget. But didn't that come
- out of 2023's discussion or 2024's discussion? Did it? I don't know. I wasn't here anyway. OK. I thought
- it kind of came out of
- you know, the success that we had with One Sustainable Joe and thinking of maybe other entities out
- there that could do similar work. I thought this came out of a council recommendation on budget previous
- year. Not this year, previous year. I honestly don't recall if the council made any comment or suggestion
- to that effect. But you're saying that the council only approved this budget for 2026 with the understanding that
- This is part of it. I was saying that the board of directors, the. Oh, OK. Oh, OK. Oh, OK. It wasn't
- highlighted specifically as well. We're not going to. Because no. OK. There was no comment made about
- that. I'm just trying to look at the origin story. Right. I mean, I wasn't around last year for this.
- I wasn't in the group. So I'm not sure if this type of thing. I wasn't in the group. So that's why. OK.
- For me, it came from comments made from some board members over the past year, maybe two, about a desire
- to do a community grant. Community programs. And so that's why I made the effort to build it into the
- budget for 2026. Right. Right. And I get that. I just, my mind always goes to what could go wrong, right?
- you know, I'm an optimist, but. Right, and that's the thing, like we, if we don't get any good applications,
- then we don't have to do anything. Right, there's no obligation to award any of them. Does that have
- to just stay there? I don't know. We reserve the right to hold on to our money. And I just worry like
- next year, so let's say we do three grants.
- you know, and it's 15,000 total in 2026, and we're just kind of like, blah, it's okay, it's fine,
- it's good, great, but is it bad if we don't do it in 27, then? Did we set an expectation? Have we? Well,
- I tried to- You know what I'm saying? Yeah. In the resolution itself, I tried to give the board the
- ability- This is a one-year thing. Well, it says, you know,
- In the now therefore section it says that be established beginning with the calendar year 2026 and that
- the appropriation 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. Right. So there's
- no obligation to do it after 2026 if the application if we just you know based on what we get it's —
- And we're not obligated to... It might be next year, it's $50,000 for 27 or it's... Or 10,000. 10,000
- again or whatever. Yeah. I tried to word the resolution to give the board that flexibility moving forward
- based on what our experience is. I get it. I guess it's because we haven't been part of that initial,
- the origin story of where this grant came from.
- So I also think, I mean, at least we talked about it, at least in the same breath, it seemed as the
- other project that I can't say what kind of composting it is, but it's a very interesting term. Focaccia.
- Focaccia. That sounds like what?
- And it also came up during that conversation when they came and asked for money and the board agreed
- to give them money. And then there was concern to just come and ask. And so when you did a grant program,
- it brings some constraints in on that. Gotcha. So the other reason that this came up for me, and I'm
- sorry to take us off on a tangent, but that's what I do. The other reason this came up for me is because we
- During our recycle day, I was at Bethel Lane at the Northeast. And it was, we had an interesting discussion
- with McKinley, who was the attendant there. And we were talking about all the ways we could really start
- our own green waste program.
- you know, can we use the landfill to do a food composting program and how could we do it and what it
- would take? And now there's less money on the table to do something like that because we're doing this,
- right? And that's not to say that that's a bad thing. It's just that we have to think about the things
- we're not doing ourselves and we don't have the money to do that whole program, right?
- But like to do a yard, a green composting, and then do a food composting and do all that, you know,
- we just don't have the money to do that. But we have the capacity, not just given the money. So maybe
- that's something that someone can help. That's where it is. You see what I'm saying? I mean,
- that's the 10,000 foot view. When you do this, it's great. It's it's I think it will help people maybe
- think about.
- ways that they can do things in their community or in their neighborhood. What is it preventing us from
- doing? Right. What are we not spending money on? We have no shovel-ready projects, so even if we have
- an idea... We have snow and we have shovels. I'm saying that for 2026, I think it's safe to... I don't
- think there's an opportunity cost of the 20,000 because we don't have anything in mind that we need
- that money for.
- But let's say in 27, we want to do it and we need $50,000, but we only really have 20,000 left in our
- budget. Now we've spent 20,000 on community projects that we could have moved forward and put toward
- something else. So you know what our cash balances are, so it seems unlikely. I know. But I'm just not
- out there. Would it make you feel better if we called this a pilot, probably?
- I mean, I don't know what you're proposing at this stage. I am just having a fulsome discussion about
- the 10,000 foot view of how we got here. And we have to also think about what we're not doing and what
- we want to do. And I don't want us to stop thinking about what we want to do with this district that
- will benefit the community. And so what do we do to get
- something shovel ready. I mean, that's not going to happen overnight. Who's going to work on it? How
- does that happen? Well, we have to, I mean, the board has to give direction to the district if we want
- them to do specific things. Or the staff needs to bring ideas to the board. There's a two-way street
- there. Right. But I agree that, you know, we don't have any shovel ready projects. And I think that
- given our cash balances, I don't know that if we expend the whole $20,000, that's really going to put
- us in a position where we can't do something we decide that we want to do. And I think that if after
- going through this process for 2026, we will have a better idea of what are the pros and cons,
- What is the community benefit of us continuing to do something like this? And again, the board is not
- obligated to continue this program beyond 2026 if they don't see a benefit to it. Yep. No, it's good.
- It's all good. I'm just wanting to have that discussion. Yeah. Because there may be something that comes
- out of this that we can actually pick up and carry ourselves to. Yeah.
- you know, make available for the wider community. I mean, who knows? That's one of the criteria, is
- transferability. Where are those again? Related to transferability. So by giving grant funds, do we
- get any rights to any kind of idea that they test out?
- I didn't discuss that with legal. Is this something where we want to say that the idea can't be copyrighted?
- In other words, we don't want to fund an invention that someone's going to make money off of, and then
- we can't actually carry the program forward ourselves or someone else can. I get where you're going,
- but I think I'm taking it one more step. If it's a good project and it goes forward with or without
- us, that's fine.
- It's just devastating. Yeah, no, that's true. Unless they make it so expensive. I think it needs to
- be very clear that this is not like, hey, we're going to help you start your business. I think that's
- where you're going, right? We're not going to provide the seed money for you to make a profitable business.
- Well, maybe we want to if they're going to do it now. Well, I don't know that.
- I mean, if somebody can take $5,000 and turn that into a profitable business, more power to them. I
- don't know that our dollar limits are such that that's a real feasible idea. But it is a legitimate
- concern, and I will run that by legal about what happens if
- somebody proposes something that we want to reward and there's a potential trademark copyright or a
- patent, what happens to that? Yeah, I mean, it says, can the project be implemented by other groups,
- communities and organizations to achieve the same or similar benefits? So, I mean, I guess somebody
- who reads this will see that
- And yeah, and the intent of that statement is if it works for you, can we suggest it to other people?
- Right. So if they have a legal problem with that, then they can pursue that question, I guess. So for
- this coming year, we obviously aren't getting any applications by the end of the year. So it's going
- to be a little bit of a stricter timeline? It's going to be condensed at the beginning of the year.
- And depending on what applications we get, if somebody needs nine months to implement what they're proposing
- and we want to award that, we're going to have to push it through if we're going to use 26 money to
- reimburse them. And I think $5,000 goes pretty quickly. Well, it does. But you don't know what you're
- going to do.
- And the way that it's phrased now, you're not limited to asking for $5,000. We just may not give you
- what you're asking for. But we've done, just again, reporting from the city's Jack Hopkins program.
- It's reimbursement, and they aren't notified usually until the beginning of June. And then they have
- six months, or seven months, I guess, at that point, too.
- put in a reimbursement request. Yeah, that all goes away. That all goes away if you just give them a
- check and say, go with God. Right. That might be, we don't do it that way. We don't do it that way.
- Well, I mean, it's, it's a, there was, there's sort of a, an approach there that, like I said, was meant
- to be very low barrier.
- Oh, I'm sure you saw it. Like, at the top of the application, it's like, and if you're not a 501c3,
- click here and fill out this application to become one. You know? I mean, it's not just successful.
- It was, you know, just trying to get money out there. I think it's not quite that much of a circus.
- I'm making it sound like it's a circus. No, you're not. For me, it's good.
- For me, the intent of this is not just to throw money out in the community. The intent is to encourage
- people to do things that are in line with our mission and put them in a position to continue that beyond
- the term of the grant. We'll help you buy the materials and stuff to set up a recycling program in your
- office, and we want you to continue it after you get that set up.
- And we have a great business network that can help with that. By the way, does it say anywhere that
- they have to spend the money before the end of that calendar year? Yeah, it says all receipts or three
- voices must be presented by December 1st. Yeah, request for reimbursement have to come in by December 1st.
- to move this forward with the changes we discussed? I think so. I mean, I would like to. I don't know
- if there's a consensus. I would like to ask Joe, if you don't mind, have you looked at this? Do you
- have any input as somebody who has applied for grant money? I have looked at it. Actually, the only
- one thing that was on my mind was there was the,
- a question in the application about what regulatory and oversight agencies have jurisdiction over your
- agency. I think that would probably be a confusing question to somebody who's not in agencies in general.
- Maybe like an example would be helpful. Just thinking of I'm an average person, I'm not in like IDEM.
- Yeah, yeah. Someone who doesn't quite maybe know what the nature of the question is. And maybe say what
- regulatory and or oversight agencies
- If any, you have jurisdiction over your agencies and then get some examples. Would that help?
- I think so. I think examples are good. Because if I'm just average resident, not in industry, I would
- have been confused by the question. And in some instances, the answer may very well be no. Right.
- Yeah, and I think it's helpful to add so people aren't trying to figure out what their age is. It could
- be like an HLA, if it's a neighborhood park. I mean, it doesn't have to be a government group.
- That's true. So I put those kind of examples in there. Thank you. Yeah. Here's your question. All right.
- us to move that to the agenda for next week. Okay, with me. Sure. Okay. Then we can go on to the proposed
- meeting schedule for 2026. Yeah, I do think it's under resolution. It's something new. We've not, I
- don't know if we've ever done it. It's certainly been a long time if we have, but other
- government bodies in the city and county government tend to do it that way. We did it for the first
- time this year I thought. The county council's done it. No we just always discuss it and then we put
- it up there. We've always done a resolution. We just do a vote without a discussion. I'm not sure that
- we're expecting any changes to the makeup of the board.
- And so sometimes we know there's elections coming and we know that one, two, maybe three members are
- going to change. So we hold off on establishing the schedule, but we know what their availability is.
- But I think for next year, we're okay. Well, all of the board commissioners are members, so that's not
- going to change. But council could change liaisons. I don't know if yours can, but county council
- You said the City Council, the appointment is done for your term. Usually I discovered that it shouldn't
- be concurrent with a council term. We thought it was yearly, but then a Dan Swofford is appointed by
- the commissioners. Well, not yes officially, but not really, because what we do is we go to the Elstville
- town council and we say who wants to serve?
- somebody, they tell us who and we make the appointment. But his term will be up as well, I think. His
- term is up this year. I previously advised Angie of that, and she knows that that re-appointment needs
- to happen. Hopefully, your colleagues will send you back here, can't they? I hope they do. Send you
- back to the dungeon? Yeah. The depths of solid waste.
- There are very few, if any, liaison ships that I wouldn't want to do for at least two years. I feel
- like the first three are figuring it out. In some cases, the second year as well. So all the dates look
- fine. For me, it's a terrible time of day to be having a meeting.
- Whatever. It's, you know, that's, yeah, no, just go forward. It's just, yeah, I think, I think it,
- I think, um, if there is, if there is a discussion at the meeting among the members about whether or
- not Thursdays at four o'clock are good to continue, and there's no real agreement, then I think you
- should at least set the January meeting. Yes.
- and not the others, and then in January have that discussion. Historically, I think that's what we've
- done, set the January meeting in December, and then in January, we do the schedule for the rest of the
- year. I think, but now with the virtual setup that we have now, it's easier for our tech services and
- the commissioner's office and we're doing the room reservations and stuff for us to just stay here.
- Then the only other thing
- As I've done every year, September 10th is identified as a meeting day. We know that will conflict with
- budget hearings. And so we can leave it on there like we usually do and then cancel the meeting or reschedule
- depending on whether or not there's a need to meet. Or we could just leave it off and then call a special
- meeting if there's a need to meet. I think you leave it on and you cancel it if you have to. I mean,
- there are so many unknowns
- in September and October regarding the availability of Matthew Hill Room. Anyway, I mean, it throws
- off planning commission meetings. It's, you know, it's. Right. So we know. So I would just leave it
- on. And that's it. That's why we've done it in the past, even though we know that it would be an abbreviated
- meeting if it happens at all because of the council budget sessions.
- But at least it's on there and has board members thinking September meeting, and if we need to meet
- on a different day, it's on people's minds. Yeah, let's move that forward. So what is the rationale
- for doing resolution? I don't know. Because you said we usually don't do resolution. We usually don't.
- Council. I got, I got from the Council office earlier today, their resolution for the 2026 meeting schedule.
- So we just want to be like, we always, we always do them in the court of commissioners. We do the resolution
- for the holiday schedule, calendar for the next year. We do our meeting schedule. All right. Plus it
- gives me a document to send the commissioner to office of tech services to say here it is. Yeah.
- Citizens Advisory Committee. I was shocked when I read this. Oh yeah, we had some things happen. So
- if we don't, we need to have a representative from the waste management industry. We don't have to.
- We can't force somebody. The only stipulation in the law is that
- Waste management industry representation has to be under 50% of the membership. OK. So it's not a requirement
- to have one. It's not a requirement to have somebody. Because I would imagine that that's there because
- if the person may not be a resident of the county, they can still be a member of the CAC if they are
- a representative. OK, got it. So my understanding is that Rumpia is doing some reorganizing, and I think
- Bill just put that in there because it may not be his requirement to come to me, but Runke, I anticipate
- that Runke will submit to have somebody put back on the CDC once they get things reorganized, once they
- get their structure reorganized. That's where I was going next, is there some other, yeah. Okay, good.
- Should we reach out to the public? Somebody might have a problem.
- Can we reach out to Republic again and ask them? We can. I mean, their issue has always been that they
- want to put the person they want to appoint does not reside in the county, and that is a specific report.
- Oh, they do have the limited time. Yeah, I didn't know that. It doesn't matter who you're representing.
- You have to reside in the county to serve on the CAC. And the problem then is, but the problem with
- that is that if
- we have so few members, then we're going to be at that maximum cap potentially. Well, we have two out
- of five that are still less than 50%. Right. But if it's two out of four, you're at 50. Right.
- I don't know. And then if something happens and one of your county residents resigns and can't serve,
- then you've got to boot some of them. I think in addition, you told me once it could be up to like 16
- or something. Yeah. Yeah. I think that maybe a little push
- We have a Facebook post today. I asked you, Lisa, once this all came about, I said, we need to promote
- the CAC. Yeah, for sure. I can reach out to the Environmental Commission. Maybe one of them would like
- to do it. Oh, because? Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, it even has crossed my mind that, I mean, because those
- are all public meetings.
- Yes, that's true. And see if somebody is interested. Yeah, we'll mention it in our commission meeting
- soon. All right. So we'll do the resolution to repoint the three. That we've not done under resolution.
- No. Oh, that's just a vote. It's just a vote. Somebody makes a motion. Somebody can move to reappoint
- the whole slate or
- two of the three you know. Is it always annual? Yes sir. All right then for review we have Garden Quest
- report. Yeah I just put this in there just so it was here and we can say yes we do or yes or no we do
- or don't want it on the December agenda but Garden Quest was aware of the situation last
- last month and is prepared to come to the December meeting to present this if that's still desired.
- I think so. Any opposition to that? Sounds good. All right, then we are at the point of all other items
- deemed appropriate. Does anybody have a guess? I got a few.
- It was suggested to me a few weeks ago that we try to have a second joint meeting with the CAC because
- we hadn't had that. That was discussed with the CAC at their meeting. I think they had a forum that
- would be available to meet immediately following the December board meeting. So if there's still a desire
- to do that we can pull board members and see
- Who's planning to attend and who's available to stay. I do know Mayor Thompson will not be at the meeting.
- And I am probably not going to be able to be there. At the meeting at all or to stay for a while.
- You're okay. So I guess I'll I'll pull board members either way and make sure we're going to have four
- there for the meeting.
- So I'll pull the board. We'll see who's planning to attend and who would be available to stay for a
- joint meeting and if there's still a desire to try to have a look at you two since Commissioner Thomas.
- What do you propose the agenda would be? What was suggested and probably is good and I think that's
- what we talked about at the CAC meeting was take
- We're at the conclusion of that five-year plan. And just kind of look at that and what we accomplished.
- What we not accomplished. Why were things accomplished or not accomplished. Why are they abandoning
- us. Oh sorry. Yeah that's personal. Sorry. And I we could put on the agenda although I still don't have
- much information on this the state's new materials management plan.
- But it's not been released that I know of yet. Well, it's released. You can talk about it. But if not,
- then it should be the conversation for 2026 joint meeting. But whatever we do beyond this five-year
- plan that's coming to an end is all dependent on that materials management, or not all, but is. So who's
- issuing that? I do. Do you know for sure it's coming this year?
- They said it was. We've got a month left. Just asking. Sometimes you don't want it. There's a lot of
- us that have been asking for a couple of months. Where is it? Where is it? There's a couple other things.
- We are having to bring our mowing and snow removal in the house.
- The company that we have been using is going out of business. Anderson? No, they just they do the landfill.
- Cleaner Lawn and Landscape, which has done our mowing and our snow removal. The mowing would be, the
- snow removal is where we run into a snag. Nobody wants to deal with the gravel loss of the sites. Didn't
- I see some snow blowers on the one of the planes? Yeah, so purchase snow blowers.
- The big one you're going to see is we're putting a plow on a second pickup truck that's coming.
- That will. From a company out of Jasper. We actually put the lift gate on the truck so that he'll see
- that at the board meeting, but they're not on the vendor list. But so so is that.
- Something that gets removed in the spring and attached to the fall and that lifts and it's got the lifting.
- Yeah, you have to attach full plow for the pickup truck. But we already have one truck that has a plow
- on it, but I wanted two because I don't want six inches of snow on the ground and the one truck being
- in the shop. So we're going to have to do that. But then we'll, moving forward, we won't have to budget
- for snow removal. We won't have to budget for
- for lawn care. We've already I guess we have it already. Well we have our mower in possession. You'll
- see that one at the December meeting too. They delivered it to us but we haven't paid the bill for it.
- So there will be a couple of a couple of substantial claims to approve at the board meeting for those
- two things.
- We've been dealing with Facebook slash Meta over ownership of our business profile so that we could
- establish an Instagram account. Somehow, someway, our business profile is owned by Scott Morgan, our
- former employee who is no longer on Facebook, does not remember his login information.
- Probably because that's how they were set up. I mean, that's, I mean, it's a personal, usually it's
- somebody who's a person has an account and then they create the business account. And it was just not
- something, you know, when he had his health issues and ultimately had to retire, that was just not something
- that we thought about. And it was never an issue until we wanted Instagram because Metta owns Instagram.
- But they will not, I mean, we've had,
- Myself, Elisa, and Lambert Consulting, all going around and around and around with Meta, and they are
- not going to release it without Scott logging in. Can't just create another one? Well, that is one option,
- but we have an established Facebook page. Yeah. And it can't be where you were how that happens. Right.
- You know, we're working with Lambert Consulting and we're looking at those types of options and what
- can we do and what impact does that have on our existing page? But right now, I'm kind of ready to let
- the Instagram issue die for the time being because I guess I can't say at a public meeting some of the
- thoughts that have crossed my mind about Meta. So,
- But that's where that is. Are you all on Blue Sky? Yes. Yes, we are on Blue Sky. I forwarded to the
- three of you earlier today the email I got from Tansy with Rocky Mountain Institute. It's really hard
- to read that. I was like, dang. Yeah, so that was really
- Maybe they'll come up with something. Not what I wanted to hear, but so it does. I apologize.
- That's OK. Maybe they'll come up with something. Yeah. So we'll just kind of have to let them do with
- it and see what other options they come up with. But the Duke program that we were looking at does not
- appear to be a feasible option for a project this small. Unless the county wants to eat $50,000 annual
- fee to buy that electricity.
- Well, it seems like it's much bigger than that. It's not just, oh, you need one person to buy. Oh, yeah,
- no. That's why the project's too small. If the cost is more expensive per kilowatt hour, why would anybody
- do it? It's just silliness. It's discouraging. Yeah. Very. It was. It was hard to see. And then the
- last thing I have
- We previously talked about the new website accessibility requirements that are coming in April. I had
- a meeting with Greg Cron from County Tech Services this morning, and he showed me that if you open our
- website in Google Chrome, Google has this neat little analytics tool that is, I believe he said, has
- been updated for what those new requirements will be in April.
- And we got a 91 score, 100 on it. That's what we were looking at today. So a little work to do, but
- we were green. It graded us green, so we're in pretty good shape. But he showed me how to use that to
- go through page by page and item by item. But he says that if we use that tool and all of our pages
- are showing
- in mid-90s that we're in good shape. And everything on the county website is automatically fine because
- it's going through the state's process. Yeah, he did say because the county's now hooked up with the
- state, we can't really piggyback on that. We would have to go do it ourselves or become a page on the
- county's website. But he seemed pretty confident that if we use the Google Analytics tool
- and went through the website that we would, and had all of that in a good score, that we would be in
- good shape, and then just any time we made any alterations or uploaded documents to the website, run
- it again on whatever page you've modified and tweet whatever you need to tweet. But my point is if you
- put a packet on our website with the calendar, that packet,
- of information that meeting packet? I will give the same about it because we didn't, we did, we did,
- one of the things we look at today, there's a link out there that goes to the new fee resolution that
- was just passed, which is an uploaded PDF document that's had OCR run on it. And, and that's, that's
- still got the 91 score. Well, but 90, are you saying that
- that page got a score of 91, but that packet wasn't scoring 91. That packet was part of the page. Yeah.
- No, no, the packet was a page, except as you click the link on the page and then the document opens
- up. It's an intro. Yes. Yeah. Analyze that document too. It's a weird. It's a weird.
- I met with him today and he showed and I'm not saying that we're perfect and you know we don't need
- to do anything but he gave me some things to look at and to play with and I'm sure I'm sure um uh Kayla
- Strand's gonna help me do this she's pretty tech savvy so the two of us are gonna start going through
- our website page but hey I'm sure I told Greg and I said I'm sure we're gonna come back to you because
- we're gonna hit things that
- are different than what you and I looked at today and aren't gonna make sense to us. We said that's
- fine. But in any way, I guess the bottom line is, and we've got four months. This is a free option.
- So before we go and spend money on a subscription service or something like that. What I'm saying is
- you don't need to. We're gonna see where we can get to with this.
- And my thought was that, well, we have the ability to do this on our own, and then we'll turn it around
- and take it to the web host and have him grade it out for us. Grade it out, meaning review? For compliance,
- yeah. With the guy in compliance. Because he's, Matt's been our web host, he's
- got a bunch of sites that are going through the same thing. So he's going to be familiar with these
- guys. Matt Aldrich is his name. He's in Michigan somewhere. Mr. Lambert? Yes. Well, all I can say is
- that what I hear from city council staff and city legal and the mayor's office is that they think this
- is going to be huge and that
- The way we do reading packets is going to have to change. And especially anything that has tables in
- it. Images. Any images have to have descriptive tags. Well, that was true beforehand anyway. But not
- in certain environments it wasn't. It's always been true. It's literally been the law. There was no
- change in the law. It's just a change in enforcement. Really? Yeah.
- It has always been true. But they've listed it on the on the on the federal website as an ADA rule change.
- Why did they list it that way? It's an enforcement change. It's literally under, you know, it has been
- required for any public website to
- be compatible with its WCAG guidelines. So the guidelines didn't change? Well, they update them every
- so often. Yeah. But it's literally, it's just an enforcement uptick. And I think it's cool,
- but it's not, none of this stuff is new in terms of, because we do this where I work for websites and
- other programs. It's just all parks related.
- But when we look at people's stuff, you know, it's none of the stuff. I have another meeting, so I'm
- going to skedaddle. And see you all. Bye. I know, I have a 5.30. I think we're done. Did you have anything
- else, Tom? No, that was the last thing that I had. OK, well, thanks for keeping us updated on those
- things. We'll look for that lower, snow blower, whatever. Oh, I'm sorry.
- If it's all right, I just had like a one-minute update on the Back to Earth program because there's
- been so much waiting throughout this year and we've delayed the end date. I did finally follow through
- with two different sites in the last month. So they both started the weekend before this past. One is
- the UU Church of Bloomington, which has 12 households representing 25 total participants, which is on
- the average high end of the existing sites. And the other is Woodlawn Crossing.
- which is with the Abodes Property Management Company who has the first participating site in the woods.
- So they now have a second and they have seven households and nine participants. That's cool. So I just
- wanted to make you aware that those did finally come through the final hour. Excellent. Yes. Good work.
- Thank you. Thank you. And he's kept me in the loop on all of that. Yes. So we're staff is ready to assume
- the remainder of the department period once. Great. Contracted. That's very cool.
- Thank you. All right, thank you. Anything else?