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?