City CouncilJul 9, 2026

Highlights

• Unverified item. Flagged · Unverified

  EDC says it's dropping automatic 10-year tax abatements — and a $30-50 million project is headed to council soon

  Outcome: No abatement was voted on; this was a briefing, and a formal request is expected in the coming months

  1:10:37 — open the recording, cued to 1 hour 10 minutes 37 seconds
• Money

  Council fixes a paperwork mix-up and keeps Govina Inc.'s tax abatement active

  Outcome: Approved unanimously by voice vote.

  0:08:40 — open the recording, cued to 8 minutes 40 seconds
• Money

  Council approves $750,000 to rebuild Ray Park's tennis courts this year instead of next

  Outcome: Approved unanimously by voice vote.

  2:23:59 — open the recording, cued to 2 hours 23 minutes 59 seconds
• Unverified item. Flagged · Unverified

  A union rep says the YMCA expansion's contractor isn't following Terre Haute's responsible-bid rules

  Outcome: No vote; this was public comment only. The council took no action, and the disputed ordinance interpretation remains unresolved.

  0:26:23 — open the recording, cued to 26 minutes 23 seconds
• Money

  Sewer bills are on track to rise 10% in 2030, plus a new $3-a-month stormwater fee

  Outcome: No vote yet — the rate ordinance is expected to come to council August 6, 2026 to introduce and September 3, 2026 for final action.

  1:28:30 — open the recording, cued to 1 hour 28 minutes 30 seconds
• Money

  Council adopts a new city wheel tax — but says it replaces, not adds to, what you already pay

  Outcome: Adopted unanimously by voice vote, as amended.

  2:17:52 — open the recording, cued to 2 hours 17 minutes 52 seconds

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Meeting

Terre Haute City Council · Jul 9, 2026

Length

2:39:14

Lines

509

Transcribed by

mlx-community/whisper-large-v3-turbo

1. 0:00:00 — open the recording at 0 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): I will be able to order the special meeting of the Terre Haute City Council on Thursday, July 9, 2020. Michelle, will you please call the roll?

2. 0:00:12 — open the recording at 12 secondsMichelle (clerk): Councilperson Azar. Here. Councilperson Boland. Present. Councilperson Chalos. I am present. Councilperson DeBond. Here. Councilperson Dinkle. Present. Councilperson Hinton. Councilperson Loudermilk. Here. Councilperson Nation. Here.

3. 0:00:30 — open the recording at 30 secondsMichelle (clerk): Councilperson Thompson. Here. Eight are present. One is absent.

4. 0:00:35 — open the recording at 35 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Perfect. This special meeting is a hearing concerning tax abatements. CF1 forms found

5. 0:00:39 — open the recording at 39 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): not in substantial compliance. The first form under review is CHI overhead doors for resolution 11 2021. Do we have a petitioner?

6. 0:00:52 — open the recording at 52 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): Good evening.

7. 0:00:56 — open the recording at 56 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): Hello. My name is Tisha Pfeiffer. I'm the CFO of CHI Overhead Doors. I want to thank you

8. 0:01:04 — open the recording at 1 minute 4 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): for the opportunity to speak this evening. We value our presence in Terre Haute and we appreciate the city's continued partnership. We're here to provide a clear and honest update on our progress under resolution 11 2021 and our plans for continued growth in the community. We've invested approximately $10.7 million in new machinery and equipment, which is exceeding the original $9 million commitment. The equipment is fully installed and operational at this time. We've maintained a local payroll of $4 million, which is roughly 71% of the amount committed.

9. 0:01:43 — open the recording at 1 minute 43 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): While our headcount is only 54 of the 130 in the commitment, we've created positions that pay 1.7 times the wage projection in our original statement of benefits. While we're falling short, we do feel like the pace of hiring has been affected by the market demand conditions, but our commitment to growing in Terre Haute remains firm, and we're backing it with investment. We just purchased a property north of us, $650,000. dollars. We cleared the property. It had a dilapidated building that had caught fire. So we have cleared that off and prepared that for expansion. We're also actively pursuing

10. 0:02:33 — open the recording at 2 minutes 33 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): relocating our rolling steel manufacturing division from Arthur, Illinois to Terre Haute. That will bring a second shift to the community as well. It's a higher wage. It's a fabricating positions, so we're excited about that. That is driven by volume. That particular line is up 13% while our regular business is only up 6%, so we feel like those added jobs will be great. We also continue to invest in the community, so most of that's through donations for local softball clubs of that sort. We do also get summer internship program through

11. 0:03:14 — open the recording at 3 minutes 14 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): ISU. We currently, over the last three years, we've had nine of those. Our sponsorships include the Wabash Valley Basketball Classic, the Boy Scouts Athletic Association, the Terre Haute Northwest Vigo, and Clay City Softball. We also donate to the Central Indiana Asphalt Shriners Golf sponsorship and do the Toys for Tots during the Christmas drive. For these reasons, we respectfully ask the council to allow our abatement to continue as we work towards the next phase of our expansion.

12. 0:03:51 — open the recording at 3 minutes 51 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Council, are there any questions?

13. 0:03:54 — open the recording at 3 minutes 54 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): Council person Thompson. Thank you for coming in today. Did we have you come in

14. 0:03:58 — open the recording at 3 minutes 58 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): last year as well? When I saw the letter, it started bringing back some recollection. When we

15. 0:04:07 — open the recording at 4 minutes 7 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): first heard the resolution, it was just us as the council, we all recalled that there was a reason we had you come back last year and you explained it to us and we just couldn't remember.

16. 0:04:20 — open the recording at 4 minutes 20 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): Yeah, so our CEO at the time was in Indiana.

17. 0:04:24 — open the recording at 4 minutes 24 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): We were purchased by Nucor Steel Corporation and our CEO was promoted to an EVP. So his residency is still in Indiana, but the payroll has moved to the corporate office.

18. 0:04:35 — open the recording at 4 minutes 35 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): So that was a fairly significant amount of the payroll drop for the Indiana Terre Haute area.

19. 0:04:41 — open the recording at 4 minutes 41 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): And that makes a lot of sense. And I remember you explaining it to us last year.

20. 0:04:46 — open the recording at 4 minutes 46 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): I would recommend when you do file again next year, just including something like this to refresh a recollection. Because when we tried to go through the record, we couldn't find what you had explained to us last year. Yeah. So, no, I appreciate this, and I think it's great that you're looking at relocating the Rural and Steel Division to Tango. We really appreciate that. So I yield.

21. 0:05:16 — open the recording at 5 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 42 (staff): Mr. President, as a reminder, your action tonight will be a vote to approve, which means it carries over to next year, or a vote to deny. If you have a vote to deny, then the next step would be a recension resolution. Thank you.

22. 0:05:30 — open the recording at 5 minutes 30 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Councilperson Nation. First, I echo Councilperson Thompson's thanks for coming in tonight. And this is pretty clear. I am concerned that you're under half of the additional employees that you projected. and I'm wondering, are you hiring now?

23. 0:05:57 — open the recording at 5 minutes 57 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Do you have an estimate or a target for where you want to be this time next year?

24. 0:06:04 — open the recording at 6 minutes 4 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): Yeah, we're actually hoping to at least add 10 heads over the next 6 to 12 months probably.

25. 0:06:13 — open the recording at 6 minutes 13 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): The Rolling Steel Division, that move will have to come from Arthur, and that's a lot of equipment. That's why we think it will take 12 to maybe 18 months. So that move will start to bring some people over to Terre Haute at that time. So we do feel like it will be probably a 20 to 30 percent headcount increase is what we would hope. The second shift is what will really probably bring that in, and that will probably be could double the headcount, but that will take probably the 18 months.

26. 0:06:44 — open the recording at 6 minutes 44 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Is bringing the rolled steel division over from Arthur, Illinois, is that a separate project that you intend to pursue tax abatement for? No.

27. 0:06:57 — open the recording at 6 minutes 57 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Okay. Well, again, I thank you very much. I yield.

28. 0:07:08 — open the recording at 7 minutes 8 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): Mr. President?

29. 0:07:09 — open the recording at 7 minutes 9 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Thompson.

30. 0:07:10 — open the recording at 7 minutes 10 secondsAmanda Thompson (councillor): If there's no further questions or discussion among the council, I would move that we approve CHI Overhead Doors LLC and their continued tax abatement.

31. 0:07:29 — open the recording at 7 minutes 29 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. I've been moved by Councilperson Thompson, seconded by Councilperson Loudermilk, that CHI Overhead Doors LLC's CF1 form for Resolution 11-2021 be approved.

32. 0:07:42 — open the recording at 7 minutes 42 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): All those in favor, say aye. Aye. All those opposed, say nay.

33. 0:07:47 — open the recording at 7 minutes 47 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): The motion passes, and it is approved. Thank you.

34. 0:07:49 — open the recording at 7 minutes 49 secondsTisha Pfeiffer (resident): Thank you so much. Thanks.

35. 0:07:53 — open the recording at 7 minutes 53 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): The next hearing will be on Gavina CF1 form for Resolution 10-2020. Petitioner, good evening.

36. 0:08:01 — open the recording at 8 minutes 1 secondSpeaker 73 (staff): As a reminder, you do have an amended version in front of you.

37. 0:08:04 — open the recording at 8 minutes 4 secondsEddie Felling (resident): Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

38. 0:08:07 — open the recording at 8 minutes 7 secondsEddie Felling (resident): Council, Eddie Felling, Felling, Farnsworth, and Woodkey here on behalf of Govina, Inc. It's owned by Kirby Johnson here locally. While you're looking at that amended one, if you don't have the original, the concern I think that Councilman Nation had was that on the original form, the total number of employees showed 152, which was considerably higher than what the proposed additional employees were on the SB1 form. I met with Kirby and his financial group immediately after that meeting, I guess it was last month.

39. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council fixes a paperwork mix-up and keeps Govina Inc.'s tax abatement active

    0:08:40 — open the recording at 8 minutes 40 secondsEddie Felling (resident): What they did and how they came up with that 152 is they ran an audit from December or January 1 of 25 all the way through like March or April when they filed this form, and they did it based upon every W-2 that they issued. so that's not an accurate reflection of how many employees they have on any given date. So they averaged it out, and we did it together, came out to exactly 62. That's the rolling average that they would have on a monthly basis. So they're three under what was estimated on their SB1, and they're above on what their proposed salaries were.

40. 0:09:19 — open the recording at 9 minutes 19 secondsEddie Felling (resident): So they've corrected that in the future, and as a side note, I know they're not on the agenda this evening, but we had kind of an opposite issue with Fox Hotel Partners. I met with their group afterwards. They had a similar problem where they only pulled full-time employees because they had a lower number. So hopefully this corrected two issues with one hearing.

41. 0:09:42 — open the recording at 9 minutes 42 secondsEddie Felling (resident): Happy to answer any questions.

42. 0:09:47 — open the recording at 9 minutes 47 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President?

43. 0:09:48 — open the recording at 9 minutes 48 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Nation.

44. 0:09:49 — open the recording at 9 minutes 49 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Eddie, thank you for coming and telling us about both of those situations. And I would recommend that we, based on Eddie's representations here, that we find Gavina Resolution 10-2020 approved.

45. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council fixes a paperwork mix-up and keeps Govina Inc.'s tax abatement active

    0:10:15 — open the recording at 10 minutes 15 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Shalos. The Govina CF1 form for Resolution 10-2020 be approved. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Motion passes. Govina CF1 form is approved. Appreciate it.

46. 0:10:31 — open the recording at 10 minutes 31 secondsGeorge Azar (councillor): Move to adjourn.

47. 0:10:33 — open the recording at 10 minutes 33 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. It's been moved by Councilperson Azar, seconded by Council Bolin, that we adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. Special meeting is adjourned.

48. 0:10:40 — open the recording at 10 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 90: You guys are lucky. I knew you wouldn't be able to adjourn. Thank you.

49. 0:10:46 — open the recording at 10 minutes 46 seconds Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

50. 0:23:46 — open the recording at 23 minutes 46 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): At this time I call to order the regular meeting of the Terre Haute City Council Thursday, July 9, 2026.

51. 0:24:09 — open the recording at 24 minutes 9 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): The first item on the agenda is a moment of silence and pledge of allegiance to the flag. Tonight the pledge will be led by Councilperson Tammy Boland.

52. 0:24:16 — open the recording at 24 minutes 16 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

53. 0:24:46 — open the recording at 24 minutes 46 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you.

54. 0:25:16 — open the recording at 25 minutes 16 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): on non-agenda items. Speakers who signed up in advance will be called in the order they signed up. After that, the list has been exhausted. Anyone wishing to speak may do so if time remains. When your name is called, please approach the podium, state your name for the record, and limit your comments to three minutes. Public comment is an opportunity for members of the public to address the council. It is not a question and answer period, and speakers should not expect back and forth discussion with council members, staff, or others present.

55. 0:25:42 — open the recording at 25 minutes 42 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Please direct your comments to the council as a body and maintain respectful conduct so that everyone has a fair opportunity to be heard.

56. 0:25:50 — open the recording at 25 minutes 50 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): First on our list this evening is Lisa Earls.

57. Highlight · drawn from this moment: A union rep says the YMCA expansion's contractor isn't following Terre Haute's responsible-bid rules

    0:25:53 — open the recording at 25 minutes 53 secondsLisa Rose Earls (resident): Lisa Rose Earls, I am the representative for the local union 197 painters, drywall finishers and glazers out of Terre Haute. I'm here to speak about the YMCA that's being added on to. It falls under the responsible bid ordinance that was signed by Mayor Sackbun. And I've been having an issue with Garmon hiring non-responsible bidders. They have Anthony Anderson signed up to do that project. And I know that they are not a responsible bidder. I do have an email from the Department of Labor saying that they are not signed up with them.

58. Highlight · drawn from this moment: A union rep says the YMCA expansion's contractor isn't following Terre Haute's responsible-bid rules

    0:26:39 — open the recording at 26 minutes 39 secondsLisa Rose Earls (resident): They are in no way certified with them with their apprenticeship. So I have requested copies of the proof that they – because if we are on a job, it's very easy for us to get a certification from the Department of Labor stating every apprentice that's on there, what year they are, all that stuff. We can get a certificate in about an hour. So I just want to see their paperwork because I haven't seen it. I was also told by Tyler at Garmong that the responsible bid ordinance falls on each package price instead of the project, which I don't believe is true.

59. 0:27:20 — open the recording at 27 minutes 20 secondsLisa Rose Earls (resident): It's just kind of a loophole that they found in there. So it really needs to be looked at so that these projects are done by responsible bidders because you're going to get better work quality. You have trained members. I don't know if anybody heard last week, Anthony Anderson is actually working on the technology building at ISU. They painted over some data cables that were installed. $600,000 mistake. So unless you have extra money to spend on the YMCA, I would request that you try to get responsible bidders are. So I have a list of the

60. 0:27:57 — open the recording at 27 minutes 57 secondsLisa Rose Earls (resident): information that I'm requesting if somebody would like to have that. It was also emailed to Mayor Sackbun, so he has that.

61. 0:28:05 — open the recording at 28 minutes 5 secondsLisa Rose Earls (resident): That's all I have to say.

62. 0:28:07 — open the recording at 28 minutes 7 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): Can I ask her to email? Councilperson Boland. We don't typically ask questions. I just didn't get the contractor's name that you were. Anthony Anderson. Anthony Anderson. Okay, thank you.

63. 0:28:23 — open the recording at 28 minutes 23 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Next on the list is Vicki Kurtz.

64. 0:28:30 — open the recording at 28 minutes 30 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): You already know what I'm going to say. Is it about cats?

65. 0:28:38 — open the recording at 28 minutes 38 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): Been here, done that. Okay, January 15th I was here and Mr. Dinkle mentioned that, yeah, he kind of agreed that we needed some alternative place to take animals. We are absolutely swimming in caps out here. I'm happy that Tammy is here because God knows she's swimming in caps and doesn't answer the phone with good reason. The other thing is the colony license. I want that reinstated. I don't know how to do it. It was mentioned, I think City Legal was here, that Robin couldn't find it. We only did six. I have copies. What happened, and I explain in the letter that I'm going

66. 0:29:19 — open the recording at 29 minutes 19 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): to hand out to you, is that Mayor Bennett, after we were off, we only had three-year terms, that was it. It just died. Until Mayor Sackman came in, it revived. That's what has happened. In that interim, nothing was done. During that interim, code was not sending people to court because they had over six pets. That has changed. I'm really fed up with it. Richard and I are real familiar with this room. Okay, and then John Early White, he's got kittens now. So Raven Bell, she's a force. She's 20-something. I'm really old,

67. 0:29:57 — open the recording at 29 minutes 57 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): and he's in between. Why are we, we trapped 55 cats since spring in that horrible block. It's Chalosis. It's your block. And so we have, what, five people on code, I think. Five? Why aren't they doing it? Well, I can tell you. It's about money. And I really wish the mayor would get with it. I've met with him. I've given him info on TNR. TNR works. Bloomington, of course, they've been doing this a long time. You know, I mean, we've kind of been lagging behind. Litters go to the shelter. They don't hand them out to every idiot that isn't going to spay and neuter them.

68. 0:30:32 — open the recording at 30 minutes 32 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): And then, gee, we have litters again. And that's what's happened in this neighborhood. And if code would do its job, and I'm not happy with them, there are cats all over that neighborhood. There's bowls on the porch. They don't belong to Richard. And yet this is the criteria. I know Trevor. I asked Trevor and I said, what's the criteria? He says, well, somebody complained. And I thought, oh, well, good. That's nice. So then you go harass people. So that's got to change. I mean, I don't know. I'm going to meet with the Board of Works on Monday.

69. 0:31:00 — open the recording at 31 minutesVicki Kurtz (resident): Oh, I dropped everything. The Board of Works on Monday because I'm hoping that we can get past this. And what a managed cat colony does, there's criteria for how you do it. You feed them in the morning. You don't feed them for the raccoons. There's all kinds of things, and they're inspected, and code knows where they are. And then what happens? Another cat's going to come. It's dealt with. It's trapped, ear-tipped, whatever. But I am so sick of all these 37 years I've been doing this, since 1989 or 90. And we have really good laws. Most of them are good old Norm, that Norm sponsored.

70. 0:31:38 — open the recording at 31 minutes 38 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): but they're not all enforced a cat is supposed to pet your pet cat supposed to be on the property of the owner just like a dog unless it's under restraint somebody emailing well I'd like to see you walk my cat well too bad you can be cited because it's spayed and neutered and so forth I just want this taken care of and I don't know if you do it I don't know how city legal has the right to even say we're not going to do manage cat colonies. I don't know. I mean, where that comes from. So if you don't do them, then the people, like Richard and all the ear tip things running around, plus his tame

71. 0:32:20 — open the recording at 32 minutes 20 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): cats have little collars on. So then people like him are going to be dragged into court every time somebody says, oh, there's cats all over. Well, we know where the cats are coming from and we're dealing with it. But anyway, we're slowly dealing with it. But we trapped all those and it's really hard when you have a colony that big to get them all. I mean, it's just, I've been doing this. Anita Oswald and I were doing this in the 90s when I didn't know what you called it. It's called TNR now. It's T-N-V-R because they put vaccine in there. And the shelter has a good program, but

72. 0:32:52 — open the recording at 32 minutes 52 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): Mayor Sackman needs to, is he here? No.

73. 0:32:57 — open the recording at 32 minutes 57 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): Okay. Mayor Sackman

74. 0:33:00 — open the recording at 33 minutesVicki Kurtz (resident): needs to get the word out about what's going on the shelter. And I shouldn't have to pay for the cats that I trapped. It's 60 bucks. And people are on Facebook all the time. There's a litter. There's a mom. I don't have the money. And I just, it's just putting such a burden on people. And this one woman was in a pet store, but she couldn't afford the kitten at the starter kit. And somebody heard it, but then they couldn't get her. And so those kittens will die without it. And it's not fair. It isn't right. So that's my message. and I think about potholes in the spring. They're so important.

75. 0:33:38 — open the recording at 33 minutes 38 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): This whole cat myth, it's like you're filling half the pothole but not the rest of it and it's time that that changes.

76. 0:33:45 — open the recording at 33 minutes 45 secondsVicki Kurtz (resident): Anyway, this is a letter for later. Thank you.

77. 0:33:50 — open the recording at 33 minutes 50 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): You don't have to throw it away? No.

78. 0:33:55 — open the recording at 33 minutes 55 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Next on the list is Erica Canton.

79. 0:34:00 — open the recording at 34 minutesErica Canton (resident): So I started with Vicki also in the late 80s. We were on the Animal Control Commission for the city for years. We've done trap, neuter, and release. And, you know, Albert Schweitzer said you can judge a civilization by the way it treats its animals. And our portion of the civilization in Terre Haute isn't doing so well about the way we treat our animals. The shelter is not taking any cats. All the cat rescues are full. So what are citizens supposed to do with these cats that show up at their house? I had a five-week-old kitten show up at my house this morning. I live in Tarrytown.

80. 0:34:34 — open the recording at 34 minutes 34 secondsErica Canton (resident): We have quite a few cats living on the streets there. And so, you know, citizens are being punished for feeding and caring for animals, yet we have nowhere to take them and no recourse. And the managed cat colony licenses that were like 2011, I think, that those were issued, and somehow they're no longer being honored or being, you know, you have to vote on that. You can't just decide you're not doing that. because what are citizens supposed to do that care when these animals show up at their home? So it's just I don't know why we can't allocate more money to spay and neuter

81. 0:35:13 — open the recording at 35 minutes 13 secondsErica Canton (resident): and get these cats under control that are breeding on our streets. It makes a bad impression when you're driving through neighborhoods and you see all of this. It just makes us look bad and animals suffer.

82. 0:35:26 — open the recording at 35 minutes 26 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you. Next on the list is Taylor Bullock.

83. 0:35:31 — open the recording at 35 minutes 31 secondsTaylor Bullock (resident): Hello. Not going to lie, I thought I was a sign-in sheet and didn't really mean to sign up to speak. But my name is Taylor. I own Happy Tails Animal Rescue.

84. 0:35:44 — open the recording at 35 minutes 44 secondsTaylor Bullock (resident): I came here kind of just to hear about the cat topic. And I do agree. I think it's hard. You know, Tammy has over 200 cats, and we're about 80 animals, and we're caring for them. I'm trying to TNR myself five cats a week at the Terre Haute Humane Society. We're still paying $60 a cat and I'm trying to help people when they can't afford to get their cats fixed to pay but also caring for their amount of rescues I personally have. I traveled to Kentucky about a month and a half ago, looked at their Alley Cat Advocate program. It's a beautiful TNR program.

85. 0:36:16 — open the recording at 36 minutes 16 secondsTaylor Bullock (resident): I would be glad to sit with someone and kind of go over what they do. Their city generates the funds to pay for those cats. I mean, they're spaying and neutering thousands of cats a month. They turn them back to the colonies they came from. It's just a really, really good program. I know we don't have a lot of funds in general, but it just seems like animals a lot of time get back on the wayside. And, like, when we don't have a spot, Terre Haute Humane Safety doesn't have a spot, Tammy doesn't have a spot, and citizens are just trying to feed and, you know, water kittens, cats,

86. 0:36:50 — open the recording at 36 minutes 50 secondsTaylor Bullock (resident): I don't feel like they should be punished for doing so. Until someone maybe gets a spot doesn't mean we can't ever get a spot. But obviously spaying and neutering is the number one thing we're ever going to do to manage these colonies. So just wanted to bring out there are programs that look like they have gone well. I've traveled. I've seen it. It's a great program in Kentucky. And maybe just sitting down and seeing what they do to kind of help our community as well. Thank you.

87. 0:37:14 — open the recording at 37 minutes 14 secondsJames P. Chalos (councillor): Thank you. Hey, Mr. President.

88. 0:37:16 — open the recording at 37 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 170: Councilperson Chalos. Can we give the mayor a little time to explain? Let me get through with public comment.

89. 0:37:23 — open the recording at 37 minutes 23 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Next is Caitlin Penn.

90. 0:37:26 — open the recording at 37 minutes 26 secondsCaitlin Earls Penn (resident): Hi, Council. My name is Caitlin Earls Penn. I am a volunteer with Wabachi Valley Feline Rescue here in Terre Haute, Indiana. I have been a community cat caregiver for about five years, since 2020. My colony in North Terre Haute has about 35 cats that I care for. I would hate to be punished to care for my animals. I feel this town needs to do better. We need to step up for them. We are failing them. The last week I have rescued a kitten from Lockport who was bleeding from her ears and her face. I have rescued a kitten that was six weeks

91. 0:38:07 — open the recording at 38 minutes 7 secondsCaitlin Earls Penn (resident): eight weeks old, 15 feet in a tree, screaming. Couldn't help. There is no kitten mother around there so somebody abandoned that kitten. Somebody threw it out at that stop sign. We need to do better. It is an embarrassment to drive through town and see all these animals roaming. So I just beg all of you to sincerely think about all the animals that desperately need help. Thank you guys so much. Thank you.

92. 0:38:41 — open the recording at 38 minutes 41 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Next on the list is Donna Kelly.

93. 0:38:49 — open the recording at 38 minutes 49 secondsDonna Kelly (resident): Hello. I'm Donna Kelly.

94. 0:38:51 — open the recording at 38 minutes 51 secondsDonna Kelly (resident): I'm a citizen actually of North Terre Haute, but the one thing that I notice, I'm involved on Facebook and helping to support the rescues and individuals that are out helping the animals. And some of the people that I know are struggling themselves just to pay their own bills and keep a roof over their head, yet they're sacrificing their time and their money to go out and help these animals, whether it's they're helping to feed animals that are in their neighborhood. or like I have donated to individuals that are paying to spay and neuter cats on their own

95. 0:39:40 — open the recording at 39 minutes 40 secondsDonna Kelly (resident): to help try to control the community population. So I think that whatever we can do as a city to help support that and control our cat population is very important and help to support these individuals that are also trying to support the rescues. Thank you.

96. 0:40:03 — open the recording at 40 minutes 3 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you. Is there anybody else from the public who wishes to make public comment at this time? You can come forward.

97. 0:40:16 — open the recording at 40 minutes 16 secondsSpeaker 192: Are there eight council members?

98. 0:40:18 — open the recording at 40 minutes 18 secondsMichelle (clerk): There's nine, one not here. Nine. She'll get the information.

99. 0:40:21 — open the recording at 40 minutes 21 secondsPhil Decker (resident): Can I please pass this? Can you pass the run? I don't read so good. My eyesight's not bad. So if I stumble, they made some great points.

100. 0:40:35 — open the recording at 40 minutes 35 secondsPhil Decker (resident): Good evening, council members. My name is Phil Decker, and I am here tonight to address the severe synthetic structural failure with Terre Haute City Code Section 686, Regular Animal Control, as it stands as ordinance of legal impossibility and direct violation of Indiana state law. First, the council needs to be aware of a crucial administrative catch-22 currently happening in our city code. Code 768 penalize citizens for maintaining what is defined as an unmanaged cat colony. The only lawful way to comply with this code is to register a managed cat colony permit.

101. 0:41:14 — open the recording at 41 minutes 14 secondsPhil Decker (resident): However, the city legal and the Board of Public Works have instituted an official administrative freeze, completely halting this process in insurance of these permits. This creates a doctrine of impossibility and possible compliance. Under the Fourth Amendment, a guaranteed of procedural due process in municipality cannot penalize a citizen for failing to possess a license that the city itself actively refuses to issue. You cannot mandate registration while simultaneously banning the ability to register. Secondly, there's only two pages, as you see. I read a little slow. Sorry.

102. 0:41:59 — open the recording at 41 minutes 59 secondsPhil Decker (resident): Secondly, the ordinance violates the Indiana Home Rule Act. Under Indiana Code Section 36135, a local unit of government may not exceed its powers expressly designated by the statute or guaranteed to another state entity. Furthermore, the Indiana Code Section 36138A7, the presumption clause, explicitly prohibits municipalities from regulating control that is already regulated by a state agency. Population management, disease control, and domestic feral animals destination falls under the supreme administrative purview of the Indiana Board of Animal Health.

103. 0:42:41 — open the recording at 42 minutes 41 secondsPhil Decker (resident): The landmark case, City of Gary v. Indiana Heritage Trust Fund Board, the Indiana Supreme Court ruled that local ordinances are legally invalid if they stand as an obstacle to accomplishment, the execution of the full purpose and objective of the state's legislation. By freezing permits and penalizing residents, Terre Haute broken code directly frustrates state-aligned trap and neuter return objectives and veterinary health programs.

104. 0:43:15 — open the recording at 43 minutes 15 secondsPhil Decker (resident): Therefore, I urge this council to immediately order a freeze on any and all enforcement actions under Section 6-86 and issue an administrative stay on all pending court proceedings until the council can fully review this code and ensure total state compliance. I encourage the body to examine, successfully model in our state, such as Bloomington, Indiana, which has used the TNA to drop the field shelter utilization rate from 600 down to zero. And she mentioned Kentucky, too, has a great program. Sorry.

105. 0:43:54 — open the recording at 43 minutes 54 secondsPhil Decker (resident): The Bloomington reference integrates Bloomington Actually Municipal Ordnance Framework Ordinance 7-01, which legally protects air-tipped community cats from running at large citations. The proof and numbers from 2003 before TNR trained the Bloomington Animal Shelter used 600 feral cats in a single year by implementing a collaborative community TNR framework with local rescue groups like Feral Cat Friends Incorporated. The number plummeted to 16 and 215 and reaches zero uses after 2016.

106. 0:44:35 — open the recording at 44 minutes 35 secondsPhil Decker (resident): The legislative lock of the City of Bloomington Common Council legislative framework specifically highlights the traditional trap and kill model fails because of the vacuum effect. Removing a colony simply causes new feral outdoor cats to move in and breed rapidly. Sterilized returned cats maintain their territory and completely freeze the reproduction cycle. Local ordinances, their activities support caregiving instead of penalizing them.

107. 0:45:07 — open the recording at 45 minutes 7 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Can you please wrap your comments up?

108. 0:45:10 — open the recording at 45 minutes 10 secondsPhil Decker (resident): Huh?

109. 0:45:10 — open the recording at 45 minutes 10 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Can you please wrap your comments up?

110. 0:45:13 — open the recording at 45 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 203: There's two paragraphs out there if you want to read it. Your time's already expired.

111. 0:45:17 — open the recording at 45 minutes 17 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): You can go ahead and continue, but take 30 more seconds and that's it.

112. 0:45:20 — open the recording at 45 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 197: Thank you, sir. To fund the effective program, we must reevaluate our municipal priorities.

113. 0:45:27 — open the recording at 45 minutes 27 secondsPhil Decker (resident): This funding is funneled into municipal parks that only a fraction of the population utilizes. Diversing a small percentage of the budget to manage the stray and feral animal population, directly address the biological health and safety of our entire community, we're talking about lives of these animals and public health versus playing on a swing set.

114. 0:45:50 — open the recording at 45 minutes 50 secondsSpeaker 206: And since you gave me the extra time, I'll just like to read, or you just could read the last paragraph. Your time's expired. Thank you, though. Thank you, sir.

115. 0:45:59 — open the recording at 45 minutes 59 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Appreciate your comment. Does anyone else from the public wish to make comment at this time?

116. 0:46:07 — open the recording at 46 minutes 7 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Chambers. Since we're talking about enforcement, do we have the mayor? If you have a question for the mayor, he can come up.

117. 0:46:17 — open the recording at 46 minutes 17 seconds That's mine.

118. 0:46:23 — open the recording at 46 minutes 23 secondsMichael Wright (staff): Michael Wright. I just want to start by dispelling some of the things that I heard during the course of that presentation. First, we have worked with every person who has been cited into court for violation of the Cat Colony Ordinance, including Mr. Hatcher, including Vicki. we have done that over the course of months, trying to get a better understanding of what we're dealing with from an overall perspective, even looking down at the individual colonies as they exist now. I have never, ever made an unequivocal statement that cat colony license are not going to be issued.

119. 0:47:31 — open the recording at 47 minutes 31 secondsMichael Wright (staff): I know that is not my role. I can read what the ordinance says now. Who grants those? Who oversees them? What they are intended to do? I know how the legislative process works. I know what everybody's roles are in local government. And that is clearly outside of city legal's purview. Our role is the enforcement of the ordinance as it exists now. And that's all we are doing. You've heard from a lot of passionate people here tonight, I assure you there are people just as passionate calling our office, calling the mayor's office, calling the humane shelter, talking about their inability to let

120. 0:48:23 — open the recording at 48 minutes 23 secondsMichael Wright (staff): their kids go outside in the neighborhood for fear of cat scratch fever or some other unintended consequence that comes about from having unregistered feral cats unmanaged throughout the city. And we know it's a problem. We realize that, and we are trying to work compassionately with those who share that same view. It is not presenting a lot of easy solutions. I'm glad to hear there are creative, outside-the-box ideas, and we are willing to listen to them. But we know that it is something that the executive branch, in conjunction with the legislative branch, is going to have to deal with.

121. 0:49:24 — open the recording at 49 minutes 24 secondsMichael Wright (staff): because it is clearly an issue that people are passionate about. So I just wanted to dispel the idea that we are being rigid with the defendants in these cases. We are reacting to the complaints that we get. That is what code enforcement does. People call in 311. They make allegations. Code enforcement goes out and seeks to verify or disprove what was stated in that. It's anonymous. It's meant to be a method of action to make things happen, and that's what code enforcement does. I think to change that, to change the way they operate in their areas of expertise, I think is misplaced as well.

122. 0:50:34 — open the recording at 50 minutes 34 secondsMichael Wright (staff): So I think they're doing a tremendous job in a very difficult environment. So thank you.

123. 0:50:46 — open the recording at 50 minutes 46 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Good evening, Council President Dinkle and members of the Terre Haute City Council. So first I want to thank you. This body actually did approve additional funding for two programs. One, the spade and neuter program, which does target zip codes. And as I said in December, I'll say the same thing today. After a full calendar year of doing this, we will look to see if the money that was used in targeted zip codes led to fewer roaming dogs. This was our dog-specific program.

124. 0:51:15 — open the recording at 51 minutes 15 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): We were very specific in doing just certain neighborhoods where we got the most calls to start before we just put some money towards a problem, to be completely honest. We wanted to do a small sample set, see if it works, and then expand on that program. And this council was supportive of that, and I thank you. The second is the TNR program, which we did work with the Animal Commission to help the Terra Humane Society on. And obviously it sounds like, you know, that needs looked at for some additional opportunities.

125. 0:51:46 — open the recording at 51 minutes 46 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So we will definitely reach out to some of the folks here today, I think specifically Taylor's recommendation about Kentucky. I know Governor Beshear has done a lot there with this problem. I think there's some value in looking into that. But I also do not want to dismiss the work that the nine of you have done with our city controller, with our city clerk, with the city staff. because when we put, you know, we almost doubled certain budgets with this problem. And obviously there's a long way to go, but I'm not going to dismiss the work that you all have done and the city of staff has done

126. 0:52:19 — open the recording at 52 minutes 19 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): because when I hear that the city is doing nothing after literally doubling budgets, it can be quite frustrating. And I know our code enforcement, yes, they do try to proactively drive around their districts, but we get so many calls that it turns them into a predominantly reactive body. So I have families in this community who are scared to be in this room tonight out of fear of retaliation because they are scared of their neighbors and the neighbor cat colonies. So yes, there are people who are passionate on both ends of the spectrum,

127. 0:52:55 — open the recording at 52 minutes 55 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and we are working to balance that, appease both the groups, and say we are looking at a code that is beneficial for cats and dispels some of the rumors behind cat colonies, quite frankly, as well as balance the issues of the families who called who did not want to be here today because they were afraid to be here. So there's a lot that comes in that we have to balance. We'll continue to balance it, and we'll continue to work with all of you who have helped us increase funding for this problem. And obviously it's not solved. No one thought it would be solved from January to July,

128. 0:53:30 — open the recording at 53 minutes 30 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): but we have made strides and we'll continue to do so. So pending any questions, I'll go back and grab my laptop as we move to communications from the mayor.

129. 0:53:40 — open the recording at 53 minutes 40 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): I do have a question. Is the city still issuing cat colony licenses?

130. 0:53:46 — open the recording at 53 minutes 46 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): No. We are pausing on those while we review the code, and as Michael has said and code enforcement has said, we are not like, yes, there are people who are coming to city court, but they are not getting intense fines or seeing legal action. It's a very deliberate pause in that. So yes, the permits are paused, but the enforcement to an extent is paused. I mean, it's not like we're going there mandating that they come in and then pay a large fine. That is not happening. But there is a pause. It is on the Board of Works agenda for Monday. Frankly, you guys have done this with a lot.

131. 0:54:21 — open the recording at 54 minutes 21 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): You've helped me do this with most of our other permits. Building permits, for example, are now online in a quicker system. Michelle, our city clerk, Edwards, came to the administration with a great plan to update the animal license, which have been updated and are now predominantly online. So each of our permits has undergone significant change, whether it's renting a park shelter or getting a permit for a cat colony. And that's part of the problem is as we modernize technology, There are gaps between us actually modernizing a certain permit compared to when it goes into effect.

132. 0:54:57 — open the recording at 54 minutes 57 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so for me personally, yes, I prioritize our building permit change over a cat colony permit. And I admit that, and I have no problem saying that, but you have to prioritize which of these permits you update and which of these codes you update.

133. 0:55:12 — open the recording at 55 minutes 12 secondsSpeaker 234: It is on the Board of Works agenda, so the administration is working on it in full transparency.

134. 0:55:20 — open the recording at 55 minutes 20 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): And is the goal to get back to a point where we do issue them? Or, you know, if it's paused, what's the ultimate?

135. 0:55:28 — open the recording at 55 minutes 28 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I mean, the ultimate goal is, one, you know, we do need to look at the code. The Animal Commission has been asked to look at the code. We do have an Animal Commission. The code has to be looked at legally from the city attorney as well as the city council attorney, as well as from a city judge perspective. So these code reviews simply take time, Councilman Dinkle. And, yes, we've seen what Bloomington does. We've seen what a number of cities do. And there's a lot of challenges that we have to evaluate and work through. So we are in that process.

136. 0:56:00 — open the recording at 56 minutesMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): That process takes time. And then we're going to continue to seek feedback. Thank you. Thank you.

137. 0:56:07 — open the recording at 56 minutes 7 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): For everybody who's expressed frustration, confusion, everything tonight, I want you to know that you're not alone because I'm sitting here reading city code, and I like to think I'm pretty good at interpreting city code. And 686 is confusing. It's very confusing. I can't tell you. There's Mays where there could be shalls. I can't even tell you reading this whether it forces the administration. In my opinion, it does not force the administration to issue them, but I'm not an attorney and I'm not going to pretend to be.

138. 0:56:36 — open the recording at 56 minutes 36 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Needless to say, I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done to the code to the mayor's point, and I hope that we can continue to work towards that and make it more clear and better for all parties involved.

139. 0:56:46 — open the recording at 56 minutes 46 seconds Thank you.

140. 0:56:50 — open the recording at 56 minutes 50 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you, sir. Thank you. Yes, Councilperson Bowen.

141. 0:56:53 — open the recording at 56 minutes 53 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): I just have a couple questions. I don't know who can answer them because often you see on social media a public vet coming in. You can register your pets. Is that, you know, you never know if you see it on social media. Is that a legitimate program that works? I mean, I know there's some guidelines with regards to documents and financial state, but that is a legitimate program that works when we're able to utilize it.

142. 0:57:15 — open the recording at 57 minutes 15 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): That's one of our partners, Councilwoman Boland, that some of the funding that you guys approve within that Board of Works budget goes to that. So they are one of our top partners. And then the Tarot Humane Society, now that they have that vet, they have carved out time specifically for us. And then the third program, the TNR program, we also, like, we do some of the trapping ourselves, as well as, you know, some volunteers engage in that activity.

143. 0:57:42 — open the recording at 57 minutes 42 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): Okay, thank you.

144. 0:57:43 — open the recording at 57 minutes 43 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): Thank you. And for Taylor, is the program that you went to look at in Kentucky, Lexington, Richmond area?

145. 0:57:49 — open the recording at 57 minutes 49 secondsTaylor Bullock (resident): It was about three hours. I think it was a little bit.

146. 0:57:53 — open the recording at 57 minutes 53 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): Yeah, so when I Googled it, it came up as Louisville. Okay. It's a private website.

147. 0:57:58 — open the recording at 57 minutes 58 secondsTammy Boland (councillor): I'm familiar with a couple of them down there, too, so I'm interested in hearing about what you learned and just see where it goes from there. Thank you. I yield.

148. 0:58:07 — open the recording at 58 minutes 7 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): This time we have a presentation from Ryan Wickens from the Metropolitan Planning Organization. Ryan Wickens, Metropolitan Planning Organization

149. 0:58:17 — open the recording at 58 minutes 17 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): I don't really have much of a presentation, just a discussion.

150. 0:58:20 — open the recording at 58 minutes 20 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): I'm here today to discuss the community outreach event that I got planned for July 22nd. We kind of talk about council or to the council about that and the members of the public. This public outreach event serves two purposes. is we are rewriting the Collaborative Public Transit Human Service Transportation Plan. And that plan looks at a targeted population, the elderly, the disabled, and low income. And it kind of looks at gaps and barriers that limits their access to transportation services. So we bring people together and we discuss that and try to resolve those.

151. 0:58:54 — open the recording at 58 minutes 54 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): And the second objective of this plan is to develop a public transit improvement program. The mayor has asked us to spend some of the urban funds that we have. Currently there is $4.8 million in transit funds, and it costs the city of Tarot about $2.8 million to run the transit program. We have reserve funds, and maybe we can do sidewalks, benches, shelters, lighting. I think that we should be trying to install some ADA pads, especially in front of the that should be the number one project going out the door. I've seen bus drivers drop people off in wheelchairs at the ramp,

152. 0:59:37 — open the recording at 59 minutes 37 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): not the ramp, but the curb cut at Footer's Pizza. Very dangerous. So we need to have some type of platform where they can pull over, get the ramp off and out the door. That's a solid pad. I've sent out notices to a lot of the social service agencies. I'm trying to get anywhere from 15 to 20 organizations to have resource tables at this event. I've heard back, and I've got commitments from four organizations right now, the Indiana Workforce Development Board, the Wabash Valley Health Clinic, Taro Transit, and I believe Thrive West Central is also going to be there.

153. 1:00:21 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): The flyer that I gave you has the QR code for the online survey. Me and Debbie Hensley last month printed off a lot of the surveys that went around the transfer station and got the riders to fill them out, or we helped them fill them out. I wasn't aware of the lack of the ridership and their ability to read and write, so we were helping them out. And we're going to try that again here in a couple of weeks. collaborative transportation plan i've laid out a year long from may 2026 to may 2027 to get this complete so we've got plenty of time to kind of reach out to the community and get some some

154. 1:01:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 5 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): feedback from them so if you guys can maybe show up to the meeting on the 22nd and help me support

155. 1:01:11 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 11 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): this event i'd greatly appreciate it any questions thank you thank you ryan yeah sorry i saw some confused looks across the room so i just want to clarify something brian with the metropolitan planning organization which is a quasi-government organization they have in their account 4.8 million dollars that can be used for city of terreau transit improvements so but before we can access this state federal conglomerate bucket of money we have to have community outreach and public input public engagement so i cannot emphasize enough we want to be able to access

156. 1:01:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 1 minute 52 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): this funding frankly as an administration and as a city we haven't done the best job of utilizing our mpo for decades and we are finally uh ryan's on the mpo team with jeremy we are the last two years have been great since he's joined that team we have gotten a lot more state projects through the finish line through construction two of them are starting now in fact you guys probably cursed under your breath as you try to get into the courthouse because that's one of our state projects that's part of the MPO. So he's done a lot of great

157. 1:02:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 23 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): work. We want him to do more work but we need the public engagement so please do share that flyer so we can drive a lot of the changes. We hear a lot about changing the bus route and the bus times. This is a great opportunity to get that feedback in so talk to your connections who are like running manufacturing plans or HR organizations and say, when do your employees need to be at work and where do they live? That's the type of data that can be used to appropriately spend this 4.8

158. 1:02:54 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 54 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): million of state and federal funding. Thank you.

159. 1:02:57 — open the recording at 1 hour 2 minutes 57 secondsSpeaker 284 (councillor): We did this last year, right? We collected some data last year in the same way at the

160. 1:03:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 2 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): library. Well, that was part of the TIP and the TIP amendment. There's a lot of government acronyms, but yes, is the short answer, but we have to amend it. It's weird.

161. 1:03:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 12 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): This collaborative transportation plan has to be rewritten every five years.

162. 1:03:15 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 15 secondsRyan Wickens (staff): Okay. So all of the urban funds are tied to that and the enhanced mobility funds. So we get about a quarter million dollars every year. And those funds are basically driven to not-for-profit organizations. So CARS, Child Adult Resource Services, they got the money this year and they bought two new buses.

163. 1:03:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 35 seconds Thank you.

164. 1:03:36 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 36 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you, Ryan.

165. 1:03:39 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 39 seconds Yep.

166. 1:03:40 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 40 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Corrections to the general from the preceding meeting.

167. 1:03:43 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 43 secondsMichelle (clerk): There are none.

168. 1:03:44 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 44 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Communication from the mayor.

169. 1:03:56 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 56 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Yeah, the first one.

170. 1:03:59 — open the recording at 1 hour 3 minutes 59 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I promise we only had two presentations tonight, but if Team USA would have won that soccer match, we probably would have tried to move this along, but unfortunately, we're a football country. So not able to do that today. But today, the first presentation we have is about the Terre Haute EDC. So the Terre Haute EDC currently has an interim director, Jonathan Blake. We've had some severe staff changes with the organization. But the EDC is, a lot of people think of it as responsible for recruiting the largest companies. And there is some truth to that.

171. 1:04:32 — open the recording at 1 hour 4 minutes 32 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): What we also do at the EDC, which frankly we're trying to improve how we do this, is business retention and expansion. So following me will be Jonathan Blake, our interim director of the EDC. He'll kind of talk about what BRE is, and then towards the back of the slide I'll introduce one project that will be coming to you all in the coming months and also highlight some of the many companies that are currently going through retention and expansion within our community. So with that, we'll pass it to John.

172. 1:05:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 2 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): Thank you, Mayor.

173. 1:05:03 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 3 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening. As the mayor said, I am the interim president for the Terre Haute Economic Development Corporation.

174. 1:05:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 12 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): My full-time role is with RJL Solutions, a local company, and the EDC engaged us earlier this year upon the departure of former director Steve Witt. When we think about economic development, it doesn't stop at borders. It doesn't stop at a county line or a city line or a township line. the city of Terre Haute, Vigo County, West Central Indiana, and the state are all critically connected. And our work to attract business, support businesses that are already here, help them expand and grow, meet the workforce needs that they have, takes all of us working together in unison.

175. 1:05:51 — open the recording at 1 hour 5 minutes 51 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): So economic development has changed fundamentally over the last 20 years. It used to be about chasing smokestacks and going and finding, as the mayor said, the next biggest and greatest industry. It's no longer about that. It's about quality of life, housing, workforce development, health care, public safety. All of those facets matter when we're trying to attract business and keep businesses here. It is a determining factor for when businesses choose to locate here, employees that may choose to take those jobs, and companies that choose to stay here and continue to operate.

176. 1:06:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 6 minutes 30 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): So as we think about the business retention and expansion effort, this is not just a one-size-fits-all. This really has to be tailored to our community, and we represent not only the county, but we also represent the city. So while we're called the Terre Haute EDC, we also represent the broader community. Business retention and expansion really is about getting in front of companies, helping to understand what their needs are. Do they have workforce shortages? Do they have changes in the local market conditions? Do they have certain products that are going to be changing,

177. 1:07:06 — open the recording at 1 hour 7 minutes 6 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): maybe going offline and then switching and changing equipment out to bring new processes online? Companies and site selectors expect responsive, knowledgeable information. They want to know what it is the community, the city, or the county expect, so they want predictability. And so when we're talking about attracting businesses or when we're talking about helping existing businesses grow, we have to make sure that our information is up to date. That means understanding where infrastructure is at.

178. 1:07:38 — open the recording at 1 hour 7 minutes 38 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): It means understanding what incentives may be offered to a business that's here and wanting to grow or what incentives we may be able to offer somebody based on wages, investment level, employment numbers, et cetera. And so, you know, we're working now with the board of directors and with the executive committee and the mayor's office to revamp and kind of reinvigorate the Terre Haute EDC. It is not going to happen overnight. It's going to take time. But we just completed an assessment of the organization itself. We presented that to the executive committee.

179. 1:08:15 — open the recording at 1 hour 8 minutes 15 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): And now we're starting to move into the action side of that assessment and really starting to make changes internally. That means we've got to revamp our marketing. We have to have marketing collateral so that we have information about the four institutes of higher education that we have in our community. There's not many communities that can say that, not communities our size anyway. So we have to revamp all of our marketing collateral. We have to make sure that we are competitive in the state of Indiana.

180. 1:08:45 — open the recording at 1 hour 8 minutes 45 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): When we look across the state and we see communities like Bloomington, Monroe County, Fort Wayne, Wayne County, Elkhart, they are all present at trade shows. They are out in front of businesses on a regular basis trying to understand what their needs are. Where are they struggling? Where are their pinch points? So business attraction is important, but so is supporting the business infrastructure that's already here because they're the ones that have chosen to invest here. So as we think about refocusing, you know, we have to know what our workforce needs are.

181. 1:09:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 9 minutes 23 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): We have to know where infrastructure is located. We have to start making investments in infrastructure to attract new businesses. One of the first questions that I was asked when I took this role was, where is our next industrial part? Where do we grow next? Where do we start to attract new industries? And that is a question that we're still working through with the executive committee and the board of directors. But what I can tell you is you have an executive committee, you have a board on the EDC that is focused on the future of Terre Haute and Vigo County,

182. 1:09:50 — open the recording at 1 hour 9 minutes 50 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): and that is really diving in to make sure that we are representing the needs of this community and attracting the right businesses here. When we look at the businesses that are already here, workforce becomes top of mind as a concern. And so we have to be working with our institutes of higher education to make sure that we have programs that are available that can create this pipeline of students that come out of the schools and go right into those jobs and have meaningful employment.

183. 1:10:21 — open the recording at 1 hour 10 minutes 21 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): So I'm going to turn this back over to the mayor, but I wanted to give just a brief update on some of the efforts that we're working on. As the mayor said, he's got a couple of examples that he's going to share, but happy to answer any questions now or at the end of the presentation.

184. Highlight · drawn from this moment: EDC says it's dropping automatic 10-year tax abatements — and a $30-50 million project is headed to council soon

     1:10:37 — open the recording at 1 hour 10 minutes 37 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So let's talk a little bit about an upcoming project that's going to be in front of you guys. So Project Holly is this commercial industrial machinery company that is evaluating the state of Indiana,

185. Highlight · drawn from this moment: EDC says it's dropping automatic 10-year tax abatements — and a $30-50 million project is headed to council soon

     1:10:49 — open the recording at 1 hour 10 minutes 49 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): has a small presence in the state of Indiana, but really reached out to eight communities, and our community came to the top. So this is an example of how we work with the state and the region to do BR&E at a larger scale than just locally. You know, this will be coming before you all here in the next couple of months. This is a company that is, you know, looking at a $30 to $50 million in equipment machinery, 25 to 35 jobs, and $31.64 as their average wage per hour.

186. Highlight · drawn from this moment: EDC says it's dropping automatic 10-year tax abatements — and a $30-50 million project is headed to council soon

     1:11:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 11 minutes 20 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I think what really matters here is when we look at these companies, there used to be this mindset of the EDC would come in, they'd say, hey, you know, we recommend like a 10-year 0% tax abatement. That is not what we do. That is not what you all do. You guys have a scoring criteria. And as a board, our goal now is to send recommendations to all of you before these companies come in front of the city council to kind of reestablish the partnership between you all as a legislative body and then a quasi-governmental organization like the Terre Haute EDC.

187. Highlight · drawn from this moment: EDC says it's dropping automatic 10-year tax abatements — and a $30-50 million project is headed to council soon

     1:11:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 11 minutes 52 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Next, I want to talk about four companies specifically. The first is Indiana Railroad. What this council did by allowing the city to sell the 13th and Holman property to Indiana Railroad is the definition of business retention and expansion. There's already some construction going on back there. I don't know if you've driven by. A lot of people just noticed that they cleared the woods for their larger phase of the project. But there's a smaller phase of the project where they're building out a facility right next to the railroad,

188. 1:12:19 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 19 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and they plan to then move west across the tracks to the larger piece of property that we gave to them. This is going to lead to up to 50 new jobs just within the next two to three years, and the long-term goal, we're talking over 100. The next is GE Aerospace. They were recently in the news for another, and I say another, $15 million investment in the city of Terre Haute. This has been one of our strongest employers. They've done multiple iterations of improvements to their facility, and just a few months ago announced another one in our community. GATX is another great example

189. 1:12:55 — open the recording at 1 hour 12 minutes 55 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And they've been in front of this council before, I believe And they told a story, and they have many examples of this Of a high schooler going to work from Terre Haute North High School Pretty much across the street to GATX And they're landing $25 to $30 an hour jobs At the age of 18 years old This is about workforce development As we look at our institutes of higher education as Jonathan mentioned, and the Vigo County School Corporation. The last one is Boulder Industries. So Boulder Industries currently has about 40 employees in the city of Terre Haute.

190. 1:13:32 — open the recording at 1 hour 13 minutes 32 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Their CEO actually, I was just on the phone with him two days ago, personally called the mayor and said, hey, look, we want to get bigger. We need management positions now as well as another shift, and we think if we go bigger, we can start moving engineers to your community. What are some good neighborhoods to look at, to move employees to, and who are some different contacts we can get to get our information to the community to hire more individuals. It's a fascinating company that is all about sustainability and reusing tires, but we are already doing this today, the EDC is,

191. 1:14:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 5 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): to get improvements of 25 to 30 or 50 with some of the companies we already have. Why is that important? Well, we all saw the news about Tyson Krupp closing, but there is a silver lining there. We have a number of local companies and some non-local reaching out to the EDC director, trying to get a hold of the real estate broker to try to look at that facility and purchase that facility and expand in Terre Haute. Additionally, the management team at TK has been beyond kind to the city and WorkOne to allow us to send some of our local companies into the facility to do job

192. 1:14:43 — open the recording at 1 hour 14 minutes 43 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): fairs and then job interviews inside of it before employees even get let go. And that list started at two companies and turned into eight within 24 hours. So a number of our local companies are continuously competing against one another for talent. So when we talk about business retention and expansion, a large part about that retention is workforce development. And I'd ask that you help communicate that to your personal networks as we try to grow some of the programs at the universities and the school corporation, which we are doing.

193. 1:15:17 — open the recording at 1 hour 15 minutes 17 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So in closing, we do have the previous practice on one side of the screen, right? And it was very EDC director and attorney heavy where they bring you a project that just makes it on the agenda and you learn about it. We don't want to do that anymore. Our new practice is the executive committee and the director, they review incentive applications and project details. They go through the scoring criteria that you all have created, and they try to bring you something that doesn't just look like a 10-year 0% abatement. We know under Senate Enrollment Act 1, 2025, that those years are behind us.

194. 1:15:54 — open the recording at 1 hour 15 minutes 54 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so as a board, as an EDC board, we want to start providing you all with recommendations in writing, having conversations with the Wabash Valley Contractors Association before a company wants to come and build here to offer local recommendations, and then bring you all some of the answers to the questions that we know you will ask and you rightfully should ask. And so through this new practice with Jonathan and the board's leadership, I've spent a lot of time the last few months working specifically with the EDC, and we'll continue as we kind of realign ourselves.

195. 1:16:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 16 minutes 30 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): There are going to continue to be more changes. Regionally, we are looking at the EDC model saying, hey, what happens when Sullivan, Vermilion, Clay, Vigo, and Park kind of combine? A strong Sullivan County is good for Vigo County. I know because I have realtors calling me saying they're selling homes to workers down south in Sullivan with that large technology project they have going on. So each of these satellite counties, when something big happens, it is directly benefiting us, whether that's through housing or commercial sales.

196. 1:17:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 17 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And when we talk regionally, we are starting to bring together multiple EDC groups so we can start to offer projects and proposals that include all of west central Indiana instead of just Terre Haute City Limits or Vigo County. And it's a new way of thinking, and frankly, it does fall in line with the governor's new guidance of changing things to a regional development authority. I know I have very harsh comments about him, but this is a very good one. I am happy he has made this realignment. It should have, frankly, happened under Holcomb and Pence.

197. 1:17:32 — open the recording at 1 hour 17 minutes 32 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so one thing that Governor Braun has done that I do like is he's changed to this regional model to help essentially say it's not just a rural community or an urban community, but this entire region can benefit from strong economic development.

198. 1:17:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 17 minutes 47 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So I'll pause there for any questions, and if not, get set up for our second one tonight.

199. 1:17:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 17 minutes 52 secondsJames P. Chalos (councillor): Councilman Chalos. Can you talk a little bit about public education and its impact on economic development, if you don't mind?

200. 1:17:58 — open the recording at 1 hour 17 minutes 58 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Yeah. Yeah, I actually can, Councilman Chalos. So, and some of you have heard me say this at the State of the City update, but, you know, 10 or 11 counties in the state of Indiana are responsible for 80% of our population growth. And then you've got a large list of counties, and ours is one of those, which has marginal growth, but not exponential growth. And so when you look at those 10 to 11 counties, you ask yourself, what are they doing? And a large thing that they are doing is investing in their education system.

201. 1:18:29 — open the recording at 1 hour 18 minutes 29 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): We have had conversations with companies that have identified some of our challenges with our schools, our local schools. It has frequently come up in conversation, usually housing, workforce, and education. It is one of the reasons why I've chosen to kind of involve myself in discussions of what happens, the future of the schools. But what I would remind everyone is school consolidation is a difficult topic to talk about. People are going to be frustrated. People are going to be mad. And when we have a school system that's built for like 24,000 to 25,000 students, we have 13,500 students.

202. 1:19:06 — open the recording at 1 hour 19 minutes 6 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and if we bring back all the folks from like Sullivan and Riverton Park, it's about 14,000 are transfers. That is a huge gap. And after 20 years of cuts to public education, that gap continues to grow as there are fewer students. And the birth rate, the state and national birth rate go down. I've done my part, two kids under two. But the overall birth rate goes down. It's hard to fill some of the classrooms that we once filled. And it is something that comes up in conversation.

203. 1:19:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 19 minutes 35 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I know the school board is looking at it, and I know there's this very, frankly, awkward discussion between the county council and oversight committee about what that looks like. And my request to all of you is that you attend some of these next couple oversight committee meetings and these county council meetings. Because, to be directly honest, I have had companies say, hey, look, young man, and if they start with young man, you know you're cucked. Your community does everything right for us to want to move here except for one thing, and it is the schools.

204. 1:20:07 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 7 secondsSpeaker 234: And I've had that discussion in my office in this community before, and so I will admit it is a problem that we all need to solve.

205. 1:20:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 20 secondsSpeaker 337: Councilman Nation.

206. 1:20:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 23 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mayor, in both you and Jonathan's remarks, there were references to both the Executive Committee and the Board of Directors of the Economic Development Corporation.

207. 1:20:37 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 37 secondsSpeaker 54: Can you remind the council who those people are?

208. 1:20:43 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 43 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): I wouldn't be able to name all of them, but our Executive Committee includes Steve Holman, David Baker, David Templeton, common names you hear in the community. We have about 12 on the Executive Committee,

209. 1:20:55 — open the recording at 1 hour 20 minutes 55 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): and then the board of directors is made up of a representative from every company that is a member of the organization.

210. 1:21:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 5 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): How many companies are members of the organization?

211. 1:21:09 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 9 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): Approximately. Around 50.

212. 1:21:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 12 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Around 50. It's awkward to ask you this, Jonathan, since you're the acting director, the interim director, but is there a process in place for hiring someone permanent?

213. 1:21:24 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 24 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): Yeah, so that's a great question. Yes, there is, as part of our work, there is a component that includes looking for, so recruiting, hiring, and onboarding that new interim director. The process to start, or I'm sorry, when we wanted to start that process, the executive committee said, hey, let's get through the assessment first, which we've done,

214. 1:21:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 46 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): and now they want to move into what that next step looks like in terms of finding the new director.

215. 1:21:51 — open the recording at 1 hour 21 minutes 51 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Is there a deadline is not the right word, but is there a goal for when that person might be hired?

216. 1:22:00 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutesJonathan Blake (staff): I wouldn't be able to speak to one right now. I know we're having conversations with the executive board right now on what that timing would look like. I think there's differences of opinion on what that timing looks like, but that's something I would say.

217. 1:22:14 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 14 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): I can't promise, but I would say within the next six months, but I don't know that.

218. 1:22:22 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 22 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Jonathan, I appreciate you coming and talking to the council. I appreciate this presentation.

219. 1:22:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 30 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): And I, for one, speaking on behalf of myself, feel like I have a better understanding of where we've been. And I know that a lot of us have wondered what's going on after Steve Witt's, after him leaving the job.

220. 1:22:45 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 45 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): So I appreciate the update and I appreciate what you're doing. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. I yield.

221. 1:22:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 52 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Lauderdale.

222. 1:22:53 — open the recording at 1 hour 22 minutes 53 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): Jonathan, I want to echo his comments and thank you for coming. And also reevaluating and maybe this new practice to have a little more communication with the councils. because I know sometimes it's been in the past, and I love Steve. He did a great job. There's no knock on EDC. But it was the day of where we got a phone call, and I'm hoping that we're a little more open with the council to know what we're expecting to come, and it's a little more. Because some of these things happen in our districts, and we would like to know a little bit of a head time.

223. 1:23:28 — open the recording at 1 hour 23 minutes 28 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): So I really appreciate you guys working on that. Thank you.

224. 1:23:31 — open the recording at 1 hour 23 minutes 31 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): The current thing that we were doing with this first project, but we've got a lot of applications.

225. 1:23:36 — open the recording at 1 hour 23 minutes 36 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so I want to see if this first one, this process works. And if not change is I'll communicate. The first call will be to the city council president, whomever it may be. And then I ask that they then kind of distribute it out and around. And then it is easier for me to do like at large members or members whose district it's in. because when you're one mayor calling nine council members, sometimes it can be difficult. But what we're currently doing, like the example of Project Hawley, I'll send you a written email update to all of you, which you received, I hope,

226. 1:24:09 — open the recording at 1 hour 24 minutes 9 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and then I'll also call the city council president and first have a discussion with him. The next round is I do look at the folks on the finance committee who look at the revenue and the budgets and say this is the financial impact of the project. So a lot of changes within this process is companies kind of communicate with the EDC and their attorney, but we try to kind of get in front of it, and it's easier with just like one or two points of contact first, and then they can distribute to the rest of the members.

227. 1:24:38 — open the recording at 1 hour 24 minutes 38 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): This is our first time doing this, Project Colley, so, and again, with other applications in, we hope to be doing it again soon, but we're just kind of trying this out, and then we'll take feedback and adjust.

228. 1:24:48 — open the recording at 1 hour 24 minutes 48 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): Yeah, if I could tag on to that, too. You know, as we go through this new process, you know, our executive committee just reviewed their first application, I think, ever, two weeks ago. And so I had a lot of questions from them. What are we looking at? You know, why are we looking at this? We've never been involved in this before. So there was some education there on truly what an EDC board should be doing. and then making sure that the mayor's positioned well to represent that when he comes before you and making sure that we're not coming up here with an ask of a 10-year, 100% abatement.

229. 1:25:26 — open the recording at 1 hour 25 minutes 26 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): When I called the mayor and told him about this project, the first question he asked is, please tell me it's not another 10-year, 100% abatement. And I said, no, no, no, those days are behind us. But we're really working to be more collaborative with the council as well as the county commissioners and the county council to make sure that we are supporting one another

230. 1:25:45 — open the recording at 1 hour 25 minutes 45 secondsJonathan Blake (staff): and that we're not creating a situation that is a financial drain on the city or the county.

231. 1:25:51 — open the recording at 1 hour 25 minutes 51 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Appreciate it. Thank you.

232. 1:25:55 — open the recording at 1 hour 25 minutes 55 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Thank you. Every good movie has a sequel,

233. 1:26:01 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 1 secondMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and the sequel is almost always better than the original film. So now we have a second presentation today.

234. 1:26:07 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 7 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): as our city clerk pulls this up. That was good, wasn't it?

235. 1:26:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 20 secondsMarcus (staff): I've got to find my clicker now.

236. 1:26:22 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 22 secondsMarcus (staff): It won't work for you. You've seriously lost it.

237. 1:26:24 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 24 secondsMarcus (staff): I got it. I tried to hide it.

238. 1:26:29 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 29 secondsMarcus (staff): Well, it's not that.

239. 1:26:33 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 33 secondsMarcus (staff): It's working.

240. 1:26:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 26 minutes 35 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): All right. Okay. Okay, so we did a presentation a few months ago about how we updated the long-term control plan. This is the follow-up. This is what the major changes are in terms of construction, and then this is the beginning of a very difficult conversation about how to fund sewage improvements. I want to start with a couple of pictures, and I'm sure you've all seen these pictures, and I'm sure you've seen these pictures float around online. We have some serious problems in our community when it comes to stormwater.

241. 1:27:08 — open the recording at 1 hour 27 minutes 8 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): One particular picture I'll point out along 25th Street is blocks away from one of the projects that we are going to be talking about tonight. As you can see, our infrastructure is quite literally crumbling. I'll direct you.

242. 1:27:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 27 minutes 23 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Well, as I see it, the kind of upper left picture, that is one of our storm sewers that literally caved in just a few weeks ago. If you look at the history of rainfall, and we looked at the history of rainfall, we went down some rabbit holes. Something that is very clear is over the last 100 years, the total amount of rainfall has increased by 6 inches. What is also interesting is the total amount of rainfalls actually decreased. And what that means is we have fewer rainfalls but higher total amount of rain. So these rainfalls are bringing more and more rain in shorter periods of time.

243. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Sewer bills are on track to rise 10% in 2030, plus a new $3-a-month stormwater fee

     1:28:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 28 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): What is usually the go-to is three inches of rain. That's for sure when you're going to see some sort of backup. And that didn't happen as much as it, sorry, that's happening a lot more than it used to, as is evident, especially this summer. So funding our clean water mandate. What are we talking about today? So Terre Haute is under a federal mandate to create this roadmap, this long-term control plan, to stop sewage from overflowing into the Wabash River during heavy rains. Basically, what we did is we looked at a five-phase operation.

244. 1:28:35 — open the recording at 1 hour 28 minutes 35 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So what started as over 30 years, which is now over 25 years, we will try to find a way to do government-mandated improvements. Before we had a long-term control plan in 2010, the EPA was considering a consent decree where they say you will do all the projects in a few years instead of 30 years. So what we've done is we've essentially extended how long we need to do these projects partially so we can ease into this conversation around rates. Like many older cities, Terra has a combined sewer system. So poop and water flowing through the same pipes, right?

245. 1:29:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 29 minutes 13 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And we have got to find a way to stop it from overflowing, going into the river, or Lord forbid, going into the street. The goal is to take 37 of these overflows a year down to seven. Now, the largest project in this conversation is almost finished, and that is the new main lift station, which is going along Riverside Road. That will be finished in September of 2027. A little bit of history for the group and those who are listening. If you're still listening, thank you. A few years ago, we started a new main lift station. There was a fish kill. The land that it was on was bad.

246. 1:29:48 — open the recording at 1 hour 29 minutes 48 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): There were some environmental problems. That entire construction project was moved.

247. 1:29:53 — open the recording at 1 hour 29 minutes 53 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): That literally created a $90 million mistake for the city. So in my first year, we spent a lot of time from a financing side refinancing debt to be able to address that issue with no increase.

248. 1:30:09 — open the recording at 1 hour 30 minutes 9 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So in our first year in office, and you guys helped us with one of the general obligation bonds that we refinanced a ban to a bond, we corrected an $89 million mistake. And that is not at all Mayor Bennett's fault. I want to make that clear here. I'm not trying to say that that happened under his watch. No, I'm trying to say an environmental mistake happened and it led to financial repercussions.

249. 1:30:33 — open the recording at 1 hour 30 minutes 33 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so we addressed that in our first year. What happens now if we stop? If we don't do anything and we just say the new main lift station can separate everything. Well, if we don't do anything, we have a mandate with the EPA to over 25 years now address our problems. And if we do nothing, if we show no progress, which we are already showing progress, I'll touch on that next, we can be fined up to $10,000 per day.

250. 1:31:01 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 1 secondMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And if we still don't show progress, and this has happened to some Indiana communities, we will be issued what we were almost issued 20 or 30 years ago, and then 20 years prior to that, which is a consent decree.

251. 1:31:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 13 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): A consent decree essentially says the federal government comes in, they take over your sewage system, and they raise rates to 40%. They do a 40% increase to immediately begin projects that you have to do. Now, I want to be clear. I know I keep saying federal mandate.

252. 1:31:30 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 30 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I do believe we have to separate human waste and water, and it shouldn't overflow in the streets. I think that's a very easy thing to say.

253. 1:31:38 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 38 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I agree with the science in today's conversation. Do I agree with the fact that it's an unfunded federal mandate? No, and I don't think any city council or any mayor would agree with that.

254. 1:31:49 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 49 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): But the science behind this, it is true, we need to do this, and I believe that.

255. 1:31:54 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 54 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Unfortunately, how we pay for it can be frustrating.

256. 1:31:58 — open the recording at 1 hour 31 minutes 58 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So phase one, which is completed, and phase two, which is wrapping up, we expanded flow capacity. We've upgraded nutrient removal. The main lift station, I cannot wait for that to be open, will help manage a lot of that overflow. Additionally, New Margaret Avenue drainage, we covered that. You all covered that in the New Margaret project in the TIF district. So because this council took action with TIF funds, ratepayers don't have to pay that. Because we saved cash over several years, as well as the last three years in particular, and I'll touch on that here soon,

257. 1:32:33 — open the recording at 1 hour 32 minutes 33 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): we were able to pay for the Honey Creek lift station and the Park Avenue lift station in cash and not have to pull a bond and not have to raise rates. Next year is a big year.

258. 1:32:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 32 minutes 46 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Next year, if things go well these next couple of months, we would like to start Lincolnshire-Woodshire, which is two phases. But the first phase is broken down to phase 1A and 1B. And we want to start 1A in the spring and 1B towards the end of the summer. And that is going to be a painful project. The pipes in the ground in Lincolnshire and Locust Street are three times older than AJ and I. Three times older. We are dealing with infrastructure that is close to 100 years old.

259. 1:33:18 — open the recording at 1 hour 33 minutes 18 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): In fact, some of it's older than 100 years. Yep, Marcus is nodding his head, so we'll go with older than 100 years. This is a huge problem in our community. There's a reason.

260. 1:33:27 — open the recording at 1 hour 33 minutes 27 secondsMarcus (staff): There's a reason I didn't like it. I didn't use me as the age.

261. 1:33:31 — open the recording at 1 hour 33 minutes 31 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): What we're also going to do next year is I'm sure you've seen the flooding on Ohio Street all the way up Ohio Boulevard. Ohio Street and North 4th Street are actually a little bit easier projects where we can reline the current sewer there. So those we would like to do next year. And then the largest project in Phase 2 of this plan is Locust Street. So from 13th to 25th, not only do you have a storm sewer problem, you have railroad ties. And 13th to 20th, we're talking about a mile here. The Brown Stormwater Project was a JV team compared to this project.

262. 1:34:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 34 minutes 5 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): It is currently coming in at $25 to $35 million. And let me put something in perspective. This council has done phenomenal at helping us really save money and edit in gaming revenue. So when we all started, we had $8 million cash on hand and edit. At the end of this year, we'll have 12 to 13, so a 50% increase. So with three years of diligent budgeting, that is still literally one-seventh of just the Locust Street project, not even all the projects in Phase 2 that we are legally mandated to do.

263. 1:34:41 — open the recording at 1 hour 34 minutes 41 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): What we did as well is we turned the EPA guidance and IDEMS guidance, so state and federal government, we turned this into what's called an integrated plan. So an integrated plan is how we've modernized the conversation around stormwater and sewage. It offsets the overall timeline, allows us to extend it, so we can do neighborhood improvements that involve storm sewers and sanitary sewers at the same time. Because if you do one versus the other, you're really not truly, I mean, this 30-year plan is going to be 60 years.

264. 1:35:14 — open the recording at 1 hour 35 minutes 14 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): The proposed rates will fund the end of Phase 2 and Phase 3, and it's part of our Tier 1 integrated plan projects by 2030. That's a lot. The entire 800-page document has been on the city website for months under engineering. Go to the long-term control plan project. It defines what integrated planning is. It explains what construction monitoring looks like, and the entire 880 pages is there. Here's some of our Tier 1 integrated planning projects. Locust Street, as I said, the current estimate, but there's a lot that we know we can bring down, is at $37 million. Chamberlain Road is at 12.5.

265. 1:35:56 — open the recording at 1 hour 35 minutes 56 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Ohio Street's at 7, and we feel confident we can get that down because Park Avenue, which is at 4.5, originally came in at 6.3. So some of these we believe we can bring down in price. And then you have the Woodridge-Lincolnshire conversation, Fairbanks floatable controls, the Lincolnshire-Woodridge stormwater conversation, as well as a ton of improvements along Thompson Ditch and Thompson Ditch-Loss Creek. What's important to look at here, because there's a lot of numbers here, folks, is 80 plus about 18.

266. 1:36:29 — open the recording at 1 hour 36 minutes 29 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Bottom line is this is $100 million of construction that we are required to do, that we have put off for a while. Because our first attempt at a long-term control plan was 2010. So we should be halfway through our plan. We are one-sixth of our way through our plan. So our first year when we came in and we refinanced the bond and the band to take care of the main lift station, we worked with IDEM for two years to give us additional time to catch back up to where we should have been.

267. 1:37:03 — open the recording at 1 hour 37 minutes 3 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So this slide basically breaks it down to what is starting in 2027, what will be completed in 2027, and what will be completed in 2028. What's not on this slide, or one update to this slide, is the Locust Street project. That is going to 2028. It will not be fully designed by construction season next year. So there's one edit to this slide. But I'll pause here. So if you want to take, actually, we'll just send you all the slides so that way you have it. Because these are the first time we raised rates.

268. 1:37:37 — open the recording at 1 hour 37 minutes 37 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And, like, well, the last big rate increase we had in 2018, not a lot of people saw the benefit of that rate increase. Because it was the main lift station and stuff still flooding. These projects are in residential areas.

269. 1:37:53 — open the recording at 1 hour 37 minutes 53 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And not only are they much needed, they're going to create a lot of frustration. People are not going to be able to park in front of their house while some of this construction goes.

270. 1:38:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 38 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): For our council members who have been on for a while, think back to Edgewood Grove.

271. 1:38:06 — open the recording at 1 hour 38 minutes 6 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): When we did the Edgewood Grove project under Mayor Kevin Burke, much needed. save that neighborhood to what it is today, but there was a lot of frustration for weeks, if not months at a time, about the construction. So here's our Tier 1 neighborhood projects that

272. 1:38:24 — open the recording at 1 hour 38 minutes 24 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): we plan to have completed by 2030. Locust Street, the Sealyville Interceptor, North 4th in Ohio, Chamberlain, which includes Glen North and Lincolnshire Woodshire. All right, when was last time we raised rates? January 1st, 2018. I want to talk about something that's a little bit different. With public utilities like Sewage Conversations, when we raise rates, it goes to a specific bond and nothing else. So anything we're talking about these next few months, it is not going to salaries. It is not going to equipment. It is not going to staff. It goes into

273. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Sewer bills are on track to rise 10% in 2030, plus a new $3-a-month stormwater fee

     1:39:00 — open the recording at 1 hour 39 minutesMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): a bond account that can only legally go to the project itself. If there is extra, quote, like if a project comes in under budget, like Marcus has worked really hard to get the main lift station under budget, that gap that we now have can be used on the next phase of the projects. So Marcus, over the last three years, got projects to come in under budget that were in bond accounts. He's used that money to design some of the projects so that way in this current conversation we were able to lower the rates than what they should have gone up. What are we looking at here?

274. 1:39:37 — open the recording at 1 hour 39 minutes 37 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I'm going to be very direct. We are looking at a 10% rate increase in 2030. So I'm a firm believer that if you raise rates, our goal should be less than 1% a year. So we are looking at 2030 a 10% rate increase. If you set the rate now, you can essentially say you can use that future rate increase to take a bond out to begin construction now. This is one reason why I see a lot of cities, they pass something like January of a calendar year, and then it takes into effect the next January. But if you actually say, hey, here's what we're going to do two or three years from now,

275. 1:40:16 — open the recording at 1 hour 40 minutes 16 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): the banks understand that and work with the construction teams to actually finance improvements immediately. This is a model that Marcus and I put together. So blue line, red line. The blue line shows what happens if we ease into this conversation. The red line shows what happens if we delay. So if we delay until 2035, number one, we're not doing these improvements for another nine years. So the next phase of the project and the phase after that, if we delay those two phases and say we're going to do this all in 2035 to 2050, it causes you literally have to exponentially take everything up.

276. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Sewer bills are on track to rise 10% in 2030, plus a new $3-a-month stormwater fee

     1:41:00 — open the recording at 1 hour 41 minutesMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): There is a drastic jump if we don't begin a gradual 10% increase. Additionally, we do not have a residential stormwater fee. We tried to have a residential stormwater fee in the past, and there were complications with that ordinance. Under this proposed ordinance, residents inside city limits, so our county residents who have city tear-out sewage will not pay this. It is $3 a month. It is a flat rate. Most of your commercial businesses within your districts fall within Tier 1 and Tier 2. There are larger, much larger companies that have more than 20,000 square feet. That is Tier 3.

277. 1:41:40 — open the recording at 1 hour 41 minutes 40 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And I'm going to be very direct here. When we made this model, my goal was for residents and tenants who rent from landlords to pay the least amount possible. So, yes, there is a huge jump from residential to commercial customers. But commercial customers compared to what residents are going through is a different conversation. We can't separate out, like, nonprofits or small business versus non-small business. but we designed a fee that helps our residents more than the businesses, and we were very deliberate when we did that. Now, how frequently do private utilities raise rates?

278. 1:42:20 — open the recording at 1 hour 42 minutes 20 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Because this is the stuff that frustrates me. By the time the city of Terre Haute gets to this conversation, because it's government, it takes time to improve its sewage system, to pass these laws, private utilities oftentimes raise their rates every one to two years. Terre Haute, the sewage system, it's a public service. It is not for profit. And we've had zero residential increases since 2018. Dish TV has gone up six times. Netflix has gone up three times. What about Indian American Water? Indian American Water did a three-year back-to-back-to-back rate increase. In year one, it was 10%.

279. 1:42:57 — open the recording at 1 hour 42 minutes 57 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): In year two, it was 4.6%. So it compounded off of a 10% increase. And then in year three, it was another 4% that compounded off of a 10 and a 4.6. So when they go to the IRC and they say, look, it's 19.5%, they're forgetting that it's compounded off year one and year two. We worked very hard as a city to update all of our lights to LED, and frankly, we saved the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. All that went away because we saw a 12% rate increase when it came to electricity with a 4% rate increase next year. Keep in mind, this is a 2025 increase. They've had multiple before 2018 to now.

280. 1:43:39 — open the recording at 1 hour 43 minutes 39 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And so I just want to point out that your residents, our residents are going to be very frustrated that sewage rates are going up. There's no way to sugarcoat that. I get it. It's in 2030. But at the end of the day, when you look at private utilities compared to public, there's a clear difference in how we do it versus them. Additionally, we went and looked at pure cities our size. And here's a graph of what the rates are in 2026. We don't have the yellow. The yellow is a stormwater fee. Here it shows five. We've lowered it to three. All right, so lower our five to three.

281. 1:44:15 — open the recording at 1 hour 44 minutes 15 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): That will bring us to a $50 average. Let's talk about Lafayette. Lafayette, they got involved with the EPA decades before most cities in the state of Indiana. That's what happens when you do this correctly over 30 years. Their average bill is $40. It is $10 less than ours. What happens if you wait and if the EPA really involves themselves is the opposite end of that graph, right? And look, this is not a knock on any of mayors of these communities from the past. Each city goes through something different. Some of

282. 1:44:49 — open the recording at 1 hour 44 minutes 49 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): these cities had huge mistakes with their sewage system that they had to use their revenues to adjust and fix a problem and because they did that they couldn't raise rates. So each of these communities has had something different. What I really want to take away from this is if you look at where we are benchmarked compared to other communities, we are squarely on the bottom end of this conversation. Additionally, we don't have a stormwater fee. Most of the communities around us do. Sullivan, then Sins, West Terre Haute even. So by us not having it, we fall further and further

283. 1:45:26 — open the recording at 1 hour 45 minutes 26 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): behind. And if we don't have a stormwater fee, the nice thing about the stormwater fee is you can break it out commercial and residential. So your businesses can take on more than your residents. If you don't do a stormwater fee, it all has to go in the sewage bill, and the sewage bill has to fund both of those improvements. And you can't break that out. That's a percentage increase. There's going to be a lot of common questions, right? Of course, the Fairbanks Park and the Wabash River, those will be modernized. Of course, there will be less backups

284. 1:45:57 — open the recording at 1 hour 45 minutes 57 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and less street flooding over the next 25 years as we take bite-sized chunks out of this. But I also want to bring this up. If we don't stay on track, the federal government comes in and does it for us Because this council and our controller Jessica have stayed on track the last three years, we were able to turn what should, our rate increase should have been at least 17%. But we were able to refinance that ban, turn it into a bond. We were able to save money and edit and take care of some of these projects in cash instead of with a bond.

285. 1:46:31 — open the recording at 1 hour 46 minutes 31 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And yes, it took a year to bring this to you all, but in that year, we took a 17% increase and brought it down to 10%. Over time, we took what could have been an $8 stormwater fee and brought it down to $3 for residents. So we used a lot of cash on hand to solve some of the problems before we went to the ratepayers. And I also want to restate this. Even if we keep doing the diligent budgeting that we are doing, that edit balance is going away. Because under Senate Enrollment Act 1, the entire tax law changes.

286. 1:47:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 47 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Even if the tax law stayed, just growing that thing by $2 million to $3 million every two years, it would take 100 years in today's dollars to do this project, which in today's dollars costs $400 million that we have 25 years to do.

287. 1:47:21 — open the recording at 1 hour 47 minutes 21 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Everyone will ask when their neighborhood will be completed.

288. 1:47:24 — open the recording at 1 hour 47 minutes 24 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): This is a tough answer because the entire plan has a ton of the neighborhoods on it and specifically lists when we think they'll be done. Obviously, there can be some construction complications. But what I also want to point out is the folks, for example, around 25th Street Tavern, a lot of their flooding should be going towards a Locust Street improvement. So there are some neighborhoods that aren't on this list, but we'll still see the benefit of the projects in and around it, specifically the main lift station improvements. So I know people will say this and go,

289. 1:48:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 48 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): well, why is my neighborhood paying for your neighborhood? Well, folks, the harsh reality is a lot of what we're talking about, like main lift stations, yeah, it's labeled Park Avenue main lift station, but the pumps there, they don't discriminate what neighborhood you live in. They service folks up north. And that's something that I really do want to stress. What should you expect? So yes, we are looking at a 10% rate increase in 2030, and that would fund hopefully the next, I put five here, but we believe we can extend that to seven or 10. But I wanted to show you worst case scenario,

290. 1:48:38 — open the recording at 1 hour 48 minutes 38 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): which would be if we do it in 2030, the next time we would have to touch it is 2035. But we think we can extend that, but again, I wanted to put worst case scenario. What you're also going to expect is immediate progress with construction projects starting next spring. You're going to expect some protection against the EPA so we don't get fines, so we don't get a consent decree and improvements to our system. I'm going to stop there. We've got a couple of folks with us. Mitchell has a financing sheet that shows what the numbers that we talked about mean

291. 1:49:12 — open the recording at 1 hour 49 minutes 12 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): with our cash balance and our debt capacity. So he's from Baker Tilly. He's going to bring it up and hand that out. Dennis has a timeline showing what the next couple of months would look like. One thing we are doing is looking at general obligation bonds because this council has helped us lower the city's tax rate by 10%. So now when we use general obligation bonds, some of that comes back, but it is a fraction of what we've reduced it to. And we can do it that way instead of a 17% rate increase. And then while they're passing that out, I'm going to have Marcus come up here

292. 1:49:47 — open the recording at 1 hour 49 minutes 47 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): because at the end of the day, he's a civil engineer,

293. 1:49:50 — open the recording at 1 hour 49 minutes 50 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and answer any engineering-related questions you have, as well as discuss some of the improvements that we've done already.

294. 1:50:03 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 3 seconds They evacuated the bill.

295. 1:50:06 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 6 secondsMarcus (staff): I'd be happy to answer any questions I have, and also I'd like to call the attention that a lot of these projects

296. 1:50:10 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 10 secondsMarcus (staff): are ones we've wanted to do for a long time. We have some pictures hanging on the wall in the engineering department, and two of them are on this list. One of them is Ohio Street. If you remember the big hole in the road that followed the fire truck. And then in 2005, a car fell through the road at 14th and Locust. We've wanted to fund these projects and luckily working with EPA and IDEM and getting this integrated planning and the mayor's willingness to find ways to do this. We might finally be able to take those pictures off the wall.

297. 1:50:40 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 40 secondsMarcus (staff): Happy to talk about any of the projects or any of the mechanisms with the long-term control plan.

298. 1:50:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 435: Councilperson Nation.

299. 1:50:52 — open the recording at 1 hour 50 minutes 52 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Thanks, Marcus. You can probably anticipate my question. I, along with Councilperson Azar, and, well, especially Councilman Azar, Councilman DeBond, we've been on the council long enough to remember some of the projects of the past. And in my district, the ones that I think of are 4th Street and Holman Street. And I'm sure you remember those too. You were on the staff back then, although you weren't the city engineer. And what I remember about those 4th Street, I remember property line to property line demolition. That means sidewalk, tree row, curb, street curb tree row sidewalk

300. 1:51:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 51 minutes 46 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): with the sewer lines extending out from the house into the ditch in the middle where the old sewer line was taken up and the laterals dumping into the ditch for a while so when they talk about disruption I've got pretty vivid mental pictures of all that and walked around in those ditches and check it all out, talk to neighbors about it.

301. 1:52:14 — open the recording at 1 hour 52 minutes 14 secondsSpeaker 437: When it was all put back together,

302. 1:52:18 — open the recording at 1 hour 52 minutes 18 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): both of those projects were brand new, edge to edge sidewalks, tree rows. Both of them also included trails that hooked up to the rest of the trail system and helped make that all that infrastructure project that isn't sexy and isn't uh... something that's visible after it's done come back in a way that door be finished and give us a product that people could look at and say look i got something for all that inconvenience the mayor alluded to that with the uh... edgewood grove project but and i remember that too but that is my district

303. 1:53:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 53 minutes 5 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): So my question is, when we do this, like Locust Street sounds like the first one, what's it look like when it goes back, when it's done?

304. 1:53:17 — open the recording at 1 hour 53 minutes 17 secondsSpeaker 440: That's a good question. So our goal would be, you know, when we rip out all the infrastructures street to street,

305. 1:53:23 — open the recording at 1 hour 53 minutes 23 secondsMarcus (staff): and if you're going to fix drainage issues and you're going to fix pipes that are deep, that's bound to happen. You can't fix a drainage problem in a road without adjusting the slopes if it's too flat or other items. So in many cases, we do end up with infrastructure being ripped out street to street or curb to curb, sidewalk to sidewalk. And we do have the obligation to put that back. And it does give us a good opportunity to think about what it looks like when it goes back. Some of this infrastructure has been there for 120, 140 years. And people use streets differently now.

306. 1:53:57 — open the recording at 1 hour 53 minutes 57 secondsMarcus (staff): and we should put back what is used today, whether it's a trail connection or we'll likely use some green infrastructure in places to lower that burden on the combined sewer system. And some of those green infrastructure solutions can be great assets to community that look almost more like landscaping but do deal with stormwater in a way. So we are looking at all of those opportunities of how we can improve the existing infrastructure when it comes out and what to best look like. Honestly, these are opportunities you wouldn't have otherwise because it would be hard to justify

307. 1:54:34 — open the recording at 1 hour 54 minutes 34 secondsMarcus (staff): moving a road 20 feet to the side to make room for a trail or something like that if everything is functioning perfectly.

308. 1:54:45 — open the recording at 1 hour 54 minutes 45 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Thanks. I agree. I guess what I'm thinking about are the investment that we've made in Hers Rose Park and that is it's not in the middle of but it is uh along the route that you're talking about the one mile long route i note that the national road heritage trail runs parallel to locust roughly and it's not that far away uh so you know i'm not saying that i expect it to go back as uh the national road heritage trail but i do see an opportunity to upgrade update take the burden off and like rethink how some of this stuff actually works. I just hope that you'll do that.

309. 1:55:28 — open the recording at 1 hour 55 minutes 28 secondsMarcus (staff): We're excited to have the opportunity so I'm looking forward to it myself.

310. 1:55:32 — open the recording at 1 hour 55 minutes 32 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Thanks. I yield. Well actually I guess I do have one other question and this may be more for the mayor but I'm not sure. I'm confused about, I'm not confused about a 10% rate increase. That I understand. I'm confused about the invocation of waiting until 2030 and the implication that doing so somehow makes it easier for bonding or something like that.

311. 1:56:05 — open the recording at 1 hour 56 minutes 5 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): It's a great question.

312. 1:56:06 — open the recording at 1 hour 56 minutes 6 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Let me grab my document and then I'll tell you the page. I think it's page 17 on the Baker-Tilley handout.

313. 1:56:13 — open the recording at 1 hour 56 minutes 13 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So while you're looking at page 17, I'd ask that you simultaneously look at page 1.

314. 1:56:26 — open the recording at 1 hour 56 minutes 26 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): We looked at several financing scenarios, a 20-year, 25-year, and 20-year wrap debt service revenue bond. So these are bonds that you take that are strictly revenue-based. Literally none of those work. For any of those to happen, the rate increase must be significantly higher. to accomplish the projects that we're legally required to do. So instead, we looked at alternative scenarios where you use general obligation bonds and revenue bonds. And what that means is we can capture some of our lost circuit breaker to do some of our smaller dollar projects. And then as we get closer to 2030,

315. 1:57:02 — open the recording at 1 hour 57 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): we can have conversations about essentially pulling a bond out, either a ban or a bond. And if you look on page 18, it shows your tax rate impact, the initial and the overall impact. And again, one thing that we've done is with our recent budgets coming in, it allows us to lower the tax rate. So as we've lowered the tax rate, it simply won't lower as much as it has been lowering because we have to recapture some of it for the general obligation bond. I do want to point out the rate has gone from 2.29 to 2.09.

316. 1:57:45 — open the recording at 1 hour 57 minutes 45 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So that has been a 10% increase because of the way that we budget, which is good for our residents. Additionally, if you look on page 19 now, Councilman Nation, it shows an outstanding and proposed 2027 GEORAP. wrap. There's a $3.33 million sanitary increase. That happens in 2030, but we can show that future revenue on a bond, and then the bond, the bank essentially says, look, here you go, and then your interest won't turn on until 2030, basically. So because you have legally committed to a future rate increase, you can take advantage of those dollars sooner. This

317. 1:58:29 — open the recording at 1 hour 58 minutes 29 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): This is one reason why you do see some cities do like a 10-year rate increase plan where they have here's our initial one in year five, here's our bump at year, sorry, year one, here's our bump at year five or six, and here's our bump at year 10. The problem is if you do integrated planning, which is what we are doing, is you can see improvements on projects that would have started years five through ten that you might not need to do as much of. So you're essentially committing yourself if you do it at a 10-year way to a lot of

318. 1:58:59 — open the recording at 1 hour 58 minutes 59 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): projects that you might not need to do, and that's why we did a commitment three years from now

319. 1:59:04 — open the recording at 1 hour 59 minutes 4 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): instead of right now. Does that make sense? You know, to be quite honest, you've lost me within

320. 1:59:10 — open the recording at 1 hour 59 minutes 10 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): the first couple of sentences. Fair. Okay. This is way above my head. It's stuff that I need to look at and actually read. But you did, there are two things I'd like to ask about. One, you made a reference to lost circuit breaker revenue. Explain that. How does lost circuit breaker come into this?

321. 1:59:36 — open the recording at 1 hour 59 minutes 36 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Okay, so I'm going to try and then Mitchell's going to come after me. Our circuit breaker is usually around 44%. This year it's 40%. Next year it's projected to go back to 45%.

322. 1:59:46 — open the recording at 1 hour 59 minutes 46 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): All right, what is circuit breaker? In the state of Indiana, we have tax caps at 1, 2, and 3% of your property tax. So even if your community is growing and your assessments are growing, we can never charge what the full growth amount is. So essentially a circuit breaker, when I say our circuit breaker is 40 or 44%, what I'm saying is legally the city can collect 55% of its property tax revenue. 45% of it we are unable to collect. You might ask, Mayor, why is our circuit breaker going up next year, even though we're showing growth with residential commercial construction.

323. 2:00:23 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Well, there's additional tax credits under Senate Enrollment Act 1, 2025 that come into play next year. So our circuit breaker goes right back up next year. It's been a very frustrating problem. Additionally, the circuit breaker, one reason why it also matters is there's another term, I'm really going to lose you here, called the maximum levy growth quotient, which for years was what percentage can you actually grow a budget? It usually floats around four, but there's, I think, a mistake in the state bill where they allowed it to go to six. The reason people might say,

324. 2:00:57 — open the recording at 2 hours 57 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): okay, that means your budget can increase by 6%. Not true. You take that growth number, that 6%, multiply it by one minus your circuit breaker. So the 6% growth that we could be seeing, we really only see 55% of that around 3%. And so this allows you to capture a small portion of your circuit breaker loss revenue through a general obligation bond, which is a property tax bond that backs a revenue-based bond.

325. 2:01:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 1 minute 26 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I've just never heard a... I understand the circuit breaker, and we've been grappling with this since it was instituted and its impact on our local government funds. but I hadn't heard references to it within the paradigm of bonding and a consideration of that. That's an interesting wrinkle. So the other turn of phrase that you used is legally committed to a rate increase in 2030. And my question is, are you bringing us a piece of legislation that will legally commit us to do this, and when is that coming?

326. 2:02:17 — open the recording at 2 hours 2 minutes 17 secondsSpeaker 466: I'll take that one.

327. 2:02:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 2 minutes 18 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Good evening, counsel. I'm Dennis Sauten with Bose McKinney and Evans. I recognize some of you have been up here before and a long time passed. Yeah, so on the timetable you'll see that we will have a rate ordinance for both the stormwater and the sewer increase for the council to approve. We'll also have an ordinance approving the general obligation bond component of this. It's required by law. And that ordinance will have the rates in effect but will provide that they will not go into effect until 2030. It will also have language that said that the council understands that bonds will be

328. 2:02:56 — open the recording at 2 hours 2 minutes 56 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): issued on the basis of those rates and charges and those rates will not be repealed by the council. They are security for the bondholders. Just to echo what the mayor was saying, it's common practice to do rate increases issues bonds before they're actually collected. There's an understanding in the finance community that once you've adopted a rate, it can be taken into account for coverage purposes. We kind of call it the additional bonds test. I'm going to nerd out a little bit here on you. There's an additional bonds test that will say

329. 2:03:29 — open the recording at 2 hours 3 minutes 29 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): your rates either have to be in effect or you have to have approved them

330. 2:03:33 — open the recording at 2 hours 3 minutes 33 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): and then you can sort of apply them to the calculation of what the coverage is.

331. 2:03:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 3 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 470: Thank you. That helps. Thank you.

332. 2:03:41 — open the recording at 2 hours 3 minutes 41 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I do have one. I mean, I know that you're from a big Indianapolis law firm and I'm sure that you're that this is a simplistic question. But next year is a municipal election. In 2028, it will be a new council. Some of us may not be here. So this council can legally obligate the next council to start, well, it will have already been instituted but can legally require that the rates go up under a new council.

333. 2:04:25 — open the recording at 2 hours 4 minutes 25 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yes, I will.

334. 2:04:27 — open the recording at 2 hours 4 minutes 27 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): And I will tell you the comparative here is when council enacts rates and charges to pay the ongoing obligations of a utility, okay, operation and maintenance expenses, reserve funds, sinking funds, It's legally required by statute that the rates and charges be at a level sufficient to cover those things.

335. 2:04:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 4 minutes 53 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): And that's baked into the bond ordinance. Now, can a council come out at any time and repeal those ordinances? Well, they can, but it's against the law. It's a breach of the contractual obligation, and frankly, it's a breach of law.

336. 2:05:06 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 6 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): So where you would find yourself, if a council was looking to do that, they would be advised strongly not to do that because they would be facing likely an impending lawsuit for which they would lose.

337. 2:05:21 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 21 secondsSpeaker 56: And that would be a lawsuit by the people who issued the bonds?

338. 2:05:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 26 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yes, bondholders would be and their trustees and representatives.

339. 2:05:32 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 32 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Please don't misconstrue these questions. I'm just trying to understand. And I don't think I've been part of a conversation quite exactly like this in my 22 years of being on the council.

340. 2:05:45 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 45 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yeah, yeah. And I'm not trying to sound aggressive or anything like that at all, so if I'm coming across that way.

341. 2:05:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 53 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): We see this from time to time in communities.

342. 2:05:56 — open the recording at 2 hours 5 minutes 56 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Actually, I've seen it a few times early this year where communities have to legally raise rates. And maybe they're not even doing a financing. It could be that their operation and maintenance expense has gotten so extreme that they are falling behind on the covenants in the existing bond obligations. Typically, those requirements are for like a 1.25 times coverage requirement. You know, costs go up, and the council doesn't increase the rates. And I've seen it fall in a few communities where they're well below 1.0 coverage. and you start to see some of the bondholders make noise about that.

343. 2:06:37 — open the recording at 2 hours 6 minutes 37 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Fortunately, in those cases, those communities that I've been talking about, they've gone ahead and done the right thing. They've raised their rates. But it does happen. And I think to your point, Mr. Nation, could a new council come in and repeal that ordinance and say, what the heck with it, I'm going to take my chances? Yeah, they could.

344. 2:06:59 — open the recording at 2 hours 6 minutes 59 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): But we could do that. But a theoretical counsel, whether it's this one or the next one or whatever, could do that on any piece of legislation that we pass, any bond issue or whatever. And that's really, as the fiscal body, I think that's a pretty unusual thing. I'll yield. Go ahead.

345. 2:07:15 — open the recording at 2 hours 7 minutes 15 secondsSpeaker 489 (councillor): Yeah, I just, one thing, when you first came up here, you said in the ordinance you're going to put in that particular ordinance that it cannot be repealed.

346. 2:07:24 — open the recording at 2 hours 7 minutes 24 secondsSpeaker 493 (councillor): Isn't that correct? Did I hear you say right? Yes. Because my left hearing aid went out.

347. 2:07:29 — open the recording at 2 hours 7 minutes 29 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yeah, no, no, we will, and we do put that language in bond ordinances quite often. It's not an uncommon provision.

348. 2:07:37 — open the recording at 2 hours 7 minutes 37 secondsSpeaker 497: Does that protect from that repeal, or is it just words?

349. 2:07:41 — open the recording at 2 hours 7 minutes 41 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Well, it's not just words. And to your point, and to Mr. Nation's point, certainly a council can do what a council can do. Despite what the words of the documents that are adopted by the previous council or that council previously say, they can go against it. And so that's what a council would be doing in that case. Much in the same way that if a bond ordinance is adopted and bonds are issued, that ordinance contains ongoing covenants of how the city is going to operate, how it's going to collect funds, how it's going to allocate them.

350. 2:08:15 — open the recording at 2 hours 8 minutes 15 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Now a council could go out there and repeal that bond ordinance later on, three, five years after it's been adopted. I've never seen it happen. But certainly that would just immediately result in all kinds of alarm bells going on. And the kinds of alarm bells are, well, you'd never want to be sued.

351. 2:08:34 — open the recording at 2 hours 8 minutes 34 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): The reputation of the community would be severely harmed. It would drastically affect your credit rating. So there's implications apart from just the lawsuit itself. It's what do the rating agencies do? What do programs like the SRF program that has opportunities for, you know,

352. 2:08:52 — open the recording at 2 hours 8 minutes 52 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): low interest financing and grants, you suddenly would be put into a black hole, so to speak. I ought to say they could do it, but we hope that they won't and trust that they won't.

353. 2:09:10 — open the recording at 2 hours 9 minutes 10 secondsMitchell (staff): I can expand a little bit on the financing plan that we were looking at. In this document that I passed out, as you'll see, there's about $95 million in projects to be funded over the next four years. As the mayor was mentioning, our direction at Baker Tilly was to find a path forward while also mitigating rate increases, especially on your residential citizens here of Terre Haute. As part of that, the first three scenarios in this document, what we are looking at is purely revenue bonds backed by the sewer charges that you get from your citizens.

354. 2:09:49 — open the recording at 2 hours 9 minutes 49 secondsMitchell (staff): Being a sanitary district, you're unique from other municipal sewer utilities. Not only can you issue debt through revenue, you can also look to have your property tax back a GO bond. So as part of this, we looked at these first three scenarios, and you'll see in here there's two schedules. The first schedule, they're almost identical. The first schedule is really looking at the debt service coverage number. As Dennis alluded to, whenever you go issue new debt, the bond ordinance is going to have an additional bonds test.

355. 2:10:20 — open the recording at 2 hours 10 minutes 20 secondsMitchell (staff): What they're looking at is, and just real simplistic, if your revenues minus your expenses need to be at least 1.25 times the debt service. So let's say your debt service is a million dollars a year. When we look at your revenues minus expenses, it needs to be 1,250,000. So as part of this, the first schedule we're looking at is the debt service coverage.

356. 2:10:45 — open the recording at 2 hours 10 minutes 45 secondsMitchell (staff): When we looked at purely revenue bonds, we're not able to make the 1.25 times test.

357. 2:10:51 — open the recording at 2 hours 10 minutes 51 secondsMitchell (staff): We also included, and this gets into the three, it's shown as $3.3 million. That's about a 10% increase on your current collections. We can include that in the additional bonds test because we know it has been passed, those rates, although they're not going to be collected in the future.

358. 2:11:07 — open the recording at 2 hours 11 minutes 7 secondsMitchell (staff): So looking at these scenarios, we factor that into the coverage page. The following page, and just for comparison, that would be shown on page five. On page five, what we're looking at is not just a coverage, but we wanted to show how

359. 2:11:20 — open the recording at 2 hours 11 minutes 20 secondsMitchell (staff): does that impact cash flow. Just because we can count those revenues in the test doesn't mean you're going to receive them in 27, 28, 29.

360. 2:11:28 — open the recording at 2 hours 11 minutes 28 secondsMitchell (staff): So in each of those three scenarios where we looked at purely revenue bonds, you'll see that the cash balances for the sanitary district went from around 17 million to around $5.6 million over a four-year period. So a big decline in your cash balance. So the next thought was what other mechanisms you have for the sanitary district? And that's where we get into the scenarios where we're looking at pulling the general obligation bond. In these scenarios, we're looking at doing a geo bond in 27 and 28. And then we do revenue bonds in 29 and 2030,

361. 2:11:58 — open the recording at 2 hours 11 minutes 58 secondsMitchell (staff): where you actually do start to collect some of that sanitary district money in 2030. And you can pledge that to the revenue bonds as well as maintain your cash balances. So going through that process, doing the combination of the geo bonds and the revenue bonds is going to be able to fund the plan, mitigate the rate increases and still allow us to show coverage for your bondholders on your outstanding bonds.

362. 2:12:29 — open the recording at 2 hours 12 minutes 29 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): And just to help me understand where to focus, are you ending up then at general obligation and revenue bonds alternative to starting on page 17?

363. 2:12:42 — open the recording at 2 hours 12 minutes 42 secondsMitchell (staff): That is correct. That is currently the plan that we're pursuing. This can certainly be modified. The documents that you'll approve will approve the bonding authority. Right now we're looking at the geo bonds for the first two series of bonds. We could potentially do it in the third series. At that time, we'll want to look at the finances of the Sanitary District and, again, determine what's best at that time, whether it be do we want to look at doing a geo bond, is that best for the Sanitary District, or can we go and use the revenues?

364. 2:13:11 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 11 secondsMitchell (staff): And that's really going to be where your revenues and expenses are falling in 2029. So we're not trying to just pigeonhole the council of the Sanitary District into a decision today with these projects. We want to have some flexibility in those documents that Dennis is putting together.

365. 2:13:29 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 29 secondsSpeaker 56: Well, I'm glad you're not asking for a decision today.

366. 2:13:32 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 32 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Can you talk a little bit about, like, actual dates? I see that there's another document with a bunch of dates and schedules. When?

367. 2:13:41 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 41 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): September.

368. 2:13:42 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 42 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): September. September 3rd comes to us.

369. 2:13:46 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 46 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): I'm glad I grabbed my glasses here. I understand. This is a draft calendar, mind you.

370. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Sewer bills are on track to rise 10% in 2030, plus a new $3-a-month stormwater fee

     2:13:52 — open the recording at 2 hours 13 minutes 52 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yes. And we've mapped this out. These are for all of the approvals we have. So what we are contemplating is moving rather quickly, and there's been a lot of time put into these numbers, and we know council needs an opportunity to review them as well. But our plan would be to go to the sanitary board at the July 21 meeting to start the approval process. We would then end up at the August 4 meeting with hearing on the rates, the projects, the ordinances, and then be before the council at their August 6th meeting

371. 2:14:31 — open the recording at 2 hours 14 minutes 31 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): to introduce the ordinance approving the GO bonds and the ordinance approving the stormwater rate and the increases on the user rates. And then we would come back to the council at the September 3rd meeting for final approval of those ordinances. That would get us through all of the approval processes. Now I will mention here there are some dates subsequent to those actions that sort of speak to timing on a bond issue. As Mitchell mentioned, we're probably not actually going to do a financing until spring of next year. So there's certainly time on the timetable, but that's

372. 2:15:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 18 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): how we've mapped it out for these purposes.

373. 2:15:19 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 19 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): So to summarize the process that you're laying out, the sanitary board approves the rate increase and then it comes to us.

374. 2:15:33 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 33 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Correct.

375. 2:15:35 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 35 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Okay. Thank you.

376. 2:15:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 38 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): I do want to be clear, too. Nothing can be effective as far as the rates are concerned until there's both sanitary board approval and council approval. Right.

377. 2:15:49 — open the recording at 2 hours 15 minutes 49 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): But the sanitary board will send us a fait accompli, a piece of legislation that lays out how much the rates are to increase, when they are to increase, and then we are asked to pass the same thing.

378. 2:16:11 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 11 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Correct.

379. 2:16:13 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 13 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): All right.

380. 2:16:13 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 13 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): Yeah, and if the council does not pass that, then that pretty much nullifies at that point what the sanitary board has done, and it's back to the drawing board and going back to the sanitary board.

381. 2:16:27 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 27 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I was on the council in 2018 when we did this before. one of the reasons I'm dragging you through this simplistic set of questions is to help my fellow council members who haven't been on as long and to remind myself of just exactly what it is we're in for.

382. 2:16:47 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 47 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Thank you. I yield.

383. 2:16:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 53 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you.

384. 2:16:57 — open the recording at 2 hours 16 minutes 57 secondsMichelle (clerk): Reports from city officials.

385. 2:17:00 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutesMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): None. I hope not.

386. 2:17:05 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutes 5 secondsMichelle (clerk): Reports from Board of Public Works and Safety? None. Reports from Standing Committees? There are none. Reports from Non-Standing Committees? There are none. Items previously tabled? There are none. Tax abatements for confirmation? There are none. Items on second reading?

387. 2:17:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutes 18 secondsMichelle (clerk): General Ordinance 6, 2026, Amending City Code, Creating Chapter 2, Article 16, Section 2-250, Will Tax. you do have a proposed amendment before you.

388. 2:17:37 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutes 37 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Petitioner.

389. 2:17:45 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutes 45 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Good evening, Council President Dinkel and members of the Terre Haute City Council. So before you today, you have General Ornan VI amending the city code.

390. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council adopts a new city wheel tax — but says it replaces, not adds to, what you already pay

     2:17:52 — open the recording at 2 hours 17 minutes 52 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): We've already done a presentation about this about a month ago, maybe two months ago. This is the wheel tax. So Governor Braun said local governments must have a wheel tax to receive the state dollars that we used to receive for paving. However, we spent a year working with the state legislator to make sure that if you live in the city, you do not pay a city and county wheel tax. So we got that changed at the statehouse. Now we are cleaning it up and changing the local code, and it is implementing a city wheel tax,

391. 2:18:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 18 minutes 26 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): which residents were already paying a county wheel tax, and the dollars are matching. There's going to be two pieces of code in front of you today, a motor vehicle license, surtax, as well as a wheel tax. They're commonly referred to as just one. It just delineates the type itself, the type of vehicle. So with that, I'll stand by for any questions, but this is something that we have beat to death. that the state legislator is taking away local funds unless you have one.

392. 2:18:55 — open the recording at 2 hours 18 minutes 55 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Luckily, we got a small win, which allows us to take what the county has been doing and not double tax our residents.

393. 2:19:04 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 4 seconds Thank you.

394. 2:19:05 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 5 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Is there any members of the public who wish to comment on General Ordinance 6-2026? Council, one point of clarification. You can ignore the copy we have that says as amended that was filed on 6-11.

395. 2:19:20 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 20 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): there's been a more recent amendment filed on June 24th.

396. 2:19:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 26 secondsSpeaker 573 (staff): As a reminder, you will need to vote to amend, but you do not need to vote to take action. Yes.

397. 2:19:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 38 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): I have a quick question.

398. 2:19:39 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 39 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Loudermont.

399. 2:19:41 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 41 seconds Mayor. Yes.

400. 2:19:43 — open the recording at 2 hours 19 minutes 43 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): I just want to clarify so everybody understands and knows. We have had discussions with the state and the BMV that there's not going to be an issue on the city getting the money that are actually city residents. The BMV will understand who is a city resident.

401. 2:20:02 — open the recording at 2 hours 20 minutes 2 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Councilman Loudermilk, we have done our best to explain to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles that their state legislator has mandated a change in local government. This is part of the problem with this legislation. Jessica and I can look at the numbers of total amount of vehicles and do a calculation and see that the numbers match. The numbers do match. The problem is the state agency in charge of collecting this fee, it was okay for Evansville. They're a year before us because they did this last year. So I want to say that it will be okay,

402. 2:20:35 — open the recording at 2 hours 20 minutes 35 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): but at the end of the day, it is a government state agency. We have reached out. We hope that it is correct. there is an audit that we have planned with them directly after the first few months to check and make sure that their systems routed the money to the city. And what Councilman Loudermilk is hinting at is there have been incidents of cities doing this because the state requires it to get the dollars they used to get,

403. 2:21:03 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 3 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): and the city wheel tax is paid, but it somehow went to the county.

404. 2:21:06 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 6 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So we are working to alleviate those concerns and doing what we can at the local level.

405. 2:21:14 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 14 secondsSpeaker 234: But I do acknowledge that the state has had hiccups in the past, and we're working with them.

406. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council adopts a new city wheel tax — but says it replaces, not adds to, what you already pay

     2:21:19 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 19 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): My concern is they look at the township, and if they don't understand that an annexed area belongs to the city, that's where I have my concerns with our BNB. And that just comes from experience dealing with them during this whole situation. So that was my concern. So I'm glad to hear that you guys have some type of audit to go back and check with them.

407. 2:21:45 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 45 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I know we beat this horse that it is not a double tax.

408. 2:21:54 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 54 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): It is not a double tax.

409. 2:21:55 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 55 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): It needs to be very clear.

410. 2:21:58 — open the recording at 2 hours 21 minutes 58 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And we've been saying it. I know you all have been saying it. What really frustrates me at the end of the day is I can just tell you, the governor and the state legislators are probably sitting there laughing because they said to do this to have access to state money. And I hope they realize how much work's gone into this. But at the end of the day, they're not the ones up here. And they're literally withholding hundreds of millions of dollars from local government for paving unless this happens. And so we say we're not double taxing because that's how this legislation reads.

411. 2:22:28 — open the recording at 2 hours 22 minutes 28 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): but I guarantee you they know the average person is going to read the headlines tomorrow and say, there they are, they've added a new tax.

412. 2:22:35 — open the recording at 2 hours 22 minutes 35 secondsSpeaker 234: That is not what we're doing. We're replacing what we were already doing at the county.

413. 2:22:40 — open the recording at 2 hours 22 minutes 40 secondsSpeaker 30: I yield. Councilperson DeBond.

414. 2:22:45 — open the recording at 2 hours 22 minutes 45 secondsCurtis DeBaun IV (councillor): To clarify one more time for everybody, this is not a new tax. We are already paying this tax to the county.

415. 2:22:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 22 minutes 53 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Councilman DeBond, I do have this presentation that I can pull up and do one more time.

416. 2:23:02 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 2 secondsCurtis DeBaun IV (councillor): Thank you.

417. 2:23:05 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 5 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): This should be a Netflix documentary.

418. 2:23:09 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 9 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President.

419. 2:23:11 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 11 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Nation.

420. 2:23:11 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 11 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): If there's no further discussion, I move that we amend General Ordinance No. 6, 2026 as presented.

421. 2:23:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 18 secondsSpeaker 569: Second.

422. 2:23:19 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 19 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Thompson, that General Ordinance 6-2026 be amended as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay.

423. 2:23:31 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 31 secondsSpeaker 615: Motion passes and the amendment is approved. Mr. President. Councilperson Nation.

424. 2:23:35 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 35 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I move for approval of General Ordinance 6-2026 as amended.

425. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council adopts a new city wheel tax — but says it replaces, not adds to, what you already pay

     2:23:39 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 39 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Bolin, that General Ordinance 6-2026 be approved as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say no. The motion passes. General Ordinance 2026 is adopted.

426. 2:23:56 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 56 secondsMichelle (clerk): Next item. Appropriation

427. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council approves $750,000 to rebuild Ray Park's tennis courts this year instead of next

     2:23:59 — open the recording at 2 hours 23 minutes 59 secondsMichelle (clerk): 10.2026. $750,000 from Edit No. 04040096 to Ray Park Project 04040096 04450617. As a reminder, you must vote to take action.

428. 2:24:14 — open the recording at 2 hours 24 minutes 14 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): Petitioner.

429. 2:24:15 — open the recording at 2 hours 24 minutes 15 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I'm going to have Kylie cover the bulk of this, but she has advanced the Ray Park Clubhouse project. In the master plan, it does require the outdoor tennis courts to be put back in because they are taken away for parking currently. This is what she's going to discuss tonight. The budget side of it, because we've had some good years and that cash balance is there, we're able to do this project this year instead of next year, which frees up the funds next here to actually go towards one of the sewage projects we just talked about. So that's the budget side of it.

430. 2:24:48 — open the recording at 2 hours 24 minutes 48 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): I'll let her cover the park side of it.

431. 2:24:54 — open the recording at 2 hours 24 minutes 54 secondsKylie (staff): Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, Council. I am here to answer any questions related to our request for an additional appropriation. We are going to fund not only the new outdoor tennis court at Ray Park, but also site improvements and a very necessary replacement of the stairs for the Ray Park Clubhouse to put a bow on that project, which, as you can see, people are already hitting that trail. We're very excited for the completion of the Ray Park Clubhouse. It's just about that time, looking like completion is approaching, and this will help us get everything finalized.

432. 2:25:32 — open the recording at 2 hours 25 minutes 32 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on Appropriation 10-2026? Hearing none, Council?

433. 2:25:40 — open the recording at 2 hours 25 minutes 40 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Councilperson Lauderdale.

434. 2:25:42 — open the recording at 2 hours 25 minutes 42 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): Kylie, our mayor, can either one of you speak to the fact, was this all in the original project that was brought to us? Because this just, I know you and I had that discussion, but it sounds like more than what we were ever told for the Ray Park project to begin with.

435. 2:26:00 — open the recording at 2 hours 26 minutesKylie (staff): Certainly. With the Ray Park clubhouse project, this is separate from the clubhouse project,

436. 2:26:07 — open the recording at 2 hours 26 minutes 7 secondsKylie (staff): and it is much more than just the clubhouse. We hope to keep tennis at Ray. It's a valuable asset. Unfortunately, those courts did fail to where we were unable to have play, and we want to continue to see tennis at Ray because of the demand there and because of that failed court system and the need for additional parking, which was not included in the clubhouse plan. We were able to allow for the additional parking by paving over the tennis courts and expanding that. It's looking really great. We just got everything freshly striped, and we were able to find a solution there,

437. 2:26:44 — open the recording at 2 hours 26 minutes 44 secondsKylie (staff): at least temporarily, for the parking. And we are going to be able to allow Fort Tennis as a separate project. You are correct in that this was not originally included in the clubhouse plan.

438. 2:26:55 — open the recording at 2 hours 26 minutes 55 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): But it was in the Ray Park master plan.

439. 2:26:58 — open the recording at 2 hours 26 minutes 58 secondsKylie (staff): Correct.

440. 2:27:01 — open the recording at 2 hours 27 minutes 1 secondMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): One thing I will say that Kylie and I have noticed is when Friends of Ray Park originally presented. They showed the master plan drawings and then talked about funding for the clubhouse. And so one reason we've been able to continue on the Ray Park master plan is Marcus worked with the state and the county to do the trail. Kylie recognized that our tennis courts, whether or not we did the clubhouse, they were going to go away this year because they were literally, I mean, they were crumbling. They weren't passing. You have to do like tests for

441. 2:27:33 — open the recording at 2 hours 27 minutes 33 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): courts to see if you can actually play on them and they were failing that test. So this was going to come regardless of what was going on. This just allows us to do it this year instead of next year when it was originally planned. Also because Kylie has been applying for some USTA grants to lower this overall appropriation request. So part of it is some of the grants we've been receiving. It does continue our Ray Park Master Plan which is a part of our Parks Master Plan. But I do agree when Ray Park was originally sold probably five years ago, five years ago when this conversation started,

442. 2:28:09 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 9 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): if you look at those drawings compared to what is happening now, there was a clear miscommunication between that 501c3 as well as the city five years ago, which we are seeing and cleaning up on our end.

443. 2:28:22 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 22 secondsCheryl Loudermilk (councillor): I appreciate that. Thank you. I yield.

444. 2:28:25 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 25 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Mr. Rosen.

445. 2:28:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 26 secondsSpeaker 234: Councilperson Nation.

446. 2:28:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 26 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Kiley, can you talk a little bit about the tennis courts that are going back?

447. 2:28:34 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 34 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Does it represent an expansion of what was already there or is it just a recreation? Will there be pickleball? You know, those kinds of questions.

448. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council approves $750,000 to rebuild Ray Park's tennis courts this year instead of next

     2:28:44 — open the recording at 2 hours 28 minutes 44 secondsKylie (staff): Excellent question. This will be a new facility. With the USTA grant we are seeking, we're looking at getting about $200,000 from the USTA to support this project, which we're really proud of, and they've been working with us all along the way. I'm really close with the Greater Terre Haute Pickleball Association. We love the pickleball crew. They are loud and proud at Brittle Bank Park and throughout our city, and it's an honor to work with them. But we do want to show that, you know, Ray Park, we are

449. 2:29:14 — open the recording at 2 hours 29 minutes 14 secondsKylie (staff): determined to provide tennis at this site because USTA requires these courts be painted only for tennis. Now we are very open to pickleball coming to Ray. If we can find additional investments, if we can make that plan come to fruition, that is a part of our master plan to upgrade our pickleball facilities and add more to the city at large within our city park system. But at this time, it is just looking like tennis at Ray and a four court system that will be going in within the master plan at large. We're hoping to add up to eight outdoor courts. This would be a phase one,

450. 2:29:52 — open the recording at 2 hours 29 minutes 52 secondsKylie (staff): and it may be the phase we get, and we've designed that with intention to be fully incorporated into the park so that if we are able to just move forward with the four, it's going to feel very complete with room for a future addition of pickleball multi-use courts if we're able to to proceed as funding allows.

451. 2:30:14 — open the recording at 2 hours 30 minutes 14 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Remind us how many there were before. Six. Okay, thank you, I yield.

452. 2:30:24 — open the recording at 2 hours 30 minutes 24 secondsJames P. Chalos (councillor): Councilperson Chalos. I'm actually really glad to see that they're putting the tennis courts in. I mean, there's a lot of history in those tennis courts. Your dad, remember, but my dad was a tennis coach out there and maintained the courts when they were clay courts years ago. So it has some special meaning out there. So I'm glad you guys are done.

453. 2:30:43 — open the recording at 2 hours 30 minutes 43 secondsKylie (staff): Absolutely. And we certainly want to honor all of the donors and the history of that site. We've kept all signage and we want to honor all naming rights. I've been sure that that history is preserved with this new site to show that we want to keep Tennis at Ray. This is just going to be the new upgraded version. I yield.

454. 2:31:05 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 5 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President. Council President Nation. If there is no further discussion, I move that we take action on Appropriation 10-2026.

455. 2:31:14 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 14 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Second.

456. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council approves $750,000 to rebuild Ray Park's tennis courts this year instead of next

     2:31:15 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 15 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Chalos, that Appropriation 10-2026 be approved. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion passes. Appropriation 10-2026 is adopted.

457. 2:31:27 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 27 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President.

458. 2:31:28 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 28 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you.

459. 2:31:29 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 29 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I move for approval of Appropriation 10-2026. Second.

460. 2:31:32 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 32 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Council and Chalos, that Appropriation No. 10-2026 be approved. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Motion passes. Appropriation 10-2026 is approved.

461. 2:31:48 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 48 secondsSpeaker 663: Thank you.

462. 2:31:50 — open the recording at 2 hours 31 minutes 50 secondsMichelle (clerk): Next item. General Ennis 7-2026, amending city code, creating Chapter 2, Article 16, Section 2-249, annual motor vehicle license excise surtax.

463. 2:32:02 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 2 secondsSpeaker 668 (staff): You have proposed amendment before you. You must vote to take action.

464. 2:32:06 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 6 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Petitioner.

465. 2:32:13 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 13 secondsSpeaker 669: Wow, Kylie, you really lowered this one.

466. 2:32:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 18 secondsSpeaker 238: All right, let me pull this up.

467. 2:32:19 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 19 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So basically, guys, to summarize, the legislation was written to where you had to pass two ordinances, creating the fund, your traditional vehicles, and then your non-traditional vehicles.

468. 2:32:32 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 32 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): And then that's what this second one is. We are on general ordinance seven.

469. 2:32:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 238: Yep. So you'll see it breaks it down, the types of vehicles and what they are, and that goes in conjunction with the wheel tax.

470. 2:32:50 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 50 secondsMayor (surname best-guess: Sakbun) (staff): So even the county has two of these to break out the types of vehicles. This is just the administrative action to do that.

471. 2:32:58 — open the recording at 2 hours 32 minutes 58 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Is there anyone from the public who wishes to comment on General Ordinance 7-2026? Hearing none, counsel?

472. 2:33:08 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 8 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I'm going to let someone else make the motions.

473. 2:33:13 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 13 secondsGeorge Azar (councillor): There's no further questions. I move that we take action on General Ordinance 7-2026. Second.

474. 2:33:22 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 22 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): It's been moved by Councilman Azar, seconded by Councilman Herschelos, that we take action on General Ordinance 7-2026.

475. 2:33:28 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 28 secondsSpeaker 615: All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. We may now take action on General Ordinance 7-2026.

476. 2:33:35 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 35 secondsGeorge Azar (councillor): Mr. President, I move that we amend General Ordinance 7-2026 as presented. Second.

477. 2:33:46 — open the recording at 2 hours 33 minutes 46 secondsSpeaker 615: It's been moved by Councilperson Azar, seconded by Councilperson DeBond, that we amend General Ordinance 7-2026 as presented. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. Mr. President. The motion passes. The amendment is approved. Councilperson Azar.

478. 2:34:00 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutesGeorge Azar (councillor): I move that we approve General Ordinance 7 as amended. Second.

479. Highlight · drawn from this moment: Council adopts a new city wheel tax — but says it replaces, not adds to, what you already pay

     2:34:06 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 6 secondsSpeaker 615: It's been moved by Councilperson Hazard, seconded by Councilperson Chalos, that General Ordinance 7-2026 be approved as amended. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed say nay. The motion passes.

480. 2:34:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 18 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): General Ordinance 7-2026 is adopted. Next item.

481. 2:34:22 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 22 secondsMichelle (clerk): Special Ordinance 7-2026, rezoning a property located at 335 Kent Avenue. Area Planning was unable to do a recommendation as the petitioner was unable to attend.

482. 2:34:34 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 34 secondsSpeaker 42 (staff): if you take no action tonight it automatically goes to August.

483. 2:34:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 38 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): I don't believe we have a petitioner for this. Is there any member of the public who wishes to comment on Special Ordinance 7-2026?

484. 2:34:47 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 47 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Hearing none, Council. If we can't take action, this will be heard again at the first meeting in August.

485. 2:34:56 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 56 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Next item.

486. 2:34:56 — open the recording at 2 hours 34 minutes 56 secondsMichelle (clerk): Special Ordinance 8-2026. Rezoning a property located at 1009 Poplar Street. Area Planning gave it favorable with conditions recommendation.

487. 2:35:07 — open the recording at 2 hours 35 minutes 7 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Petitioner.

488. 2:35:10 — open the recording at 2 hours 35 minutes 10 secondsAdrian Kodaev (resident): Good evening. Name's Adrian Kodaev, and I am representing Fastenal Company today.

489. 2:35:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 35 minutes 18 secondsAdrian Kodaev (resident): Okay. The company behind us went out of business, and we're going to be acquiring the business behind us as we are landlocked between the railroad and Poplar Street. So this is our only opportunity to expand as our business is growing without moving. So we are in the process of purchasing that property right now. So how we're going to combine the two buildings, we're not sure of yet. We're still looking into what's the most cost-effective option. But if we do connect the two, from my understanding, it needs to be on the same parcel.

490. 2:35:58 — open the recording at 2 hours 35 minutes 58 secondsAdrian Kodaev (resident): And in order for it to be on the same parcel, it needs to be in the same zone. Currently, our property is on light manufacturing, which I'm not sure why we don't manufacture anything at our business and never have. So I'm kind of getting ahead of it depending on what route we go. There's still a lot of unknowns as far as adding on the square footage if we're going to have to put in the fire sprinklers and what the cost of that is. So we might not be putting them on the same parcel, but acquiring that building is going to be 60 to 90 days.

491. 2:36:33 — open the recording at 2 hours 36 minutes 33 secondsAdrian Kodaev (resident): So I'm just trying to get ahead of that and seeing if we can rezone to the proper zoning.

492. 2:36:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 36 minutes 38 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Thank you. Are there any members of the public who wish to comment on Special Ordinance 8-2026? Hearing none. Council?

493. 2:36:47 — open the recording at 2 hours 36 minutes 47 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President. Councilperson Nation.

494. 2:36:50 — open the recording at 2 hours 36 minutes 50 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I'm really glad that Fastenal is looking for ways to expand. And it's a positive thing for our community.

495. 2:36:57 — open the recording at 2 hours 36 minutes 57 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): It's also a positive thing for you to be updating the outdated zoning that your current property sits on. I don't see any downsides to this. And if there's no further discussion,

496. 2:37:13 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 13 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I would move that we take action on special ordinance number 8-2026.

497. 2:37:18 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 18 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Chalos, that we take action on special ordinance 8-2026. All those in favor say aye. Aye.

498. 2:37:26 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 26 secondsSpeaker 615: Opposed say nay. We may now take action on special ordinance 8-2026. Mr. President. Councilperson Nation.

499. 2:37:33 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 33 secondsTodd Nation (councillor): I move for approval of Special Ordinance 8-2026.

500. 2:37:38 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 38 secondsSpeaker 615: Second. It's been moved by Councilperson Nation, seconded by Councilperson Shalos. Does Special Ordinance 8-2026 be approved?

501. 2:37:44 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 44 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed, say nay. The motion passes. Special Ordinance 8-2026 is adopted. Appreciate that, Council.

502. 2:37:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 53 secondsDennis Sauten (staff): I hope your project goes well, and I hope you guys actually have a good expansion.

503. 2:37:59 — open the recording at 2 hours 37 minutes 59 secondsAdrian Kodaev (resident): Appreciate that.

504. 2:38:00 — open the recording at 2 hours 38 minutesTodd Nation (councillor): Mr. President, I'm sorry, but can I make one more? Yeah, it's just one short thing. This council, a couple of months ago, took action to designate the intersection of 7th and Cherry Street as Carl Ross Memorial Way. Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., we are dedicating Carl Ross Memorial Way. And you've all gotten notice about it in your email. Well, this is more for the theoretical people who are watching on television or YouTube or whatever to know that that dedication is finally happening and that, of course, the whole community is invited.

505. 2:38:42 — open the recording at 2 hours 38 minutes 42 secondsSpeaker 441: So that's tomorrow morning, Friday, July the 10th at 11 a.m. at the intersection of 7th Cherry, rain or shine. That's it. I yield.

506. 2:38:53 — open the recording at 2 hours 38 minutes 53 secondsSpeaker 489 (councillor): Thank you. With that said, I will make the most popular motion of the evening to adjourn.

507. 2:38:59 — open the recording at 2 hours 38 minutes 59 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Second. Been moved by Councilperson A.

508. 2:39:03 — open the recording at 2 hours 39 minutes 3 secondsAnthony J. Dinkel (chair): Seconded by Councilperson Chalos that we adjourn. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those in favor say nay. City Council stands adjourned.

509. 2:39:10 — open the recording at 2 hours 39 minutes 10 secondsSpeaker 727: One day, George. You're not going to get that second. You're not going to get the second.

Marked moments above are where the archive's reviewed highlights were drawn from. Everything else on this page is unreviewed.