I call this meeting of the Carmel Common Council to order for Monday, August 18th.

We do have a quorum.

Do we have uh anyone virtual tonight, Jessica?

No one council was okay.

So calling this meeting to order.

Uh first item is agenda approval.

Do I have a motion?

Second.

Moving seconded, please vote.

All right.

This passes.

Next up is our invocation, led by Pastor Ben Snyder of Carmel Friends Church.

Good evening, friends.

Uh, please join me in an assuming an attitude of prayer.

Let's pray.

Loving God, we are so thankful for the many blessings you bestow upon us.

We're thankful for this community and the people who serve in it.

We're thankful for our neighbor, even when it's hard to love them.

We do our best.

Lord, today we pray that you would send us a spirit of peace in our midst.

Send us a spirit of wisdom, that we might speak kindly and concisely, that we might think of the other, the one across the table from us, the one down the street from us, the one who's hungry, the one who's thirsty, the one in need for whatever we might be able to give and share.

For this and all things, we will give you praise.

Amen.

Have a great meeting.

Hey, Pastor Ben.

I wanted to share a story about how when we're running for office, you get these phone lists.

And sometimes nowadays I don't know if they're AI generated, but they're data-driven phone lists that I'm sure everybody in the community loves.

Us getting your phone number.

Well, I'm scrolling through and I see Benjamin Keith Snyder.

And I thought, this is ridiculous.

My son's only four, Benjamin Keith Snyder.

So I called the number and left a message.

I don't know what I was expecting, but Pastor Ben calls me back and says, This is Benjamin Keith Snyder.

I said, Well, you're not my son.

So anyway, that fostered a good relationship between us.

And I just want to say how much I appreciate you kind of being an anchor of the Johnson Edition neighborhood and your stewardship for the people of Carmel is much appreciated.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is a Pledge of Allegiance.

If you please stand and recite the pledge.

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.

Thank you.

Next is recognition of city employees and outstanding citizens.

We have none on the agenda this evening.

The next up is recognition of persons who wish to address the council.

The blue card section.

We have one this evening.

If you'll start move to the podium, you get three minutes.

And when the light turns green gets started, yellow means uh kind of 30 seconds left, red means uh wrap it up.

So Allie Mistler um representing herself talking about funding for the Allied Solutions Center.

Push the button to get started.

Good evening, Council members.

My name is Allie Mistler, and I am here to voice my strong support for continued funding of the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.

This is not just a cultural venue, it is one of Carmel's most powerful economic drivers and a cornerstone of our community's identity.

A recent Americas for the Arts study in 2022 found that Carmel's nonprofits arts and culture sector sector generated 42.7 million dollars in economic activity, supporting 981 jobs and more than 30 million dollars in household income.

On average, attendees spend $31.77 per person per event beyond the ticket, and nearly half travel from outside Hamilton County.

That spending directly benefits our restaurants, our hotels, and our retailers.

And at the heart of this impact is the Allied Solutions Center, which attracts over half a million visitors annually and has helped help catalyze more than 300 million dollars in redevelopment around City Center.

But the return on the investment is not just economic, it is deeply personal and generational.

I have taken multiple classes at the center myself, and because of the training and mentorship I received there, I had the extraordinary opportunity this summer to perform in Paris during Men's Fashion Week.

That life-changing experience would not have been possible without the foundation built right here at the Allied Solutions Center.

This is why I urge you to sustain support for the center and their outreach programs, like the Transportation Fund that enables schools to bring children to performances.

For many children, particularly those from families with limited means, that bus ride is their only chance to experience live performances.

Without it, we risk closing the door on the very students who benefit most from the inspiration and enrichment the arts provide.

And I can tell you personally, as a foster parent of over 998 children in our home, that when we take the children to the center, they are gobsmacked.

They didn't even know it was possible.

Funding the Allied Solutions Center and access that ensures its reach is not an expense.

It generates revenue and is an investment in Carmel's economy in the vibrancy of our community and in the limitless potential of our children.

Together, let's continue building on Carmel's momentum by supporting the center.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Folks, folks, we don't allow applause or booing.

Folks.

We don't allow applause or booing at any council meeting for any matter.

So I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I don't allow it for anything.

So no matter whether you support it or not.

So this is a business meeting.

Next up, Councilman Mayoral comments and observations.

Mayor Finkham.

I have none tonight.

Thank you very much.

Council comments.

Any comments from the council tonight.

I'll go.

Okay.

Council Warrell.

All right.

Um I would like to just uh warmly welcome uh anyone who would like to come to the state of civility.

We are holding kind of our first regathering of the Carmel community after we started the Project Civility Initiative several months ago.

We will be gathering at the Monon Center on August 28th at 7 o'clock PM.

We will give people an opportunity to participate, to get involved in committees.

We're going to explain the structure that we set up, the 501c3 uh nonprofit foundation, and we will have a fun little uh conversation built in there about what if it's okay to disagree.

So hopefully you'll be able to work that into your schedule and join us on August 28th, 7 o'clock PM at the Monon.

Council Minard.

I just would like to uh say to the general public that we have a safe sticker program that we initiated, myself, um, the fire department, the police department, with the help of Captain Butts and Dr.

Joshi.

We have a new program that's out there that you can get a free pack of stickers that has identifying information you can put on your car seat.

It has stickers to say look for the seat.

So if you're interested in for our most vulnerable citizens, if there's an accident and they can't speak for themselves, they can find it on the car seat.

So I just want to bring that out to send this out to the ether and hopefully anybody will come and grab some for their little ones.

And also, just so you know, we ran out of stickers at the safety day event.

So I'm very proud of this initiative.

Counselor Schneider.

Thank you, Shannon and Dr.

Joshy.

Uh I'll second that.

And I wanted to bring up what an amazing public safety day it was, another big hit.

Something that started so small.

Gosh, 30 years ago.

30 almost 40 years ago.

Uh led entirely by volunteers, created by the fire department.

Uh huge success again.

So thank you for all the participants and uh and all the families that came out.

It was a lot of fun.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I just want to make a comment just earlier.

I didn't I do like the palladium, so that was nothing against that.

It's just our rules.

We don't allow any booing, you know, cheering from the audience.

So if you're here for that on the agenda, which it seems like a lot of people are, uh, it'll be uh the third on the other reports.

So we appreciate your patience.

And then after that part of the agenda, uh, if you don't want to stick around for this probably long meeting tonight, it is not rude for you to leave after that presentation.

There will be no action taken on that item tonight, it's just a report.

But we do thank you for being here.

All right, moving on.

We have consent agenda, uh, approval of minutes, August 4th, 2025 regular meeting, and claims, payrolls in the amount of 4,242,634.19 cents, general claims in the amount of four million seventy thousand seventy-one thousand four fourteen dollars and twenty-nine cents, and purchase card in the amount of thirty-one thousand um two hundred and forty-seven dollars sixty-one cents.

And purchase card in the amount of $31,000 $247.61.

Retirement the amount 127,147 and 10 cents.

And wire transfers in the amount of $4,130,244 and 14 cents.

Do I have a motion?

Motion to approve.

Second.

All right, moved and seconded.

Please vote.

That passes.

Action on mayoral vetoes.

We have none.

Committee reports.

Finance utility and rules committee.

Councillor Taylor is not here tonight, but as I understand them the committee has not met, correct?

Okay.

Land use and special studies committee.

Councillor Snyder.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we have put together a micromobility ordinance.

Not perfect at all.

I expect a lot of it will be neutered, but we wanted something that we could start working from.

I thought it would make this agenda, like I had said at the last meeting.

We were just a day late.

It will be on the agenda for the next council meeting, so we'll probably look at that again at the next land use meeting.

We will also be going through our right-of-ay laws, putting some teeth into them.

This stems from a uh town hall that was done earlier in the year where we just got a numerous complaints about work in the right-of-way, restoration.

So trying to make contractors hold them responsible when they do damage outside the purview of whatever work they are doing.

And then uh finally, on the also added to the agenda for the next meeting will be uh continuation from something that was on the agenda a long time ago, but we'll be doing a review and status update of all of the infrastructure bond projects to get an update where they are, what's been spent, what needs to be done, uh general update.

So that'll be this Wednesday at 5 30.

Uh at the library in the boardroom.

Of course, the public is always welcome.

We want everybody's input on anything.

If you just want to come and yell at us, we accept that.

Um we look forward to seeing anybody that wants to show up Wednesday at Carmel Library, second floor in the boardroom.

Thank you.

Thank you.

On a note, I think I noticed.

So I know we're disappointed that we don't have the microbiality ordinance yet, but I think we're a little ahead because I start seeing some other communities are working on ordinances there too.

And there was even an article in the USA today about this topic.

So uh thank you for jumping on this kind of earlier, and now we'll have something to work with.

Um other reports.

Next up is Economic Development Commission by annual report.

Good evening, counselors.

Uh, my name is Jeff Moore.

I am the council's appointee to the Carmel Economic Uh Count Commission, um, and this is the semi-annual report, so every six months.

And uh just real quick for your last minute.

Um, we met most recently on sorry, my last update was uh March 3rd, 2025, and since then we've met once, and that was on June 2nd.

Uh, we re-elected our officers Ed Bukovich uh as president, vice president Nikki Felix, and me as your secretary.

Uh we voted and approved unanimously on one project, the north end phase two project for 75 million dollars in uh developer back bonds, and we have another um meeting scheduled for August 25th at 2 p.m.

in council chambers.

Are there any questions?

Sir Snyder.

Will you just reiterate for the uninformed the impact on the taxpayer of a developer-backed bond?

I may be not as well equipped to define this.

Uh, Mr.

Mostetski is here and can uh articulate that better.

But uh the idea is that it de-risks the taxpayer uh from the projects while creating the infrastructure necessary to sustain uh new developments in Carmel.

Operating word is it goes on our books because of a state mandate, but it is not the taxpayers are not liable for any debt.

This is developer debt.

We just authorize them to use it.

And am I saying that accurately?

I'm seeing a nod from Mr.

Misteski.

Any other questions?

Thank you for your your time and thank you for serving.

Thank you.

Next up is Parks Department quarterly report.

Director Clitson.

My pride and joy.

Good evening, uh President Austin members of the council.

Michael Klitzing, director and CEO of Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation.

I'm pleased to provide to you the third quarter report for your award-winning nationally accredited park and recreation system.

I would like to recognize tonight.

I'm aware of three park board members that are in attendance.

We have Mark Westermeyer and Katie Mueller, as well as John Shapiro, who is our school board appointee, park board member from the school board.

So I want to thank uh each and every one of you from coming.

Any other park board members that I missed not coming in?

Very good.

Um, hard to believe, but we're almost through the end of summer.

So as far as schools starting, our summer camps are over.

This year we had just over 7,500 participants, enrolled uh campers in our summer camps.

As you can see, each of the last uh four years we've seen a steady uh progress or increase in that 4% this past year.

We offered 13 camp options for ages five through 15, a total of nine weeks of camps.

100% of our camps ran, so we had no cancellations due to low enrollment, and actually 87% of our camp weeks were at maximum enrollment.

So that shows to you the great popularity we have in our camps.

Basically, the week of the 4th of July is the week that represents the uh the 13 percent that were not at uh full enrollment because people are enjoying that week and taking off.

So that's always the week.

If you need camps, we can probably get you in, but you probably don't need camps that week.

Um eighty-eight percent of our campers were actually enrolled in Carmel Clay School, so demonstrates the strong number of uh students and Hiddows that we're serving uh within the Carmel Clay community.

Summer camps are over, and the after-school and before school program is now in full session.

So one of our biggest challenges with the extended school enrichment program is having enough staff to be able to support the robust demand that we have for ESE.

So if there is anyone interested working with kids that would like to have a part-time job, we are always hiring.

The more employees we have, the more kids will be able to serve.

So uh come to Carmelclay Parks.com and uh apply for a job if interested.

Also, even though we are not through the end of summer for the water park season, I am pleased to report that we've had so far through August 3rd, over 106,000 visitors to the water park.

Uh the three previous years we've averaged 106,400 plus.

Uh so we're right on target uh for the regular season for the water park.

This year it started off really slow.

If you might recall, it was very rainy, it was very cold.

So we picked up a lot of steam with visitation the last uh month of the water park season.

We are still open weekends through Labor Day.

Uh the last uh two weekends we had 6,640 additional visitation on top of what's reported there for 2025.

Uh we have two more weekends, including uh Labor Day weekends.

So uh we anticipate getting somewhere between 120 and 125, which would put us on par for the years that we were able to actually stay open through Labor Day again being closed.

So uh pretty average season for us.

We're very pleased with that.

But we are this is the first time in a number of years that we've been able to offer a postseason with weekend uh only uh activity for for people to come to the water park.

So uh very pleased with our human resources and talent acquisition departments to be able to recruit the staff to be able to provide that service to our residents and to the greater community.

So encourage you to come check out and celebrate the end of summer with us.

I wanted to provide a quick uh update on Brookshire Golf Course.

Uh uh President Austin requested this uh update from me, so I want to make sure I uh accommodate that.

We have been working closely with the City of Carmel on developing a business plan for uh the golf course.

That information has been provided to the city and is currently being reviewed as well as the recommendations.

So no decisions have been made, but that is being reviewed, and I'm sure subsequent updates will be provided uh here in the near future.

Moving on to uh Councillor Snyder talked about updates on the infrastructure bonds.

There are five that are directly related to Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation, so I wanted to provide you a quick update on our parks related projects.

First, for Bear Creek Park, which is our new park at the southwest corner of 146th Street and Shelburn.

Uh we received 6.2 million dollars in funding for uh this particular project, which is being added uh too with uh park and recreation impact fees to make a uh a solid about $8 million uh phase one development of the park.

We are continuing to work with our design team, Smith Group, to come up with the uh schematic plans.

Those will be reported to the park board at their September meeting for ultimate uh adoption, likely in the October meeting.

We also have organized a committee that will be reviewing a request for proposals that will go out to select through a build operate transfer process for development of that park.

So I'll be reaching out to those members shortly to schedule that meeting so that we can get the RFP process started for that project.

Autumn Greenway is a new greenway that is envisioned to go east-west from the Monon Greenway to the Old Meridian Corridor, a little bit north of City Center Drive.

We are in the process of working with design teams to come up with different route options for that.

The design teams will be meeting with me at the end of August as well as some representatives from engineering.

And in September or October, depending on availability of the various players, we'll be having a public meeting to review those different options to gather feedback and then begin looking at uh what's a realistic route for that particular greenway.

Also, Veterans Greenway and Park.

Uh it's also another new greenway within the Central Core that is envisioned to be on the east side of Old Meridian, connecting to this new Autumn Greenway up to Main Street.

Ultimately, these two greenways are expected to provide greater connectivity within the Central Corps to the Monon Greenway and providing safe passage to pedestrians and bicyclists.

So excited about those.

The Veterans Greenway is being designed by the same team as the Autumn Greenway.

So again, I'll be getting that report here at the end of August.

We will be meeting with the veterans community with that as well as with Veterans Park, which will be connected to this park just north, or excuse me, to this greenway just north of the VFW.

You'll be hearing a little bit more about that project from Director Mistetsky later in the agenda, and I'll stay here if there's any park-related questions related to that.

We received funding for a new neighborhood park at the intersection of Smoky Row and Ironwood Drive.

That project, we will begin a public input process as soon as we know definitively where the roundabout's going, so that we know exactly how much property that we have.

So we will start with public input.

We will then come up with several concepts that we'll be able to invite the public to look at, and then based on the feedback we get in that second meeting, we'll come up with a the preferred recommended uh concept that will get additional feedback before it goes to the park board for adoption and ultimately going out to the procurement process.

And then we also did receive some funding for enhancements along River Road, specifically tied to the White River Greenway.

We're very thankful to Connor Prairie, which has provided us a little bit bigger easement north of Cherry Creek Boulevard up to 146th Street, and the funding through the infrastructure bond will allow us to really landscape that northern section to be more of a greenway as opposed to a perimeter pathway.

So it feels like a trail and not just uh expanded sidewalk.

So thankful to the city for that uh significant amount of funding that we receive for these projects.

Speaking of the White River Greenway, uh the north extension, we are continuing progress to expand this trail from where it currently ends, a little bit south of uh Prairie Trace Elementary School up to 146th Street.

Of course, this includes an overlook, a new uh trailhead with restrooms.

Uh you'll see you're seeing some of that work.

You'll begin seeing the trail coming in very shortly.

And actually, around the Cherry Creek Boulevard, you'll see already this boardwalk system which goes underneath or actually goes above a drainage area there.

So you're starting to see some of the infrastructure for this new 1.3 mile extension of the White River Greenway going in.

This project is anticipated to be completed before the end of the year.

Sticking along the White River, uh continued progress on the bridge and connecting trails within Hazel Landing Park that connects our Hazel Landing to Fisher's Heritage Park.

I'm pleased to announce for the first time that we anticipate naming the bridge, the Burr Oak Bridge.

To give a little bit of significance about that, we have been working with the federally registered tribes that have a history in the state of Indiana because we wanted to work with them to come up with a name for the bridge.

And similar to some of our other projects along the White River or near the White River, we want to be a conduit by which we're helping tell our Native Americans who have a history here, and we still have Native Americans here in Indiana and Carmel as well.

So we wanted to tell their story and be the conduit by which they tell their story.

And having conversations specifically with four tribes, the Delaware, the Miami, the Shawnee, as well as the Peoria.

We talked with them, we discussed different ideas for naming this bridge, and they kind of rallied around something that all of us would have seen in the shared space, not only the Native Americans, but also those of us that are visiting the park today.

So they asked for a list of native species that you might find when visiting this part of White River.

So we provided a list of the different trees and plant life that you might see.

And also talked about the fact that there are two big burr oak trees on either side of the river.

We specifically designed the bridge to save these well over 100 year old trees, and they really rallied around that.

So that's the inspiration for this bridge, the Burr Oak Bridge.

One of the things that we will be doing is there will be sort of a trailhead that connects to our the sort of circular parking lot that you see in the upper right hand corner of the of our park that is going to have basically something that has all of the names, the native language spelling of Burr Oak there, and talking about that, and then we'll also talk about the different tribes in those locations.

So just the beginning of the of the story working with the tribes, but uh super excited to announce that name.

A project that is also not taking place too far from the White River is our refresh project for Founders Park.

The big part of this project is basically replacing the safety surfacing within the playground.

This is actually our oldest playground within the park system, a little over 15 years old.

So I mean I remember when we were dedicating it not too long ago.

So it's had a lot of little uh feet uh playing on it, and it's also had a lot of sand spread from the sand river that goes through the middle of the middle of of the playground, um, which has certainly had an impact on the safety surfacing.

So we're removing all the safety surfacing, putting down new rubberized safety surfacing.

One of the challenges that we had is as much as the sand play feature is loved, it does create some challenges for it.

We're not getting rid of the sand, but we're relocating it to the northeast corner of it on the on the chart, it's the area A.

That way it's not going through the middle of the playground, but it still provides that play experience.

Um where you see the E, uh the E next to the letter A, that's actually going to be artificial turf.

And basically, if you think of it as a giant walk-off mat, we're going to try to get a little bit more of the sand off the feet so that it's not spreading quite as extensively throughout the rest of the playground.

We know it's still going to spread, but we're trying to make measures to minimize uh how much of the sand is spread.

Otherwise, the existing play equipment, uh, some of it's going to be refurbished, but the playground will look substantially similar to what it is today, other than a nice new safety surfacing and a relocated sand playground.

We will be doing some uh there's an accessible ramp that goes up to the main feature.

Um we are going to be shuring that up.

That wall has been slowly moving out.

Uh it's still structurally sound, but we want to lock it in place.

So we've worked with the engineers to structurally fortify that retaining wall.

We're going to be adding additional and more robust fencing between the parking lot and the playground, sort of a practice that we've done in a number of our parks just to make it a little bit more difficult for the runners to get into the into the parking areas.

It gives the the parents and guardians a little bit of opportunity to keep track of their kids.

And then the existing parking lot as well as some of the sidewalks in there are going to be getting repairs.

The parking lot will look brand new when we're done.

That project has already started.

The playground is currently closed.

We anticipate everything being wrapped up by the end of October, so be able to enjoy it in those cool fall days as well as next year.

The QR code, in case you're interested, that takes you to more information about this project.

Not directly related to the refurbishing of the playground, but we also are going to be creating a new experience within Founders Park, our boardwalk project.

Part of our original master plan was to ultimately provide more accessibility to the pond that's within this park.

We are actually moving forward on that.

And on the far right, you can kind of see the existing trails and then the wide that goes through the pond.

That's a floating boardwalk that we'll be installing in here, connecting the trails, expanding the trail network, but giving you an opportunity to actually get out over the water.

We went with a floating boardwalk as opposed to a built-in structure because that pond does serve some of our stormwater needs for for the eastern side of Carmel.

So you'll see variations in the water.

So this way, part of the area, not way up above the water and part of the year below the water.

So this keeps you so that you're at a good level.

At the end still be ramps that keep it except in the most extreme conditions at ADA grades, so everyone will be able to enjoy it.

The railings that are represented in the uh the 3D uh representation are not exactly what we have, but it gives a good feel for what you're going to be experiencing.

Um we anticipate receiving our our pricing for this to go to the park board still this year uh with installation likely happening in spring of next year.

But we're super excited about that project.

And then finally, we'll see if this actually works.

But we're super excited.

We did open the new playground in uh the Monon Community Center.

So if you have not had an opportunity to visit it, it is truly a dynamic playground experience.

And of course, the signature feature is the new lucky climber.

We have a small version of the lucky climber on Monon Boulevard, but uh this one is unlike any lucky climber anywhere, not only in the United States but in the world.

It's the first one to have the dynamic lighting like you see here.

Uh it's also the first playground that Lucky has created that has not one but two slides.

Uh usually they don't do slides, but we challenge them uh to incorporate it within the play structure.

So uh it is a wonderful feature.

Not only is this playground structure here, but there's a giant light bright in there, uh and there's other play features, including a smaller playground for uh for the smaller toddlers.

So if you haven't had a chance, uh go check it out.

You can use it if you're a member of the Monon Community Center, or you can also purchase a day pass.

And if you scan that QR code, you can get more information about uh the hours that it's open and and how to use it.

Uh it does incorporate into our um uh child care service that we have there, so there's some designated times that only the kiddos can be in there with our staff, uh but all the details are online.

And this is to show that you don't have to only be a small kid, but a kid at heart can still get through there.

So I was challenged before the uh ribbon cutting uh to to go up there, and you know I'm not one to to let a challenge go uh unheeded.

So uh with that I'd be happy to address any questions the council may have.

Councilman Artists, yeah.

Thank you so much for your amazing presentation, as always, Director Klitzing.

A couple things.

First of all, I I'm curious to know about the installation of the boardwalk in Founders Park.

The closure of that, will that close the park at all during that time period?

So the good thing with the the uh floating boardwalk is there might be a little bit of interruption to the lower trails, but the rest of the park will remain open.

So uh again, anticipating that uh project happening in the spring, uh hopefully before Memorial Day, but even if it uh goes a little bit longer, uh it won't cause any closures of the parks.

Great, because that we know how our citizens really enjoy our park systems and the parks are closed.

Boy, oh boy, we hear about it.

Um I want to say uh I was really impressed but with the numbers for the 88% of Carmel Clay kids that were enrolled in the camps.

Was that through your partnership with the Carmel Clay Schools?

I'm just curious of how you did that.

Sure.

So what we've uh offered the last several years, if you're enrolled in the extended school enrichment program, you get an opportunity for early registration in our summer camps.

So that helps ensure that that you know the the folks that are using Carmel Clay Schools are able to also uh be able to get their kids in the program.

Thank you.

Counselor Joshi.

Well, thank you again, Director Klitzing.

I really appreciate your presentation as always.

It is a joy to see um the expansion of the parks and the things that we're doing for families and young families.

I wanted to see if you could give me an update on the sunscreen dispensers and how we're doing with expanding that project as well.

Absolutely.

We are working with another doctoral student to uh bring that out to West Park, and we certainly look for other opportunities if if you're a doctor out there that uh that one or you don't have to be a doctor uh if you want to help sponsor that program.

We would love to ultimately uh provide the sunscreen to each of our parks, especially where we have splash pads, but also uh where we have playgrounds and kiddos playing.

So thank you for that question.

Um Councillor Snyder and then Councillor Green.

Michael.

I've got a lot.

So I'm gonna go through it all, and then if you can address what you remember, I would appreciate it.

Absolutely.

Now, cancel Councilor Austin, you said 30 minutes, so you can't hold me if the council asks.

I mean, I have a question too, so it's okay.

Um go back to Bear Creek.

You mentioned BOT.

Uh just kind of what that means for the people that don't know is it's a and I wish Rich was here to really correct me.

But um it's an it's a mechanism to where the developer funds everything up front and then we pay them back at the end.

And typically I have historically disagreed with BOTs because I feel like they've been predatory against smaller communities.

And if you can't pay for them now, then why are you gonna pay for it in 20 years with a huge premium?

Uh this is a little different, and in Carmel, that model I think works better because we can pay for it.

It really works for you because you've got like four different funding mechanisms coming into this park where this is a good model because when you have money coming from so many places, it's good to have it all in one spot when you're ready to actually write the check.

So I appreciate that, and it gives you a little more control over what you want, and you'll know the the price of the project almost to the T without any owner-directed changes at the very beginning.

Um Ironwood Park was there on Friday.

Just wanted to walk it, see what I was super excited about that.

And this is more towards Brad with Engineering, but in the span of an hour, one exactly one person stopped at that stop sign.

So uh if there was ever any doubt in my mind about the need for traffic improvement there, that quell uh squashed that all together.

I'm really excited about that park.

It's a lot larger parcel than I had initially thought it was just looking at paper.

Being out there, it's it's huge.

Um, and thank you to engineering and the mayor for putting that in because clearly that stop sign is absolutely useless.

Um you mentioned Berkshire Business Plan, and that really doesn't say anything about what why or you're doing one.

So I if you could come back and talk about what the business plan is.

Um love the cooperation with the Native Americans, Borough Bridge.

I I think that is incredible.

It's a great story.

Um the uh founders park.

I it's amazing to me how little things I've never would never consider became have can become so polarizing.

And we were at a town hall a couple two, three weeks ago, and I did not realize how huge of an issue the sand was.

Like for me and my children, my wife hates the sand because the kids come home with sand and everything.

And then one of our very good friends was like, well, wait a minute, we love the sand.

And I was like, it was just it was just incredible, but what I think that really points out is that while you have these two whole uh ridiculously opposite views, the trust that the public has in your assessment of things and the public input, in that while they may disagree, they're not lighting torches about it.

Um shows how much trust the community has in you and the the whole park system to make decisions based on what is what is really best from your skill sets.

When I say you, I mean the entire parks department parks board.

Um because that I I never would have thought that that was an issue, which never did.

So thank you for that.

Um love the boardwalk project.

Uh wanted to comment on the relationship between Carmel Clay Parks and Recreation and the CRC.

Uh just so I'm just impressed.

Um I love how much you and Director Mastetsky coordinate talk, and I know you were doing this long before we intervened on the PRIF ordinance.

But it's really turned into something special where you two both have very unique and special skill sets and are able to work together to provide something things that are incredible for the community, which leads me to back to the veterans park.

Uh you know, the mayor was handed, we all were handed something called the flower district.

Like we didn't choose that.

Um I would have much preferred it be a veteran district, but the mayor has done an awesome job trying to align this district name that we've been given and the veteran service organizations that are within the district and co-mingle those two, and that is taking cooperation between the CRC and you and making sure that it is one kind of seamless area of town that fits everybody we've committed to take care of.

So I I greatly appreciate that.

And then finally, before you go back to oh, the camps, obviously, both my kids are in your camps again.

Love it.

Want to give another shout out to Joey Castillo, who is absolutely phenomenal as far I couldn't do it in the employee recognition because he's not a city employee, but love them.

And then there was another gentleman I remember calling you about, and I've forgive me, I forgot his name, but he was on the West side, and just the way they handle things, and I'm speaking for Councilor Taylor as well, just top notch.

And Joey is a com is a name brought up in our house all the time and just appreciate him and what he does for the children.

On the sunscreen.

I love Dr.

Joshi's initiative as she worked out with you and kind of kicked off.

You know, I I go back several years ago when people got free cell phones.

Like at what point does sunscreen just become the standard or in in your budget?

Like why are we chasing donation dollars when we know I I'm not going to speak, I'm not a doctor, but I'm sure Dr.

Joshi would say it's a non-arguable point that it is it's needed to protect us.

So something to think about there.

Because I I love the initiative, and maybe we shouldn't just be chasing donations, it should just be part of the parks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Snyder.

So to the top of the best of my memory.

Some of them are not mostly.

And I've forgotten most of what it was.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'm happy to look at is there an opportunity to incorporate the sunscreen more so within our operating budgets to see what the true cost of that is.

Um it is a very important service.

It is something that we all understand and the more we can promote it, even if people aren't using it, seeing it, and maybe bringing their own, that's that's so important.

So we'll certainly take a look at that.

I do want to, before I address some of the other questions too, I I do want to recognize um the relationship and and the collaborative spirit that we've had with Director Mistutsky and the CRC, uh, especially as it pertains to Veterans Park, but on so many other projects as well.

It truly is a collaborative spirit.

Uh Veterans Park, we would not be able to bring forward the incredible project that's going to be uh started to be presented tonight uh with without Director Mistetsky's lead, listening to my concerns, working with the developer, and coming up with something that I think is going to be a true win.

So I do want to thank Director Mistetsky for uh for that spirit of collaboration and and I I truly enjoy working with him on these types of projects.

Um the Brookshire Business Plan, one of the things that has been discussed by this council and councils previously, including when Mayor Finkam was on the council, was looking at where does it make the most sense for Brookshire to be.

And also, especially as we look at the realities of uh SEA 1, uh Senate Enroll to Act One, that has certainly changed the landscape for financing of public amenities, is you know, Brookshire hasn't always covered all of its operating expenses like the Monon Community Center and extended school enrichment and a number of our other programs.

Uh so working closely with with the mayor and her administration, uh, we volunteered to take the lead in helping uh develop uh uh bring on a consultant and and prepare a business plan that has a variety of recommendations to help move the golf course to a more sustainable uh long-term model.

That's not to take anything away from the operations of it today.

Uh you know, feedback that we had in surveys uh suggested that the public's very pleased with the staff that we have, but it's how do we take it to the next level?

We being the community, take it to the next level to ensure that it's uh ultimately self-sufficient if that's possible, and and what does that look like?

So there were a variety of of options that have been presented, and and you know, based on conversations I've had with the mayor and and other uh city leadership, you know, we're just working our way through through the different recommendations to see what makes the most sense for this community.

Uh I anticipate that an answer is going to be uh to that, how we move forward uh before the end of the year.

But uh, you know, we're doing our due diligence at this time to make sure that uh we do what's best for uh Brookshire, but most importantly for our residents.

Um with regard to the build operate transfer, actually, you did a pretty good uh summary of that.

But the idea instead of using a traditional uh where we design it, uh fully design it all the way to construction documents, put out bids, and and then ultimately as the owner take on all the risk, the build operate transfers designed to not only, especially for communities that don't have the funding sources that we do here in Carmel, but it's also to uh to to provide an additional funding source.

We don't need it as much for that, but what we do uh allows us to do is is to mitigate the the exposure because under the traditional bidding process for projects as the owner, we're taking on all of the risk.

And this sort of spreads the risk to the developer a little bit.

So it also allows us uh under bidding laws, we have to take the lowest res uh lowest responsive and responsible bidder, which doesn't necessarily always mean the best.

Uh so this allows us to take into consideration a little bit more so not only the pricing, of course, we want the best price for our residents uh and for our constituents, but we also want the best developer to do the project.

So this gives us uh a little bit more flexibility to ensure that we're getting not only a good price, but we're getting uh the best team to make that happen.

So uh that's a project that uh councillor Taylor, both when he was park board president and now as counsel has encouraged us to consider.

This is the first time uh that the park board will be uh going through this uh this process, uh, but it's one that we're excited about and and looking uh at this as a beta test for us to determine is this a good model for other projects as well.

And I want to point out why you brought up the bidding part, and I didn't mention that, but I remember going through hell with then Director Westemeyer with a few projects because people that get received the bidding documents are typically road builders, and you end up with a road contractor that wants to build the road, and then they think they can install a playground and it doesn't go smoothly.

So this gives you the opportunity to ensure that the team responding actually has experience in in playground the different components of a park, which is much different than a municipal project where it's pretty cut and dry with roads and sewers.

Am I saying that accurately?

I think that's that's a fair statement.

Uh building a park is not like building a street and it's not like building a home.

It's uh you know, we've got, I mean, we had last year, uh we estimated based on the counters we have throughout the parks uh about 5.7 million visits to our parks.

So that tells you how many people are using our parks and using our playgrounds.

So you have to build it for that intensive amount of use.

So, you know, we uh it it it it takes some uh special skill set to get it right.

Counselor Green.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um I have a couple questions.

One about the water parks.

Um I'm in a different phase of my life than Councillor Snyder.

I don't go to the parks or water parks as much as I used to, you know, when I had little ones.

Uh but I had some phone calls from some constituents who are Carmel residents, um, low non annual members.

You know, and do they get any priority getting into the water parks?

Because often there's just huge lines.

Um so do they get any priority?

Councilor Green, thank you for that question.

Uh actually, uh especially if you have a membership, uh, there is a member uh-only line.

Uh so that allows you to, if you go on the far right side, uh, you're able to go get in much quicker than the day pass line.

Additionally, the benefit of having a membership to the Monon Community Center and the water park is there are times when it's very popular, very hot, um, that uh we may have to go to a one-out one in to ensure that it's a safe environment inside.

Uh we always allow a margin for our members to come.

So even when we go up to the one out, one in situation, our members are still able to gain access to the water park.

So uh there is a mechanism to ensure our members, which are predominantly Carmel residents, uh not exclusively, but but certainly a majority are uh to be able to gain access to the water park.

I thanks, Michael.

Um second question is about the golf course um assessment you just did.

And so the business plan will I assume uh you touched on it, will include kind of um how it'll be funded and maintained.

You said a key point is sustainability kind of long term of the golf course.

Uh so the business plan will will include that information or at least uh kind of assessment on how you think you could get there.

It does.

It includes recommendations on, you know, based on a uh nationally recognized consultant recommendations on on how to move the needle to be able to get there, whether it's pricing models, whether uh a variety of different options that are are available, but it does include various recommendations.

Some are more I mean, with any plan, some are more practical than others.

No, uh thank you.

And the last question is these are great projects, you know.

The park system is awesome, and and it's becoming even more awesome if it can be.

Um, you know, but we've all had meetings with you about how there's a $36 million plus shortfall just to maintain the old stuff, notwithstanding the new stuff.

And there's really no plan on how to fund that $36 million over the next few years.

So we're two years into extending kind of this agreement between the city and the parks.

We're six months into it.

Um any movement on solutions.

So we just spin on our wheels.

I don't think we're spinning our wheels.

We are having uh continued dialogue with with the mayor and her team with uh trustee Hensel and his consulting team.

Um I've also been uh continuing to do some lobbying at the State House.

Obviously, this last cycle was not necessarily the best time to be talking about a new funding source when they were looking at uh SEA1 and some of the other legislation that that impacts funding.

But we've started those conversations.

Um I'm hopeful that even uh before the end of this year or early next year we'll have some recommendations for uh for everyone to consider.

I don't have something that I can tell you today this is what it is, but but I can assure you that we're continuing to uh to work towards a solution to ensure that we're sustaining the incredible assets that the community has entrusted us to to construct over the years.

No, thank you.

Because as you said, Senate Bill or you know, Senate Enrolled Act one, you know, we're looking at uh operating budget restraints, we're looking at bonding capacity restraints, we're looking on a lot of restraints in the future, you know.

So it would be great, you know, the sooner rather than later to come up with a plan on to figure out how to maintain the great parks we have, you know, without being like the federal government and just spending money on things we can't afford.

Absolutely.

And I I'm also encouraged, this doesn't pertain to a new funding source, but I think it provides an instrument to have conversations with our state legislature.

Uh they enabled this year there's a a special study on the impact of outdoor recreation, which obviously involves parks and recreation.

Uh so we are working diligently.

I'm uh I'm on the board of directors for the Indiana Park and Recreation Association.

So we just did uh the first statewide study on the impact of parks and recreation in the state.

There's a lot of data that is more nationally focused, or there might be some that are kind of isolated case studies, but there's not been a seminal study until now on the impact of of parks and recreation specific to the Hoosier state.

And we now have that data.

It's told us more of what we don't know as well as some things that we now do know.

But I think you know, if the state's looking at the economic impact of outdoor recreation, I think it's the mechanism by which to have this broader conversation that it's not only important to have it, but you have to fund it properly.

Uh so I think uh it it provides yet one more instrument to have those conversations.

Um I want to keep the meeting moving, but Councillor Snyder, one quick comment.

Yeah, when you're to your point about the funding, you know, you know, I have no problem saying this out loud because we've always been ahead of the game on finding loopholes.

But um in your various roles, um it would be good to figure out a way to legally promote yourself as a as a piece of public safety as well, because that is the one area where we did we will be receiving quite a bit of money and whatever that our police and fire don't need.

If you can make that argument and it can pass the red face test, that would be a good way.

But I I won't speak for everybody, but I you are currently safe with the commitment of this council to supporting you and keeping you funded and independent and being the best parks department in the country.

And if you would please, I know that um uh Mrs.

Mueller, Mr.

Westemeyer, and Mr.

Shapiro are here, but if you could just run down the rest of the names of your board because you do do a phenomenal job, and uh I think they deserve the recognition.

Sure.

So our our council president for the remainder of this year until she retires, retires uh officially from public service, uh Judy Hagen, uh, our vice president is uh Jen Christunas.

Of course, you mentioned the three that uh and I did earlier that are already here.

Uh Jim Garrison, uh uh Jonathan Blake, uh Josh uh Orahood.

Am I leaving anyone off?

Oh um uh uh Dr.

Reedy Shukula is is our other member.

So uh but an incredible group of individuals that are dedicated to one holding their park system accountable, which is an important role for them and and helping establish the the the big picture policies, but people truly dedicated to this community and and the parks and recreation services we have.

Okay.

Thank you.

I I'm gonna get the last question since I'm present, and then we'll move on.

Uh so uh DSC, you mentioned the great swarth that does there.

My daughter loves ESC.

Um, in fact, you know, you mentioned Joey Castillo.

Uh she talks about him all the time.

And every time I even walk up to the door, he's already got me ready to check out, and she gets her back back on and saving my time.

Uh so we thank you for that.

But along that note, we do have an ordinance at the end of our agenda um regulating speed limits in school zones, and you operate ESC at every elementary school.

Um do you have any comment on hours you would like to see for the school zone speed limits to be in effect?

Uh Council Austin, thank you for that question.

Uh our before and after school program goes until 6 p.m.

on all school days.

Um talking with with my team, including the ESC team.

Uh it is our preference that those school uh zone uh speed limits uh stay in place until after our program is uh is dismissed uh because you know we we do, especially when it's warmer, we have kids outside, even when uh kids are dismissed to their parents and guardians.

Uh we have some runners.

You've heard me use that term before uh in in this meeting, uh, where people the kids will get excited and and they just start running.

So the slower the traffic is in front of the schools any time that there's school kids there, and the ESC kids are school kids.

Um I I think it just enhances the safety of our community.

So, you know, it would be our preference that those those times definitely extend past 6 p.m.

Thank you.

Thank you for your time, Director.

Thank you.

Um moving on to the next item is a report for the Center for the Forming Arts.

I know we have a lot of people here for attendance for this.

We're gonna, you know, we want to give you as much time as possible.

After this, we will do a brief recess for everyone to kind of clear out, and then we'll have a report from uh the director of utilities about uh kind of the recent um news.

Um but we will be handed over to uh the two Jeffs.

So uh thank you uh very much, President Asin and uh and uh City Council members, I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak with you tonight.

I'm Jeff McDermott and proud to serve as the present president and CEO of the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.

I'm here tonight, really speaking on behalf of the LA Solutions Center, our affiliate organization, the Great American Songbook Foundation, uh, and the six wonderful resident companies who also call the LA Solutions Center's campus their home.

I will try to be as efficient as I can in my comments.

We do have a big crowd here.

I assume many are here for the 13th reading of ordinance 2762.

And so out of respect for that, I'm gonna try to keep things moving along here.

Um I'm gonna start with a story, a story that's been retold a number of times over the years by many people, a story that may not even be true, uh, but it takes us back to World War II.

And in World War II, as the story goes, the British Minister of Defense came to Prime Minister Winston Churchill and alerted the Prime Minister that the war effort was not going particularly well.

And the Prime Minister said, what do you think we ought to do about that?

And he said, Well, I think we probably need to start diverting some funds from other places and and and uh apply them to the war effort.

And Prime Minister Churchill said, where do you recommend that we divert those funds from?

And the Minister of Defense said, Well, I suggest we take it from the arts.

And the Prime Minister reportedly said, then what in the world would we be fighting for?

Now again, uh whether that's fact or folklore, uh, it makes the point that I'm here to make tonight on behalf of our organizations, and that is that the arts are vibrant in this community.

They are a cultural impactor in this community, they're an economic impactor in this community.

They are part of the brand of this community, and if there's something that I think the people in the room here uh cherish, I think the people on this council and I know the administration cherishes, and so we're very proud to be a part of it, and it's really a pleasure to be able to talk to you about it tonight and talk to you a little bit about the impact of the arts uh from a couple of studies that we have had done uh that we'll be sharing with you.

I'm really gonna talk to you about three uh primary things.

First, I know a number of you um were not on council.

I don't I'm not sure that any of you were on council when the Allied Solutions Center was built.

Um it's a it's it's truly part of the center of the community and part of the fabric of this community.

So I I do want to spend a little time briefly talking about our structure and our history.

Uh second, I'd like to talk about both the cultural and the economic impact of uh of the arts in general and in particular our resident companies, uh, the Great American Strongbook Foundation and the Allied Solutions Center.

Then I want to talk a little bit about the value that we bring.

The Allied Solutions Center is both the name of the campus and is the nonprofit organization that I'm privileged to serve as the CEO of.

Let me see if I can move on to make things work.

As you know, our campus has uh three magnificent venues uh Pain and Mencia's Palladium, the studio theater, and the Tarkinton Theater.

Uh the uh Paint and Mencias Palladium opened in January of 2011 with its first performance.

The other two theaters opened during the summer of 2011.

The cost of this campus was somewhere around 170 to 180 million dollars, and that was 15, 16 years ago.

By today's numbers, it's probably in the quarter of a billion dollar uh range of investment that the city has uh in in these marvelous venues in this campus.

As I mentioned, the Allied Solutions Center is the name of this campus.

It is also the name of our organization, the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.

We're a nonprofit organization.

We have a mission to engage and inspire the entire Indiana community through enriching arts experiences, and we do that uh in a variety of ways, and we'll talk a little bit about that also as as I move on.

I said I'm here uh representing the Allied Solutions Center.

I'm also here uh representing the Great American Songbook Foundation.

That is our affiliate organization.

I also serve as the president and CEO of that organization.

It was founded in, I believe, about 2007 or 2008.

Uh it came to uh Carmel Indian and made Carmel its home uh in approximately 2010 or 2011.

Um it is uh founded by Michael Feinstein, who also happens to be the artistic director of at the Allied Solutions Center.

It is a national organization with a national board, national reach.

Uh Michael Feinstein, as you know, is a five-time Grammy nominated performers performed all over the world and brings great recognition not only to this uh institution but to the city of Carmel itself.

Uh we are also the home, as I mentioned, of six outstanding resident companies.

We're very proud of all six of these resident companies, the Gregory Hancock Dance Theater, Civic Theater, Carmel Symphony Orchestra, Actors Theater of Indiana, the Indiana Winds Symphony, and the Central Indiana Dance Ensemble.

These six resident companies are responsible for literally hundreds of performances that happen on our campus every single year.

All six of these resident companies have been with us for the entire history of the Allied Solutions Center.

All six of them were actually invited to be resident companies of the Allied Solutions Center by the City of Carmel uh 15 or 16 years ago.

A little bit about the funding of the Allied Solutions Center.

We have about a 10 million dollar budget.

That is simply our budget.

That doesn't count the Great American Songbook Foundation's budget, which is a couple million dollars, and then the combined budgets of all of our resident companies.

But just speaking to the Allied Solutions Center budget, it's about a hundred or a 10 million dollar budget.

We uh employ uh just uh very near 100 individuals.

Um we have three primary sources of funding.

We have earned revenue, which includes ticket sales, food and beverage, uh rentable uh rentable spaces, we have contributed revenue, which is individual donors, corporate sponsors, uh, and granting partners.

Uh that can also include estate planning gifts, uh, legacy gifts uh that uh people make to us.

And then we receive a management fee from the city pursuant to some agreements with the city uh uh each year.

So between those three, that makes up about our $10 million budget.

I want to talk a little bit about the management uh fee that we receive, and it is done pursuant to about four different agreements.

Uh the first one being uh the programming and facility management operating uh operations and maintenance agreement that was signed back in 2011, and that put us in charge of the palladium, now the Paint and Messias Palladium for a 50-year term.

And we're responsible for managing that, and not just when I say managing it, not just managing to make sure the maintenance gets done and security is taken care of, but really bringing it to life, making sure the programming is done and marketing is done and all of those things.

So we are responsible for that.

Uh as the other two theaters came online, we also became responsible uh for both of those theaters.

We take our responsibilities very seriously.

We think we're great stewards uh of these venues and of the city's resources, and uh I'll be talking uh in a few minutes about a report that I think backs up our belief that we do a fine job stewarding these resources.

One of the things that these management agreements do, and I think there's at times been some confusion about, is uh it delineates the responsibilities between the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts as an organization managing these properties and the city of Carmel.

The City of Carmel that this community owns these facilities.

We manage them.

And when I say we manage them, as I said, we bring them to life in a variety of ways.

We make sure that things are taken care of.

We make sure that things get fixed when they need to be fixed or replaced when they need to be replaced.

As a property manager, you might equate us to uh how you would equate a manager of an apartment complex.

Someone owns that complex, but they hire someone to manage the complex.

If the HBAC system goes out, that manager goes and coordinates the repair or replacement of the HVAC system.

But the landlord, the owner, pays for it.

That's how it works with us.

We manage these properties, and when there are repairs needed, equipment needed to be replaced, any number of things like that, maintenance that needs to be done, security, et cetera.

We coordinate and manage all of that.

The city pays for it as the landlord.

And I think there's some confusion there, and that I've heard some people say, well, we receive money for doing that.

We actually don't receive income for doing that.

We receive a pass through.

We pay for those repairs or replacements, and then those are reimbursed to us by the city.

So those never show up on our income statement.

It's not income to us.

We just handle that for the city.

It's the city's expense that we handle and they get reimbursed for.

That on an annual basis at this point is about 1.7 million dollars for these uh uh three venues.

Um next, I'm gonna talk that that sort of gives you a little bit of a history of the structure, how we work it to manage these facilities and bring them to life, and a little bit of the history of it.

Let me now talk about both the uh cultural and economic impact of the center, and I'll speak first to cultural impact.

Um I think everybody would would agree with me that uh the arts bring great culture to this community.

In fact, I think that the community itself has really sort of made that part of its brand.

Um I know that uh Mayor Finkham feels strongly about this in a uh LinkedIn um post that she did back in June.

You know, she noted uh the University of Pennsylvania study, which talked about the importance of the arts and the value, the the sort of non-tangible values that it brings to any community, and we would agree with that, and I'm sure that everybody on the Dais would agree with that as well.

Um the city, as I said, this is the commitment to the arts, it's that's sort of distinguished of us.

We have an arts district here in Carmel.

We have these beautiful facilities and these great nonprofits that uh run so many different types of uh arts venues uh and and and arts offerings.

Uh one of the things that we note is that the city of Carmel has really done a very, very interesting rebrand, and we're proud of this because the rebrand itself is based upon the arts in the sense that the actual new logo of this city is designed off of the Oculus from the Payne MCS Palladium.

Again, something we're very proud of, and I think it really demonstrates uh the city's commitment to the arts and the city embracing the fact that it is committed to the arts and that this is important uh to its brand.

Um we are focused on mission all the time.

As a nonprofit organization, as I said, we have a mission to engage and inspire the Indiana community through enriching arts uh experiences.

We do this in a variety of ways.

Perhaps we're best known for our performances.

People pay to go to our performances, uh, and we have some great performances.

We we do a little bit of everything.

So one of the things that really distinguishes us from for-profit venues, really anywhere in the state, let alone the country, is that we bring such a wide variety of programming.

We truly bring something for everybody.

You know, the moneymakers are the pop rock, comedy, and country offerings that we have, but we bring what we call mission shows also.

We bring classical jazz, songbook, international offerings, family offerings, you name it, and we bring it.

It's hard to come up with a few years ago.

I did a stage welcome and talked to the crowd, and I said, uh boasting a little bit about the variety of programming we have, and I said, where else uh this week could you go see Yitzhak Perlman, the finest living violinist in the world uh to a sold-out performance, and two days later see Weirdal Yankovic, to also a sold-out performance.

And we're proud, we're very proud of that, and we do uh offer something for everybody.

We also offer great educational programming.

We've got a few up here the Science of Light and Sound, our World Voice Day, uh, our PB and J program.

Uh in the last two years alone, we have had uh 25,000 people participate in our educational programming.

Those have ranged in ages, the youngest age, I believe, was 18 months old, the oldest age was uh age 92, and everything in between.

So we're very, very proud of that.

And the thing about our educational program, I think that I'm most proud of, is that it is either uh free to the public or heavily, heavily subsidized by us.

Allie Missler got up and talked a little bit about the uh programming we do, the free matinee concerts and things like that.

We actually have established a transportation fund, removing the barrier for schools from underserved areas who don't have it in their budget to come to the Ally Solutions Center to see a free matinee to see a great performance by a great artist.

And so we take that away from them.

We take that barrier away from them.

And every single school that has ever applied for transportation grant with us has been granted that transportation transportation grant that is largely funded, in fact, fully funded by contributed revenue.

And we're again extremely proud that we're able to do that.

Our public events, something also that we bring into this community.

These are free.

So while the shows uh cost people money, they have to buy the tickets, and our educational programs are free or heavily subsidized.

We have many, many uh completely free programs for the community in general.

These include naturalization ceremonies.

We do these once a year.

We'll we'll have up to a hundred individuals who come and take the oath of citizenship, become a U.S.

citizen in our hall at the Painamancias Palladium.

We live stream those so that their friends and family around the world can watch them become United States citizens in our hall.

Free matinees for students, as I've mentioned, uh, free and subsidized educational programming.

We have many city events, uh MLK ceremonies, veterans' events, and Holocaust remembrance events that we make sure our venues are available for uh for people to come and uh participate in.

We have free military concerts every year uh which bring out many, many veterans uh in the community.

Other public events that we're proud of.

We've had school a school board debate, we've had mayoral debates, a gubernatorial debate, uh, we've even had BZA hearings on matters of some significant public interest where uh they needed a larger uh place for people to attend.

So, again, these are things that we're able to do for the community because of the support that we get, not just from the city but uh but other donors and through earned revenue.

We also are strong supporters of our six resident companies.

And by that I I say that we provide all six of our resident companies with uh free rent.

So for their performances and for their uh rehearsals, they do not pay us rent.

So we provide free rent and they have hundreds of performances and rehearsals per year.

Um we'll get to this in a moment, but we have calculated the opportunity cost for us uh it's about $760,000 of rent that we give away to them, and we're happy to do that because they are also bringing something very important to this community, both uh culturally and economically, and it's honestly a privilege and uh an honor for us to be able to support them in that way.

And we're also very pleased and thankful to the City of Carmel through its arts grant program.

They generously fund our six resident companies and the Great American Songbook Foundation with grants from that arts grant program, and we're hopeful that that will continue at current levels.

Let me switch now in impact and talk a little bit about the economic impact of the arts here in this community.

Back in uh 2023, the Americans for the Arts conducted a study of all nonprofit arts organizations in Carmel to determine what value economically they bring to this community.

Now, this they didn't single out any particular uh nonprofit arts organization, but we know, for instance, the Ally Solutions Center would be the largest of them, and particularly when you combine the Great American Songbook Foundation and our six resident companies.

But if you take all arts organizations in Carmel, many of which are supported in part by the City of Carmel, they generate economic annual economic activity of nearly 43 million dollars on an annual basis.

They also generate local and state tax revenue of 4.9 million dollars, and as Ali Missler mentioned, as she was talking about some of these statistics, hundreds and hundreds of jobs and uh and and other impact.

And that's again, take away the cultural impact, which I think we can all agree is is amazing and very important to this community.

The economic impact is really pretty staggering.

I tell people that if I could invest a few million dollars in something and generate 42 million in return, I would buy that stock every single day.

Uh the arts are an excellent investment in this community.

But we wanted to know what part of that 42 million dollars is us, what part of it really represents the campus, the LA Solutions Center for the Performing Arts, the Great American Songwork Foundation, and our six resident companies.

And so we uh we hired uh an organization called the Indiana Business Research Center.

They're affiliated with the Kelly School of Business, and they conducted a study for us, just focused on our campus and those organizations which I've mentioned.

And what they did is they came back and were able to identify for us of that 43 million dollars of economic impact.

Our campus alone is responsible for nearly 23 million of it on an annual basis.

If you take in Hamilton County, and that's impact to Carmel alone.

If you add in the rest of Hamilton County, it adds another $4 million or so, taking that up to about 27, nearly 27 and a half million dollars.

And we generate as a campus nearly $4 million in state and local tax revenue.

Again, something we're very proud of, but also something that really demonstrates sort of the brilliantness of this investment strategy by the city to have such an investment in the arts and know that it's going to pay itself back, you know, six, eight, tenfold uh each year.

One of the things that's important to understand, we just went through a strategic planning process.

We're identifying changes in our industry.

What are things that are happening in our industry that we need to be focused on?

Well, one of the things that we're seeing are new facilities, new venues going up all over the place, including, for instance, the Fishers Event Center, which is $170 million facility as part of a $650 million Fishers District development.

They have figured out that investment in the arts works, and they're they're mimicking what we're doing here in Carmel.

The arena at Innovation Mile, very similar in Noblesville.

They're mimicking what we're doing in Carmel because they can see that it works.

So the fact that we stumbled upon this strategy or brilliantly came up with this strategy 15 years ago, and by we I mean the city leadership in this community.

Um I think you know, if imitation is the greatest form of flattery, then it is being imitated in other communities and not just local communities, but literally uh in communities around the country.

Um so when we look at those and we look at the competition that is coming from those, uh, the importance of maintaining arts funding at current levels becomes even more important, not just to protect uh the uh the Allied Solutions Center, the Great American Songbook Foundation, and our six resident companies, but to protect that this point the nearly quarter of a billion dollar uh investment that this city has in the arts as it's as its uh sort of brand going forward.

One of the things that we also uh measure uh is is really the impact of earned media.

And I know for those of you with um with advertising and media backgrounds, you appreciate that the advertisement value equivalent uh that is is measurable can be done through uh an organization.

We we use meltwater to determine this.

When you look at the many, many awards that Carmel receives best place to live, best place to retire, best place to raise a family, et cetera.

The commitment by Carmel to the arts is always mentioned.

It is always, always mentioned, and it generates a huge amount of uh of media impact and earned media uh dollars.

Um I I can tell you that over the I believe in the current fiscal year that we just ended for the Allied Solutions Center, we had over 200 million views of things relating to what we're doing with an impact of about 1.9 million dollars in terms of advertising value equivalent.

That's a huge number.

We've got a picture of Michael Feinstein up here.

Some of you may have seen that on July 27th, he was featured.

He and the Great American Songbook Foundation and the City of Carmel were featured on this uh CBS Sunday morning uh news program.

Um it was a great program.

If you didn't see it, you can look it up.

Uh it was a great piece that was done.

Carmel was front and center.

Carmel was mentioned over and over again.

Uh the Great American Songbook Foundation was mentioned over and over again.

In one day alone, that piece received through it moving through various mediums uh over 350 million reaches.

Um 340 million reaches with an advertising value of 3.1 million dollars.

That's an advertising uh earned media value that not only the Great American Songbook Foundation uh received and benefited from, but the entire city of Carmel did because Carmel was so prominently displayed in that piece.

Uh I I shouldn't uh forget to mention the Hotel Carmichael.

This city has a great investment in the Hotel Carmichael right next door to the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.

I think if you talk to Jamie Hopwood, he would back me up on this.

That when we have uh big concerts, when we have big events, weddings or other events, Hotel Carmichael is sold out.

Their rooms are sold out, the Adagio Lounge is crowded with people uh enjoying it, and Vivant uh is is very crowded.

So what we do also supports the city in very directly through its support and and coordination with uh the Hotel Carmichael.

So that's what I wanted to say about the the sort of the cultural and economic impact we bring.

Now, the third item I wanted to talk about uh with you is really the value of our management services.

So I've talked about the fact that we manage these on behalf, we are stewards for the city of Carmel of these great venues.

We think we do a great job, but we're obviously biased.

So we went to someone to find out really how good a job are we doing.

We went to Hyden Partners, who I think many of you are familiar with.

Hyden Partners has done some great work for the City of Carmel, a lot of great work for Hamilton County Tourism, a lot of great work for some of our neighboring communities.

I think they were kind of a gold standard in this type of work.

And we asked them really to help us review aspects of our operations, including our revenue streams, the efficiency of our operations, our expense controls, and give us a report on how we're doing.

What Hyden came back with, I'll put up here, are kind of four main areas, but there are really uh I would say ten key takeaways and uh all that relate to each of these.

They gave us about a 70-page report.

I sent that to you earlier.

I don't anticipate that any of you read it within the few hours today from the time I sent it to you to now, but I did want you to have it.

We were tweaking it uh here even today uh to make sure that it was as accurate for you as possible.

But there are really, I would say 10 key takeaways from the Hyden report.

Um number one, they said that we are very competitive in nearly every way with our peer venues across the entire country.

Number two, they said we are more efficient in our management than nearly every peer venue across the country.

In fact, we operate uh they according to Hyden, we operate our venues at a far lower cost than it would cost the city to operate it themselves, and many many performing art centers around the country are operated by municipalities.

They said that it is it costs much less for the city to have us operate it than it would for the city to operate it themselves.

And it costs much less for us as a nonprofit to operate it than it would cost to hire a for-profit company like a live nation or someone like that to operate it.

So uh what they're saying essentially is we're a great value and that we do a fine job.

Um three, they said that on average the Ally Solutions Center operates at approximately $581 less per seat uh than uh the peer average, and that that helps uh Carmel's annual financial commitment to us.

Number four, they said that we enjoyed a very strong rebound in visitors following the pandemic, which is true.

Number five, that all of our venues attract uh a meaningful share of both regional and long distance visitors.

This goes to the economic impact, the fact that we're here not just serving Carmel, but serving people from much longer distances who are then coming in and uh taking part in our restaurants and hotels, uh, and that that again adds to the investment that the city has made.

Uh number six, that the current two and a quarter million dollars that we receive as a management fee from the city has remained flat or decreased for a decade uh despite inflation increasing, and as a result, the city's investment has actually been declining in real dollars.

I believe that uh that management fee was reduced in about 2017 or 2018 to two and a quarter million dollars.

It has remained at that level uh ever since then.

It has never gone up, by the way, it has only gone down over the years.

Uh number seven, our contributed income makes up about 25% of our budget.

Actually, this year we're budgeting that to be, it'll probably be more like 30 to 31 or 32 percent.

Uh, but that there would be, we we would see a decline or uh or those those contributed funds would decline or disappear if the venues were operated by the city or a for-profit uh corporation.

Number eight, the LA Solutions Center, quote, has been immensely successful in growing both community and performance programming in order to fully maximize its venues.

We believe currently we're we're operating at about a 77% uh rate of occupancy, which is really an outstanding rate for any of our uh compared to any of our peer organizations.

And again, that is in part because we've got six great resident companies who are also uh uh utilizing our spaces so well.

Uh number uh nine that the center probably supports its uh resident companies and provides them with the rental space at a significant opportunity cost.

And finally, maybe this sums it up the best, and this may be what I actually hand to my board at the end of the year when it comes review time, uh, that our current operations deliver near optimal community value.

Very, very proud of that.

And I think that this council and the administration, the entire city should be proud of the fact that these venues are being uh very well run, very professionally run by uh a very outstanding uh nonprofit organization.

I've had a chance to meet uh, I think with every member of the council and talk about some of these matters.

One of the questions that has come up is that we have uh had some uh great publicity and great fortune in having a couple of uh significant name sponsors over the course of the last year and a half.

Uh Ally Solutions has been a great corporate partner to so many and certainly to us.

Uh Ally Solutions has become the name partner of the Ally Solutions campus, the Ally Solutions Center, as well as our organization.

Um Payne M and CS families have named the Palladium, the Painaman CS Palladium.

These are two uh great sponsorships that we have and have received uh benefit from.

I've been asked by some members of the council, am I able to disclose what they gave to us uh for these naming partnerships?

And I'm not uh by in and that is not unusual.

Um by contract, these things are confidential, but I will tell you, and if you understand uh how nonprofits work, uh, unless a donor or a sponsor gives you the uh permission to disclose what they gave, you do not have their permission, and so you have to keep that confidential.

So I'm not able to tell you that, but I I can tell you that uh in uh 2024, uh I believe our contributed revenue was about 25 to 26 percent of our butt of our 10 million dollar budget.

Uh today, with the addition of some naming partners, with the addition of other corporate sponsors, with the addition of a number of new individual donors, with the addition of a number of uh uh wonderful grants that we've received from different organizations and family foundations, our uh current uh contributed revenue accounts for about 31 or 32 percent of our budget.

So I while I can't give you specific numbers, I can tell you that that that has been uh the growth.

We hope that growth will continue.

Uh and uh I I can tell you also that we started a plan giving uh estate planning program, a legacy program a number of years ago, and um uh we we believe uh that that continues to grow.

Many people let us know that they've made estate gifts, many people don't let you know, and you find out uh you find out later.

But at only 15 years of age, uh it is still we're still a little young to be receiving a state gifts, but we uh we anticipate that those will be coming.

I want to conclude by just offering a little bit of information about the budgeting and my understanding of the budgeting uh that that you folks are going through.

So um my understanding of the current uh calendar year that we are in for the city of Carmel, there is a total budget of a little over 232 million dollars.

Of that, uh there is money from the general fund uh that makes up about 143, almost 144 million of that, and the rest is the other funding, which is a little over 88 million of that.

The two primary areas of support for the organizations uh that I'm representing tonight uh come from uh would be the management fee received by the Ally Solutions Center, which is uh currently at two and a quarter million dollars.

That represents just under one percent of the city's budget, and then the arts grant uh fund, which is uh typically been up to one percent of the general fund, uh, so that is about a million four hundred and seventy thousand dollars, of which our six resident companies and the Great American Songbook Foundation are privileged to receive a portion of.

They don't receive all of that, but they receive a share of it, and they're very grateful for that.

Um of the things I'm had a great opportunity to talk with uh and meet with uh Zach Jackson to have him help me understand a little bit more about uh the arts funding.

Um my understanding is that the current year shows that uh under the current year's budget for the city, it's showing about nine million dollars contributed to the arts.

Going back to what I just talked about, you can see in the uh lower left-hand uh quadrant there, we have the two and a quarter million dollars uh that uh has been budgeted uh this year for support of the management fee for the Allied Solutions Center.

Above that, you see support that goes from the arts goes to the arts grant of a million four hundred and seventy thousand.

Those are the two items of that nine million dollar arts budget from the city that uh to my knowledge go directly to arts organizations to help them with their programming.

If we go counterclockwise around there, you see utilities of 687,000.

My understanding uh from Zach, and and he's here so he can correct me if I'm if I'm incorrect, is that that is the uh that is the energy center, and I believe that is the entirety of the energy center, which I would argue should not all be in the arts budget.

Um we receive energy from the energy center.

We receive heating and cooling uh to our three venues, uh to the Ally Solutions Palladium, to the Tarkington Theater, and to the studio theater.

But that energy center, while it provides energy to those three venues, it also provides energy to the Ice Rink, which is owned and operated by the city.

It provides energy to the rest of the James building that the the Tarkington and Studio Theater are in, but is occupied by for-profit companies and leased to those companies.

It provides energy to uh the uh uh police headquarters, to the fire station headquarters, and to City Hall itself to this building.

And yet the entirety of that is put into the arts budget.

So I don't think anything nefarious is going on there.

I just think that uh if if we're really trying to be as accurate as possible with the budgeting process and what is in the arts budget, um a relatively small portion of that utility number should be in the arts budget.

If I go up and continue counterclockwise, 72,000 dollars or 1% of that $9 million is assessment fees, I honestly don't know what that is.

Um so I'm just gonna go past that because it's not really material.

50% of that budget, four and a half million dollars uh are is is essentially maintenance, uh building maintenance and equipment maintenance and repair.

The 1.7 million dollars that I referenced earlier comes out of that budget.

I could argue that that belongs in a general maintenance and repair budget for the city, just like I assume fire stations and city hall and everything.

The city is responsible for maintaining and repairing its properties, its buildings.

Um, but they they have taken that 1.7 million that gets reimbursed and included it in there.

It certainly helps the arts because it maintains these art buildings, but I just want to make sure that there's a clear understanding, and I believe I'm sure there is with uh the administration and the council, but also the public at large, that uh that $4.5 million dollars is not coming to these arts organizations.

It is certainly not income to any of us.

Um point seven million of that is my understanding uh is are are the the costs of maintenance and things like that, security, housekeeping uh at our venues.

Um I believe a significant portion of that relates to the management of the James building where the Tarkinton Theater and the Studio Theater are located.

We don't maintain those buildings.

Um those buildings have private uh companies in them, and they are managed by a company called REI.

I'm not saying that RBI receives all of that, but uh again, I don't think all of that is is arts related.

Even if you count the 1.7 million dollars that help uh repair and maintain our venues, um much of that relates to venues that are occupied by for-profit companies that have nothing to do with the arts.

So again, I just wanted to clear some of that up and make sure that we're we're dealing with numbers that everybody's sort of in agreement on, I hope, uh, as to what they are, what they constitute.

Um it is important for us to uh make sure you know how appreciative we are that this city, uh this council, this administration support our resident companies, support the Great American Songbook Foundation, you know, allow us uh the privilege of managing these venues and and and uh and bringing great art uh to this community, but I also want to make sure that we're talking uh dollars to dollars and making sure that uh things aren't getting uh skewed or or uh mixed up in between.

So a huge thank you uh to you for your time uh this evening.

Uh we appreciate it, the arts community uh appreciates it.

Uh we hope that uh you will look at uh the investment that the city has and realize that it is a brilliant investment.

It is a brilliant strategy.

It generates far more revenue and far more economic impact than it costs the city uh to uh to uh put these dollars out, and and uh it is part of the brand of this community.

I understand that you're going into your budget process, and I think I've said to each of you that I don't purport to know everything that is on your plate.

I know you have difficult decisions to make, and I'm not here standing you standing in front of you saying, I think you should take money from here and divert it here or put it anywhere else.

I'm merely telling you that the arts matter culturally, the arts uh provide to this community economically, they provide tax dollars, they provide uh great impact.

It's a solid, solid investment.

It's a great brand for the community.

I understand that the way the budget process works is the administration, uh the mayor and the CFO are working diligently on it.

There will be budget workshops, you will be presented with a budget uh that will have a number in it.

And so I want to urge the administration and the mayor to present you with a budget that maintains the funding for our six resident companies, for our uh the Great American Songbook Foundation and for the Ally Solutions Center for the Performing Arts at the current levels, and then urge you as counsel to accept that uh from the mayor uh at those levels uh uh or if they don't come to you at those levels to ask good hard questions and see if we might get there.

I'm happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you.

Open up for any questions.

I know Councillor Snyder, does anyone want to cut Councillor Snyder in line?

Counselor Joshi.

Councillor Snyder, I'm going to do the privilege of cutting you off before you start.

Um as you have very accurately pointed out, the devil is in the details, and as we go into a budget process, these details and picking out these numbers and looking at long-term asset management planning for our assets in the city is going to be critical in every aspect of the city.

I did, as you were speaking, you originally mentioned 1.7 million dollars at the beginning of your presentation as the management fee from the city for as a 50-year agreement for management, and then later on you said 2.5 million dollars.

I just want to make sure that I understand those two numbers because I wasn't clear they're different things.

So I didn't get it.

I'm sure it's clear that they're different things.

I just for the public would like to make sure that that's understandable, and we're not going back and forth between you said this and then you said this.

I I just want you to clarify those numbers.

Yeah, thanks for the question.

I appreciate the opportunity to clarify if I've confused anybody.

The 1.7 million dollars is reimbursement.

Um that is those are things that we are paying for on behalf of the city, and then the city reimburses us for them.

I believe in the first two years, um, the way that worked is the city paid maintenance directly, they paid security directly, they paid for repairs directly.

I believe it was in 2013, they changed that and they asked if we could pay them directly and then submit them for reimbursement from the city and get paid back.

So it that is that 1.7 is not income to us, that's money we're spending on the city's behalf that the city then pays us back for because it is for fixtures and and and things that go to for the benefit of the city's buildings.

Thank you.

That helps me with my long-term asset management thoughtfulness as we move forward with this project.

Thank you.

Councillor Snyder, then Councillor Green, and then kind of point to me if you want to get in line.

All right, Councillor Locke, after that.

Jeff, thank you.

Um a couple poignant questions.

Should I grab a seat, Counselor?

You might.

I want to I want to preface this with so that I don't sound like an ass.

That you know I've you know, I have lost two people in my life that I've truly loved.

I lost my mother a couple weeks ago, and a little over a year ago I lost uh Ron Morgan.

And 26 years ago, I was emptying trash cans in Ron's dance studio to pay for my dance lessons 26 years and about 60 pounds ago.

Through that experience, I've worked for three of your resident companies.

Civic, the art museum, Marion College, Gregory Hancock, I worked with when I was 16 years old.

I built his dance floors.

Um poorly.

Um ATI, I love I've worked with the great now, I think retired Bernie Killian, who not only did their said designs, but designed the uh course in Survival Live at the Carmel Clay building.

Um I have been in the theater my most of my life, and I and I love it.

Um I'm a passionate, passionate personal supporter of it.

Where the palladium in the center, I believe, have a problem in Carmel is that we were none of us, but we we've been handed this.

It's not it's not like what I mentioned earlier of a district with a name.

We've been handed this monumental 180 million dollar expense.

And I don't think that the public as a whole share the same passion I have for the theater.

And either changing that mindset to this is an in this is beyond just theater and performances, it's an institution, it is a it is a museum that is to last lifetimes.

I don't think we've done a good job of that because people that are hung up on it still still think about the issues, how it was funded, the price increase as it went.

There was very little community input in it.

But now here we are, and we have this.

And we can't just board it up.

We can't probably stop paying you.

We've got contracts, right?

Um, even though we could break them, that would not be the right thing to do.

Your reimbursables, none of us can sit up here and say, yeah, that was needed, or no, that wasn't.

Maybe I could on some of them, but I mean you need to upgrade, you need to update.

But at some point, either you need to convince the community that this is never gonna make money and let them know, or figure out a way to make money.

Now the palladium doesn't have enough seats to make money, and the performances don't have a broad enough reach.

It's a niche thing.

The Tarkington is a serviceable theater.

Again, though, you're not getting a Broadway show in there.

And then you've got the I call it experimental theater, which is fun and lively, and it probably might have the ability to make a few dollars, but the unfortunate thing for people that want to be very fiscally conservative money is there is where some see an issue, others see it's just the cost of a world class asset.

If for those that see it's an issue, the only way to fix it is to spend our way out.

And what I mean by that is invest in something that you can actually generate revenue off of.

Um investments in be anything less than spectacular.

And I don't have any magic solution, except that the perspective that the community sees the palladium through is not always what they might look at other theaters through where they hear performances that are familiar and catchy and conceit lots of people that make money.

I I I lived in a dressing room at Beef and Boards uh for longer than I cared to share, and you know, they they do well because they do things that are familiar.

Um you guys are above that.

And I think maybe I'd love for you to do that kind of stuff, because I think the community would latch on, but what I don't think is done very well is if you go through all of your resident communities or uh resident companies, they are the Peyton Mannings of the industry.

I mean, Susan DeLay, Gregory Hancock, I'm not gonna go through your whole list, but their accolades, their accomplishments are superior to many of the people that we adore and are in the news all the time, but because they don't draw in the media and the big dollars, we don't see it, and I think that helping the community recognize that what we have brings in quite literally some of the best in the world.

Furthermore, I think you guys need to put together a plan, an honest plan for the next five, ten, twenty years.

And if it shows the taxpayers putting money in every year, so be it.

That's a decision that needs to be made.

Um so there's less uncertainty.

So we know, okay, we're committed to two and a quarter per contract, your reimbursables are around 107 million.

Um so that we know, and then what are we getting out of it and and the whys?

Part of that would be maybe unrolling or some of the future things, gifts that maybe statistically you would expect from an organization of this caliber and of this age, what you might start seeing roll in.

And then finally, while all of that is obviously very important and informative to us, a much less complicated presentation that can start being, you know.

I talk Jeff, I bring this up quite a bit, but he did a really good video on the city's debt, and it just made it simplified to the point where it was kind of hard to argue.

Um would love to see you do that and explain here's why it's important, here's what we're gonna be doing, and I don't think anybody can dispute the importance of the arts.

I mean, that that has been a non-argument for 2,000 years.

Um, but it is a concern when there are other things in this community that need dollars and and matching up where can a finite amount go?

And I and I want to close with in the situation because of the state legislature and this ridiculous Senate Bill One that is overcomplicated and screwed up the lives of nearly every municipality in the state.

And you're just another victim of it.

And perhaps you won't be a victim, but it's a perceived victim, which is why you're here tonight, and we're having to rehash this again.

So as the community, one subset loves it, either because it's a performing performing performance venue or because it's this iconic museum type icon.

And then you've got a subset that doesn't like that we spend money on it.

And I do want to say, and I think you may have made the point earlier, they're not grants.

We're not giving you money.

We are paying you for services, and we are reimbursing expenses that go along with them.

But I think the educational piece over the last decade has been pretty poor on explaining that.

So I don't want to see anything happen to you, your organization or any of your resident um companies.

But I think moving forward, an open, honest dialogue, even if it's just one-sided with the public explaining this.

I never knew that it was a management.

I'd never seen the contract until about two months ago.

Because I would never have thought that.

So nor has many other people.

How this plays out over the next couple months, I have no idea.

Obviously, you know, I'm I'm a huge support of the arts.

Um, but there are nine of us and a mayor up here that have a lot of other very important things to get done.

Um I do think we're very creative and intelligent and proactive people that will find and explore every means necessary to do the most good for the most number of people in this community.

Um but those are my asks moving forward.

A plan that shows kind of milestones over the next five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, less complicated display that you just drive into the public, where money needs to be spent so that you can generate some revenue, real revenue, to offset some expenses, and um broadening the reach, I guess, which to the best of your ability.

But I do appreciate you, your board, and all the supporters that are here.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor.

If I if I can address a little bit of that um briefly, and with respect, I think some of it is based upon a bit of a false premise that uh we've got a problem that we need to fix.

Um this is something that was set up 15 years ago by the city.

Um into your question is you don't know what we need to do to be profitable or if performing arts centers are typically profitable.

The Hyden Partners report that I gave you makes pretty clear that performing arts centers are typically not profitable because of the very nature of them.

They're built more intimately with fewer seats, you cannot have you know the mega stars that can come in and that can fill up an arena, for instance.

Um so you're not gonna make that kind of revenue.

It's more niche than that, but that's how it was designed, not by us but by the city.

Um we about 40 percent of our shows we call we would consider commercial shows.

We have changed that actually for since about 2016.

Um we started to change the makeup of our shows.

We had a lot of dance, we had a lot of classical, we had a lot of jazz, all world-class, amazing things, but not particularly profitable.

They were more mission-driven.

Um we determined that we needed some more commercial shows to essentially pay for the non-revenue shows.

Today we actually do more mission shows than we used to, and we're able to do it and able to do it somewhat profitably on on that side of the the ledger because we're adding more commercial shows.

But there are only a certain number of uh artists that you can get at a certain level at a 1,500 seat theater.

So, you know, we we're we're utilizing, and we believe Hundred Partners uh study shows us we're utilizing these facilities remarkably efficiently to generate uh revenue.

Um again, Hyden will tell you that there are very few, if any, I'm sure there are a couple, but there are very few performing art centers in the country that don't exist without municipal support.

The reason you have treasure like this in a community like this is the same reason you have a great school.

It's the same reason you have a great uh fire department and police department, it's the same reason you have great roads.

I mean, roads don't generate income.

Fire departments and police departments don't generate revenue, schools don't necessarily generate revenue, but you have to have them to have a great community.

We actually generate revenue, uh, but we're also a luxury that the citizens of Carmel are privileged to have.

Most communities don't have a gift like this city has given to this community, and I think we manage it very well.

Uh and I think we're generating more and more revenue all the time.

As I said, the contributed revenue continues to come in.

But people don't, I I often say people don't give us money because we have great shows.

They buy tickets because we have great shows.

You know, they contribute to us because we have great educational programs.

They contribute to us because we do great things for the community, like naturalization ceremonies and free military concerts and things like that.

If the city were running this, or if a for-profit company were running this, there'd be about $3.2 million of contributed revenue that they wouldn't have.

People give us that money.

I used to work for a law firm.

What a great thing it is to be a nonprofit.

My mission at my law firm was profit.

Nobody gave to us, just gave us money because I thought we really like what you're doing here.

Here's you know, $10,000.

But they do that because we're a nonprofit and because we're doing great things for for this community.

So it is something I think we're great stewards.

It's something that we're constantly working at.

But I again I respectfully suggested I don't think we're addressing a problem.

I think we're addressing a reality that was put in place by you know some visionary leaders 15, 16, 18, 20 years ago, and that I think we're doing a pretty extraordinary job uh generating.

I I go back to uh Councillor Green's point is kids are older now and they're not using the water parks.

But other people are.

Well, maybe not everybody likes everything that is happening at the Light Solutions Center.

Uh about uh, you know, uh hundreds of thousands of people.

I mean, I think since we opened, nearly two million people have really enjoyed it.

And that's that's just the performances, let alone the educational programs and other things.

The the the the passion and everything you just said, from when you responded to me until you brought up Tony and until that point.

That is the message that needs to be delivered.

That wasn't a bunch of complicated data.

That was simplified data to presented in a passionate way.

And and I think that is what the public needs to wrap their head around.

And I uh and I love that.

And I understand this, but most people, a lot of people don't.

And educate the public on what we have.

It's not just a building.

I mean, it's a complicated building.

It's got a bazillion moving parts.

Um that's that's a critical factor.

And I think if you do what you just now did, that that's I appreciate that.

I wasn't um I've I presented to this council in the past, but I think this is the first time in a couple years.

I think last time uh Councillor Warrell was uh council president and invited me to, and then before that, I think um Mayor Fincom was a council president, and she invited me to speak.

So it's been a couple years since I've been invited.

This is the first year that we've been notified in advance that there uh is a possibility of cuts in our funding.

So I greatly appreciate President Austin inviting me to come to speak to this point.

I haven't necessarily felt the need to do that until uh this year when we learned that there was a possibility that there would be funding cuts, not just to us but to our resin cut companies, to the Great American Songbook Foundation, and frankly to uh potentially other uh nonprofit arts organizations in the city.

So it's you know it's very grateful on my part uh given the opportunity to speak today.

Councillor Green and Councillor Locke.

And then after that, Councilor Minar.

All right, thank you, Mr.

President.

I I agree with you know most of what Councillor Snyder said and what you've said.

Um the value from the arts you know is you know, it's uh a huge piece of making Carmel kind of a great city.

And um not only the value of the to the arts, but the economic development piece is a is a huge asset, uh big plus.

Um but like uh you've said several times, you know, whether it was a failed business plan or just something intentionally done, um it was built 15 years ago, knowing it was always going to be to a certain extent publicly subsidized on taxpayer money.

Um and and decisions could have been made 15 years ago not to put the city in that situation.

Now, whether the city knew all the facts back then, 15 years ago and would have made that tight type of decision or not, but uh but I appreciate the transparency, you know, that's come since then uh to the city and knowing that you know I think it's obvious that we will always have to subsidize in some part, you know, the performing arts.

So going back to some things specifically had on the slides, you said the 10 million dollar budget, um, earned revenue.

It sounds like there's kind of a ceiling on how much earned revenue there could be.

We're looking at additional ways.

It's you know, creative earned revenue.

There are other ways we're uh looking at additional ways to use dark days.

You know, typically you're not having performances on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays.

You know, we've been uh having some success using the palladium as a recording studio and getting revenue that way.

There are always ways to think creatively.

I mean, as a practicing lawyer who build by the hour, any time you could come up with a way to bill in a different way, and and and because there's only 24 hours in a day or 1,500 seats in a building, you do you try to think outside the box.

And because there's only 24 hours in a day or 1,500 seats in a building, you do you try to think outside the box.

Okay.

Um it was brought up earlier.

Um the the competition that exists today that didn't exist 15 years ago.

Has that had impact on the vacancy rate that you said is great, 77 percent.

But has there been any trends?

And has that an impact, do you think, on the earn your potential for earned revenue?

We will certainly, we're keeping a very close eye on the competition.

Now there's uh an aspect of it that you know uh rising tides vote all boats, and I think that there is something to be said for that.

I don't think that Fisher's and Noblesville build places like that, thinking, you know, well, we'll just give it a try.

I mean, they're not gonna invest 140 or 150 million dollars without doing a lot of due diligence and determining that there's a market for it.

We're in a in essence uh beneficiaries of that due diligence.

The fact that they're doing it suggests to us that there is still a market or they wouldn't be making that kind of a of an investment.

On top of that, they're making those investments knowing that we are competition for them as well, and they're still making the investment.

But yeah, we're concerned about it, and we have to continue to find ways to distinguish ourselves.

Um again, we're as a nonprofit, and most of those are for-profit venues.

They're only doing one or two types of genres that are purely money-making genres.

Uh we we are distinguished and differentiated in the fact that we've got about eight or ten different genres that we bring in on a yearly basis.

We have uh I mean the most beautiful venue in the state of Indiana.

It is a very different experience when you come and enjoy a performance there versus sitting in the lawn at Ruff or someplace else.

So, you know, finding ways to continue to differentiate ourselves uh to the people who are looking for that elevated experience is important to us.

All right.

Hopefully we don't get cut off in three minutes.

Did you see the guy?

Oh, I know.

Yeah, there's no way sending a dream.

Uh yeah, uh just one kind of one more thing, and I know everyone's got questions.

But um I really agree with kind of a long-term plan uh that the public needs to see, knowing, all right, we'll probably be subsidizing.

So what's kind of the long-term plan?

But um, I I would argue again.

When you talk about subsidizing, it's oh it's almost suggesting that money is being given to us for no reason.

Again, we have a mandate, we we manage, we actually work for the money that we receive.

Now we can we can discuss what that amount should be, which is part of what I'm here for today.

But um I I take a little issue with calling it a subsidy.

Okay.

Um but that there was nothing written in the contract about a specific number, which is kind of a floating whatever we got, we give you a lot of people.

We didn't we didn't draft the contract.

Yeah, so um again 15 years ago, whatever was done was done.

Uh but uh specifically capital improvements.

All right, so the city owns the building.

It's a great building, we've invested a lot.

Who's on the hook to maintain it and keep maintaining it?

Given Senate Bill One, our bonding capacity, and all these $36 million in bonds for the parks that's probably needed, some from somewhere.

Uh so kind of is there a capital improvement plan long term?

Under yes, there is.

And we've been working uh with uh the CFO of the city and others.

We actually started to put together a capital improvement plan six or seven or eight years ago and presented it uh to the administration back then.

Um I presented it again to this council uh a different makeup of this council a few years ago.

Um was questioned by then counselor Tim Hannon as to why we hadn't brought this to him sooner.

And we said, well, we brought it a few years ago.

Um it just apparently had not gotten disseminated.

But I think we were we created a capital improvement plan for these facilities as stewards of it long before many other city departments had capital improvement plans for for other things.

But under under the contracts, the answer is, and again, we didn't draft the contracts, but we signed them.

Um my predecessors did.

Uh but under the contracts, is these are the city's buildings, and they are responsible for the improvements, the repairs, just like a the owner of a of uh uh an apartment complex would be responsible.

The manager doesn't pay for those because the manager doesn't own the buildings.

We don't own them, but we manage them.

So if something needs to be repaired, we we assess it, we do the due diligence, we do uh you know get the quotes and things like that, and then we come to the city and we share it, or we go to the CRC and share it and and determine what the best course of action is.

We don't take unilateral, we don't make unilateral decisions, but we manage it prudently and come to the city and the CRC and make decisions as to what has to be done now, what can wait until a later period of time.

Councillor Locke.

Councillor Minard, Counselor Locke and then Councillor Rao.

So I'm just gonna put a bow on what you said because I think it just made your your analogy to the apartment complex, as you being the manager, which I would never compare the palladium.

It's a really nice apartment.

Yeah, I mean, it's Manhattan style apartment.

Um, Upper East Side.

Um first of all, I just want to say one thing to everyone that's here uh in the audience.

I see so many familiar faces from the resident companies to the board of directors to staff.

It it just says a lot about how you feel about the community and the arts as well, which is something I share with all of you.

Um some of my friends are here from the Carmel Symphony, and I want to thank you all for coming.

Um Bill Culpepper specially's gonna call you out, Mr.

Culpepper.

Nancy Sutton, our sorry, this is our CSO board.

Um anyway, just I just want to thank you all for coming and and and standing in support of the arts because again, I I do, I do as well.

Uh support you very much, and you know that.

And I don't think anybody would argue with the type of work that you've done, that your board has done, and what your staff has done.

So I'm not going to ask any more questions.

I'm just gonna I just want to make a statement because Tony asked the question I wanted to ask.

Matt said some of the things I wanted to say, so I'll let other people talk.

But just a general thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Counselor Locke.

Yeah, so I'm gonna start with two kind of overarching concepts and then just kind of get into the meat of questions that I have.

But they're they're pretty normal for me.

Um the top, and the two things I want to start with.

One is like the differentiation between building something to make a profit and building something that is a thing we're building for the city.

I mean, I think it's a massive distinction where we're not gonna put money in and we're gonna invest in something for somebody else to make a ton of money out of it.

Um, this is something we build for ourselves and our community and the surrounding community to be a staple of the type of quality of life and quality of place we want to be.

So I I just while we we talk about the profit motive a lot in government gets in this kind of cycle of talking about how do we receive this money back that we put into this stuff?

In some capacity, if that was the case, if you could build a palladium for 180 million dollars and make a ton of money, somebody else would have done it.

Um, but you can't.

So um the second point I have is that the thing that I like about tonight, uh, before we get into the budget process and all the things and the next conversation we'll have about utilities, which is kind of a different hierarchy of need.

Um this is about the type of primates we want to be.

And I say that like we're truly trying to create a world around us, whether it's parks or arts or um water infrastructure, but it's how do we want to live together in a community and what do we want to be there so that our quality of life, this one chance we get on this planet together from 18 months to 92 years and beyond is what we want it to be.

So I say that those are kind of my two things.

One, probably less free market capitalist than I should sound into a microphone, but some things you have to do because they're worth doing, and that's what government is for.

That's why we collect all these assets, put them together as tax dollars, and then build something that we all want to have.

Um if we wanted to make a you know a billion dollar business out of that, we could probably do that together too, but that's not what we wanted.

Um so what I started to look at, and we talked about this when we got together, um, of just those next steps, the strategies.

We're talking 15 years from the beginning of an agreement and doubles in the details and careful what you wish for as you rewrite agreements, that can always be a joy.

But you've build hours so you understand it.

Um what do we want to see 15 years from now?

Um, what are we gonna look at?

I pulled um your report up, as you referenced it.

Didn't see in the revenue data, just kind of the overarching revenue.

It's broken down by percentage.

So I started pulling 990s for all of the other nonprofits on there because I've learned how to do that this year.

Um just kind of different structures on how this funding works.

And you see 8 million to 52 million dollars of revenue, and the 52 million is the Walton Foundation and what they're doing.

Um at that performing arts center, which is a whole different game.

Um, but some of them have endowments and money saved up, and there's a revenue generation model where it's not just direct subsidy from subsidy.

I'll use it loosely because I agree, it's probably the wrong term, but from direct government support, but to building up a subset of cash that generates investment revenue that then becomes operational expenses to have what we want or what we desire.

Um I'm sure we can pivot to 365 nights of Weirdo Yankovic and make more revenue and cut all of that down, but that's not what we want as a community.

So I guess my question is you went through this process of pulling this data for tonight to tell us this year why 2.25 million um plus the approval of outstanding revenue that comes through is something worthwhile to fund.

Did you learn anything from that exercise?

Did Hunden give you any insights onto other things we should do?

Can we start to build that plan that gets to kind of more feedback that you've gotten from other counselors?

Can we start to tell that story from a longevity standpoint of the concept we put in 150 million dollars over the course of the first 15 years to fund this thing that we're now paying 2.25 million to generate 3.9 million in revenue back?

Um which in theory pays for itself in 50 years, or can we see a path where that support starts to shift so we can then take that support and pay for new companies or new pieces of growth that add to this ecosystem that we're looking at because we're building sustainability not to offset our taxpayer buy-in, but because the investment we've made has built something that now can help us build something new.

Um I asked that kind of holistically.

I I love the concept of getting the extra studies, kind of looking at this now with what we're going into from a budget perspective, but to start telling the story of what is next and what are those next steps, and then how can we all as a community of people that care about this start to look at how do we build that together so that it can be more sustainable?

It eliminates the harm of political changes or political philosophy that shifts at a city level, um, that we strengthen the relationship so that we know kind of where that's going, and then we start to pool those support mechanisms to get to where we ultimately want to be, uh, which is a place with the best parks in the world, with the best performing arts center in the world, with the greatest water infrastructure in the world, with the coolest roundabouts of all time, but we we continue to add to that as opposed to getting bogged down in the minutia of we're fighting over pennies in a budget this year and we need to figure out what we're going to trade.

Can can we start to tell that story so it it starts to survive and thrive on its own.

Yeah, and I think to a degree we're really telling this story already in terms of success.

I uh there was talk, and I was one of the founding board members in uh 2010, and there was talk then by the administration at that time that uh you know it it was a wing and a prayer that some corporation would step up and put down you know a single huge sum of money that creates an instant endowment to name the the center in perpetuity.

Well, frankly, that was never going to happen for a couple of reasons.

There was no study done as to what the value of it would be.

When we did uh when we when we had Ally Solutions name it, we actually uh hired uh a great company out of Chicago to help us analyze what is the value of this naming partnership, and then we we actually had something to back it up, you know, playing money ball with data.

Um so there was that, but then no company is going to come with a brand new center and put a big chunk of money down and name it when they have no idea if it's going to succeed or fail.

You've got to build up, you know, some some confidence, and you've got to show that it's a stock that is actually rising.

I mean, many people know that in the first couple of years there were some bumps and bruises uh with what was then the center for the performing arts.

Um as we got into about 2018 or 2019, our programming had taken off in positive ways.

We had mixed up the programming in ways that uh was more exciting to uh to the community.

Our educational programs were taking off, we were doing more things for the community free of charge, and we uh announced that we were looking for a naming partner, and within two weeks we got one.

And we had the contract done, and it was ready to be signed, and COVID hit.

And that partner backed out, and frankly, they did the right thing to back out.

They had other things that they needed to be doing.

We and every other arts organization in the country um had to kind of completely retool.

Uh, unlike many arts organizations, we didn't close.

We kept our people employed, uh, we we uh pivoted, which I still hate that word, but we pivoted our mission to streaming and we did other things that we could support local artists when uh touring artists weren't touring and audiences couldn't attend.

Um so we lost the opportunity in 2019 for the naming partner.

We came back from COVID well, as Hyndon uh reports.

Uh our uh ticket sales have grown uh each of these last few years.

We've really hit our stride, and so we announced again it is time and we're gonna try to do this.

And pretty much immediately Allied Solutions called and said we would be very interested in doing that.

They've been a long-term partner, and and that happened.

Immediately following that, success breeds success.

The pay and see us families came forward and said, you know what, we would be interested in naming the palladium.

And we're hoping those types of things now with that much runway behind us and that uh uh amount of success now that we have uh and the momentum of that continues to bring in new sponsorships, new donors, things like that.

The other thing that we did a few years ago is started a legacy program where people could leave estate gifts.

We're still again a relatively new organization, but endowments are really built on those types of uh of uh singular gifts that can come literally uh you know from heaven.

And um that's the type of thing that as we continue to build up, uh we don't have what we call a true endowment.

We we call it a board designated fund, which gives our board uh some authority to control the money and access it in exigent circumstances.

We think that's the prudent thing to do.

But we think it's those types of things and those that type of momentum that is building on itself.

And uh so yeah, I I do see a point in time where we've got that kind of long-term sustainability from more significant endowments.

Some of the things that you saw in the Hundan study, some of those venues are are apples to oranges, obviously, some of those are Broadway houses.

If we were a Broadway house, it completely changes the dynamics and and the financial structure of it.

We're not.

And so we don't have that ability to bring in a show for three weeks in a row, you know, six nights a week, which generates a lot of revenue.

Um but we're we're trying to be as prudent and thoughtful and creative with uh with the resource that we have to continue to grow it.

Just kind of final nail on that as we get deeper into this conversation budget-wise.

Like as you can start to continue to tell that story and build it, please do.

I mean, that goes to parks too, which I didn't speak about because we always talk about parks, and you guys are great.

But um flip end, like just to kind of change it from a narrative perspective.

Like we get into this and we start to look at everything as like not us.

Um it's fight for this or that, and these things that are kind of outside of our government administration are easy to kind of put outside of our direct line of oversight.

Um but this is the best structure to do this thing.

Um just as we are stewards of our city council as elected officials, and we're we're here in that capacity, you have been tasked, and your board has been tasked with being a steward of the city asset, this asset that we built collectively together.

Um so I make that call as we remember like we are holders of this while we hold it.

Um our goal is to make sure that when we let it go, um, which we have to because we are not the thing, the thing is way bigger and way more important than we will ever be as individuals.

Um it's in a better spot and it's in a better direction, so the next people can come in and pick it up and take it in that next.

So I I say that like for arts, for parks, for city, for all the things we oversee.

Like I think if we can always remember to get back to the grassroots of what we're doing.

It's creating a place to live together, to do things that we want to do, uh, to create that primate existence that's most like the Shire in Lord of the Rings.

Um that goal is a shared mission vision that we have, and these things are all part of that.

They're not ancillary, they're not secondary.

Um just because somebody decided to do this 15 years ago, we decided to do it and we're doing it.

So the fact for us to get in and say we shouldn't have done it, well, it happened.

So that's how the world works.

We need to make sure that we take care of the things that we've got the right way.

So thank you for coming up here doing this.

Thank you, Michael, for doing it on a monthly, quarterly, whatever you come up here and do it basis, um, and to the rest of you, just keep making the play for what we need as a city.

Um there may be gives and takes, there may be hard conversations that we have to do, there may be years of austerity that we have to fight through, but we can fight through it together because we all are doing the same thing, which is caring for our place.

All right.

Well, um I think the last one at Climate's Council are out, and we probably won't do a second bite of the apple tonight.

I apologize.

All right.

And and uh I cannot wait for that break, so I will not take long.

Um, I was here uh not only 15 years ago, but probably 18 years ago, uh, and remember this room being overflowing uh when the vote was to be taken by the city council.

And uh back in those days, there was no Fishers, there was no Westfield, there was no Noblesville breathing down our necks.

We were unique.

We were aspirational.

We desired to do something that would make our community stand out.

And when you look at the ratings and the talk about Carmel in local and national media, I think that the Center for the Performing Arts, the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts is a big reason.

I don't recall a failed business plan.

Maybe there was one.

Um I don't recall that, but I do recall uh this was about quality of life.

And for me, these things, these decisions do not have anything to do with whether or not I'm a supporter of the arts, or I'm a supporter of the parks, or I like perfectly paved roads.

This is about quality of life.

And something that Carmel, Indiana chose to focus on.

And it could have been sports, it could have been, you know, G League basketball, it could have been anything.

But this is what the leadership at that time offered to the community.

The community accepted it, and here we are.

And I'm so thankful to Councillor Locke for raising the issue of this talk about profit and expenses, because there are just some things, like our wonderful park system that we do that that needs investment and needs support, and we have members of this council who are extremely passionate.

We we had a great conversation tonight from counselors who are extremely passionate, but I would be very cautious to my colleagues in saying the community does not appreciate the Allied Solutions Center for the Performing Arts.

I think that's an overstatement, and I disagree with it.

There are some members of the community who do not appreciate it.

So I've always said when I first ran for office that I would make decisions based on specific things.

And one of those things is having facts and data.

Their resume is unbelievable, and I value the input and the report that you spent the money on.

We also have the economic development data that came in independently showing the tremendous and fantastic and probably well, an amount that other communities would die for.

They would love to be in our position.

So this is going to be about facts and data and understanding what the situation that we are in.

Now, my understanding is, and I guess I you've already been warned about something, I am not privy to any of those conversations or what any kind of uh cuts might be, but I certainly will be in there wanting to know what is the situation as it stands today regarding the finances of our community, and should hard decisions have to be made, that will be based on facts and data, and and I appreciate it.

But but right now I would say that I want to applaud you.

I think you run a great organization.

I have been uh I was here when the votes were taken, I have been a donor, I've been a uh patron, and I've actually been a fundraiser for you.

And uh I have seen the inner workings and I respect the job that you do.

I do not want to see us jump over dollars to pick up nickels when we have 15 years of excellent data to show what this asset is to our community.

Now, regarding the fact that some people don't know about how great the Center for the Performing Arts is, or you have to do a better job.

My uh I have a couple of questions.

Number one, who do you meet with from the city on a regular basis?

Your partners, um, what's that dialogue look like?

How much does the city know about you?

How much do you know about our current economic situation from the city?

And so let me stop there and just ask you if you could shed some light on that.

Sure.

Um meet regularly with uh I personally meet regularly with many top donors, corporate sponsors, um, our our naming uh partners, our naming sponsors, get a lot of input from them.

Uh many of them had influence and input into our new strategic plan.

I meet about every four to six weeks uh with the mayor with my uh two board chairs from the Great American Songwork Foundation and the Allied Solutions Center, and we provide uh reports to the mayor of things that we're doing.

We provide financial data uh to the city uh each year based upon the management agreements that uh call for that.

Our 990s obviously are open to anybody in the public.

And on occasion we have members of the public who call us and ask us for those and we provide them, but they're also uh available and can be looked up uh anywhere.

Um I think three members of this council, counselor were all you, um, counselor Minar and Councillor Joshi, I I actually consulted with with regard to our strategic plan and uh shared it with you and asked for your input uh asked uh the mayor for her input, that the CFO for his input and got great input from each and every one of you, including some of our then major donors and sponsors.

Okay.

And so I'm glad to hear that you are meeting.

So have you ever been uh notified or informed that you're not doing something correctly, or there's uh things that the city would like to see you do instead?

Is there any of that going on?

Not that I can think of, no.

Okay.

So um the other comment that I would make is that it seems to me if we're going to as a community, and of course that's the job of this body, but also I would point to the mayor, is that there has to be leadership from this body and from the administration.

If this is an asset that is important to our community, then shame on me that I'm not um touting that, that I'm not promoting that, that I'm not saying um I'm ready to fight for this.

Not you know, how much haircut can I give you, but that this is important to our community, if it really is, and I think that's up to my colleagues to decide.

For me, it is.

I've seen what happened.

Our downtown core in Carmel, Indiana, is the envy of every other community.

That's where the businesses want to move, and I believe it's because of the campus and what has been created in downtown Carmel.

So, because we all want to break, I'm gonna end it there.

But um I would highly recommend that if there's anyone that I can meet with on the council that would like to know about my experience or why I feel passionately about this asset, or why I'm not as concerned about um you know what's gonna happen in the future or the competition around us, because I'm confident in the management we have.

I'm happy to meet with you, but I also would ask us to um within your purview to do the work and make a decision as to your support or belief that this is important to our community, just as roads, parks, police, fire, et cetera.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um I just want to say one thing before we break.

So uh, you know, part of the reason that many of you might know people are forgetting.

I used to own a restaurant in Carmel for about 11 years.

It's been closed for almost four years now, so we don't know.

But when we opened, it was the same year that the Center for the Forming Arts opened.

I think it was actually within two months of your your first opening.

And uh it was part of the things that it did attract us to the community, thinking, okay, this is gonna draw visitors to my restaurant, people going into shows.

And I know we weren't the only one.

I know a lot of other economic development and businesses have come because of the economic development that happens uh from the Center for Performing Arts.

So I don't know, maybe I don't live here if that doesn't happen.

Maybe I don't join the community and move my business here if there wasn't economic development such as yours happening in the community.

So uh I think some ways it may have changed the trajectory of my life.

Um you know, I think that a lot of points are made that Fisher's Westfield, Noblesville, you know, a lot of them uh have noticed the strategy, and you know, we see arenas being opened up.

Um it just I think we have to make sure to look at a lot of places are trying to be carmel or trying to follow our example.

I it boggles my mind that we would run from our identity.

Why would we change course, change the strategy when they're trying to duplicate our strategy?

So I guess I'll just leave it at that.

Um we are going to take a recess, uh bathroom break.

If you are leaving, it's not rude.

Try to keep it 10 minutes.

We do still have a a lot left on the agenda.

So try to keep it try not to go too far.

Well thank you.

All right, folks.

If everyone can take a seat, we are gonna resume the meeting.

And uh next on our agenda, we have a report from Carmel Utilities.

And I know there are probably some other counselors will be coming in, but you go ahead and get started.

Thank you, President uh Oshan.

Um and uh council members, uh, particularly council members uh Joshi and Green, who I've not had the chance to meet yet.

Uh I was hoping that my first time before this illustrious group would have been for some other reason, but here we are.

So let me just kind of take this time to walk us through a little bit of what happened a week ago, give you some context.

Um before I do that, I want to say people don't always think about this, but we are first and foremost a public health organization, public health and safety, right?

I know Chief over here, we partner well with them, right?

For for his team to do the great things that they do.

There needs to be water in the system.

So we have a great partnership, and we really are that.

But we are a utility.

And I share that because coming from Evansville, where I was the director of the Evansville Water Insert Utility, I had to do some education quite a bit with both counselors and and our really our customers.

We are not a large utility.

We are not center point, we're not Duke Energy AES, we're not those large kind of corporate entities.

We're municipal entity.

We have 110 employees that are funded by the 32 plus thousand customers that we have.

That's it.

A lot of a lot of discussion around budget tonight.

Um we aren't part of the general fund.

Um we run we run solely on rates and the investment we can put back into our system from that.

So I just I share that is just helping people.

Um a lot of the emails I got, which I was expecting, you know, utilities uh world class cities should have the ABNC, and so I just think it's it's helpful for people to understand uh what kind of an organization we are.

Um we had an issue that we haven't had in 17 plus years, which is amazing.

So, like I said, it was from Evansville.

This'll it's it will seem like a lot, but it was almost once a month, sometimes many times in a month, that we had a boil advisory.

That was just part of the life, our system was sold, so many main breaks.

So the fact that this community has not had one in 17 plus years.

I want our customers and our citizens to know we have a good water system, uh, and I want them to have confidence in that water system, even though what happened was something that we hadn't expected.

I know my predecessor, this was his nightmare.

What happened was his nightmare, right?

That that this this 36 inch main, something would happen to it when we had the least amount of water and had to get it out there.

So I uh we lived through this nightmare.

Uh I hope we will learn from this nightmare, and um I know we will get better because of it.

Um I want to acknowledge, I think our team did amazing job, and and I'll get into some of this of maintaining public health.

I'll share a little bit more about that.

So I want I want our citizens to know that.

But I got a lot of emails from citizens who just were nervous and scared, right?

I'm a I'm a grandfather of five grandsons, some of them still on have bottles, right?

I got emails from new moms, first-time moms.

I just made formula with the water.

Is my baby gonna be okay?

I want you to hear me.

I understand that.

And I own the fact that while we maintain public health, we didn't communicate it very well.

And we weren't able to get that out to you.

We will be better at that.

So I just want to start with that, because that really was the big issue was our ability to get that out quickly.

So we know that, and we're gonna get better about that.

Um you all have before you a four-page document.

Um sorry for those in the crowd, I don't have this on the screen.

Um, I'm gonna start on pages two.

Well, I'm gonna start on pages uh yeah.

You you actually can put it on.

Uh you can actually do we have a camera uh that looks down and well, let's do that.

There we go.

All right.

All right, so I am going to start on page four.

It's the appendix.

And so that kind of can you all hear me well?

Because I'm if I move away from the microphone, make sure you hear me.

Yeah.

All right, so appendix right here.

I'm gonna start with that.

Because what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna quickly walk us through what happened, right?

Just the nuts and bolts of what happened.

Um, you'll notice in there uh on the black uh is anything in black is operational responses that we did, things that we were jumping on, and then anything in red is related to a timeline on communications, just so you kind of can know kind of where we were in our communications.

So at 808, our system showed that we were uh producing normally, we were getting the water back out.

And one thing I want people to understand, especially on a Monday morning, so this is a Monday morning, it really was the perfect storm.

Monday morning is our highest demand morning, and that demand is largely driven by automatic irrigation on the west side.

So, whereas we we produce about and and and and our customers use about eight million gallons of water a day for normal living.

In the summertime, when we're in irrigation season, we can go up to 20, 21, 22 million gallons in a day.

And the only difference is irrigation.

On that day, we had 20 million gallons that we had been producing.

Like I said, 8 million of that is for consumption.

13 million of that is irrigation.

And it's automatic, most of it, much of it is automated.

Turns on at 3 in the morning while people are asleep and shuts off at 7.

We don't have a lot of control over that.

That's something we can talk about later.

But so here we come into our Monday morning, and we were in normal operations, and we were starting to build in our west tower.

So our West Tower, far out there, that holds 2 million gallons, and we were starting to build the volume back in that tank.

That's at 808, is at 37% full.

At 809, alarms go off, and we've got low pressure.

At shortly that 810, a safety mechanism that worked, which is great.

The three pumps that are pushing all that water at somewhere around 15,000 gallons a minute to get as much water to the west side as we can.

Those shut off because they didn't have positive pressure against them because something had failed in our 36-inch main.

So we knew something was wrong.

So we get we get we start getting calls, we call one another, we call out to our distribution.

Hey, something's going on.

Distribution building is out there at 131st, and uh Shelbourne, that's also where that west tower is.

They had no water at the building there.

So we knew something was going on that our water out on the west wasn't getting there.

Thankfully, we had a crew right around the corner, probably our most experienced crew.

So when they got the call, they started saying, let's look for breaks or something on the 36 east of plant one, which is where it's being produced, that's at gray and 106.

So they come around the corner, they come down Haverstick, they turn west on 106, and between Haverstick and East and Lakeshore East is a small geyser because a water fire hydrant has blown off of that 36 inch main, and that was the issue.

That 36 inch main is pushing water at around 150, 155 PSI.

Just to put that in perspective, normal pressure out in our system is anywhere from 60 to 80, 80 kind of high, 60 normal.

Some places are 40 or 50.

That's pushing at 150 PSI.

That is a lot of pressure.

And so something happened in that hydrant, and I'll get to that a little bit later, and it blew off.

Okay.

So all of a sudden, all the water that's going west, there's no water because those pumps shut off, there's no water pushing.

So water is coming back because the system's pressurized, and the and the opening is there at the fire agent.

So water's working its way back.

Simultaneously, it's still kind of, it's not uh irrigation rush, but it's normal usage out on the west side.

Within 10 minutes, the tank went from 37% full to empty.

And that's just basically people showering, morning routine, because we really didn't lose that much water at the site of the incident.

So that was just whatever pressure the tank was able to hold, people were using it throughout the whole west western part of our uh customer base, and that drained that tank.

Thankfully, the team did an amazing job locating it.

So in 20 to 25 minutes time, we located, evaluated, and isolated the problem.

And the way we isolated is we shut off the valves so that now that valve heading west on the 36 at least is closed.

So that can hold the water pressure, let it start building back up into our system from our other sources, and then we can start fixing the problem.

Um the next morning, I woke up and read in the Wall Street Journal that Patterson, New Jersey, the third largest city in New Jersey, had been under a boil order for four days because of 30 inch a break in their 30-inch main.

Within two hours, we had our system pressurized and back.

So I'm super proud of our team about that.

It was an amazing response, and our public health was maintained.

Um we realized that we were we had the pressure loss that said we were we're pretty sure based on we have some sensors out in the in our system, sensors at IU Health, uh IU North, we had them at 11 in college, we have them up at the Fire Station 46 has a pressure sensor.

There's one just right at 136 just west of US 31.

All of those showed that we had dips in our pressure.

We knew as far west as our distribution center that we have any water, enough water pressure to get water in the building.

So we were pretty confident that we had dipped below the 20 PSI that you have to maintain in in order to fix and repair without having to do a boil advisory.

So we had to do boil advisory.

Now, I don't have a lot of time to go into it.

You all have been patient tonight.

There's a big difference between a boil advisory and a boil order.

And because of the nature of what happened, we were confident that no contaminants entered into our our water system as a result of the hydrant blowing off, just the way the pressure works.

But because we dip below 20 PSI, uh IDIM regulations say we have to issue this boil advisory, and so we did.

The reason that they do that is there could be times where you're way out in your system and we aren't sure if there's a small fissure in a pipe that is the positive pressure in the pipe is keeping that all taken care of, and when that pressure dips, there could be groundwater or things external to the pipe that could work its way in.

So that that's a possibility that we just have to be able to communicate customers.

We advise this because of the pressures.

We don't believe that we were were compromised, and we certainly know that our disinfectant system that makes our system clean and safe water was constantly working.

So we were constantly pushing fresh, clean, safe water out.

So even if there was a little bit of groundwater going in, the clean water was gonna just subsume that water.

Because it was a low groundwater time, uh the likelihood of that even of any groundwater getting our system was pretty remote.

So we knew that we we had protected public health and we were good.

So at this point, though, we have to start understanding how do we fix it, how do we get pressure back in our system?

So I go on site where the problem happened, and now we're probably at um I skipped some of this stuff.

I'm probably at page five.

Yeah, so top of page five here, uh, where I do want to note say one thing.

We notified uh I didn't, we notified, we started getting public notice out.

We noticed we put a notice on our website at uh 841 that we have a problem.

Now, we didn't have all the details of what it was, but we were letting people know we were aware of it, we were of the problem.

We started our critical customer list, which is hospitals, schools, dialysis providers, daycares, long-term care facilities.

We started a phone chain that started letting them know, hey, we've got a problem, we've got low pressure, we want you to know this.

Um, those were kind of some of the things after we got the the all the black there at the beginning, we kind of got operationally fixed, and then we started focusing on all right, we got to get the message out.

How do we get the message out?

Around that that first dark item there, 947.

I was on site there at where the hydrant blew off, as was the director for Carmoral School's uh facilities director because they had six schools full of children on the west side and no water.

So they as an administration had to decide what are we going to do.

So I jumped in, I I said, hold on, let me talk to my team quickly.

So I talked to our team to try to understand how quickly can we get fixed and get water back in that 36-inch main so we can repressurize our system.

It was slowly repressurizing by other water mains, but it wasn't going to be fast enough to get all the way out and get us back to normal pressure.

So they told me it was gonna take two to three hours at a minimum and and maybe longer, and I knew that we didn't have that time.

So I called, we had we already knew of this backup plan that we have with Citizens Westfield, so they were great.

I called my counterpart or one of someone in Citizens Westfield and just said, hey, we're we're gonna need you.

And they got a hold of their operations team, and within 10 minutes, they'd open up the valves and they were putting water into our uh into our system.

And within another 10 minutes, we had pressurized.

Lane, I want to kind of sorry to interrupt you real quick.

That's okay just because I wanted to maybe focus some of this because I've talked to a lot of counselors about some of this.

Uh, and I'll be honest, like I the counselors I've talked to, the public I've talked to, I've heard I've not heard criticisms from why did the break happen or how quickly did you fix it.

I don't know if that's why we called you here tonight.

I think that the thing that has really made some of us furious, and the whole thing really has uh angered me is the communication really being unacceptable, especially when it comes to the the boil advisory.

You mentioned the difference between the boil advisory and boil order.

People don't know the difference, it was never explained to them.

And hearing you explain the ways you do it now almost makes me more upset because we should have explained it this way in the first place.

Um I think that vague posts on not even just getting the content out to the right number of people because I don't think we used all the tools at our disposal to reach as many people as possible to let them know what was happening, but the content of the messaging was so vague that I think we unnecessarily created a panic in our community.

And we had people messaging us.

I had people say that I have stomach cramps.

I've had people say, you know, like you mentioned um trying to feed their child, and then when I made phone calls from what I learned, which was never explained to the public was the actual odds of contamination were quite low.

I understand they weren't zero, and I understand that we have to take precautions, but I think some of our vague communications made this feel like there was a high percentage, a high chance that people were gonna get sick, and that may have never been the case.

So I think we could have calmed the community, and um so I don't know, I don't mean I just I don't not to interrupt, but I think that's okay.

I I mean I you hit it on the on the head.

I mean, I think uh we can we can jump to the the first page and even then it's really um you know I would even say jump to page two because I think you know the things that I talked about as far as what we did well operationally um kind of mattered tremendously because we did maintain public health, but in some ways aren't able to be to matter as much because nobody understood that.

And so I agree with you 100%.

So I can talk about a lot of things.

Let me just say the one thing that um we weren't able to do, and and the things we learned about communication.

So let's let's just let me talk about that a little bit.

And this was a surprise to me coming here.

In Evansville, we we had this capacity.

We don't have it here.

We do not have the capacity in the utility to get a direct text or email to any of our customers.

We do not have that capacity.

We would have to do individual emails or individual texts, and when we knew there were 15,000 customers affected, there was no way that was going to get out in any kind of timely fashion.

Now, we have invested in software that will give us that capacity.

And it was due to roll out actually in July, but some bugs are getting worked out of that system that we would have been able to do that right away.

We would have had every customer who had given us a their cell phone and their email, we could have targeted that message with a lot of what you're talking about.

So that is um that that's the biggest thing that we didn't have that we needed.

Can I ask a question?

Yes, thank you, Mr.

President.

So I just want to clarify.

So um the the comments I was getting were, well, I get an email from them with my bill.

Why can't they tell me that there's a boil order?

Could you go into that?

I can't.

So we have a third-party billing software company that only generates any communication via a bill being generated.

They're not a they're not like a um oh gosh, what's the um monkey?

Um there's a there's a mail chimp.

Thank you.

Just it's not like a mail chimp, right?

Where you can they've got all that information, you can send customize, you can do whatever.

It's all tied in to our billing system and and issuing invoices and so attaching an invoice.

And so they they don't provide that kind of a service to us that we could have given them that kind of info.

That's what the new system will enable us to do, but we didn't have it with this system.

Counselor uh then counselor Smyr.

So so this new system will be something like I'm gonna use Duke Energy as an example.

So Duke Energy, the power went out on Friday night, and every we were all given push notifications from Duke.

So is this the type of service that you're going to provide?

And is it I know that when I signed up for Duke, they you had to opt into that program.

Yes, correct?

I just again I think part of the communication once this rolls out is that people understand that they have to opt into these.

If there is a silver lining in this whole thing, it will be the fact that I hope when our system is ready, everybody will opt in, everybody will give us their information and allow us to give them the push notification because that will be the way, that'll be the quickest way we can get information to everyone.

Yeah.

To do the text message, the FCC has set up rules where we can't just send it to them.

The customer will have to opt in to receive them, but but they will be able to do that.

So to your point, you were saying in Evansville you had this.

We did.

Because you had these constant issues.

Because constant issues all the time.

So people opted in.

And there's uh in the EBSO system, and I don't know if our still have this, but I know our GIS and things we can we can type uh dovetail into that.

In EMSA, we would send out a text, you'd click on the link, it would pull up a map, and you would know you're in it or you're out of it.

Um so those are the kinds of things that we will be able to do uh in the future with our system.

One thing I jump into, but so we keep talking about I know you mentioned you're not a part of the general fund.

Yeah, you are a city department.

Yes, you are a city employee.

This is the city department.

Yeah.

So you and mentioned here you communicated with the marketing department that morning.

Yeah.

They have email lists.

They were not utilized.

The city did not send out an email from the city email list to let people know.

The city re-shared some stuff on social media from Carmel Utilities, but I mean, we have so many tools at our disposal to get out messaging.

And it was like we it's like we try to let people think it wasn't part of the city.

Like, okay, this is Carmel Utilities, this isn't anything to do with us when it's all it's a city department.

You, the mayor, you have the ability to hire and fire the utilities director.

Um so I it just boggles my mind that there wasn't more help or resources from other parts of the city who have ways to reach people.

And then again, here we talk about okay, we're gonna have this new system.

Not one thing about the content of any of the messaging, which was a huge part of the problem because we created a panic.

Yeah.

So I I wanted to go to the system first and then discuss the fact that yes, we we did not have our biggest failure outside of the fact that we didn't have the system is we didn't have a a cohesive um what do we do, how do we get this communication out?

What should communication be?

How do we do it?

And that's something we learned from, right?

And um I we'll just get better at that.

I mean, I can't I could give you a lot of reasons, but we didn't.

So um it wasn't intentional.

We certainly were trying, as you see a lot of the red on there, trying to get the message form.

We it takes I that message wasn't ready at 9 05.

It takes a little time to understand.

So it was gonna take a couple hours for us to understand what happened, the extent of its impact throughout our system, because we had to start looking at pressures and all that.

So we weren't able to really do anything until we put that advisory out, probably at somewhere around 10 o'clock, 1015 when we did that.

So again, uh that is the that's not an excuse, but we had to take some time to craft what do we say, and we use the language of what a boil advisory is and tried to get the information out.

But again, we didn't have in hindsight, we would have taken one page to explain the difference between the two, take a little time of what I said, um, which again I I'm able to say that now, you know, and I I was able to say that 24 hours later when I spoke to the business lunch, but in real time that morning, there were a lot of things going on, a lot of moving parts that that thought of how do we make sure they know uh and we communicate where we failed because we just didn't have that dedicated person that's gonna take ownership and think think about comms while I and others were thinking about public health and restoring it.

So I I can't, you're right.

There I cannot say I can't really argue with that or give you anything other than that's what happened.

Uh we do you do have a full-time employee dedicated just communications for you, though.

Uh we do not have a full-time employee dedicated just communications.

We have someone in the Mac department that's that does support us quite a bit, um, but they're in their department doing other things as well.

I don't think they're full-time fully ours.

Sounselor Snyder.

Thank you.

Um I've spent my most of my career installing water lines, and I do want to say like it's an absolute miracle that it's been 17 years.

I mean, this is everywhere, happens all the time.

We are blessed to have the infrastructure we have.

I mean there are some communities I've represented that it's it's multiple daily.

We're going by this wooden pipes.

I mean, that's just we're blessed.

I don't think the failure was anybody's fault that happens.

I think your response to fix it was incredible.

What I'm concerned, I I do share Adam's frustration with the communication.

I I we I we do have it.

I mean, I I mean a phone call to the company demanding the email list in a five minutes to set up a mail chip account for 200 bucks.

I mean, I think there could have been things, but in the heat of the moment, okay.

A few things that I do have concerns about is why we let our water tower get down to 307%, period.

Ever.

That in planning irrigation, I do not accept that.

Um I mean, it the water of irrigation versus an open hydrant that the fire department, street department contractors blow off nearly daily, uh, is de minimus.

I mean, it's just it the irrigation, you see a dip, but the dip is a percentage of total volume, and if you had the full volume, it would be a negligible dip.

Um question, you know, why don't we have another well on the west side?

Just seems like a logical thing.

I know that we produce a crap ton of water on the east side, but more and more people are starting to tap into that aquifer.

So not only would it be prudent on a safe side to start looking at water on the outside of that aquifer, um, but just as a safety backup as well.

SCADA, because you have that written everywhere, um, and most people don't deal with this, supervisory control, analysis, data, data acquisition.

So computer software tells you exactly pressures in different areas, how much water is in.

That's fine.

You talk about the difference between advisory and order, but on your website, it says we are under a boil advisory, what and it says, what does this mean?

And then it says, you should boil your water.

So there is no difference at that point.

When you put on your website exactly you should boil your water, it doesn't matter what you title that, it says you should boil your water.

So why would anybody do any different?

Um Thursday, I go to get my coffee, and the gas station, everything is the one I go to, everything is still out.

I send a message to a few counselors, I get some response about there could be sediment in the line, and fine, maybe there could have been.

So I went back and I was still off, and I said, hey, why are is your water still out?

And they were debating what the manager of the gas station told me is that corporate was debating whether or not a Facebook post was a formal notification, which I have no idea.

That sounds perfectly plausible in corporate America to CYA, whether that is or isn't if we had, and we don't, if we had had formal communication, direct communication, obviously that wouldn't have been much of an issue.

I want to get back to this conversation about are you or aren't you a city department?

Because I take issue, I don't think you are, and your website says Carmel Utilities is managed by a department.

The only person that it sort of alludes to is anything to do with a department is you, not the rest of your organization.

And this is gonna I'm just gonna give you a hint on what I'm gonna get into during the budget time, and the mayor knows some of my comments, um, but your salary is paid 50% from water rates, 50% from uh Sanji, yeah.

But like the Mac department.

Like the fact that that is your first go-to when what are you paying them for that service?

I know you pay a stipend for payroll processing, but you don't pay a portion of the mayor's salary, you don't pay a portion of legal salary, you don't pay a portion of Kelly's salary.

So if you want to be a department, like you gotta contribute to the city.

And I go back, and this isn't you, but I go back historically.

You don't help out.

I've never seen any of your fleet of vehicles with a plow attached, helping the street department in the winter.

You when there's a locate, and some of this is being fixed, when there's a locate, you send out one truck for sanitary, one truck for water, which is a complete waste of money.

Um so the formal definition of are you or are you not a city department?

I think needs to really be established.

Because if you are, then it seems ridiculous that while everyone else is suffering greatly under the safe this state legislation, yours goes up where everybody else gets cut.

And I understand you're rate driven, but it's not a good look.

And for you to get more money, because you can move your rates and not call it a tax, is not fair to the rest of the city that's trying to accomplish things.

And I'm saying you, not you personally, you're here.

My interaction with you so far have been wonderful and great, and I I know between the mayor and you not that the not that we had a broken system, but now seems like a good time to look at it and make improvements.

Those are some of the concerns that I have because we don't get to play with your budget, we don't get to say you get this, this, or this.

The council has no say on that.

So as we move forward, we either are gonna look at your budget and you're gonna listen, or no, you're not gonna be a part of us, and you need to hire all of your own people your own legal department, your own Mac department, or we need to establish rates that you contribute to this community.

That's my two cents.

Can I can I before before you you answer that, Lane?

I I do want to say um the utilities department does help with snow plowing because it comes out of if you remember in the budget cycle, Matt.

In the budget cycle, the street department has to pay overtime to utilities when they have to work off off shift.

So I do know that at least for my understanding, and when I looked at the budget from last year, from this year I don't know because we haven't seen the numbers yet, but what they've paid to utilities.

Not to I'm not trying to get into an argument.

I'm just telling you that I do know that Street Department does pay utilities for overtime.

There is three, there are three street department commissioners over the last five years that would counter that.

And I've I mean, can you say you've ever seen a street department?

I mean a utility department truck plowing the road.

Okay, it's so I'm just saying it's in the budget.

Okay.

Councillor Locke.

Sorry, so we go first.

Yeah.

Well, I just want I mean, I can if I if I may just respond to Councillor Snyder.

Um we do pay quite a bit of money to the city.

We pay 1.8 million dollars every year.

1.8 million dollars to the general fund for payroll services for some HR help from some Mac help.

Um I don't I haven't done the math on that, but I don't think that 1.8 million we get 1.8 million dollars worth of personal services in that.

But we're happy to contribute that.

So don't hear me say we shouldn't do it.

Evansville did it, it's an important part.

The utility should be a part of helping when they can.

So I wanted to share that that we do that.

Um as far as rates are concerned, I can't raise rates unless you pass that as counsel.

So again, it's not I can't just go and and decide it's time to raise rates on our customers.

I I can come and say we've got investment we need to make in our system, and in order to do that, we need to raise rates, and I can build that case before you, but but ultimately you all are the body that says, yes, here are the rates that we enact, and then we those are the ones we charge.

So I just I just want to share that because I just want to make sure our customers know that's how that happens, and this final would be um for pre uh previous to this administration for for three decades, there was a uh wonderful administration that built this city, so I have nothing but respect for that.

But like many, many municipalities across our country, nobody wants to be the one that raises utility rates, and so they don't get raised when they ought to get raised, and they don't stay commensurate.

And so Carmel didn't raise rates for most much of Mayor Brainerd's time.

Again, not this isn't on him, this is just historical.

He did do a one-time bump at the end when he was on the way out, which has helped, which has actually given us the money to invest in this new system.

So it's a good thing that it happened, but just know that not kind of commensurately thinking through the rates over the course of time, um, we're we are behind and and we're catching up and we're gonna get better.

And so again, I just I just want that to be kind of understood, maybe.

Counselor Locke.

Sure.

Um, and thank you.

We can obviously get into the budget stuff the further we get.

But I I would love us to get back to kind of the issue of the communication in the day, um, and kind of said like an understanding of what we as a city, as city counselors, and then as kind of the constituent oversight body, just want to see coming out of your process in your administration out of this.

Obviously, this is once in 17 year thing.

It's a thing that by all accounts, from a timeline perspective, your team handled physically extremely extremely well.

Um the IDEM rules even account for a boil advisory, you have 24 hours to get it to it's a reasonably constructed standard where you have to get it to everybody that is affected by it in 24 hours.

So I do want to just put on the record that we are well within that and did reach out to IDEM through colleagues and other people in the city just to kind of verify that we did this process right by the letter of that regulatory process.

That being said, this is Carmel, Indiana.

Um we have one 36-inch main that was built a million years ago, 12, 15 years ago, whatever it is to feed the whole west side, which used to be farms and a bunch of random stuff out there, and now it is 40,000 people in 20,000 houses.

So we just have a different kind of structure.

Um obviously you started in this role five months ago, so don't put any of kind of that old legacy piece there, but you did uh work in Evansville for four years and said this happened uh weekly or daily or whatever it was.

So what I would love to see, um, and as I go through this timeline, like how can we make a best practices for when this happens again?

That we ensure as a utility uh providing to your statement, um this is public safety, right?

Like first and foremost, the most important thing we do is create safe water for our humans to drink so we don't die from water stuff.

That was the thing that killed us for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions of years, before we figured it out.

So what should we do moving forward?

How do we better perfect a system if it is to not use city marketing?

Um, and it is to have internal utilities marketing with internal utilities lawyers shaping the message to ensure that that message is getting to everybody that it needs to, um, that's an option.

Um flip end is do we have people on staff if we're gonna use shared services that understand what they're getting into?

So when we are pivoting to worst case scenario, um Duffy Nightmare scenario that we know exactly what those people as your trucks are going to fix the blow, are starting to do from a call perspective, a building the email, a creating and crafting the message, I'm putting it out there.

Can we use this to learn that to get that out in the next 24, 48, two weeks, whatever it takes, but like as soon as we can to say, here is what we will do better, um, create that implementation plan.

Um, I think it gets into then the budget process here when we talk about what the rate needs to be over time.

Um, do we need to increase that to get the level of service that we require?

Um, because as far as I'm concerned, it is not okay for a new mother who may not have social media or a new father who is doing bottle duty that morning because of work and process to email at 1036 and say what's going on.

I just got an email from the schools, um, and I I have no idea what's happening because we're not in social media.

So I think there's more to learn.

And I say I want to preface go back to my initial preface that we followed the regulatory process by I DEM, um, even based on their feedback to a team.

Um we did everything we were supposed to, but that's not enough for Carmel.

It might be enough in Evansville.

I assume it's not, um, but it is definitely not enough here.

So I would love for us to figure out kind of where those gaps were, where the breakdown in that communication scheme internally was, where if we brought Mac in and Mac was looking at it from a messaging perspective as opposed to a how do we set up a legal liability perspective that we need to and cover uh what we need to do from utility and sharing the information from a public safety perspective that we have to share.

How do we put them in the best position to be helpful to you if they're in that role?

And then can we have that plan run a tabletop?

Um it doesn't have to go to everybody, which there are nine willing emails here we could send it to all over the city to kind of test what that looks like.

Um the rave system triggered for the initial message at 857.

Um that was to say that the water was down, um, which I think is good.

It sets the stage.

We didn't know where we were with the next one.

The next one didn't come until three.

So, can we get to a position where we're using our local public safety partners at the county or elsewhere to help support this message and get it out earlier?

So we're not giving people five hours of potentially um potentially dirty water, but we're getting the message out to everybody we possibly can as quickly as we can.

Um I do want to give a shout out to the schools because I know obviously with the schools, um, you've got kids in buildings and there are things that are changing, and a drop in water changes the whole dynamic, let alone a boil advisory.

Um that email hit a lot of constituents in a way that was helpful.

Um and I think that messaging was on point um to kind of help get that across.

So I think that becomes part of this crisis communication.

Um how how again do we utilize those things?

Um then I look like even the idea of a of a critical call customer list, like that seems to have been triggered very quickly.

Um so that's great to know, but like can we see in this plan what that is?

Um that way the next time this occurs, because it will occur again because water moves how as water wants to move and things get older.

Um but just so that we are prepared and that people know that we are learning from this to move in a better direction.

And again, to preface it a third time, um, based on the way that the regulations are set up at the state level, based on the way that the process went, um it appears that the city of Carmel did everything that would it was reasonably supposed to do during this.

Um but it's ensuring that we don't get into a position where the first post that anybody sees is a constituent saying they called utilities and they were told that they weren't gonna send an email because it didn't affect everybody and they were nervous about sending an email to those people.

So that that would be my request.

I I love all of this.

Um this timeline is super helpful.

Um but the idea of how do we create a better platform moving forward and that we all know what it is, and if we need to do some outreach and some um discussion about a boil advisory versus a boil order, and we can start to do some public kind of education about it, let's do that before the next time it hits.

That way we're not in a position where um people start having stomach pains or or people feed their baby or their elderly parent water that may not reasonably be contaminated, but in that one instance where their one pipe had a break in it and the water pressure went down and something got in there that they got sick and and didn't know that they could have avoided it uh because we decided not to send an email um through channels that we had.

So that would be my request.

Um again appreciate what you did.

Um I think that the fact that we had our 36 inch main that feeds half the city break, um and we had water back online in two hours is by all accounts exemplary public administration.

Um we just have a little bit more to go on how we're communicating with our constituents uh because it's important that nobody dies from drinking our water.

I agree Councillor Waral and Councilor Joshi.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um so I I just want to try and understand a few things.

So uh, but I do want to start out by saying thank you to you, but also to all the men and women who did get the operations back and running.

I can only imagine that morning you're focused on getting water back online.

So and I think that's good.

Um, but I would like to just ask how long have you been in this position?

Here at Carmel, yes.

Five months.

Thank you.

Um so having said that, there's just some things you don't know, probably.

And um, so I want to really turn to the mayor now and talk about how the city supported that effort.

So um we we have a uh let me start out.

So, mayor, um I heard on several social media things that we didn't have a patient or a patient, a uh public portal.

But is that that um system that you and I looked at like in the first months of your administration?

We met with um Sandy as a consultant and looked at I can't remember 411 or is that is that it can you clarify what you're talking about that we don't have that we're getting?

What what is that?

I don't know the details of the system.

Others the customer portal that you that you and I were briefed on when we were council members.

Well, we know this was after a summer.

I'm telling you that's not what that is.

Okay, all right.

This portal that we're getting is a system we were briefed on when we got the water meters, the uh what do you call them the automatic readers, the water meter readers, put on that will be allow residents to log into their system, see water usage live.

Okay.

And then we'll also have this communication portal in it as well.

Oh, okay.

That's okay.

So what about so that then let me ask the question?

Um, when we met with the consultant Sandy in your office, um, like within that first couple of months of your administration, and we funded him 90 grand for the consulting.

Where wouldn't that have also helped in this situation?

Some?

Sure.

Okay.

I think any every every communication vehicle we have would have been helpful.

So whatever we have that's available to us would be helpful.

That system is not like yet live, the 311 program is 31.

Thank you.

Okay.

And that will go on live later this year.

Great.

Okay, so so that's coming.

All right.

And so then Lane is new.

I want to get an understanding of how the city, you know, he's trying to pull levers to get things working.

Does do you reach out to Mac?

Does the mayor call Mac?

How does this all work?

And did we have the EOC in City Hall up and running?

Was tell give me some confidence as to was it all hands on deck?

How did that date that morning go from a city perspective?

I can't tell you every, I mean, you have here every single communication that went out and when it went out.

I don't know the back and forth between people.

I was not sitting between people and making these decisions or hearing the discussion about them.

Okay.

What I can tell you is that because you mentioned the EOC, we need to do some more work with the EOC.

It was fired up and then brought back down, but we didn't have everybody we needed in it.

This is a good learning for us because it wasn't a critical there wasn't a fire EOC or a tornado EOC, but this is a water one, and we should have had a better all hands on deck with that.

So that's something that's a city hall, right?

Is that what you're at the tip of the primary EOC?

That's at one of the fire stations, which we don't typically say exactly where it's at.

Um but that's our primary EOC.

It was fired up and shut back down.

And that was something I didn't get alert for that.

So we need to make sure that we understand how the alerts are going out, who's on that list, and update that, which you see some notifications in here.

Also, similarly, uh, we need to make sure we understand clearly what the rave of alert is going to, where, because at one point we sent a limited rave alert out and not a broad wave alert.

So this is all outlined in here as far as the opportunities we have to learn to get better from this.

No, I understand.

And it I guess I'm just um you're okay talking about this, aren't you?

Okay.

So I just want to understand it because the one thing I thought just was so obvious that was missing was it was really easy to say if you're west of college avenue, then you should do whatever.

You should do the the boil water.

And it seemed like there was all this confusion.

Well, we can't separate out, or we're we don't want to send it to everybody.

And I just wanted to maybe understand that.

Maybe I should be talking to Mac, but um you as the executive, I thought I would start there and ask, how was that all handled as far as who's making these decisions?

Mayor, can I jump in just because you wouldn't have known the the that's my responsibility?

So that falls under me as far as communicating it.

Um we were we knew we had a water problem, and we knew it was largely West.

We didn't know exactly where.

So part of the process you go through is to define your area.

This is an unusual one, right?

Typically, when there's a water main break and you have to try to isolate, it it's very contained.

You can kind of check pressures, you can go do valves, you can shut it off and go, okay, we've contained it.

But the way our water system works, when that 36 went out, it it feeds so much that there just was it was gonna be tough for us to get a really defined line.

Now, at first we thought about saying everybody west of Keystone.

It's kind of to your hey, just everybody west of Keystone.

If you're west of Keystone, we've had a water issue, we would advise you to if you lost water pressure, you're boil your water, right?

With we could have done it.

But but as we found, issuing a boil advisor, even an advisory, is a big deal, and it has a big impact.

And so we we wanted to try to at least know where we should draw that line, because we were pretty confident that most everybody between college and Keystone wasn't affected by that.

And so there's a lot of businesses, if you think about that corridor, that are in there that they'd have to shut down restaurants.

So it just is something that takes a little bit of time to go, okay.

Here's our line.

And then this one was a unique one because it was so big, we're like, I think we should go here.

And and so that's what the team was working on, kind of as we were out trying to do the operational thing, they were working trying to figure out the what's the right line to draw.

Um counselor, I would know the last bullet point here is too that Lane had suggests more pressure sensors around the system.

Yeah, it's about a more clearly narrowed affected area, so we can better communicate.

Okay, great.

And I've already gotten one text.

We're not raising rates in the near future, right?

I I am not coming to you with our budget in a raise rate, no.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And then um, one last thing.

Um this I've had this question ten times.

This thing, uh the the fire hydrant blowing off, that is a function of a pipe before that rupturing.

Is that a yes or a no?

That is a no.

That's a no.

So I'll tell you what happened if you would like really quickly, please.

So there's the pressure in the system, and it's that's an unusual amount of pressure.

That and so the hydrants that are on there, they were installed in a in a project and they were installed to spec with a thing called mega lugs that just kind of hold that together.

And then there's a kicker plate, we call it a kicker plate that goes behind that to kind of reinforce as the water's coming off of a of a pressure reducing valve.

So you've got a 36-inch and it reduces down into a 12-inch connection of a hydrant.

So you're already kind of doing some reduction in pressure, but it's still quite a bit there.

And then we have the kicker.

You can also install uh extra restraining bolts.

So on top of this mega lug connection at the point of where the 12 hits the hydrant in the main, you can have restraining bolts.

Um think of it as a belt and suspender approach, which uh wasn't taken, but we are going to do that on all of the hydrants from the plant until probably US 31 after the summer season after the high demand when we can kind of do this at night, and we're gonna go and look at everyone and see if they have that or not, and if they don't, we'll install that.

So we don't have this problem again.

Okay.

So we do know what happened.

We do know what happened.

Thank you.

It had nothing to do with the main breaking.

It was purely truly time and time again, a little change, there's so much pressure, so much pressure, then it goes down a little bit once we fill the tank, then it comes out again.

Like there's just a lot of change.

I remember that pressure is what we don't know why, but something caused that that hydrant to over time loosen and then blow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So we'll be we're gonna do counselor Joshi and then Councillor Green, and then we'll we'll probably move on because we haven't even started our our items on the agenda yet.

So Councillor Joshy.

So I just want to make the point.

I mean, on on the West side, you've said it a couple of times, the supply of water is coming from basically traveling a very long distance through one 36 in Germain.

We need to be thinking about a water supply on that west side, period.

Um, especially if we're where we've been talking about fire needing a fire department on that side.

We've been talking about so many things, and when I sit up here, sometimes I get uh, and I'm sorry, this is the first time we're actually meeting, because you seem like a lovely gentleman, and I would love to be able to meet you under better circumstances.

But it does seem that we get into these issues um that we've sort of it's kind of deferred maintenance in some ways.

It's deferred planning, it's short-term thinking, it's not long-term generational thinking.

Infrastructure is not sexy, but it needs to be done.

And communicating health and wellness issues to people, we know very well, takes some nuance and some education because people panic when they don't need to, because they're told things in a way that makes them feel that they need to panic and yet can also underreact when they need to if they're not told enough about what needs to happen.

And having been in those situations when communication is critical, having somebody that is specifically well educated on what is happening in the system and why and what would be the outcome of that, I think is critical.

So having someone in that position is going to be important, or at least someone who understands it, communicating with those who need to get the message out, because really the failure was not in the work that was done by the utilities department, it was all about the communication.

And so I got notified by physician friends who were like, my cases are getting canceled.

That's I mean, that's the first notification I saw on this.

Um and that's hard.

So I think we want to do better um because we need to do better.

Thank you.

Councilor Green.

Thanks, Mr.

President.

Um I'll double down on everything Dr.

Joshi just said, and then a lot of really good comments.

Um just looking at the timeline.

Um it looks like the the initial draft for the boiler water advisory is drafted at 9.42 to meet Idem standards and you know, because you knew and then 1016, the emergency operations center that Council Warall brought up was uh activated.

So that probably would have been a form in a perfect world for the EOC.

Uh is the U Carmel Utilities part of the EOC.

Yes, yeah.

And so just if I let me say this just because someone brought up earlier.

Yeah, um that the fact that we didn't use the EOC 100% on me.

Okay.

Because I I had been to the EOC and they showed me kind of its it with its capacity.

I was thinking of it in an operational tactical deploying troops and getting stuff done, and I knew we had isolate.

I knew when I got the call, well, I know where this is, so we got to get it fixed.

I wasn't thinking about it from the communication perspective.

So they called me, that's 100% on me.

So I yeah.

No, I appreciate that, but it's something that Councillor Locke said.

This is the first time this type of thing happens.

And nowadays, we could have all kinds of different types of emergencies, you know, that we need to respond to and get word out really fast.

So in a in a perfect world, that EOC would have made the decision, boom, get the communication out, making sure the right people.

So probably after the after action report, um, you know, some type of exercise, you know, to get all the new people.

All right, here's an EOC, and for whether whether it's a water prom or some other problem, not maybe a non-traditional problem.

You know, it's kind of everybody's knows the process, the governance, and the communication can get out.

So thank you.

All right, Counselor Snyder.

Did you just wonder you Jeff Counselor Warell asked point blank, you're not raising rates.

And that's great.

But I think making that statement, you have to be very cautious because I we just the Board of Public Works approved $750,000 study to look at your infrastructure, and if it comes back bad, you're raising rates.

Like I so to say like you're absolutely not raising rates.

I would caution against making such a declarative.

Well, what I said was I'm not coming back with this budget.

Okay.

Yeah, this year.

Yeah.

No, I I love that you're talking about these things because this is what needs to happen.

It's why we're doing this study so we can understand every widget in the seven.

I would I would this is conservatively say we have 750 million dollars in invest in in infrastructure.

If we had to replace it all today, not to mention building the plant you'd like to see on the west side.

So we need to understand the condition of everyone of those assets, and we need to look at the critical uh criticality of those things, and that's what this study will do, so we can kind of build what we need to do in the next five years, in the next 10 years, and look at how do we gradually get rates there so we can fund it.

So I agree 100%.

I'm I'm thankful that you all see that and are talking about that.

It's important because in the end, I will I will come to this group and go here's what I think we need to do, and I'll work with you to go.

Here's why I think we need to do it.

So it it will be a partnership.

No question about that.

Mayor Finkham.

He gave me the nod to do this quickly, so I'm gonna zip through my couple of bullet points.

I do also want to thank Lane, the entire uh water utility, and everybody in the city, including the city council's who pitched in to help get communications out to fix the system.

We also had um contractor in the area, which was very fortuitous for us as well.

Um, and I will we didn't put these in this, we didn't put all the recommendations in the after action form just to have a listing here.

I will own getting them done and moving on because they're important because there's some really good learnings here that we can apply to a lot of things in the future.

Um counselor Snyder, the 1.7 million dollars is roughly split between water and sewer that's reimbursement.

We just had our accounting uh consultant update that last year because I think it'd been 2014 or something like that when it was initially set.

So he did update that, and um, so that's available.

There is a groundwater tank under construction on the west side, I think holds two million gallons.

Is that correct?

So that's already been on Christ's question, which was also funded by the bond uh that you guys had approved.

So we didn't bring that up tonight, so I want to make sure that you guys knew that.

And Maine and Shelborn.

Uh and we just started working on a sentinel event process, which was to work through an after action report should we ever need it.

So that is not quite yet in uh in writing, but we'll continue working on that.

And lastly, this after action report, if not already, is it on the Carmel Utilities website?

Okay, is on the Carmel Utilities website.

If there's anyone in the public who's hearing this and would like to read this report, it's available for them there.

Thank you.

And um, if we have more questions, I'm happy to bring Lane back at another meeting too.

Uh moving on, uh, old business.

13th reading of ordinance D 2762-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 8, Article 5, Section 837, 847, and 848 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsor is Councilor Austin.

This remains in land use and special studies committee.

Eighth reading of ordinance D 2772-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, adopting a new Article 8 under Chapter 2 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsor are counselors Austin, Ayres, Minar, Snyder, and Warrell.

This remains in the Finance Utilities and Rules Committee.

Public hearings, we have none.

New business.

First reading of ordinance D 2778-28, 25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana authorizing the issuance of economic development tax increment revenue bonds to support the rebar old meridian project and authorizing and improving other actions in respect there too.

Sponsor is Councillor Austin.

So moved.

Second.

All right.

Um Councillor Minard, would you read the synopsis?

Thank you, Mr.

President.

An ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, authorizing the issuance of economic development tax incremental revenue bonds to support the rebar.

I'm sorry, the synopsis, not the actual ordinance.

Boy, I just really mess these up every time I do them.

Ordinance authorizes the issuance of developer TIFF bonds by the City of Carmel, Indiana to finance certain improvements to support the development of the rebore old meridian project.

All right.

And of course, the next item is related to this, so feel free to speak about both.

I'll address both.

Good evening, Council Henry Messetzky, Carmel's redevelopment director.

I do not have an hour-long presentation on this because I know this is going to go to committee.

So we're just gonna just I do want to for anyone watching, give the developer an opportunity to discuss the project, but we'll knock this out in about 10 minutes and look forward to plenty of discussion at committee.

So before we start, I appreciate Councilman Snyder mentioning this uh earlier today.

But let's just do this one more time.

Um we're about to hear about a new project.

Uh and that project would hopefully be supported with TIFF bonds, tax increment finance, tax increment finance bonds.

Those bonds are not a developer risk.

The city, the taxpayers, neither the city nor the taxpayers have any responsibility on these bonds that we are discussing today.

Essentially, uh the developer builds a building, that building pays taxes, and as those and those taxes are then send back towards the bond.

So if the building burns down and there is no taxes being paid, the city has no obligation to make payments on those bonds.

This is risk-free to the taxpayers.

The press is gonna write about it, so please highlight that.

Um with that, I'd like to introduce uh um the president, new president CEO of uh rebar development, Tom Dickey, and I used to work with his daughter for a time.

And uh Tom and his family are great.

So Tom is going to discuss the signature 55 project here in the next three minutes.

Turn my turn the yellow light on.

Um Mr.

President, members of the council, mayor, thanks for uh having us here tonight.

We're super excited to talk about this project.

My name is Tom Dickey, I'm president and CEO of Rebar Development.

We're a Fisher's based company.

I've worked in Carmel for 18 years and looking for a great project to do, and super excited to be here tonight to talk about this one.

Uh partners, uh, Garrett Lucas and Mark Braneman in the back.

We're also partnering with um two of the principals that develop signature of Carmel at Maine and Old Marine and Meridian.

Um there's there's thank you, Henry, the team there.

Uh we have lots of experience in development, certainly around Central Indiana, public-private partnerships, lots of development in Hamilton County, and significant development uh experience in the active adult area.

Um, and so I want to transition and just talk about our product just for a second because I know we'll talk about it in committee.

Um, studio M's architect.

So there's our first shot at what we think will be a great uh iconic building on Old Meridian, just uh uh south of Main Street on the east side of the street.

Um was inspired by the the quote that Jeff McDermott had at the beginning of his um talk with you uh from Winston Churchill, so I'll give you a quote of not maybe as distinguished, but from Walt Disney.

And that quote is growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

Um, and that really encapsulates what active adult living is.

So this is a product that's in between market rate really cool high-end market rate apartments like signature in Carmel and independent living.

Um, this this product has no cafeteria, it has no transportation, it attracts the healthiest and wealthiest renters in the market who are going to spend money in shops and in restaurants and so forth.

And so I don't need to tell you this, but for all the things you talked about, parks and arts, Carmel's the place for this type of a product.

Um these rents will push the highest rents in Carmel, um, but it is it is more of a club feeling.

Um, there's all kinds of activities.

Um we'll spend more money on on finding the right people to manage this than any other project in the city.

Um that is because the success of this project will be based on our ability to curate community and have people find new passions as they turn 55 and older, which I'm in that category.

Um so um I think you probably know about active adult uh rental.

I think this will be the second one.

I think um the the North End project, I think has one there.

I'm sure they do with Avenue Development.

Um demand analysis.

There's as you there's plenty of boomers um at aging in Carmel who who will want to see this uh product come, so we're super excited about that.

Um so that's that's the product.

I'm not gonna read through this.

Um it's class A amenities, highest quality, and you'll see some things that may not see in other places.

Um it's class A amenities, highest quality, and you'll see some things that may not see in other places, private dining rooms where you can have a high-end kitchen, and somebody can feel like they can move from move downsize from a home into um signature 55 caramel and host Thanksgiving dinner there, and they can reserve that room and things things like that.

So that's all about active adult living, and we think we're we're pushing the the market in active adult.

We think we're gonna be, we think we're the best at it.

Um these are all folks.

Um, this is who we think is going to live there, and you can probably identify with I'm I'm probably up there somewhere.

I think I love focusing on the last two.

Um, baby chasers.

I mean, this when you look at the um ratio of adult children to seniors, Hamilton County, there's gonna be seniors moving from out of state.

I mean, like I moved to Hamilton, I live I moved here to um to raise kids.

I'm now here, my parents aren't here, they're gonna move, they're gonna move here to be close to kids back about 20 years ago.

So that's that's a ratio that's real impactful to this to our business.

And then men, what we think what we're trying to do differently is this across the country, um, active adults been a sort of a real estate product type for about 10 years.

Majority of the tenants are women, either um divorcees or you know, um their their spouses passed away.

Um, and so a lot of the developments are really targeted at that renter.

We want to we want couples, and we want men, of course, but we really want those couples who live in Carmel today.

They want to lock and leave Indiana and go somewhere in the winter, and they want to come back to a luxury lifestyle, but just be able to lock and leave it.

We want to track them.

So you'll see more things like golf simulators, workshops, um, and things like that that are really targeted at uh the the men in the the the uh leasing family as well.

So that's a little bit about us, um, a little bit about the active adult um project, and um I'll turn it back over to Henry to talk about more about the economics and be available for questions if you have any.

Yep, and if council uh has questions, if I could just present this slide and then we can handle that.

All right, so signature 55, that's the name of the project.

88 million dollar investment, 200 age restricted units, 12,000 square foot amenity space.

Um at the bottom right, what you see is the site plan for the project, and you can kind of see the project essentially being split into two.

One is the development itself, and one is a future park.

So this is 1.54 acres that is going to go ultimately to the parks department at below the average of two appraisals for the parks department to design a park here and coordinate with the developer on the detention that's going to serve for the project that's gonna serve as a central water feature for the park.

The parks department will design this.

The city council provided parks department with the money for this design as part of its 2024 bond.

Additionally, the I'll discuss this in a second.

The funds for the park come from the 2024 bond.

So this project is part of that, is providing 356 public parking spaces.

Sorry, 356 spaces of which 75% of them will be reserved uh unreserved and free and open to the public.

And this project is going to provide forever public bathrooms that serve the park that are actually gonna be maintained by the developer.

Um there's gonna be a good interaction here with the VFW uh post that's just to the south of this.

I want to give a special shout out to Councillor Matt Snyder, who uh had uh me and Michael Klitsing Parks Director discuss this project and share some renderings with some wonderful members of the community at the VFW last week.

Um there will be a paved walkway here that takes you from old meridian down the paved walkway to the park, interacts with the veteran uh foreign wall foreign walls wars post.

Um the parks impact fees from this project, 200 grand of them are gonna go towards the paved walkway to the south of this, and that's gonna be a design process that's a developer and me and Michael Klitsing all together.

So nothing happens without Michael Klitzing's sign off on the fire lane.

The rest of the park impact fees generated by this project are gonna be applied to the purchase price.

So there, and again, my favorite numbers.

This land somehow, for some reason, thank you, assessor, pays us 200 a year in property taxes.

When this project is completed, this project will pay 483,000 a year in property taxes, meaning the school referenda rate that right now receives nothing off the taxes of this land.

The schools will benefit as soon as this is built, so in two years, to the tune of new $66,000 a year.

We have Greg Brown, school board member in the audience, also appointee to the CRC.

Music to his ears.

New assessed values $14 million an acre once this is built.

And again, this project will provide free parking and free restrooms to the park forever.

Facilitates the park, provides bathrooms, provides parking.

You have two action items in front of you today, so if I could just quickly cover both.

The first is the bond.

The second is a land transfer.

So I'll just as much as I hate reading things on a PowerPoint.

Let me just read the thing on the PowerPoint.

So in two days on Wednesday, the redevelopment commission will take on two votes.

The first will be the purchase of this land at below the average of two appraisals.

And the second is transferring this land to city council to the city.

The second resolution in front of you is to accept that transfer of that land.

So if the city council approves this project, let's just think about how this works as a timeline.

If the city city council takes on this project, deliberates, let's say city council approves the bonds, approves the transfer.

That means then the developer spending the next six to nine months in design and going through all the entitlements, all the approvals that is needed from the Plant Commission, from the BZA, from the redevelopment commission's architectural review committee.

The developer goes through all that process, designs, gets all their approvals, ultimately to get a building permit so they can start construction.

When the developer gets their building permit from the city, that's usually the time when the developer's wonderful lenders are ready to lend on a project.

So when we know that this project is happening, because it's been designed kind of concurrently with some of the park stuff going on, and we know that this project is a go because there are lenders of ready to lend because they have their construction permits in hand.

At that moment, the city will close on its 1.454 acres, and then thereafter the council will transfer that to the parks department.

So this makes sure that we're moving forward with the park, knowing that the development with the free parking and the free bathrooms is going to happen concurrently with it.

So that's essentially the timing of the land transaction as contemplated here.

Those are the two things in front of you, and looking forward to discussing them at uh at committee.

But uh Tom and I are here to answer any questions in the meantime, if you would like to ask any.

So we will be sending this to the land use committee.

Uh there is talk about whether to send this to land use or finance committee.

I think the questions were more about um the design of the building than the financing.

So we'll be sending it to the land use committee.

It certainly could go to the finance committee after that if that's um the will.

Um, but I want to open it up for questions.

But I just want to start off where this will go.

Council questions.

Councillor Snyder.

Um in committee, I want to make it clear to anybody watching that because there was a lot a lot of veteran feedback, which incidentally I appreciate the the good words, but I I serve in that position because the mayor put me there.

So thank you for allowing me to run with my passion, and thank you for the leeway you've given me on this.

This is very important, not so much the building, no offense, but it is a means to an end for something that I and many uh of the council is um passionate about.

So, but at land use, it'll be talking about the building specifically, not the park, and I want to make sure that that is delineated.

The park conversations will be later.

This will be about the building, its envelope specifically.

Um, and then I also wanted just just because you brought up Mr.

Brown, Mr.

Shapiro from the school is also here.

I'm so sorry.

I know we look at Mr.

Shapiro Parks, but which so you're here, you're getting a double impact from this.

Um I didn't I wanted to be respectful.

Um this yes, then in land use, this this will be discussed.

There are a few questions uh that have been presented to me.

Um, but I think we'll be able to the fact you got here blows my mind, so I'm sure we'll be able to work through some lingering questions.

Any other council comments or questions?

Um I just want to say one thing.

I said one question that we always get with well, what does the public get out of these private public partnerships?

It's a private public partnership, and people have asked that over the years when we do a lot of these redevelopment deals.

Um I you know, I I argue that there's a lot of public benefit, many of them, but this one I don't have to sell less to people.

They see right there the public benefit that's going to be created from this project, and I think Councilor Snyder's talked about this before.

The park at this scale may not have been possible without the help of the developer to help make this happen.

So to be able to uh to do it this way, I think it's going to be great.

Any other questions or comments?

This will go to the land use committee.

Thank you.

All right.

Um that's for item A.

Now we're introduce item B, and I assume we'll probably send that too.

Uh resolution CC8182501, a resolution of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana authorizing certain actions to respect the acquisition of certain real property by the city for public use and matters related to Earth 2.

Sponsor is Councillor Austin.

Do I have a motion to reduce?

Second.

All right.

While this is a resolution, we'll we're gonna we have it moving second, we're gonna go ahead and just send this to the land use committee.

So we're just acting on the same time.

All right.

Next up, first reading of ordinance D 2779-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, fixing salaries of appointed officers and employees for the city of Carmel for the year 2025.

Sponsor is Councillor Taylor to have a motion introduce.

All right, Councillor Joshi, would you read the synopsis?

Sure.

An ordinance of the Common Council.

Sorry.

An ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel.

Just the synopsis part.

Just the synopsis.

Sorry.

Establishes the 2025.

You know, hey, it's been a long meeting.

It's 10 o'clock.

Establishes the 2025 salaries for employees of the executive branch.

All right.

Zach.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

I'm happy to make some brief remarks or give a long presentation, but I'll just air for the brief remarks because I believe you're in.

So prior to this, I talked to some counselors, and there was a thought of uh sending this to the finance committee.

So but uh we still want to have some conversation tonight, so give your presentation.

Yep.

Let me my computer died.

I will give you some remarks as so um I would appreciate some assistance that we've done here.

All right, so um just as a reminder, uh back when we were uh putting last year's budget together, uh we were talking about salary study at that point in time, and with that the um with that, we we talked about doing this in in two phases.

First of all, we did the uh public safety uh swarm positions as the first part of the salary study.

Um that was memorialized, if you will, um in the union contract as well as the uh updated uh salary matrix that we developed at the beginning of the year.

In terms of thanks for bearing with me.

All right, so as I mentioned, um uh we started working on this last year with the with the sworn piece, and then um as we were talking about the budget mentioned uh we would this year look at civilian salaries and and come back to council with a proposal later in the year.

Um one thing I'd like to point out I I think council often thinks of uh salaries in terms of the ordinance uh I I think your your your typical uh team member at Carmel at the City of Carmel thinks about it not only as the salary ordinance, but also as this grade and step uh matrix, if you will, that starts at grade six, goes to grade 23, and includes uh uh six steps.

And so uh just the non directors uh on that matrix, if you will, are in grade six through ten, sorry, six through twenty, with six steps in each grade.

Uh employees usually start at step one.

Sometimes they they start higher than that.

There's not really guidance that exists that that imply when where somebody should should start in that step system.

Regardless, if they did start at step one, they reach the maximum of our current pay bans within five years.

They get typically a 4% jump from one step to the next, and that's coupled with a 3% cola in most years.

And so there's kind of a glide path to increase salaries by 72% over the first five years for most of our employees.

Second of all, uh on directors, they're also in here, but they are in grades 21 through 23.

Um there are no steps there, it's a minimum and a maximum.

As we started looking, we kind of noticed multiple points of concern with our existing pay grades, steps and the compensation system, as well as the corresponding salary ordinance.

Um currently today, uh, existing titles are often poor reflections of what an employee actually does.

And so, for example, uh I'll use the laborer position.

I think I've got that in here later.

Uh we have people classified at the street department as laborers, at the utilities as laborers, uh the facilities maintenance folks in City Hall are classified as laborers as well.

And so, whenever you're going out to kind of compare what is the appropriate salary for a custodial maintenance person in City Hall, but if you're comparing that, if you're also wanting to get the data for for somebody that's uh working in the street department, using a common term like laborer really does not capture the details uh that surround that position.

So, to better understand, uh, we ask employees to to complete a rather lengthy uh job analysis questionnaire.

In total, I think we received over 330 of those from our civilian staff just to better understand their duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and certifications that are required for those positions.

There were several findings that came out.

Um as I've already mentioned, the the titles were wildly inconsistent and without an overall hierarchy.

I don't know if you'll remember, but uh a few times I've I've shown council a page where I've mapped out all of the positions, color-coded it, and you can see that people with uh titles like analyst might be spread from grade six all the way through grade 20.

A manager might be at a grade seven, but also down at a grade 20.

Supervisors were all across the board, uh coordinators were all across the board, there was just really no rhyme or reason behind the titles.

I've already mentioned the the laborer piece.

Um what we've seen is that because those ranges are so narrow, and because an employee will undoubtedly reach the top within five years, uh, people have really manipulated our our titles and grades and pay over the years, and so the because the only way to get somebody an increase was to move their position to a higher salary grade, even if that position really didn't warrant moving to a higher salary grade because it wasn't complex as positions in that grade.

Um when it comes to the steps, most of our departments don't have standards for determining when to move up.

In most instances, it's are you still employed this year?

You get your step increase.

Currently, 55% of our employees are at the top end of their grade.

They reach that top step.

Um you would expect that there'd be some distribution.

Some people at the uh at the early steps, a lot of people maybe in the middle, and some people that have been with us for a very long time at the high end.

Again, we have 55% maxed out right now, and we when we do the next step increase on January 1st, that goes to 67%.

Um as I mentioned before, uh, you reach the top of that salary grade within five years, and there really is no other opportunity after that except for colas.

Um, it's worth noting, and I've tried to say this in the least HRE sounding manner as possible, but most of our positions have a starting salary that if you went out to compare it to market, most of our positions are already start at the 25th percentile or even greater than the 50th percentile, meaning that our starting salaries are more than the market midpoint average, if you will.

Um the other thing I'll mention here is just that uh the for the non-director grades they they're extremely narrow.

The the maximum is 20% more than the minimum.

And so there's there's uh I mean these ranges are typically like 50,000 to 60,000 as they stand today.

Um this one, sorry if it's a bit of an eye chart, but just is an attempt to kind of graph out, if you will, what I've been describing on some of these.

So if if somebody did come in at the minimum salary for the admin assistant one position, um, and again, there's nothing in place today that says should somebody start at step one versus two versus five or six.

We if they were to start it at the minimum, as I mentioned earlier, you can see the four percent increase that that is in effect basically between each step, but then also once you uh add longevity pay and colas to that, we end up with a 72% uh increase within five years.

Um other problems with the step plans are that uh they lack flexibility when uh when trying to reward top performers or even just adjust salaries based upon uh market demand.

Uh there's no differentiation between top performers and and low performers because everybody gets that that step increase if if they're due one, uh meaning that were they still employed a year later.

Uh these increases are perceived as automatic, and and frankly, you know, without that motivation there is no motivation to exceed expectations or or uh to pursue professional development.

Um as I mentioned earlier, because we have so many people kind of clustered already at that top end, uh we have major compression there.

Uh somebody that's been with the city for uh you know five years uh could be making the same as somebody make that's been with the city for 20 years, other than just COLAS.

Um what we're proposing is is really digging into compensation planning, and that is being more strategic about how we uh manage salaries, bonuses, benefits, and other rewards.

This includes base pay incentives, benefits as well as equity, and ensures that pay structures are fair, aligned with the market, and support the business goals.

And as it says here, more than just salaries, it's it's the total rewards.

So why does this matter?

We we want to continue to attract the top of talent.

We want to motivate employees, we want to reduce turnover, we want to ensure fairness, and we want to align with our organizational goals.

So several recommendations coming out of our analysis.

Um, we would like to do this last uh there are a number of employees that are expecting step increases based upon uh being employed this year.

Those typically go into effect on January 1st.

Our proposal is to continue that last round of step increases so that nobody uh feels like something was taken away from them.

Uh but then after that basically fully implement this uh this new schedule.

What we're proposing uh widens the existing ranges.

Uh we would take the range down 10% from its current minimum and also up 10% from its current maximum.

So now we have ranges that are 40% wide as opposed to just 20% wide.

Lowering the ranges will also helps us get at the fact that we're our starting salaries are so much higher than market right now.

Um that would not impact any current employees' pay by lowering the minimums.

No part of this proposal at all gets at lowering any existing employees' salary or anything along those lines.

Umce widened, and then also with the removal of the step increases follow after January 1st, people would progress through the ranges through things like uh whether it's a general salary adjustment, cost of living adjustment, or you know, right now there's just not that flexibility.

If I give somebody in my department more work to do, but that doesn't necessarily change the complexity and warrant moving up a salary grade, there is no flexibility right now in my department for me to give somebody an extra 3%, 5% for expanding what they're doing, because everybody in my department's already maxed out at the top of the range.

Um then also uh this would encompass developing new policies to support you know what what does it take to move up in the range?

What does it take to reclassify this position from this grade to this grade to another grade because today there's there are none of those things in place.

When it comes to title changes, again, there were 330-ish JAQs that we looked at.

160 employees were notified that they're they're title today and the grade that they're in were fine as is.

So roughly about uh not quite half of this group.

Uh 160 employees uh uh we believe that their title needs to change to better reflect their work.

However, they're already in the appropriate salary grade, so uh no fiscal impact related to either of these top groups.

Um I believe what I I sent to council uh I'll say about a week ago, uh I have two updated numbers here now as we've continued to have conversations with our employees.

Uh there are two employees in positions that uh that are classified too highly today and need to be moved down one grade.

Um we're not proposing taking away salary or anything like that from those folks.

Um and once we expand these ranges, those those pay amounts would fit well into the new ranges.

And then uh we have five employees that uh after the salary study were recommending that their positions be moved up one grade as well as uh as a tweak to their title uh that better reflects what they're doing.

Um the fiscal impacts of those uh are absorbable by those departments.

Uh what we're proposing is that those people would get uh essentially moving up to uh a similar spot in the next grade is worth about $7300 per person.

Uh but after uh the implementation of this uh and frankly, so late in the year uh all these departments uh the the five impacted departments have vacancy savings and can use those to to cover these costs this year.

So we're not proposing any um you know additional appropriations or anything like that.

Uh these changes would be uh made effective through the uh adoption of the proposed salary ordinance as well as the internal document that reflects the salary and grades that we have today.

So yeah, just to Zach, if maybe we can just cut jump to a QA if we can.

Yeah, because it'll go to committee.

Yep so any questions?

Uh Counselor Locke.

Yeah, so just preface um no idea what's going on.

Um have very little information other than we were you we were told you guys were gonna do this.

You sent out the JQ request form, that got a ton of pushback because it's a very inhumane way to kind of get people to tell who are you, what do you do, the two bobs from office space.

Um that goes into a black box, it comes back around.

Here we are in August before September of a wild and crazy budget session.

Um 160 people have been told that their job is cool, and 160 people have been told that their job is wrong.

Um their title, if I can clarify.

And I so no, I I'm saying that it's a very important distinction.

The the way that this has been communicated.

While we talked about water communication earlier, I am flabbergasted that we are here today talking about it in this way.

Uh because these are people, these are people that work for our city that have worked here for a long time, longer than you guys at the Dais right now.

Um the reason they've hit the top of their pay is because it takes five years to get there and they've been here in this market, uh, which I don't know what other markets there are or why we're even talking about that, but like this is a very, very strange conversation to be having before we've even started the conversation about the budget.

Um and the fact that everybody has heard that their job title is either wrong or they're gonna now have to compete for salary based on whatever this new structure is, is bizarre.

Um so I'm I'm saying that it's obviously getting late.

Um I have no appetite until we have way more information about what this is to even think about it.

Um I say that like with all due respect on this because uh again, these are the people that run this city.

Um we think we sit here and we do it and we come up with great HR and we go through the budget, but these are the people that are out there plowing streets and moving paper and doing all the things they have to do every single day to keep us looking awesome in the news.

Um and we're treating them like numbers on a page without any context as to why we're even doing this at all.

Um there are seven people on there that if I was one of those seven, I would be fully physically embarrassed and upset.

Um I am a little sitting here in this role based on how we're treating these people as numbers.

These are our friends and our colleagues and the people that we oversee.

They're they're the people that we're chiefing of staffing, like they're they're our friends.

Um I have no idea why we're doing it.

I mean, you've said there's no value in it from a financial standpoint this year, is their next year, is it the next year after that?

What why are we doing this other than to put people in a position where they now feel more disenfranchised from who they are and what their job is than they did before with the intent or hope to make them feel alienated from their labor?

Um that's not a free market enough to say out loud either, but like I just am very, very confused.

Um I do I do think the timing is suspect.

I I do hate that we are so far down this rabbit hole that everybody is now a little scared and a little it it's unknown where they're gonna end up.

Um maybe we can get there, maybe there is information you can share to do that, but we are we are so far down this road uh with zero information as to why or how or what um that it is a very very strange thing um to be seeing a full slide deck about tonight.

So I don't I don't have any questions other than we just need way, way more information, um, including financial realities for individuals, what this looks like from job to job, what this looks like from a full city budget, which departments are we talking about, how much money are we looking to cut from each department based on this, how much money are we looking to add for each department?

Does this have impact on overall strategy or structure of the build of our teams moving forward?

What does it do to separately elected offices?

How how are we applying this to public safety differently than others since we just went through it there?

Are there civilian employees at those public safety entities that are now stuck in this in limbo in a way that they shouldn't have been before?

There's just no information.

So while I understand like this effort and this energy going into this HR thing, we just need way, way more information to make decisions on whether or not this makes sense.

Um and I I don't think we're gonna get that tonight.

Um if I had my druthers, I would vote no on this ordinance tonight because we need a whole new structure.

You could bring it back in its full capacity with more information, but it I don't think this even merits going to a committee to talk about other than we can send it and start talking about it because we don't even know where the budget's gonna end up.

So Benjamin, if something was voted down, an ordinance, when can it be reintroduced?

Not to throw that, I just try to say that to deter that because there's there was some talk about if you vote down an ordinance that can't be introduced, reintroduced for a certain period of time, correct.

If you vote on Benjamin Lake, C Sunday, if you vote on uh this ordinance tonight and you you strengthen that ordinance down, so it's not gonna be brought back, it it can be reintroduced in another form, but it's not the same ordinance can't be brought, it's not to be brought back.

Okay.

Um Counselor Schneider.

I I could echo quite a bit of what Ryan said.

Uh my one thing, and because I work in the road industry, laborers are very, very proud of being called laborers.

And I'm concerned that in our attempt to streamline, and I can I can completely see from your perspective some of these job titles and whatnot, like to make them make sense to us.

Labor is not something to be looked down on.

And I would I'm I'm embarrassed that we are we've made the comment that labor is not a good classification.

I my my point was it's it's not very descriptive.

It doesn't need to be because they do everything.

They do a lot of work.

I mean, so if you want to get descriptive, I mean, a labor's job description, it can't be it can't be minimized.

And and I will say I I I am terrified, at least as street department is concerned that you just because we have all gotten a lot of feedback on this.

And I know you have a good heart, and I know you're a good person, but I've commented before your emails are absolutely terrifying.

Absolutely terrifying.

And I'd be concerned they're gonna unionize.

That's what I would be concerned about.

Because we are continuingly changing a street department that does more work for less money as a department than anybody else.

I think your initiative is it came from a good place.

Everybody, I think this all came from a good place.

I I think doing this right now in a hellacious budget cycle where again the state has put us in a position where there's gonna be tough decisions is the timing is wrong, and I I agree with Councillor Locke that I to me there's we can we could talk about this in every finance committee between now and 2030.

And I I agree with Counselor Locke that I to me there's we can we could talk about this in every finance committee between now and 2030.

And I don't think as it's proposed in this climate, we're gonna see eye to eye.

And I don't want it to be a contentious thing.

I want it to be what is best for our staff who is the extension of our family.

Yeah, if if I can just respond to both your comment as as well as Counselor Locke's.

Um I I think what this says to me is obviously that I have not done a good job of explaining this because I I struggle to see how any employee would look at these recommendations and and say that this is something bad for them.

Um have you asked them?

Like, let's start there.

Can we have those conversations?

Can we ask managers to weigh in?

Can we ensure that we're moving in a right direction before we move in the direction we continue to move before we communicate, and it's putting us in positions where we're just fighting about stuff and feelings for no reason.

And I I know that I'm a big member of that feeling community, I feel a lot.

Um but like I just want to make sure we're we're putting the administration of our government first, which means that we're putting our government first, which is the people that are doing our government.

Like, and that's a very bureaucratic human thing to say, but like I I just can't again wrap my head around the concept that everybody on that list, all 100 327 of them have already got an email telling them about their job and the changes that are coming.

And this is the first time we're talking about it here, and we don't have enough information to talk about it.

This is I in theory, all these emails should be rescinded.

This hasn't happened.

Now, that being said, it already has, we've got to figure out what to do next.

Um, but everybody knows now where the cards are being dealt and how they're gonna be treated.

So without understanding why, um, if the goal is to simplify for the structure of HR so that it's easier to administer moving forward, that's an easy thing to understand.

Uh but if it is anything other than that, um, and it will always be something other than that because we're talking about people, and it's gonna become an individual personal issue for each personnel issue we manage.

Um we've got to figure out a better way to do that.

I mean, this this was rushed to communicate it before we got here.

Um we're not even here yet because we haven't even started talking about a budget which we haven't seen.

So I I just don't even know why this is here and why these communications have already gone out when this has not even been discussed by the council.

And the and I gotta part of my frustration boiled up today when I got a call from an employee that said, hey, I got an email from another employee and they're using their new job title in their email signature.

Like, how is that appropriate?

It's not been approved.

Yeah, in and I'm not sure the specific instance, but it's it's n and this sounds like a probably a lame excuse, but it's it's not uncommon for employees to have a working for the state.

My my first title was policy and procedural analyst one.

That's not what I put on my emails just because that sounded so clunky.

And I and I don't know if that's what's happened or or something.

I don't know, but I blame the state like five times enough.

Yes, uh Benjamin, you had something you want to add then, Councilmanar.

Yeah, just to fully clarify um the question answer the question that you asked.

Uh so three months is that time limit if the same ordinance is put is put back to council that it can't come back for three months unless 70% of the council um offer approval for its comeback before that time.

So that's the time limit that you were referring to.

Yeah, I mean okay.

Um so we'll we'll get into that later with it what defines different.

Um councillor Minar.

Yeah, so I don't want to pile on so I won't, but uh specifically I I received an email from uh one of our employees that had asked to have an a review with HR, and HR hadn't responded, and she sent another email and said, or he sent another email and won't say he or she sent an email and that person was not responded to to sit down with HR and have a discussion about her change in title and what her duties would be and what the implications were for her or his um employment.

Um new job title and and she's not he's not been responded back to either.

So when we're talking about people, this is what I think my fellow counselors are talking about.

Okay.

Uh I just want to comment.

This is a unique situation.

If this is a private company, we would do this a lot differently.

But it's not, it's a public entity.

We can't have subsets of meetings over and over again with you without violating the open door act.

So we're trying to do this in the best way possible.

If we'd had this conversation with you separately, all the employees on the be like, what bucket am I in?

So instead, we said that employees who have been involved in this process doing their GAQs and interviews and other things this year.

This is subject to council approval.

This is going through the process that allows them to lobby you if they want, and it also allows the public to weigh in this process.

It's awkward, I agree.

It's horrible, but it's just the process that we have in a public entity, and we do want to do anything behind the scenes and hide it, and we certainly didn't want to violate the open door law.

So I'm not sure how much better we can do this in the time that we have.

We've been working on this for months.

So it's not like been rushed.

We are trying to communicate it quickly, because also if you don't communicate all at once to employees, the rumor mill takes off.

Uh employees did get individual conversations or individual information, and um department managers had an FAQ to address it with them.

So HR has been working with people, but as you may imagine, there's a handful of people that want to have a conversation, and we didn't overstaff another person.

We have a compensation consultant helping to the data.

That's how employee relations are uh employee or excuse me initiative.

So we're doing the best we can to also attack our budget, which as Zach has already indicated.

This is budget neutral for 2026.

So am I correct?

20 2025.

Right.

Well, 2025, you're eating the extra five employees, but other than the colour, there's only adjustments for the colour.

There's now adjustments because of this change.

Correct.

And no employees are being let go because of this.

I mean, this is I just I'm a little frustrated because we've done months and months of work.

Want to come to you with feedback, and all we are asking you to do is take it to committee and discuss it.

So you can learn more.

When you say, I don't know anything about this, I don't have information.

We're asking.

We're gonna send it to committee.

So read it.

Thank you.

Um, I do have one comment before we and we'll see if anyone else, but um I've heard from some city counselors wondering whether we should eliminate the uh economic director, uh economic development director, Nick Weber's previous position, or the chief infrastructure officer, those are both vacant positions at the highest salaries at this moment.

I know you've said that you had no plans to fill that, and you know, I uh no reason not to take you out your word, but it would be easy to strike that, and then a year from now we can always revisit it and put it back in.

But um I think we've heard from some counselors that we'd feel more comfortable if we just stroke struck that for at least next year's budget, and then we can when we see how things improve, always can discuss whether to bring back those positions at a later date.

I can confirm they're not funded for next year in the current budget that you'll will present.

I don't know why we can't just leave it in there because you have to fund it anyway.

That JAQs have been done.

And that would be my plan in 28 to bring both of those back.

Okay, um Mr.

President, thank you.

So so what is the plan for economic development?

Are you are you searching for replacement?

I'll discuss that when we get to the budget.

We're not done through budget yet.

Okay, all right.

Well, all right.

Um any other questions or comments?

Uh this will go to the Finance Utility and Rules Committee.

All right.

Uh next up, first reading of ordinance D 2780-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter three, Article 1, Section 3-44 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsor is counselors Austin and Taylor.

Do we have a motion to reduce?

Second.

All right.

Uh Counselor Schneider, would you read the synopsis?

Uh ordinance amending section 344, which removes the requirement that they come and council publish notice for zoning map changes.

The plan commission already publishes notice for zoning map changes.

All right.

I know with Sergey was one who worked with Benjamin.

Are you familiar with this enough to talk about it, or should I have one of us talk about it?

Okay.

Any other if that's all right, maybe we'll just send this to the finance utility and rules committee, even though it's pretty simple just because it's been a long night.

Any objection to that?

Okay.

We're gonna send that to the finance committee.

All right.

Moving on.

First reading of ordinance D-slash 2780-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 8, Article 5, Section 846 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsors are Councillors Taylor, Austin, and World.

Uh to have motion introduced.

So move.

Second.

All right.

Councilor Robert, read the synopsis.

This is an ordinance regulating the use of public parking spaces.

Benjamin, are you prepared to present on this one?

So we've got plenty of um laws related to being a good driver.

This is about being a good parker.

That's really what it is.

It's about it it's drafted in such a manner that the vehicle needs to be uh within the lines of a parking space that's been designated.

These parking spaces um are given adequate room for uh most vehicles, engineering assists with that.

Um and this is a requirement that we didn't have previously.

So if you are crossing multiple spaces, if your vehicle is is parked poorly and you are crossing two and making it so uh what would have been two spaces is now being taken up by your single vehicle, that would be uh something that would be uh um a violation of ordinance and would you would get a citation, a parking ticket for that.

Uh councillor, are you kind of worked on some of this correct my understanding of that with the situation in midtown?

No.

Is it okay?

No, this is uh if you remember this is regarding a rogue um recreational vehicle.

Oh, this is that one and um and so I but I do have a question.

So I'm I'm fully in favor of and I didn't mean did I step on you?

Okay, I'm fully in favor of um of this, but I would ask so if we have a uh visiting family come in their recreational vehicle and park in front of um uh beer kitchen 101 or whatever it's called um and take up two spaces.

Is there any kind of way that they can get dispensation?

Uh because we're after we're solving a problem and um someone that is not acting in the right manner in our community, but we could also probably have an unintended consequence with a visitor, someone here for the live golf tournament.

I don't know.

But I just wanted to ask that question.

Is there any anyway?

Sure.

So um there are instances within the community that have highlighted this this issue, right?

Um, but the issue is is drafted in a manner to um make it so that even with single vehicles, right?

The crossing, it is dealing with a nuisance value of making sure that we're properly utilizing spaces.

What I will say is this um if you are dealing with your exact scenario where someone is visiting and they have an extended vehicle like a recreational vehicle, uh this uh ordinance as drafted would prohibit them from parking across two spaces.

Yeah.

So it would treat local and visitor alike, and you would not be able to park within those spaces.

But again, this is only for those marked spaces, right?

This is only for where uh engineering and the street department have worked together where we have designated parking spaces um which isn't everywhere within the city, right?

It's drafted that way, so we're not dealing with your residential neighborhood and your parking outside a home.

It's also there is a provision in there, um, and the question hasn't been asked, but it's where the the uh lines can be seen.

So if we have a snowfall or anything like that, it is it is something in there that makes it so that when we're not going after people who can't actually see what the space is.

It is where you uh knowingly parking across multiple spaces and ultimately not being a very courteous parker.

Councillor Schneider.

I I I just I go back.

I always want to make my question is can we I go back and I want to say it was about 12 years.

I was having dinner at Bub's with my family, and there was a hockey team from St.

Louis meeting next to us, and they went out and their car was gone.

It just got towed.

And that's when there was that we the city did predatory kind of slowed on predatory towing.

Had nothing to do with this issue, but I remember that this family that came from St.

Louis for a hockey tournament, never got to participate because all the team's gear was in their SUV.

So my my question is we can we put a little ticket, but are we going to actually be towing vehicles?

So the authority here is both ticketing and towing, which is the general authority.

It can be limited so that you can the council has the authority to be able to set a first violation being X, uh, second violation being X with a tow.

It is ultimately this council's discretion to be able to target that as you wish.

It is not drafted that way.

It is drafted currently in the way that would um fall under the general provisions, which is a ticket, and potentially if if the office of the term is necessary a toe.

Councillor Greener.

Yeah, um two questions or one question, but uh let's say I was gonna go out and buy a really big ass truck.

You know, would that a really big truck?

That would go, yeah, that would go you know just over the line.

Um or an example where I go out and and I I can't do this, but buy a really expensive car.

I mean super super expensive car where I don't get any scratches on it.

And sometimes they take like you know, um, you know, parks so no one can sit by them.

Um and I'm definitely not looking to do the later.

But how would that fit with this within this ordinance?

Yeah, so uh again, I mean the simplicity of it is if it crosses over the line, it's gonna be in violation.

But what you're gonna have is you do have other parking spaces that only have um the sides and the front line, right?

You have you have spaces that where there is no back line um or they're not abutting each other.

Um and so you could find a space there.

Now we also have an ordinance that you can't um you can't block the the flow of traffic, right?

So if your vehicle is going to be even in those regular spaces, which are generous spaces, I I might add, and I uh I'm sure that Brown would be able to speak to the specific measurements and meets and so forth.

But um I would I would say that you have to be um it has to be a long vehicle in order to extend that far out that it would also block and interfere with with the regular vehicular traffic.

But any other questions?

I I might have one just in the hope that maybe we can act on this and not send it to committee.

That question would you be able to answer a question from the police perspective if you think?

Okay.

Well, I just simple question.

It's a completely empty parking lot.

There are a million of empty spaces, and somebody parks across two spots.

This this doesn't apply in a parking lot.

Well, I'm saying in general, we say there's a tons of parking spaces nearby.

There is a ton of parking spaces, there's a ton of parking.

It's a certain it's a violation, but there's a lot of parking, it's a time of the day that's not bothering anyone.

Does that become a priority for police too than enforce at that time?

Uh major Shang Congress police department, no, it would not be.

Um, unless a lot of our parking complaints, we have some people who um proactively look, but a lot of them are from citizen complaints.

So if we had a citizen complaint, then yes, we would go deal with it regardless of how full the parking lot was.

Sir thoughts on council, we want to send this to committee or do we want to act on this evening?

Well, I do it does in reading it, it seems broad enough to apply to parking lots if they're public parking spaces.

It's uh if they're public, yes.

Yeah, it it applies to public parking spaces in public parking lots and on the side of of the road as well.

Yes, but I guess what I meant is this isn't at Kroger or um, you know, and we don't have many public parking lots.

Um this is about being on the street.

I mean, we have some, I know, but truly by way of example, it would apply to to city hall parking.

As a lot of city hall, yeah.

Yeah, so that's not where this guy is.

Garages, uh, public garages would count.

If it's a public garage, yes, it would apply there as well.

Yeah.

I it looks like we're gonna I do think one more like iteration to have the public weigh in on thoughts on it would make sense.

Hearing this, we'll send this to committee.

I was hoping maybe we can get something not set to committee, but this will get sent to the finance utility and rules committee.

All right.

Next up, first reading of ordinance D 2782-25, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 8, Article 3, Section 817 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsor is Councillor Austin and Taylor.

All right.

Um sorry, you didn't do this.

It's not just ordinance regulating speed limits for schools, I'm sorry I'm sorry if I stole somebody's thunder there.

No, you're fine.

Um I my I my my request, and it's okay, and no hard feelings is if you could hold this at the dais, only because I think we this the robust conversation around this, I think deserves to be in this setting, perhaps not a committee meeting.

And I don't want to get into it tonight.

I agree.

Okay.

So then it can always still get sent to committee later.

I think the both committees have plenty to work on as it is.

So we will table this matter and you can always send it to committee if we have to.

All right.

So other than that, we will for the members of the public, if you are curious what the ordinance is, we're happy to I'll talk with you after.

So we could um here.

Moving from moving on, agenda atom items.

We have none.

Other business, we have none.

Announcements.

Does anyone have an announcement tonight?

No announcements.

On that, I adjourn.