The Monday, May 18th, 2026, City of Carmel Council meeting.

First item on the agenda, or excuse me, at 6.01 p.m.

First item is agenda approval.

Second.

Up next, we have our invocation by fire department chaplain, Mr.

Dave Hookie.

Grateful to be here.

Is it on?

Okay.

Grateful to be here.

Will you uh bow your heads?

I'd love to pray for us.

God, thank you for this day that you've made.

We recognize it as a gift from you.

God, thank you for your faithfulness, goodness, grace, and mercy in our lives.

You are so good.

Thank you for the blessing of our city for its beauty for the families who call it home and for the people who serve this community every single day.

We're especially grateful for the leaders in this room and the responsibility they carry.

Leadership is a high calling, and it's not easy.

So God give them wisdom to lead well, strength to serve with integrity and clarity in every decision they make.

Thank you for their sacrifice and dedication to making this city a better place.

God, thank you for the people who serve our city, council members, city leaders, our mayor, police officers, firefighters, teachers, and so many others who carry responsibility behind the scenes, strengthen them and encourage them tonight.

As the council gathers tonight, I pray your blessing over every person here.

Grant wisdom, discernment, humility, and unity, even when there are different opinions.

Guard hearts from pride, division, and selfish ambition.

Help each person seek not their own agenda but the good of the people they serve.

God, we pray for Carmel to continue to be a city marked by compassion, generosity, selflessness, and hope.

Help us to be salt and light here to love people well, serve people well, and above all, God, may we recognize you, not leaving you out, but putting you at the center of all we do.

God, thank you for your love and for your grace for each and every one of us, and it's in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, Chaplain.

Uh next up is our Pledge of Allegiance led by our deputy mayor.

Do I start now?

Yep.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.

And to the ballot stands on a nation under God and indivisible liberty and justice for all.

Well done.

Recognition of city employees, outstanding citizens.

None on the docket this evening.

Um recognition of persons who wish to address the council.

We do have quite a few tonight.

In fact, we've got 11.

And they're all pretty, I think they're all regarding the same issue, uh, which is great, and we want to hear from everybody.

Uh, if you could just try for factual things, um, not be repetitive.

I think you guys have done a wonderful job sending emails.

Um, if we could just try to be respectful of time, but we will be respectful of yours.

So you get three minutes, and if you want to take it all, that's your right to do so.

Um you get up there, you'll hit the button.

It will be yellow when you have 30 seconds left.

And turn red when you if you see it turn red, just if you would kindly finish up the sentence you're on.

Um, and we'll go from there.

So, first up, uh Luke Edgerton.

And on deck will be, excuse me.

Uh and I apologize in advance for all of you.

Uh is it's Miss Moosla.

Anything close to that?

Okay.

Lots of help.

Hey, thanks for giving us the time and we appreciate you all so much.

My my family has lived off of West Road since we were born.

It was a gravel road when we were kids.

And so we saw like two cars a day when it was a gravel road.

And obviously with Carmel's development, which has been awesome, the traffic has increased.

Or 421 and other cross streets.

And so people are using it during rush hour, which makes sense to bypass traffic jams, but they're using it at rush hour speeds.

So we're talking 55 and 60 miles an hour on a 30 mile an hour residential street, if that makes sense.

That's concern one.

Concern two is that it has a reputation of being a drag strip because it's an exact quarter mile.

And when my brothers and I were kids, we drive our go carts up and down this gravel road when it was still Boone County before we got annexed in Hamilton County in 2003.

And what we've seen is that over time it's gained a reputation of being the core the perfect quarter mile for guys to show up in their souped up Teslas, Dodge Challengers, and their Corvettes, and they just open up.

But they're not opening up during rush hour, they're opening it up when everyone is riding bikes and walking dogs.

So they're opening up on the nice summer months of the year, and they're doing it between like 6 and 9 p.m.

And then they take a break, and then they do it again at 2 a.m.

and they wake up the entire neighborhood.

So it's become a nuisance over the last four decades in terms of like just sleeping through the night.

But the real concern is safety.

And the reason we got 80% threshold is because 80% of the people on that street want to ride bikes, walk their dogs, and take their kids on bike rides.

And the reason we didn't get 80% is because Brendan Orchard, although it is a great little space, they're not impacted by the safety part of the problem.

They're just impacted by the inconvenience of the speed bumps we're we're asking you to install.

And so we've been calling on Carmel for a long time for increased policing, which has helped some, and the speed sign, which has helped some, but these are just band-aids to the solution to the problem.

The real the solution is speed bumps, and that's why they're everywhere else in the city of Carmel, is because they work.

So we're just kind of at your mercy pleading with you to act upon this because if we could put in speed bumps, we would have done that on our own by now.

But we want to be good citizens, we pay taxes like everybody else, and we expect the same degree of safety that the rest of the city enjoys as well.

So we're really at your mercy.

We're trusting you guys to support this.

Um we're we're you know doing everything Dr.

Joshi has asked us.

You've been wonderful by the way.

And uh, we were a little alarmed that it uh changed the last second, this process, but we're still trying to comply with with the rules and and the ways.

Okay?

Thank you very much.

On deck will be Mrs.

Schneider.

Okay.

Stacia, that's the first name.

Um I have lived on West Road for almost 30 years, and just like he said, when I first moved out there, it was very peaceful.

Maybe you'd see a car every 10 minutes, but it is uh become a constant uh constant traffic is is constantly going.

Pardon me, I've never spoken before before.

Um but it it's constant, and I live on the corner of 131st and West.

And I can tell you that people will drive down 131st and they're going full out, even though it's 40 miles an hour, and then they'll turn on to West Road, and they have had it done right in front of me, step on the gas, and just it's like, okay, I'm at the ND500, and they just want to bust it out down the road.

Um so I'm at the end of my driveway picking up my trash cans, and I don't know, this person loses control, and I'm not here anymore.

Um but we have had people end up in our front yard because they're going too fast.

So I am in full um support of these speed bumps.

I would say that if, and this is just a little caveat.

If I was speaking to a policeman that I know, he was in a similar situation with the neighborhood that he lived in, and he mentioned to me that if there's any kind of question about the speed bump, for example, with the snow plows, and maybe that would present some sort of an issue.

He suggested that if that happens to be something, that instead of a speed bump, that we would do a depression.

So it then the snow plows go right over top the depression.

So you're carving out a section of the road rather than putting something over top.

Okay.

So that is all that I have to say.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Mrs.

Schneider, followed by on deck will be uh Mr.

Bauer.

Again, thank you for the opportunity to share our concerns with the speed on West Road.

Again, we all moved in together around 30 years ago.

I used to love taking a walk south of where I live to see my neighbors walk the dog.

I can't do it anymore.

I have been have to jump off the road.

There's people that are exceeding the speed limit by 20, 30 miles an hour.

So sometimes I pack up my dog and go to another neighborhood.

And I miss seeing my neighbors that I used to be able to see further south on West Road.

So I'm not going to repeat myself, but I miss the peace and quiet that we used to have.

I hope we get it back soon, and thank you for your consideration.

Mr.

Bauer, and on deck is Ms.

Mr.

Watson.

Okay.

Like everybody else, sorry to be a little different.

What everybody else says.

Do you know Luke Etcherson talked about he's on the quarter mile on the south side of West Road, then there's a jog.

I'm on the quarter mile on the north side, and people when they go around that jog, you can hear them purr their engines, rev it up.

It's a safety issue pulling out of our driveways.

You know, we it was a country road.

I know things change.

Uh the developments happened.

There's there's bound to be more traffic, but we don't have sidewalks, we don't have curbs.

It is still a country road that has went from gravel to chip and seal just to asphalt, and we don't have any of the amenities and it's a safety issue.

When you mow the yard, you're out there next to 465, basically.

And so again, I've had numerous people drive through our yard, you know, and I've had my mailbox hit and destroyed numerous times, and it's due to distraction, it's due to speed, and all of those things are uh coming into play here.

And so again, um we have signs where there's speed limits, but those don't work.

The speed bumps when they were there temporarily did work, and we really appreciated those.

It's an inconvenience for all of us.

I wish we didn't have to do that, but um kind of that as the last resort.

I don't know what else to turn to, and we're asking you for that direction.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Bauer.

Mr.

Watson, uh is Mr.

Watson here.

Are you for this?

Mr.

Watson is expressing you're deferring your time.

Thank you, sir.

Uh Jake Edgerton.

On deck will be uh Soyer Harbrove.

First, thank you for uh speaking with us about this.

Uh I've I'm not gonna spend a bunch of time, I'm gonna reiterate what my brother said.

Um been on this road since 1983.

So I've lived here quite a long time, seeing a lot of change happen.

I'm not opposed to change.

Uh I I live on the very end of 121st and West Road.

So when you turn off 121st Street to get onto West Road, that is where the acceleration happens.

That's the highest rate of speed that cars come by.

Combine that cars reach.

I have three boys, 13, 11, and nine years old.

And my greatest concern is is when a ch when a car is reaching these speeds, and we're talking not 40, 50 miles an hour.

I kid you not, 90 plus at times, and I have video of these cars racing by our street.

My greatest concern is there's gonna be a tragedy that I can't undo.

And I think you probably can see that it's it's something that like I want to get fixed because I don't want there to be a tragedy.

So thank you.

Thank you, sir.

So you're I'm gonna hold off since you're a totally different subject.

I would uh Jeanine.

I apologize.

And on deck will be Ms.

Sir Cooper.

Okay, all right.

Hi, everyone.

Thanks for all that you do.

I actually feel super excited that we get three minutes because I thought it was two, and I was like, I'm gonna have to talk real fast.

Um my name is Janine Zee Cheng.

Uh I live with my wife and our two kids at the intersection of West Road and 126th Street.

Um, our seven-year-old just learned to ride his bike, and he's not super great at it yet.

Um, but we've been trying to bike to the village of the West Clay and go get fun days and you know, whenever the weather's nice.

And I, you know, we haven't lived on West Road for as long as some of these other folks.

It's been, you know, just the past five years that we've lived there.

Um I love it, I love our neighbors, it's wonderful.

Um, but the the cars are really scary, especially when you know you have a couple of excited kids and I'm yelling at them every two seconds, get over to the right side, guys, there's a car.

Um so I um I'm also a pediatrician and a former pediatric intensive care physician.

Um, and so my two big responsibilities are keeping kids safe and also taking a lot of data and interpreting it in a way that parents and kids can understand.

So now the way that my brain works is I see all of this information and it says, okay, how do I consolidate this into like kind of simple bullet points?

Um, so here are the data as I see them.

Um number one, the speed limit on West Road is 30 miles an hour.

Uh number two, as others have said, many cars on West Road are driving much faster than 30 miles an hour.

Number three, speed humps are a safety tool to help drivers obey the speed limit.

And number four, we had temporary speed humps placed last year that were very effective in helping drivers to obey the speed limit.

Um, so logically it makes sense that the speed humps are an effective tool, and it's a good idea to permanently put them in place.

Um I know that there was some opposition that was kind of thrown out, and I just want to give a little history that um when seat belts were made mandatory in Michigan in the early 1980s.

The um state representative who introduced the bill got hate mail comparing him to Hitler.

Um so there is a lot of really emotionally driven resistance to these evidence-based safety interventions.

And the important thing here is that we do have the evidence.

We we know that the speed humps have already been affected, we have supportive neighbors.

Um, and I, you know, as a as a former pediatric ICU doctor, I sat down with a lot of families and said, hey, you know, I'm uh I have to give you this news that your child is not gonna survive the injuries that they sustained from being hit by a car.

And we currently don't have any little bike memorials on West Road, and I would really love it if we could keep it that way.

So I am hoping that you all will support it, and I really thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Ms.

Cooper.

So we had quite a few people show up tonight, so I'm not gonna go through my little speech that I had prepared here, but I did send you guys all an email.

I also included some video footage of just one of like numerous incidents that we have literally daily.

When I was sending the email to you guys, there was somebody who was like honking at another car at the intersection.

We're right at 126 in this tea in the road.

Um it's very problematic.

We've had multiple accidents in our backyard as well.

Um I think one of the things that it shows, like our neighborhood is we all like talk, and we would like to be able to like safely like my my son is friends with um the Edgerton son, but like I don't want him to ride his bike down the road to visit their house because it's too dangerous.

The bus driver for Carmel has said, God, this road is so bad.

Like, you know, I try to pull into the middle of the road so no cars can go around me.

Like it's everyone notices this, and it's it's a real issue.

And like people have said, it's just a matter of time before something tragic happens.

Um the other thing I wanted to mention is that I am the mother of an autistic child, and autistic children can be um even more vulnerable around traffic.

They are can be a little bit unpredictable in situations.

Um, because of this, I have not felt comfortable like teaching him how to ride his bike in our driveway.

And I know that like other people have mentioned this, it's even like playing basketball because I just don't want him to get too focused on chasing a ball and not realize or have somebody be on their phone and like pull like into our driveway.

It's it's just a really it's just a really problematic stretch of road.

Um we've lived here for the last 10 years, and it's gotten increasingly worse as we've lived here with the traffic.

You know, the traffic studies were done.

I think we have 1500 cars a day, give or take, that go up and down this road.

It is particularly bad at rush hour.

That's when cars are going very fast.

It's also particularly bad in the middle of the night.

Um so yeah, I mean Carmel has built its reputation on being a city that is a great place to raise families and raise kids.

So we're just basically asking for you know to kind of follow through on that mission and like help our neighborhood be able to have some of the you know the abilities that other neighborhoods have safely and our kids to be able to play outside and bike and our walk our dogs and things like that.

So really that's that's about it.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um Mr.

Richard Cooper.

Yeah.

Um I don't think there's anything that's been said already that I'm not gonna repeat, but uh from my perspective and my family's point of view.

I've got an eight-month-old son and a four four-year-old daughter.

They're out playing in the garden, the yard all the time.

It only takes one accident, uh, you know, kick a ball.

They know not to go in the road, but in that time they could, you know, chase after the ball.

They want the ball, that's it.

They're in the road and they're gonna get they're gonna get seriously hurt.

Um again, late at night, got cars tearing up and down.

Um got a colic baby, which is difficult at the best of times.

So when he's woken up in the middle of the night, it's uh you know it's distressful for us all.

So that's uh to risk repeating what other people have already said.

I'll I'll finish that.

Thank you, Mr.

Cooper.

Thank you.

Mr.

Rab Cooper.

Hi.

Uh I'm Rob.

I'm Richard's brother, Sarah's husband.

Sorry.

Um we live next door to each other.

We're on the corner.

Um, just to throw a few facts out there.

I think it was 1700 cars per day.

Uh, average speed of around 55 to 58 miles an hour.

Um also we live in what's called a conservation corridor.

So I know that a lot of people have tried to say that they want the sidewalks installing, but we are in a conservation corridor where there is pretty much zero chance of the sidewalks being installed in our area because the roads are too narrow and the property lines runs straight up to the side of the road.

Um speaking on speeding, as my wife said, we've had a few people in our backyard.

Some of them um have been weather-related, which speed bumps would also help with, you know, snowing, if they could slow down a little bit would be wonderful.

They slide right into our backyard.

And I've taken the position that if they're not drunk, I will pull them out.

Um we've had a few drunk ones in there, and the police have been called and they have been taken away.

And we've also had a couple of younger kids who have been given high-powered cars.

We live in an affluent area, and people get nice presents for the birthday.

But um of them drove so fast he hit a tree and on impact broke broke both of his wrists, and I had to take him to the hospital.

Um in my backyard, he was in my backyard, he couldn't do anything, couldn't die on his phone, so I just decided it was easy to take him there.

Um it's a repeated problem.

Um also my brother and I we have some larger equipment that we try to reverse onto the driveway every now and again.

Uh takes maybe 35 seconds within that time.

We're also being beat up by people trying to get through, causing dangerous accidents, driving off the road to try and get around.

Well, the neighbors have tried to mitigate this by installing large boulders to stop people from driving through their yard to cut through that pass.

Um I understand there's also been some opposition for people on Brennan Orchard.

They have they don't put up with it directly.

Um I think they're uh maybe some influence on that street that may have been taken into consideration.

Um I don't think it should be uh taken with I think it should be ignored.

Um they don't put up with the traffic that we have to deal with, nor the speeders.

They're very far back, and we are trying to create a safe environment for children.

There are a lot of young kids.

Um, but I do think that the speed bumps will definitely help.

And let's just hope that you guys can give this one a thumbs up because I don't want to see anybody else in my backyard for a few years.

It would be would be nice.

So no more broken bones.

One of them was a medical student who broke his own hands.

So thank you.

Thank you.

And Mimi.

City Council leaders, thank you for your time.

Very much appreciate it.

And I'm just gonna add my neighbors have expressed the high speed and um traff heavy traffic that's occurred.

We've lived in our home for over 17 years.

My daughters have grown up there.

We actually are the ones with the boulders.

And we got city approval before we did.

But these large boulders, we've had cars come through, believe it or not, and we've had cars demolish three times our mailbox, completely demolished.

We put a new one, we moved it, we got smart, we thought.

We moved it, and it got splintered again.

And we've had cars end up on the other side, our side, if you will, of the boulders, and then they fled because probably DWI avoidance, right?

But it wear off.

At least that's what we think.

So what I'm trying to say is that no matter what we do, it seems on our property, is it's not enough.

The speed bumps will decrease, and data has shown that.

We'll decrease the ongoing speed throughout West Road from 121st to 131st.

And as our chaplain stated earlier, that we really should be good, compassionate neighbors and citizens and have empathy for especially our neighbors who don't even have the luxury to separate themselves further from the street because their homes are so close to the street.

And I fear for their children because they've ended up these drivers have ended up at least our houses set back more, but they've ended up killing our mature trees that we're trying to protect with the boulders.

And because previously had driven through our property as well.

So I urge you to be compassionate and think about our good citizens and neighbors and support these bumps.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, Sawyer.

Thank you for being patient.

Um, good evening.

My name is Sawyer Hargrove, and I'm a member of the Carmel Mayor's Youth Council.

Uh and today I'd like to share a bit of a youth perspective on get moving in May.

So a bit of a different topic.

But when Ellen Rose Marin, our council's president, shared with me the post Mayor Finka made on April 1st regarding the new rules on the Monon, it almost ruined my day.

For certain hours, you could only go in one direction on the Monon.

And as a runner on the Carmel Cross Country team who uses the Monon for almost every practice, uh, I was dumbfounded.

Then I remembered the date, and I realized that not only had I been tricked by my own council president by the mayor as well.

I think the prank about the Monon was an effective one as it highlights Carmel's emphasis on physical fitness.

The Monon allows residents of Carmel to have access to a paved, safe, and clean trail that encourages physical health.

Another initiative that is improving the well-being of the community is the Get Moving in May program.

As I'm sure many of you know, this campaign has been going on throughout the month of May, and frankly, that's impressive considering the weather.

As a teen, I find it incredibly important that we grow up in a community that fosters physical fitness.

As a runner, physical exercise is very important part of my life.

And I think that many people my age can benefit from activity.

Exercise not only helps me maintain a stable and functional body, but also improves my mental health.

Being outside on the Monon helps connect me to the world outside nature, and I hope teens my age can also experience this.

As member of the Carmel Mayor's Youth Council, I'd be remiss not to urge my fellow teens to use many of the public spaces available.

As I'm sure you all are aware, many teens already take advantage of public spaces like Midtown.

But I would urge other young people to make the most of other public spaces which are authorized by this council.

Places like Flowingwell Park, Lawrence Park, and the Monon Center.

These are valuable places that I think a lot of people in our community take for uh granted.

A lot of people around the world obviously don't have access to places like this, and I would just urge people my age to go to these places, not just to hang out, but also for physical activity and to you know take advantage of their teenage years.

I have great memories here from when I was younger, and I just urge people my age to still go to these places because they're very valuable to me.

Uh and I think they can be valuable to all of us.

So I just urge the council to continue to support uh activities that promote um, you know, the monon and um places like that, and I'm really appreciative for the Get Moving in May campaign because I think that's very important for a community to be um focused on physical activity.

So I'm very appreciative for that as well.

Um thank you all for your time and the council's continued support of this project along with CMYC.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Uh Council and Mayoral comments, observations.

Good evening, City Councilors.

My name is Shell Hornbacher.

I'm a fifth grader at Smokey Rail Elementary School, and I will be sharing tonight's deputy mayor report.

First, we are excited to share that Carmel High School's D E C A team is now ranked number one in the world.

This is a huge accomplishment out of more than 26,000 students who competed.

The team of 87 Carmel students came out on top in all three areas of competition.

Next, on May 3rd, our community celebrated the second annual Japan Spring Fest.

It was a fun day filled with culture and performances.

Thank you to everyone who participated and attended.

On Wednesday, Mayor Fincom wants residents to know she will be spending the afternoon with the Shoot Department.

She will be posting updates throughout the day and welcomes questions and comments.

Also, we invite community members to stop by the May 21st neighborhood pop-up at the Woodland Woodlands and neighborhood pool parking lot from 5 30 to 6 30 p.m.

Joining the mayor at this family friendly event will be city counselors, public safety, and other city departments, as well as the schools and public services.

This is a great way to engage with your community leaders and partners and connect with your neighbors.

Mark your calendar for Friday, May 22nd from 9 to 10 a.m.

for the City of Carmel annual memorial day ceremony.

The ceremony will take place at the Veteran Memorial Plaza.

Please join us as this is an important event to honor and remember the men and women who served our country.

Finally, we want to rec um we want to recognize a special guest with us tonight, Creekside Middle School student Keen Bach, placed first in the regional spelling bee earlier this spring.

Keen will be heading to the to Washington, D.C.

at the end of the month to compete in the National Scripts Spelling B.

Let's all congrat congratulate him together.

Kian, would you stand so we can recognize you Keenan?

Can you go over the podium, please?

Don't you win the words?

So now this evening, before Michael Klitzing goes into a lengthy but undeniably incredible report reminding us why Carmel has the greatest parks in the world.

Before Henry Mestecki unveils some new experimental math on how fewer parking spaces, park more cars.

Before Bond Council arrives with pretty pictures to dumb down data like we're second graders.

We are going to have our first inaugural three-word city council spelling being.

Are you ready?

Yes.

All right.

I gotta be able to read these.

Architectural contextualization.

Architectural contextualization, the sort of word that causes developers to visibly age.

We have a committee that spent three hours discussing architectural contextualization before realizing nobody knew what it meant.

Architectural contextualization.

Architectural contextualization.

Fantastic.

All right.

Roundabout efication.

Studies show that roundaboutation reduces traffic fatalities and greatly increases out of town confusion.

A pastime of Carmelites.

Roundaboutification.

R O U N D A B O U T I F I C A T I O N Roundabout Vication.

Fantastic.

And finally.

One I can pick out.

Recontextualization.

Reinterpreting or repurposing existing space or structure.

Sounds like something we do quite often.

Recontextualization.

R E C O N T E X T U A L I Z A T I O N Recontextualization.

All right.

Fantastic.

So in your words, what are you most excited about?

You're clearly representing Carmel well.

You're going to be on the national stage.

I just made all three of those words up.

So whether you spelled them right or not, great job.

But what are you most excited about?

Well, I'm most excited for the experience of just competing on such a big stage, because I know not many people get this kind of opportunity.

So I just want to make the most of it because even if I don't win this year, I know I still have next year.

And this experience is even if I don't win, it's going to make me better for next year and for my future.

Well, we greatly appreciate you.

How about uh you want to come up here and we'll get some photos with the family?

What's the other five president?

That was great.

I like that.

I don't want to believe all those places.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good luck to you, my God.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Jim.

Mayor, any further comments?

Counselors.

Any council comments?

Moving on, consent agenda.

Approval of minutes.

April 20th, special meeting.

April 20th, regular meeting, and May 7th, special claims meeting.

Look for approval.

Second.

Claims.

General claims in the amount of one million eight hundred seventy-six thousand ninety-one dollars and forty-seven cents.

Wire transfers, nine million four hundred eighty-six thousand nine hundred sixteen dollars fourteen cents.

Move for approval.

Mayor Alvitoes, there are none.

Committee reports, Mr.

Taylor.

Finance committee met we discussed the vacation of public way regarding the second reading ordinances D-2815-26 and D-2816-26.

These items were discussed at length and were sent back to the full council with a positive recommendation.

Next meeting.

Next meeting is on the twenty is on the twentieth, which has already been noticed.

And it will be at 530 or 530 p.m.

here in the council chambers.

Thank you, sir.

We do have a second meeting scheduled if needed to be held before the council meeting on June first and council chambers at 430 if required.

Thank you, Councillor Taylor.

Dr.

Joshi.

Yes, so we had our last um land use meeting um on April 28th at that time.

We returned the two ordinances previously mentioned by Councillor Taylor vacating the public way.

D 22816-26 and D 2815-26, and they were both returned to council with a positive recommendation.

We also uh return to council with a positive recommendation, the home place sub-area plan.

And so those are returned this evening.

Our next meeting is also on Wednesday um the 20th at 5 30 at Carmel Library for those who are interested.

President Snyder, yes, sir.

Yeah, I'd like to grab Dr.

Joshi and Councillor Taylor attended the meeting so we can work out which uh meeting I attend.

They're both scheduled same night, same time, different locations.

You know, so whichever uh best serves people, Carmel.

We will be sure to communicate better about that in the future, Councillor Green, and happy to meet with you at the end.

All right, thanks.

Yes, sorry, Councillor Green.

We're just um because of the um items before us related to the bond refunding.

We're trying to get those done prior to the next meeting.

I would say the uh councillor Taylor's committee is gonna get more this evening.

Thank you both.

Uh Carmel Redevelopment, Henry Mastecsky monthly report, please.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh Henry Mustuski, Carmel's redevelopment director.

I'll just quickly go through last month's activities.

Hal, if I can get that on the screen.

Oh, okay.

That's just my cool.

All right.

Um busy, busy week of construction, busy month of construction.

It's nice to see uh the Mona Square North rising up.

It's now five stories.

Looks good as people drive by there.

Um Magnolia is on their last condo building, I believe.

Uh all of Muse is now leased up.

I hope people have had a chance to have their uh uh Japanese sushi or Paris baguette or some some tacos.

And Ben and Jerry's, that's American, I think.

Um Civic Square Condos uh continue to sell.

Um uh nice construction progress on the icon, and again that that public plaza should be coming this summer.

Um if you have driven by the this site, you have seen a hole in the ground where the ATT residents are gonna go, so it's nice to see progress on those for sale units.

Amazing progress happening at the corner of our main street at Artelon Plaza, the facade begins to take shape.

Uh we continue working through the Heron Club with our parks friends, and uh lots of work happening on the on the north end phase two.

Uh both this and Heron Club are both age restricted projects, so it's nice to see that move up.

And I'm happy to answer any questions uh that the council may have uh Mr.

President.

So uh thank you.

There is um lots of work that the redevelopment commission is doing, and I'm glad to see the progress on these.

Um I was walking this weekend along the Monon where uh through through the Monon Square that that is under construction.

I wanted to know if you could give the public several people stop me and ask when will this be finished?

Could you give us a timeline on that stretch of the moan on when we might see, and I I won't hold you to it, but when might we see those um chain link fences go down and when can I get on that slide?

The mayor has asked the mayor has a date in mind.

Okay, she has asked not to disclose it because there's a hang up, there's a one potential pitfall, but hopefully, Carmelfest will have that whole area open and kids on the playground.

But pending one little hiccup that could happen between now and then.

Okay, so we're shooting for July.

But yes.

Yeah, I'm only talking about the trail.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you.

July, it is anybody else?

Henry, and also for Michael.

Um we had a fantastic public display of Veterans Park, which is attached to the Herring Club project.

It was unveiled for the first time at a veterans commission meeting since it's a veteran driven design uh with the parks.

Do you know when you might feel comfortable putting some of those renderings on this slide for the public to see?

Tonight.

I love it.

My presentation next month will reflect accurate renderings.

Thank you.

Thank you, Henry.

Thank you.

Carmel Historic Preservation Commission.

Good evening.

I have just a really brief report this uh month.

This is reminder for the first quarter for January through March.

Um the staff has continued to be working on the North Rangeline Road District, which we've talked about before that plan.

Uh we're just about done uh doing all the documentation of both the buildings themselves and their histories, background, etc.

That we'll include uh with that.

We've actually had the opportunity to meet with several property owners in that area, including um most recently one I think in the 500 block of North uh Rangeline, who is planning a project that uh for in 2027.

Uh so uh made that individual aware of the coming of the the plan.

Um we also uh despite difficulties around budget cuts, made the the commission made the decision to do another round of uh facade grants for property owners this round.

I do know uh because we've passed the deadline that we received 10 grant applic applications or requests for this year, uh quite a bit of our time kind of in March was spent out in site visits with uh both individuals that did end up applying and and even some that didn't, but to meet with them at their property to talk through what the scope of their project uh might look like uh moving forward, and then also just what we normally are spent doing if there's a proposed demolition for a property.

We're also meeting with property owners to discuss their upcoming project as well.

Um because May is National Historic Preservation Month in the United States.

I'll just mention a bit of good news that uh every two years the commission gets reviewed by the Indiana State Historic Preservation Office because uh the city of Carmel is a certified local government uh through the National Park Service uh designation and creation of the historic preservation commission.

And so there is an independent review of the work that the commission does, both from designations, certificates of appropriateness, uh in reviewing applications, um educational training that we do for the commissioners, etc.

And we passed with flying colors, they notified the mayor as well as a part of that process.

So just thought I would share and let you all know too.

Thanks.

Any questions?

Um has the nut house come to your committee yet?

The witch house?

Nut on what South Rangeline.

Uh I'm I'm not I might not recognize it by that name.

Is that the Dutch Colonial Revival?

I have seen that.

Uh it is on our survey, but it is not on the survey that was previously adopted by City Council, so that means the commission doesn't see it as part of a demolition review.

We have seen some documents from an architect, I believe, who is trying to replicate the look of the house fairly closely as it is now in the new construction.

Um and finally, North Rangeline, and I I think nearly every counselor is commented some way.

I know Councillor Austin has spirited Councillor Ayer, or first brought to my attention, but I think everybody up here has talked about North Rangeline Road and what we want to, you know, a potential overlay for that, and I believe if my memory serves, we're waiting sort of on your research to be done.

Right.

When do you have a timeline when you'll be wrapped up and then maybe can present to our land use committee and they can start working on what are some options?

Yeah, this I predict the summer, so probably late next month or early in July is when we'll be done with the plan and have it ready to go.

And I remember Dr.

Joshi wanted uh us to be coming to land use, so I have that on our timeline as well.

So when you have that, um just let us know because I have some people who want to go to land use.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Audit committee.

Uh good evening, everyone.

My name is Santos Rajmani.

I'm one of the auditors for the city of Carmel.

And uh we have a brief report.

I'm not going to take much time here.

So the audit is for the physical year ending 2025 that started April 1st, 2026, and is expected to be completed by June 30th of 2026.

The City of Carmel's annual comprehensive financial report for the fiscal year ending December 31st, 2024.

Met the requirements to be awarded the CFOA's certificate of achievement for excellence in financial reporting.

The certificate of achievement is the highest form of recognition in governmental accounting and financial reporting.

So congratulations, City of Carmel and everybody working very hard behind the scenes to get this achieved.

Thank you.

Can you tell me how many years in a row we've gotten that achievement?

Um at least I've been on this for the last four years, so I have been noticing that.

That's okay for at least the last four years.

Yes, I'll get the answer for the next meeting.

You said the current city audit will be wrapped up.

By June, Petit 2024.

Are they still coming in every day?

Yeah.

Thank you for including the audit committee on the correspondence.

I think that bridges a gap and makes the audit committee even more relevant in what they do.

So thank you for participating.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Michael Clitzing.

Thank you for not asking me any spelling questions beyond parks, PA CAR PARKS Parks.

That depends how long you go.

Members of the council, it's my pleasure to present my uh quarterly report to you.

Uh we are in May, which means that is the start of our peak summer season.

The water park opens this Saturday, weather permitting at 11 a.m.

and is open daily, 11 to 7.

We will begin our back to school hours or post-peak season hours Sunday after Sunday, August 9th, where we'll only be open weekends once the kiddos are back in school with reduced hours from noon to six.

But uh we are excited to have the water park uh open soon again.

Glad today was not opening day because anyway, I just got a notice that we hadn't my uh lightning within 10 miles, so we'd be in a closure state.

Uh also uh summer camps begin on Wednesday, May 27th, uh, with the last day of schools actually this Friday.

It gives us a much shorter time frame to be able to transition to uh summer camp season because a number of our camps take place in several of the schools.

So our first day of operations are Wednesday because we need Tuesday to get those schools mobilized so that we can start uh setting up for camps.

Uh nine of our ten weeks of summer camps are between 99 and 100 percent full.

Uh we have the most availability on week one this uh coming week, uh, where we are about 90 percent full.

Week six, which includes the fourth of July, which is usually one of our lighter weeks, actually is 90 percent.

Uh I actually only have a handful of uh positions left.

So if you're looking for child care in week one or week six, we might have some spots available, but please move quickly, and that was we're numbers as of Friday.

Pleased to report that thanks to funding through the city council's uh impact or program that uh provided a bunch of infrastructure bonds.

We are having our kickoff meeting for what we're informally referring to as Ironwood Park, simply because it's on Ironwood Drive.

Uh official name to be announced uh at some later date, but tomorrow at uh Will Fong Pavilion at 6 p.m.

So anyone interested in learning a little bit more about that and providing feedback.

We certainly welcome you to uh that kickoff meeting.

Also, uh speaking to your question or to the question about Veterans Park, uh we did present plans to the Veterans Commission, uh, which was received fairly well uh very well, excuse me, as well as I presented to the park board at our meeting last Tuesday.

Uh that meeting was recorded, so this is an abbreviated version of that, uh, but gives some overview as to what we're envisioning for Veterans Park.

Uh this project is uh made possible through a collaboration with the Carmel Redevelopment Commission along with the developer of the Helen uh Heron Club, uh which is Rebar.

And we're super excited about this.

It's about 1.6 acres and incorporates and and and works with property that is owned by Carmel Clay Schools, the BFW, as well as the access coming off of Old Meridian Street with the Heron Club.

Um not going to go over every element that is on this.

Uh we will soon have uh illustrations of this available on our website at Carmelclay Parks.com.

But needless to say, as a Veterans Park, it does incorporate a number of elements which will honor and celebrate our our veterans and their families within the Carmel community.

There will be some interpretive opportunities, whether it's about the branches or specific individuals with routes to Carmel to celebrate our veterans.

Some overviews of this.

This is if you're walking south on the north end of Veterans Park entering into the park.

And in many ways, the new Veterans Greenway becomes the main entrance into this park.

So here we're going south.

You're seeing sort of one of the major areas kind of serves as a porch area, but super dynamic exposure into the park.

One of the things that you can hardly see on here, but to the left of the Veterans Park sign, you'll see red flowers.

Those are to represent poppies again, another subtle element of honoring our our veterans that we hope to incorporate within the park.

As we zoom up looking south from that same area, the roof that you see to the left is basically a shelter area.

The big chimney that's coming out is for a fireplace.

One of the things that we heard from the steering committee that we composed to help us design this park that included representatives from the VFW and the American Legion, as well as some other community members, is a desire for fire within the park as well as water elements.

So the fire is sort of a place where everyone can gather around, tell stories, just relax, sort of that front porch, if you will.

You'll also be able to enjoy the passers by on Veterans Greenway that's to the left on that picture.

Sort of in the middle, you see another roof structure that has a number of swing swing structures, kind of similar to the swings that we have in Midtown Plaza, but again provides overviews to the lower areas of the park.

This site, while you usually think of Carmel as being pretty flat, there is some topography in this site.

Basically, it slopes from the west where you see the buildings on the back side to the east to where you see the greenway, and from the north where you're looking closest to on your right side to the south.

So we're incorporating that.

So there are several layers to this park or levels to this park.

Uh the front portion also kind of being the front yard where there's opportunities for you know, again, relaxing on a green, uh playing pickleball, or not pickleball, excuse me, I don't know where that came from, uh, cornhole, uh, and other types of activities.

Um, as we move around looking north, uh, you can kind of see a bigger overview of the park.

Uh this project has to serve stormwater needs for this portion of the community, especially the new Heron Club as well as the park.

So instead of having a very sterile pond in this area, we really tried to dress it up as a unique feature within the park.

So there's opportunities to on boardwalks, get over the water.

You see six waterfalls kind of in the middle there.

Those six is a purposeful number because there are six branches in the military.

So again, a subtle uh uh homage to uh our military and and those who have served.

Um we are working because the Greenway as well as uh portions of the park are envisioned to incorporate part of Odin Woods, which is owned by Carmel Clay Schools.

We're meeting with the uh school board on June 10 to give an overview of our plans and begin the process to get their formal easements or permission to be able to use their property.

Like I said, there's also elements that that bring in a new entry uh into the park on the on the west side uh that incorporate property that's currently owned by BFW, and we've had positive conversations with them, and they're very receptive to these plans as well.

A lot more details about this park.

Um if you go to uh Carmelclay Parks.com, our most recent park board meeting, uh there's a much broader overview with a lot more illustrations, same information that was provided to the Veterans Commission.

Or if you're really interested in going to a school board meeting, that meeting also will have uh the full overview of the park.

But we're super excited about it, thankful to the veterans for their their feedback on it, and really can't wait to get this project started.

Um another project that was funded.

And just because there's can you go back up a slide just because I want to one thing that I really want to point out the public dollars, but uh the very north where it looks like it's going into the building.

That's that is not you know, designated access for the residents of that building that that goes into the public restrooms.

Yeah, so this area here, and that's an excellent point.

What's nice, uh part of the collaboration with the CRC and the developer is they are providing the public restrooms for for this place.

So in perpetuity, they will be responsible for maintaining both on a capital side as well as a daily side those restrooms that are available for the visitors to the park to use.

So you're right.

That's not an easy access necessarily for for the residents of the Heron Club.

Uh it's designed to be amenity for the public.

Additionally, all of the parking for this park will be within the parking structure that is located in this building.

Uh that parking is dedicated for public purposes, and obviously visiting the park is very much a public purpose.

Uh one moment.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

Oh, okay.

Uh the uh another project that we're receiving funding from the city uh for to develop is uh phase one of Bear Creek Park.

I've provided some illustrations of the overlook and the trail components of the park, uh, but we've worked with landscape structures, which has designed a number of our playgrounds uh throughout the park system, including at Central Park and uh Meadow Park, the new structure uh that Councillor Warrell was talking about on Monon Boulevard, all of those are landscape structures.

And uh they have designed for us the new playground for this particular park.

Similar to Westernmeyer Commons in Central Park, uh there's going to be a trail that goes and sort of loops around the side of the park, which provides opportunities for having slide embankment slides going down the hill into the playground, uh also provides an accessible route to to the upper uh trail structures within the park.

Blowing in blowing up a little bit closer, uh the designs for this uh playground.

Again, it it will be a playground really uh uh of the scope and scale that's needed for Northwest Carmel, since that's one of our most underserved areas within the community as as far as playgrounds and parks go.

So we're super excited about uh this particular playground.

And then uh last week already, it seems like it was months ago in some ways, uh, but we did experience a fire on our maintenance facility uh within Central Park.

Uh this is a barn.

It's not one of the areas where our staff is actively stationed out of, but that's where our equipment is stationed out of.

And uh around 545 plus or minus is when the the fire uh occurred.

Uh no staff was in the building at the time.

Uh the staff that was on duty was out uh in the parks servicing it, and the rest were home for the day.

Uh, one of our neighbors we believe was the one that that originally saw it and and reported it to 911.

Uh the the challenge is that uh it is effectively a full uh uh loss of of the facility and much of the equipment that was in there.

We have four of our five UTVs, which are used especially to service the Monon Greenway and uh assets within the Central Core.

Uh a number of our other equipment, skid steers, stuff like that, were in the uh the barn as well.

We have met with insurance which has been very responsive.

Their inspector, their adjuster, uh a restoration company that they use has all been on site as as recently as Friday, and um is is helping us navigate that process.

We have their authorization to replace all of the hand tools that were lost in there, trimmers and things like that.

Um I do want to give a big uh shout out to the City of Carmel, to the street department uh and to other departments which have provided us equipment to be able to bridge the gap until the new equipment comes so that we can continue to service the parks at the high level that the community expects and deserves.

Um but uh for the bigger equipment, uh we believe there may be a slight chance that uh uh some of the equipment on the north side of the barn, which was the furthest away from the the heart of the fire, might be salvageable.

Uh don't know that definitively uh we're not allowed to go into the structure quite yet, uh, but uh there may be an opportunity to save some of the equipment uh with a little bit of refurbishment.

Uh but we'll work closely with uh insurance to to get that resolved.

Um obviously this is a covered expense uh but uh it will take some time to to process.

Yes, sir.

In your insurance is city policy you're on the we're we're we're covered uh under the city uh policy.

So uh when that reimbursement comes, it'll come to our land in our general fund, I would assume.

Can we go ahead and write that reappropriation back to them now so that when it does land, there's no delay in getting the money to them.

Would that be okay, Sir Sergey Orzak?

You could write it up.

Right.

Just so it's ready to go.

Now, what's interesting about the fire is the timing is never good because we're in the peak season, but we were also in the process of of preparing a feasibility study to look at our existing structures for servicing and maintaining our park system.

We are housed literally in a 1940s house for our maintenance as well as a second roughly 40s house for our administrative functions.

We moved in that about 20 years ago for maintenance a little over 20 years ago.

And it was always envisioned as a temporary location until we identify something else.

It also provided a means for us to focus our attention on the development of Central Park, which is about the time that we moved into this facility.

And I was also kind of resistant because I like our offices.

But as our park system has continued to grow, you know, in the last 10 years, we've the number of people that are based out of our facilities here has increased from 19 to 28 employees.

And we have expanded the park since I became director in 2019 by 170 acres.

You saw some of the projects that are in the works, and obviously we just opened a Japanese garden.

We've expanded a lot within our parks within the last 10-20 years since we've been in this facility.

And we're basically bursting out of the seams in facilities that were not designed for what they're being used.

And when we've done some assessments, we know there's approximately 1.6 million dollars of infrastructure needs for these just to sustain the existing structures without making upgrades to expand them and/or make them accessible because they do not comply with ADA.

So we felt that in our current comprehensive parks and recreation master plan, actually, our two previous ones as well identified the need for a new maintenance facility as something that we should consider and implement.

So we felt prior to the fire, but even more so now post-fire that it's an appropriate time to uh take a serious look at what's possible.

Uh doing an assessment, obviously we already own the property.

It is centrally located.

It is along 116th Street, which provides a great east-west connection to our parks as far as West Park and the future Bear Creek Park, as well as all of our parks on the east side of the community.

And also its close proximity within Central Park to the Monon Greenway provides that spine to all of our assets within the Central Core, Central Park, the Monon Greenway, of course.

So it is centrally located and ideal as a portion of the park that is already not available for public use.

So when we're looking at that, and and given the cost of land within Carmel, you know, to buy someplace else, you have that additional cost, plus to develop what you need.

Working with uh engineers and architects, uh, we looked at site constraints, and basically everything that's in the blue in the most of the map, uh that's the floodplain for Carmel Creek.

So that severely limits or creates hurdles for development of the site.

Additionally, sort of the circular thing on the upper right corner is the drainage easement for development of the uh the dog park and the parking lot that we have there.

So that little white area underneath the setbacks for 116th Street is the only area that we really have that that's viable for new structures, if you will, especially structures that are habitated by people.

Uh based on that, we come up with a very preliminary concept plan.

These are not these this is a feasibility study.

This is looking at the spacing needs that that we need as well as how you could use the land potentially.

Uh the X in the bottom is the former barn, which actually was the only structure that we were planning on saving, and of course that's the one that we lose.

But um looking at a new potential compound, uh, projected costs are roughly seven to eight million dollars, again, very preliminary dollar amounts.

Um what this also does is it actually creates a purpose-built joint uh office facility for our maintenance and administrative functions.

Um because we're in houses, they're not the most efficiently used spaces.

Uh our operation side, parks and natural resources team, which is where much much of the growth has been, is busting out the seams in their house.

What we are proposing based on our space needs that we identified is increasing the amount of square footage available for for their staffing purposes from about 2,500 to 3,500.

Conversely, the administrative offices has a lot of wasted space.

And uh we can believe we can reduce the amount of square footage dedicated to administration while increasing for potential future growth from 6200 square feet to about 4300 square feet.

So trying to use the space more efficiently.

Again, we're in the feasibility stages.

We haven't gone into more detailed planning for this, but we wanted to start having conversations with the park board with elected officials.

I've given a similar presentation to the Clay Township Board.

We'll be having uh subsequent meetings with uh the Clay Township trustee to discuss potential funding options.

Uh but um something that we are working on.

And with the loss of the barn, um, we're gonna need to do something to replace that a little bit sooner than than what our planning is.

So, but we want to take into consideration our long-term vision for providing the right type of assets for an expanding park system.

Um I I've told numerous people when I've given them tours of the park system that we have one of the truly greatest park systems in the country with one of the worst operations facilities.

When I go on accreditation visits uh across the country to agencies that certainly don't have the amenities that we have, I drool at their their maintenance facilities.

So in order to be able to continually long-term sustain our park system, we need to make sure that our team has the right assets to be able to do that, and and this is the next step in doing so.

So, beginning of the conversation, certainly not the end of it, but I did want to bring it to your attention that we are seriously looking at that.

And then finally, I am pleased to announce that Chromaclade Parks and Recreation has been named a finalist for the National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in the feudal parks and recreation and uh management.

Uh this is the third time that we've been named the finalist.

Uh the two previous times resulted in us winning it.

Uh we will not know who the winner is until our national conference on September 30th.

But we're super excited about it.

Just to put it in perspective, this awards program was established in 1965.

And during its history, only 222 agencies have ever received the gold medal award at least once.

Only five in the state of Indiana.

There are 19,495 cities, towns, and villages within the United States.

3,0143 counties and parishes, of course, there are 50 states, there are 14 U.S.

territories, there are approximately 800 military installations around the world.

Almost every single one of those has some type of park system that is eligible for the National Gold Medal Award.

With only 222 agencies in the history of the program ever winning, less than one percent of eligible communities have ever received this award, and we're fortunate to have received it twice and have a chance to win it a third time.

So uh pleased to provide uh uh the level of service to our community that allows us to be considered for this type of award.

As I've always told my staff, it's not about the hardware.

Uh it's not about the accreditation.

We do those as validation to make sure that we are industry leading, that we are serving our community at the highest level, but that's why we do it is to make sure that we're serving the community at the highest level.

The awards are just fun to be able to celebrate.

With that, I'd be happy to address any questions you might have.

And Michael, maybe this is just a question for Henry, I didn't ask during the redevelopment component, but you know, uh Veterans Park relies heavily on the public-private partnership with the developer, has the developer closed on financing and where are we at with that project.

I'll have to defer to the directors.

Yeah.

Uh hi everyone.

They're in design.

They're having meetings with their lenders.

I suspect as we continue this design, it's all gonna go move towards uh closing.

But we're not we're not taking title to the property until the developer closes on their financing.

It's a simultaneous close on everything.

Okay.

Is there an estimate timeline?

Um I will check with the developer and email counsel.

Thank you.

Michael, awesome.

Umastic job getting the being nominated for a third gold medal.

I think it is important to point out that you're not allowed to submit.

Um, as I tell people you've done so well, they don't let you apply every year.

Um the moratorium is up this year, which is why you applied, I assume.

Um I do agree with you, the hardware doesn't matter.

The validation is the fact that in my 43 years in Carmel, I've never heard anybody once say anything but positive words about our parks department from the from the day camp any of us used during the summer to the facilities to the operations to the customer service.

And it's I cannot impress them up, impress upon the public enough how important that is.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Yeah, everything that Matt said.

Um I just wanted to uh tell you that we had the opportunity to visit the White River Greenway with my mother this on Mother's Day.

And um I have to say to everyone out there if you've not been out to the overlook, you need to go and see it.

It's unbelievable, and I'm really excited for the path to be continued on to the north so that it makes a complete.

What's the word?

I can't even think.

Um, thank you.

Sounds like two syllables.

Anyway, I just wanted to say to any everyone out there, Michael, great work.

Um bathrooms are not completed yet, I noticed, but we talked about that last time.

So absolutely for uh the bathrooms we are we just received power from Duke, which was kind of the first step to be able to finish the construction of that.

Uh so with uh that in place, we should be able to remedy that pretty correctly to get those open for the public.

But we're we're super excited about that.

Not related to the north, um, and I don't remember if I said this at my last presentation, but we were fortunate to win a 400,000 dollar grant from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to begin the first leg of the White River Greenway south of 116th Street.

So it'll start at the 106 trail, which connects to the new Baroque Bridge over White River.

Uh it's just located um uh west of the bridge and will continue south along the river and exit uh onto the Hazledale Parkway perimeter trail uh just south of the solar farm that's there.

So we're super excited.

We're in uh design for uh developing that, uh finishing the the details on the agreement with DNR.

Um but uh that's a project that we look forward to getting started as well.

Thank you.

Just one question on um any uh we'll love seeing the playground equipment on Bear Creek Park.

Um two questions about that.

Any accessibility equipment that's there and um for some of our um special needs kids on that side of um town, and also um any timeline on where we are with that project.

Absolutely.

Uh Dr.

Joshi, the uh the playground is universal universal design principles, so it is designed to ensure that there are opportunities for for children of all abilities.

So uh that's something that's very important to us.

Uh the ramping system up as well provides opportunities uh uh at 88 grades to be able to to get people up to some of the slides as well and then onto the structure.

So we're super excited about those elements.

Uh not illustrated quite quite as well.

Some feedback that we already had from the park board is is looking for opportunities for a little bit more shade.

There will be trees integrated within the playground, but as we know, a tree that's planted in a new playground takes a few years before it's really casting much shade, unless you're in one little spot.

Uh so we'll look at uh uh providing some shade opportunities as well.

Uh we anticipate starting construction, uh breaking ground uh before the end of this year.

I would anticipate a uh um probably realistically about a year and a half construction cycle.

Thank you.

Thank you, Michael.

Thank you very much.

On to old business.

Um items A and B remain in committee.

Item C, resolution C C 12012504.

Resolution of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, approving an amendment to the Carmel Comprehensive Plan to incorporate a new sub-area plan for the home place area, sponsors uh Councillor Minar.

This has returned from land use, Dr.

Joshi.

Yes, we've had um quite a bit of conversation.

Adrienne is here if we have any other questions that we would like to direct to her this evening.

But um truly public input on this was well sought, I think well um you know vetted throughout this process, and we've had numerous meetings at land use and have had no concerns that have been raised to us.

And um when we looked at this project, we did come back with a positive recommendation to council this evening.

So it is as before you.

Thank you.

And Councillor Manar, if you could read the synopsis, so we kind of but the public has a more rounded idea of what this is.

Sure, no problem.

And before I do that, I want to say too, a lot of that work was done at the plan commission level, where it spent over a year being vetted too, with public input as well.

Just want to make sure that we give credit to the plan commission as well for doing that hard work.

Okay.

Um the synopsis is this resolution amends the Carmel Comprehensive Plan to incorporate a new sub-area plan for the home place area and makes associated revisions to the menu of street topologies, thoroughfare plan map, and mobility, excuse me, and mobility and pedestrian plan map.

Thank you, Councilman Ar.

So this has already been introduced.

It's been vetted by plan commission for right at a year.

It's been in land use for several months.

Um there further comments or questions on this hearing none.

Move to approve.

That carries unanimously, and also a big thanks to um all of the folks at uh DOCS that have worked really hard on this.

Adrian, I see uh Mike.

It's these documents are not easy, they're complicated.

There's a lot of language that words have but one definition in one spot and a different later.

And and really what helped on this one was the back and forth, but on the on the previous sub-area plan really helped this one get a little smoother.

So but DOCS, great job, thank you very much.

Um D second reading of ordinance D 2815-26 ordinance of the Common Council of uh City of Carmel, Indiana vacating a public portion of public right-of-way, sponsored myself returns from land use and special studies as well as rules and finance.

Um this is for a petition for a vacation of public ride of way uh between 1118 rangeline road and one one three two South Rangeline Road filed by uh Carmel Midtown Community Development Corporation.

Um E is similar language, Mr.

Mestecki, if you could cover them both, we would appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Uh, by the way, on that other item on the Heron Club, August September closing is what it's looking like.

And there were meetings with financiers today.

So working on term sheets.

Okay, uh, thank you so much.

Um we have uh present today with us.

We have uh Tony Burkle, the developer.

We also have representatives from Studio M, the architects.

This project went to both land use and finance committees.

So I will just quickly, with your permission, uh go over what we discussed in those, and then I can go into detail as much as you would like on on any of it.

So for anyone watching this project was uh a version of this project that looks slightly different in terms of architecture but not really uses, was shown to council last year.

Council approved a bond ordinance.

Um there was a uh we discussed how we would come back to put the land in, and so now we are back asking the city council to put the land in, and if the city council votes yes, it's essentially an approval of the the project moving forward forward as well.

So the project is a 123 million dollar project that has a hundred thousand square feet of office, a 128 uh space, uh 128 room of upper upscale to luxury hotel.

Uh that I believe Tony mentioned was a tribute tapestry.

I'm so sorry.

Tapestry was mentioned at uh both finance and uh land use meetings.

Uh there's a this is a rendering of the entrance of the to the hotel off of rangeline.

You can see an office building there to the north.

There's another view of the hotel, the office building, and the apartments that are on Veterans Way.

There's another view off range line.

This is the view off of Veterans Way.

We had a number of discussions about at both of the committee meetings about how this uh grand stair tower slash viewing deck really is going to be uh open to the public, and it's the main circulation in the in the in the development.

We discussed that the tops of these were uh going to be public, um, which is kind of continuous throughout.

There's a another view of that.

We discussed how the project would fit between rangeline and veterans way, and so this is a depiction of the multifamily, the office, and the hotel, and how it sits between rangeline and veterans' way.

Uh there's going to be plenty more conversations with our uh engineer to make sure everything is done right.

We have those having all those conversations today.

You can see here how this is so this is the range line, the range line kind of podium level, and then this view over here is the veterans' way level, so it's underground parking at the veterans' way level.

But from the rangeline podium, you get to drive around.

You can see how we've maximized the parking to the extent we can.

As you go in here, this is the actual lobby of the hotel, so you never get rained on.

At both land use and finance, I think in each committee meeting, we spent about 20 minutes talking about the parking calculations.

And we got pretty deep into that.

And then I um I uh and then I discussed like what are we actually voting on?

You're voting on taking this thing that says uh city parcel in blue, separating it into three different parcels, and then vacating those parcels so they join the private parcels around them.

So your first vacation that you're voting on today has to do with these two parcels the north joining this private parcel, the south joining the green, which is a CRC parcel.

Your second vote today is this sliver, which is right here.

Obviously, as part of granting this, we will still get our our our easements that we need for our fiber and everything else that runs with it.

One of the reasons this took so long is because we now have recorded an option on this land that as soon as council hopefully votes to vacate, and this northern parcel right here becomes part of this land.

If the project doesn't move forward, we have the ability to claw it back for zero money.

So we are here to put the developer in a position where they can go out and get their construction loan, and for that they need to control the land.

But if the project doesn't happen, the city's land is safe because we are able to get it back.

Um that that's essentially a summary of the various parts of the project, and uh I'm happy to respond to anything council would want as far as how much uh more detail about any of this.

Um we want to be responsive to uh to council here.

Oh Jeff, go ahead and well, and maybe yeah, Councillor Grain's gonna say okay, Councillor Green's gonna say we're both thinking the same.

We did ask that in finance that you come to council for the benefit of the public.

Uh a change from 95% TIFF to 100% TIFF is something that I would like you to transparently document to the public and fully explain.

Thank you.

Um thank you for that prompt.

We did discuss this item both in in land use and in um finance committee.

But essentially, the summary is is this.

Um the state of Indiana um last year passed a law a bill called SEA1, which um dropped the future taxes that um certain properties are gonna pay in the state by quite a lot, and specifically for multi-family, which is you know about a third of this project, there's the multi-family frontage.

As council uh counselor um Taylor pointed out, over the next few years, it's the value of that is gonna drop by 36 percent.

By value, I mean the taxes that that project pays is gonna drop by 36 percent.

So think about what we have here as a project.

We have a multifamily component, an office component, and a hotel component, and they all share the garage.

And the garage is also 80% open to the public for us residents to use whenever we want.

Think next Carmelfest.

Well, the state changed the law so that the future taxes that was gonna help pay for this garage coming off of the apartments are essentially dropping by a third.

Well, you know what's not dropping by a third?

The cost of these parking spaces.

They're still about 40 grand each.

So this is a project that's providing an amenity for our citizens to use a public parking garage, the cost of which stays the same, but suddenly our ability to for the developer to pay for it has dropped significantly.

So, in a previous version that was approved by the council, there was a maximum bond amount of 19 million dollars, and the developer is going to figure out using their own money how to get to that 19 million, and then the state passed its law, and in that the the city was going to keep 5% of the future taxes, and the developer was going to utilize 95% of its future taxes to help pay for the parking garage that pays us all, or that we all use.

Well, then this after this project passed, the state changed its law and it dropped the future taxes coming off the apartments by about 36%, which breaks the deal.

million and then the state passed its law and in that the the city was going to keep five percent of the future taxes and the developer was going to utilize 95% of its future taxes to help pay for the parking garage that pays us all or that we all use well then this after this project passed the state changed its law and it dropped the future taxes coming off the apartments by about 36% which breaks the deal and so we are coming back today asking for a hundred percent of the TIFF to go towards the developer to make up slightly what um the the the value of what the developer has lost here is um the specific number to uh to your to your question is it's about half a million dollars if we're using kind of the same metrics but the the point is that the developer is not getting more money the developer is going to get up to ninety million developer is still getting up to nineteen million the amount of money the developers getting isn't changing what's changing is the ability for the developer to get at least closer to what the developer needs to make the project happen and that is all thanks to SCA1 in essence thank you.

All right Henry so this project I've my feelings are pretty well known not to the look of it or the use of most of it or but I I still don't believe it's the best use for location next to City Hall.

That's just an opinion the objective questions I have are is the viewing platform is there an elevator is it 88 accessible yes um because you asked this question but you weren't a committee I specifically addressed it because it was so important so um the best way to see that is um well essentially someone from the podium is able to enter into the stair tower um I don't have the second floor on here but essentially walked walk through all the open public spaces these are open open spaces and walk to all the all the spots so this uh this picture kind of shows it actually I mean you can't perfectly see it but this entire second floor all of this logia that you see let me use my mouse sorry okay this entire second floor this entire area where you see my mouse is all open so that again someone that's not ADA can just walk up this these stairs right here someone that does need accessibility options they're able to enter from the first floor go up the elevator on the second floor take this space to the public spaces so it is all ADA compliant and accessible including the top of the tower yes there's an elevator that goes up to the very top of the tower.

And is that where your park impact fees are no the park impact fees are we are they are specifically the same as they were when this project was first approved by council last year which is they are these the tops of of these open spaces now what's not depicted on there are um uh additional amenities and and things to activate because we don't want to overpromise but I suspect it'll be games and other things and shade structures all on top of those uh open to the public spaces I uh those were being built regardless because that's what the architect did and I just I struggle with park impact fee dollars going into something that is an architectural feature of the building that is probably 30 thousand dollars worth of AstroTurf.

Um that's just a statement I don't need you to respond on that you made it clear um the parking that 80% is for the public you mentioned Carmelfest so you've now committed that that parking garage is available for Carmelfest but we've lost where they're the land we're vacating and we saw it at the Japanese festival houses a tremendous amount of staging so as the city thought through where staging now for festivals at City Hall and for Carmelfest will occur I mean you wouldn't know that I'm just bringing that up the my biggest concern with this project and again it it's not it's not specific to this project so this isn't personal against this project but we've got a tremendous we've got a sizable number of projects that were approved many years ago we're still waiting on being built and this feels like the investor made agreements while this one was the state so I can understand changed some things but now we're going back and or the developer now we're going back and changing the rules again and and there's just no scenario where I believe 100% TIFF is responsible.

There might be a restaurant.

There might be retail.

Those were your words.

Hold on.

So my concern is for all the other developments, all the PEDCOR developments that have structured deals.

And now we're going to come back and ask for changes because well the money doesn't work anymore.

Well, I'm sorry, but that's a risk, and I don't think that's the taxpayer's issue to 45% of income over the next 20 years.

I've spoken my piece.

It is a beautiful building.

Mr.

Burkle will do a wonderful job with it.

I know it.

Tapestry is a wonderful hotel.

And I just hope that the public spaces remain very much advertised for the public.

Okay.

Uh especially ones that bring in high-end employers that bring in well-paying jobs.

I think that this is well positioned to do so and bring in uh a company that the city will be very proud of.

We've seen cities across our state, especially in Hamilton County, that don't invest in uh the Class A office space and the commercial development, um, have much higher property taxes or less amenities, and it's an incredible part of our local economy.

Along with that, having a upscale hotel.

It's gonna probably be the next stage of Carmel's economy as we build out our hotel space, continue to bring visitors to our city to keep our economy vibrant.

Um for those reasons I will vote for it.

But I'm gonna reiterate something I said last time, and I was gonna let it go, but Henry, you had to send another email today about the topic of would we have been alerted to these changes had there not been a vacation of property.

And I believe you that the bonds were written in a way that these changes to the project um still meet the criteria of what it says in the bonds.

But if we go back to how this originally passed, um at the time it came back from committee, came to council, and um many thought it was going to pass, and it ended up being held.

And it was held because several counselors ordered them to feel comfortable voting for the project, wanted to spend more time asking for additional what we thought were commitments from the developer uh in order to basically make many feel comfortable to vote yes on the project, and then have not those commitments not reflected in the bond documents, meaning you stood there and said this will happen, and if there wasn't for the vacation, there would be no onus on your part to have to come back and have us vote again on those changes, right?

No, that's not right, counselor.

So what so you but you what did you say last meeting that the you if it wasn't for the vacation, you would not have to come back despite the project changes.

If the project changes in any way from a representation that I have previously made at council, I am coming back to council, I'm discussing the change in the project no matter what.

Just because we don't have to formally open up the bond ordinance again.

That being said, I would never take this project forward without coming back to council and discussing any specific changes.

And that's very simple as that.

Well, I'm very happy for you for you to say that.

So that does clear up some of the confusion on my part.

So if I but misunderstood, I apologize there.

Uh but I do want to make sure that going forward, if we do have certain details that we're negotiating out, that I understand projects do change, but we just want to be a partner so we understand those changes and come back to us because um, you know, we spend a lot of time on these things.

So uh thank you for that clarification.

I will be voting yes.

I understand things change um in the future to counselor Snyder's point.

If we see other projects play change, continue that dialogue with us.

Thank you.

I will.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um, a couple things.

One of the things that we talked about in the finance committee, which I think was compelling for me was the specific um design of this actual project where it has uh apartments, office building, and a hotel.

My understanding was somebody had made mentioned that this is one of the very first times that this kind of product had ever been developed.

Is that is that my memory correct in that?

This this type of project?

I would say that we've done mixed use, but other than the Carmichael, which was kind of a one-off thing, we haven't had an upscale hotel as part of this kind of developer TIF.

Okay.

So there's a couple things I'd like to say.

Um one of the mitigating factors for me too, uh I am going to support this tonight, um, was listening to uh what we discussed at the finance committee and what I had listened to at the land use meeting.

It was all informational for me.

The five star hotel with the five it's it's an upgrade with a spa, a conference center, a pool, and a restaurant, a restaurant commitment, correct, Mr.

Buckler.

6,000 square feet is required for the flag.

The Class A office building with 100 square feet, that is something that I know that a lot of our um had people who office space, Class A office space is something that a lot of people are looking for, especially in our central core.

Um the parking, uh while you brought the numbers down, I I do appreciate the fact that uh you brought the valet to the uh side of the city City Hall here.

And um the access to it in the podiums.

I also was very happy to hear that you committed not to allow valet to Bogart parking spaces within the parking garage, which I think is something that we we all are irritated with, especially considering they are public parking garages.

So I want to thank you for that commitment.

Um I think that's pretty much it.

I just but I just want to say that I will be supporting this for that reason, those reasons.

Thank you.

Because I heard this from someone else, but how are you defining five stars?

There's no five-star recognized Forbes five star hotel in Indiana.

So we're gonna have the only one.

I I take um five star as uh as a kind of like a um I refer to You're just saying it's gonna be an excellent hotel.

I refer to the STR chain scales, which is an industry standard for how we look at hotels.

On the SDR chain scales, there's an upper upscale category that both the Carmichael and this hotel fits into.

And in the term sheet, they have to deliver an upper upscale hotel on the SDR chain scale, which is industry recognized.

So I use colloquially I use five star, but it's an upper upscale on uh on the industry recognized SDR chain scales.

Right, but five star would be like an intercontinental in Manhattan or like that's not I just it just does not be misleading.

Um and then finally, because I think you and and Mr.

Berkeley deserve those, regardless of my thoughts on the project.

You've thrown around 19 million dollars in bonds.

That's that is not taxpayer dollars.

That uh that is a there's a that is a backed bond, not by the taxpayers.

Um I want to make that clear that the Mr.

Burkle is not asking us for $19 million.

The city is not giving you $19 million.

Um that's and and there's no obligation for the city or taxpayer ever to pay off this $19 million in debt.

That is correct.

I'll prefer you all to the slide and the cover of the current in Carmel that uh is quoting, not a taxpayer risk when it's referring to developer bonds, which is what this is.

You could have led with that.

Uh Mr.

Green.

Yeah.

Um Henry, I share some of the concerns that uh Councillor Snyder brought up.

Uh, but having attended both the finance meeting and the land use meeting, I really appreciate uh uh you clarifying a lot of things, like uh the need for the TIFF expansion and others, and and also the um the shared amenities, which we were discussing earlier, um, how people living in the apartments will get to use a lot of the amenities there that uh um you know through the hotel, um, you know, which is uh you know kind of uh one of the first, I think, um, you know, shared uh agreements.

Um I appreciate that.

And also something uh Councilman Runard brought up, I think in the finance meeting, the location of the valet um, you know, won't be clogging up any of the routes.

It was it's on the back end um, you know, of the hotel.

So um, yeah, so I really appreciate the product and the time that was been uh put into it.

So thanks.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um I thought the finance committee uh committee meeting was uh very helpful to work out some of these details and talk about some of the some of the things because I think everyone up here is uh probably hears from constituents on a regular basis about um too much development or slow down, those kind of things.

But um I want to uh I'm gonna vote for this, and it's because of the fact that um we can't be the number one community in the country if we do not uh do the things that work on the benefit of our citizens.

And I know many of us up here like to tout the fact that we're the best community uh in the country, if not the world.

Uh I'm I'm uh I served on before I ran for office to for city council.

I served on the redevelopment commission for 13 years prior to that, and I saw a lot of sausage get made.

Uh there were, I can't remember a project that didn't have a wrench thrown into it or a change that needed to be made.

And certainly communication with the council is important, but this is not unheard of.

And and but no one I think anticipated that the State of Indiana would change uh the financial model that we have been following.

But I want to point out that um the reason that I can with uh clear conscience and actually exuberance vote for this is because of what the community will receive.

We are open for business in Karma.

We have now more competition than we've ever had for amenities for our citizens.

So not only are we getting the parking that we need, the um you know this unbelievable tower that I guarantee you will become an icon.

It will become a place where I take my uh visitors to because it looks out over the Japanese garden.

That is something that communities would kill for instead of another mall or or uh or um no disrespect, but just a park or a pocket park.

This is something that is truly spectacular to go along with the Japanese garden, which is a spectacular park.

But more importantly, is the 100,000 square feet of office space.

We in we have right now an issue out on the US 31 corridor that is going to become more painful as every year goes by, and to have this 100,000 square foot of office uh space, I believe will help your neighbors ten years from now, thank this council because it helps keep the taxes low and keep our commercial base strong, protect those companies who we want to remain in Carmel, but also attract and have opportunities for companies who can add to our uh family of uh corporate headquarters.

So the last thing I'll say is this is our third project with the word proscinium in it.

We took a risk on proscenium one.

We um and we then uh saw good things come from proscenium one, even with unbelievable uh almost catastrophic things happen, including a downturn in the economy and Duke not being able to bury those power lines for multiple years.

I don't know how you slept at night because there were millions of dollars tied up in that project that were um it was it was uh a challenge.

But we have prosinium two, now we have prosinium three.

Uh and I have to point to the vibrancy of all of those projects in relation to uh a set of condo buildings that now are up against the fire station.

I'm spending more time in that area observing what's going on there.

There are families who live next door to the firehouse who are taking their kids over there to watch the trucks go or tour.

I mean, it's it's unbelievable, and then going over to uh the spaghetti factory, which shame on me, I forget is there sometimes.

So to have a meal.

So you know, it's never gonna be perfect.

The process may it it it's making sausage, but this project is important to Carmel.

I support it.

We're open for business, and I want to do everything I can to make sure that this project is an asset to our community, is an enhancement for our residents, residences, and um and makes the life that we lead in this community better, and I believe it will.

So I will be voting for this.

Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation, Henry.

Um been very vocal about the fact that our uh Indiana General Assembly provided deductions to multifamily uh two percent assessed value, because as we know, those deductions and decreases in expenses will not result in the lowering of multifamily rents uh for market rate apartments throughout the state of Indiana.

Um market rate apartments are just that.

The market the the rents will be uh apropos to the market rates that are charged in the community.

Um I want to mention a couple uh things about this project.

Um for the public, the developer backbond uh that the developer will be at risk for a repaying.

Nowhere nears covers the cost of uh 34.

Is that right, Henry?

Space parking structure at 40,000 uh, which I I believe 40,000 is probably light for a subtraining garage, but um so uh you can do the math.

I wanted to uh thank uh the developer for including the age-restricted units on the top floor and making them more even more attractive um and ensuring that you did the market research and that the way that you had structured those units to at least two bedroom living to ensure that um our our seniors or those 55 plus can take advantage of them.

Also appreciate the commitment during the finance committee meeting that the LOIs you're currently working on for the hundred thousand square foot of office space, are not uh companies that are gonna be cannibalized from our um other office users and and hopefully attract some new uh corporate residents to the city of Carmel.

Also, going back to our time early on in the development of the Center for Performing Arts, um Mr.

Berkeley at the time was with Anderson Berkeley, and not only the proscenium one, but took a major risk in our center core and developed the first office space at the Center for Performing Arts.

Um why am I forgetting the name of it?

Yes, and that groundbreaking just popped up in my memories um a couple weeks ago, reminding me of the risk he took on Carmel early on.

And um so for all these reasons, um apartments are a necessarily evil to make this work, the tapestry hotel, the commitment related to commercial office, and the senior living, I'll be supporting this project.

Quick question.

Is it age restricted or age-targeted apartments?

It'll be age restricted.

Okay, great.

Restricted as a federal standard, but we we are writing in to the project that it's gonna be I mean it's the same thing.

It's gonna follow this necessarily the same thing.

Targeted means you market it, restricted means there's actually a rule, right?

Um when I think about it, age restricted is an is a is is following the federal standard for federal purposes.

We write in the federal standard and they have to follow it, but they're not following it for federal purposes.

The the main point is we're gonna follow the same rule, which is uh at least one of the people that live in there must be 55 or older.

I mean that's that's the federal rule, so we'll follow that same rule.

It's gonna be a part of the project agreement requirements.

Yes, and it'll be recorded after the project agreement.

We're gonna record it in on the project as well.

So what so just one person?

Right.

That I mean that's the federal rule that that at least one of the homeowners has to be 55 or older.

That's the standard kind of rule for age restricted, and that follows through not just federal, but also Indiana has uh a statute that follows it as well.

So that will be the standard that we follow that at least one person has to be 55 or older, which is the rule that's like I wonder how many apartments don't have someone who live under over 55 living in any their entire buildings.

Well, I think that's I think if you talk to our developers, they'll say they're pretty much close to that already, just by the nature of who lives in these apartments.

All right, now that everybody most of the council has already cast their vote, let's have an actual vote.

And since these are gonna be should remain the same votes for the two, um if there's no objection, we'll roll right into item E, read it and vote on it without further discussion.

Is everybody okay with that?

Thank you.

So I would entertain motion.

We'll need to act on these separately.

Yes.

On D.

I'll move to vacate the public way under item D.

Second.

That carries 8 1.

Um item E, second reading of ordinance D 2816-26, ordinance of the Common Council.

Um sponsor myself has returned from both land use and finance with a positive recommendation.

This is a petition to vacate public right-of-way west of 1132 South Rangeline Road, lots 9 and 10 of the Harvey B.

Stop subdivision, filed by petitioner Carmel Midtown Committee Development.

Would there is there a motion?

Move to vacate.

Second by Councilor Minar.

And that is approved 8 to 1.

Congratulations, Mr.

Berkeley.

I'm sure this will be as beautiful as your first two.

Thank you, Council.

Okay.

First reading of ordinance Z-706-26 ordinance of the common council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, amending short-term rental use specific standards and definitions in the United or United the UDO.

Lou to introduce.

Thank you.

For you did it before I forgot, because you knew I would.

I'm going to frame this really quick.

So that because sponsor Councilor Harris, excuse me.

This ordinance amends short-term rental use standards within our UDO.

There is really no opinion piece here, unfortunately, much like the state neutered Carmel's ability to generate income the way we have for many years, which caused a change in this project.

They have stripped us of all of our rights regarding this.

Period.

So there is no opinion that matters up here, because I'm sure our opinions are contrary to the action we're going to take.

But we have to take the action.

So unless someone has a desire to get into deep conversation about this, I would move uh move to suspend the rules.

And oh I'm sorry, I'm not gonna do it.

Councilman Artists.

Oh, we need the public hearing first.

Excuse me.

And and President Snyder, could uh Sergei just go up and give like a two-minute spiel?

Um kind of like just being a little bit more specific than what you just hit.

Absolutely.

Uh good evening, Sergey Gretchuk in the Office of Corporation Council, as uh uh President uh Schneider indicated is going to be uh recurring theme this year, unfortunately, but stated something that requires amendments of our existing ordinances.

This one is a required amendment of our short-term regulations that have found short-term rental regulations that I found in unified development ordinance.

Uh to be very quick, uh, this ordinance pretty much aligns our short-term rental regulation to Indiana Code 36-1-24, but has been recently amended that uh basically precludes enforcement of a of our ordinance as it exists today, and therefore this amendment.

So to keep to keep the long story short, it amends several things.

Number one, it's um establishes a permitting process for owner-occupied properties, rather than going for BZA a special exception.

Uh number two, it allows non-owner-occupied property owners to apply for special exception.

So they will go for BZA process as it is today for owner-occupied.

Um, it amends the definition of occupancy, which um aligns with the state.

Our definition of welcome to was a little bit different.

It required actual number of days to be at the premises for unoccupied state, um, is much closer to tax code, which basically a primary residents intend to return.

So let's say you go for a yearly cruise, as long as you intend to return with your primary residence, and therefore you would qualify.

And finally, this one um is is a is a new thing.

It expands short-term rental regulations to several other districts, which are B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, C1, C2, and MC.

As you know, over last uh decade or so, a lot of those districts have changed have seen a lot of change, especially in the core.

So now you can find residential buildings in all of those districts, and so DOCS and the legal department thought that it would be fitting to apply the same short-term rental regulations to those districts as well as traditional residential ones.

Thank you, Sergey.

I'll reluctantly agree, Councillor Green, that he might have done a little better job than just saying the state screwed us again, and we're doing what we have to.

With that said, we'll open up the public hearing at 8 p.m.

Seeing no one approaching, we will close the public hearing at 8 01.

Um counselor, or excuse me, council president Snyder.

Uh just one one thing I want to clarify too, just so people understand in the general public.

If your HOA bans short-term renting, it bans it.

This this state law or this city ordinance, how it's written, does not override your private contract between you and your homeowners association.

So just wanted to make that clear.

With that, um I would like to suspend the rules and act on this this evening.

All right, rules are suspended.

Move to approve.

Thank you.

First reading of ordinance D 2819-26, ordinance of the common council, the city of Carmel Indiana authorizing and approving an additional appropriation of funds from the general fund 101 to the marketing and community relations 2026 budget fund 1203 sponsors uh councillors Joshua Minar, myself, and Warell.

Uh second.

It's been introduced moved and seconded.

Um we will open the public hearing at 8.03.

Seeing no one other than our CFO approach the podium.

Uh we'll close the public hearing at 8.03 in some more seconds.

Um so this has been introduced.

We've had the public hearing.

This is to move 20,000 related to uh city initiative volunteer carmal uh especially to cover um insurance volunteer t-shirts to let people know that they are um part of the volunteer program and background checks for our volunteers.

Did I capture everything or the highlights?

Trying to save you here.

You nailed it.

Is there anything else you'd like to offer?

You do not need to.

Nope.

Okay.

Second.

This will be acted on this evening.

Move for approval.

Second.

And this carries.

Thank you.

Ah, right.

Item C first reading of ordinance D-2822-26, an ordinance of the common council of City of Karma authorizing the issuance of general obligation refunding bonds for the city and to pay incidental expenses in connection therewith and on account of the issuance and sale of the bonds and appropriating the proceeds derived from the sale of bonds.

Uh sponsors Taylor, Councillor Taylor and myself.

Has been introduced, Councillor Taylor synopsis, if you wouldn't mind.

This resolution authorized the issuance of the city's general obligation refunding bond series 2026 and the maximum principal amount of 12 million dollars for the purpose of refinancing multiple series of outstanding general obligation bonds issued in the 2016 in order to achieve debt service savings and paying cost of issuing such bonds.

Thank you, sir.

Yep, thank you.

You want to have the public hearing first, or do you want to we'll do the public hearing?

Excuse me.

Oh that's a different agenda.

Oh, we'll open up the public hearing for the uh bond refinance uh at 8 05.

Councilman R.

No, no.

Um seeing no one uh rush to the podium, we will close the public hearing for the uh bond refinance at 8 06 p.m.

And before you get into it, uh this will be going to finance uh finance committee, finance and rules committee to be uh vetted further.

So high level explanation be very good.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

Um so the handout that just has been passed around, and uh if how will show the screen here, uh there are four agenda, sorry, five agenda items uh tonight relative to uh the bond refunding.

You have the ordinance here in the public hearing section, agenda item 13C, and then a new business, uh you have 14 G, H, uh I and J, all resolutions tying into this same one.

Um essentially tonight, and we'll do it as quickly as possible.

Uh I just want to give you a brief overview of what we're working on here.

Uh uh Brad is available to give kind of a history of these bonds, and then uh Heidi and Landon are here to go into more details on the on the finances.

Uh, and then Brad will talk a little bit more about the uh which is which and and that timeline you are mentioning, Mr.

President.

The major takeaway here is that we have an opportunity to refinance uh portion of our bond debt and take a low take advantage of of lower market rates.

Uh and so that's what we're trying to proceed with at this time.

We won't know the actual amount of the savings until we go to market, uh, but that range is probably uh nine to eleven million dollars uh right now.

Um as Brad will describe if you like uh uh in a moment, most of these bonds are from 2016 and are now callable 10 years later.

In addition, we're also refinancing uh stormwater bonds from 2020.

Um, every year we'll see savings uh from this uh from these refunding uh from restructuring these uh bonds.

Uh we've prioritized the savings to to hit mainly in 2027 and 2028.

Uh we're probably talking about four million of savings each year there.

Again, that's subject to market changes, and then also the stormwater bonds uh the stormwater fund will stay save uh a half million annually uh freeing up that capacity as well.

Uh so again that's the high level overview.

It's these five documents that I mentioned, and uh happy to get in the weeds more if you want, or or save that for the finance, or when we're be back to vote on these in a couple weeks.

I I personally would prefer saving that, but I think it's important to be read on the record.

But I'm I've now gotten my third um message that we need to take a bathroom break for the public, um, which I do now that I see it's after eight o'clock, um, two hours is we appreciate you sitting here, but um we've had our our public hearing.

Um there'll be no action tonight on this one.

Um I do leave it up to the council.

Do you want to get through the rest of the public hearings and do it right before new business?

Or I'm trying to be cognizant of the public here as well.

All right, we're gonna we're gonna take a five-minute recess.

Okay, we are back from recess, readjourning at 817.

We left um discussing the savings for a bond refinance.

We have our CFO.

Um Zach up there uh willing to explain um these in more detail, but effectively roughly we don't know yet, but uh about 12 million dollars is the estimated.

I I would say with changing market conditions, 12 is probably the the high end, but we're we're still talking at least probably in that nine to ten on the low end right now.

Um item C letter C.

We have introduced it, we've had the public hearing.

It's going to committee.

So we're gonna move on to oh, I'm sorry, discussion.

Apologies.

And just if it is going to committee, would love as we talk about the benefits of a refunding and the money that we'll save over time.

What are we giving up?

Um, and I think it's something really important to get on the record about bonds.

Um just wondering optionality as we look moving forward.

Obviously, we all know that there is a financial hurdle as we talk about it every kind of chance we get up here that SCA1 came through and put us in a position that revenue will go down over the next couple years.

Uh, would love for us as we take this opportunity to look at old bonds and exercise options within them to understand what we may be trading for current value savings as we move forward.

Uh, would love for us as we take this opportunity to look at old bonds and exercise options within them to understand what we may be trading for current value savings as we move forward, and then the other side of it is just really uh looking at the the global economy where we are validating that it makes sense to do this right now, knowing full well that 2027-2028 are going to be financial hard year financially hard years for us.

Just would love to have that validated as you send it to finance to talk about it.

Sounds good.

Thanks.

And then because this is a large amount of money and there's a lot of pieces to it, whatever comes out of finance.

Then could you distribute an updated memo of X and Y that we can make public before the meeting to help just so that we know the public knows, media knows.

All right, here's why we're doing it.

Here are the questions and concerns and answers that we're gotten at the finance meeting to make it as public as possible, and then uh when it comes back, um hopefully we're in a better and more educated position to move forward.

Yep.

So that covers C.

Moving on to D.

Okay, moving on to D.

First reading of ordinance D 282326.

There's an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana authorizing and approving an additional appropriation of funds from the city asset repairs and maintenance fund 927.

Um sponsors councillor Taylor, excuse me, sponsors are counselors Taylor and myself.

Um this moves a little over a million dollars that we received as an insurance payment for the 106th Street Bridge.

That's fine, that's that that works.

But what we're doing is creating a new fund, um, which on the surface I very much agree with that would be where these types of payments land, and when we have these types of payments, um, we have uh some coffers that isn't the rainy day fund to pay out of.

What happened when the bridge got hit was we paid for that up front out of the street department's budget, and then they got they were strapped.

So the hope here is that we can create a fund with insurance receivables or other appropriations that should can be used to pay that pay the financial burden that are caused by insurance activated events.

Now, this is also gonna go to committee just to review the language.

Um if I said anything you'd like to supplement, please do.

Move to introduce.

Thanks.

Yeah, I'll I'll just clarify kind of the bundle that you see here, and that's that bottom box.

You've got uh and unfortunately, it kind of appears out of order.

We have the uh ordinance to create the new fund, then we have a uh a resolution moving the dollars out of the general fund, and and as you mentioned, Mr.

President, this is the 1.074 million that we received from insurance for the uh the Keystone overpass uh damage.

It's transferring that cash out of the general fund over to this new fund that's just been created, and then we have the public hearing for the ordinance that appropriates those dollars within that new fund.

Thank you.

And and I specify one thing, like why this is critical is because it's not like we get that money back in the same budget year.

So, for instance, repaving, if we had X million dollars for repaving, then we had to take one point over a million dollars out of it to pay for a bridge.

That's a million dollars in paving that doesn't happen, and it doesn't go back, it didn't come back in that budget cycle.

So it's unfair to the public, it's unfair to the street department to not have those services because uh and insurance pays slow.

I mean, that's and that's not on them, it's just it's a huge dollar amount, needs a lot of respect investigation, um, and then the actual repairs.

This will be going to finance.

Is there further conversation discussion?

Yes.

Quick question.

Oh, I'm sorry, we have to have a hearing for uh go ahead.

Yeah, well it uh it's a non-reverting fund.

Is it also a restricted fund where to use funds do you have to go to council?

It is not set up so that to use the funds you have to go to council, but it does have prescribed uh uses that's that are limited to uh the repairs and maintenance of city assets.

Okay, we'll we'll talk more.

Uh so that is one thing I want to talk about because I believe when we were talking about this and I looked up insurance receipts, if not spent exactly on the instances and would have to come to council.

But these are the things that we want to have in.

So the the uh million uh seventy-four that you would transfer over uh inappropriate that becomes eligible to to spend no more dollars go in there unless council authorizes that that transfer over, or we're getting uh you know we we we had to front a half million dollar repair out of that 1.1 million, and now that's coming back and getting automatically appropriated as it comes back in.

Oh uh we will open the public hearing at 824.

Seeing no one wishing to speak, we will close the public hearing at 824 in some additional seconds.

Any other comments from counselors?

I um I just also wanted to note that you know, talking to Zach and the administration, you know, ratey day funds have are used for very different purposes.

What's very important about the creation of this fund and how we approach this is uh put once we have developed the cap capital asset replacement plan, they'll be identified future expenditures that we need to plan for, and this will give us a tool as we go through uh as we as we work towards covering those costs as a place to house these funds that are restricted to execute what needs to be repaired in that plan.

Yep, and then my two things here as you guys look at this in finance are if we're creating a non-reverting fund, it should be very specific on how and what can be used from that.

Um specifically if we're taking insurance payments and putting them in here.

Um the second thing which came up earlier today, or in this meeting because the fire at parks and parks being under our insurance, ensuring that we have a mechanism to adequately and appropriately control those assets that are related to maybe other departments or other funds that come through, um, which I think adds to kind of the required language on controls here because what was presented in this original ordinance is very open if we appropriate the controller can spend it.

Um but the idea of ensuring that we're using those for the specific purposes tied to the specific entities if those sources of funds are a little different.

I think it's gonna matter a lot.

So I would just say look at that as you further draft the bill.

Thank you.

This will go to finance committee.

Uh sorry.

We're on the we're on the petition of vacate easement item E under public hearing.

Okay.

Petition to vacate easement between 1010450 Laurel Ridge and 1372 Ridgegate Lane.

Um not Victoria.

No, please, director of engineering.

Uh this is the public hearing for the petition fees uh companies 14A, the ordinance uh that goes with it.

Pretty straightforward on this one.

There's an easement, there is a pipe in the easement and some comms.

The pipe is Hamilton County, so that's not what we're you're acting on right now.

Carmel's only interest in this easement is overland flow.

Uh they're gonna be relocating the pipe and everything else around this so they can develop in a certain part of their yard.

So very straightforward.

Okay, and then the time it takes us to do something with this.

Can you pull up on the computer a picture just so that yeah?

All right.

Well, we're doing that.

We will have the public hearing.

Um to vacate the easement between 10450 Laurel Ridge and 1372 Ridgegate Lane.

North is up.

Open the public hearing at 828.

Closing the public hearing at 828 and a few more seconds.

Um moving on then to the accompanying ordinance.

Um first reading of ordinance D 2821-26, orange common council ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, vacating the easement located at 1372 Ridgegate Lane and 10450 Laurel Ridge Lane.

Sponsored myself.

This is a vacation of uh drainage and utility easements within the Laurel Ridge subdivision.

Um Director of Engineering Pease has a picture just to be shown into the record of where that is.

Um again, we're only vacating the rights that Carmel currently has, which is just the overland drainage flow.

You can see that they're moving the rest of the easement to the west.

So it's a 30-foot wide easement.

They're accommodating that just by relocating.

Move to introduce.

Thank you.

And you've read and the homeowners are aware of this.

They're not you've explained to Yeah, they might have a rep here if they lasted this long.

I don't I don't know.

All right.

It's been introduced.

Uh we can act on this tonight if you all wish.

Move to suspend the rules and act on this this evening.

Second.

We will be acting on it tonight.

Move to approve.

Second.

Thank you.

All right.

First reading of ordinance D 2813-26, an ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 8, Article 4, sections 8 through 38 and 89 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsor, Councilor Joshi, would you please read the synopsis?

This amends the Carmel City Code 838-839 to add new speed humps on West Road between 121st Street and 131st Street.

Move introduced.

This has been introduced.

As you heard many people this evening, um, this section of town, West Road, uh, has for 30 some years had issues with speeding.

Um one of the gentlemen talked about racing his vehicles.

Uh that is where I took my 1984 buccal saber to see how fast it could go when it was in high school.

So I there is no doubt that that is a drag strip.

Um, and I wasn't alone in high school doing that.

And I have many friends out there.

One of the a lot of times I drove as fast as I could getting to one of the speakers tonight's house, which I lament finally on sitting out by the bonfire when there was nothing else around.

So I can understand um the sensitivity.

I will say from my own personal opinion, I don't necessarily agree with this, but given that there are no other options, and the fact that you guys followed a very specific process, which I love about the residents of Carmel.

We've laid out, I mean, I assume when it was written, the writers thought it would never nobody would ever do it, and you guys did it.

Uh so for that, I am I am pleased.

Shows the resilience of the people of Carmel.

Dr.

Joshua's been working on this for a very long time.

We've heard quite a bit.

I don't know how much more you want to talk about this.

Brad, do you have to say there's uh seven steps as you mentioned, they met all seven steps, and there's a 25-point system that had 27.6 points, which qualifying for the um speed humps.

They're shown representative on here.

So the one of the biggest concern I was asked about is financial obligation, should they want them removed.

Can you read into the record what that looks like?

Um I don't have it before me, but it is the signatories that signed the petition.

So the 75% were required.

There were 31 of 30 or 32 signatures, they only needed 31.

Those 32 signatories then have that financial obligation if the speed humps are removed in five years.

And those are not transferable to if they sell the house?

Correct.

It's the signatories.

Counselors, anyone.

Yep.

No, that was my understanding.

It is the signatories, um, and that they are responsible.

As you can see, the signatories in these properties have been living there for many, many years.

These are dedicated Carmel residents.

These are Carmel residents who have been literally born and raised here.

And I have to say this process was onerous F best.

Um, and we went through every piece of it from a speed study to a um, you know, following the um protocols all the way through, um, making sure that the process was completely followed, and um had meetings with engineering, had meetings with uh the community, sat down together, and this was the solution proposed by engineering.

Um, and it made sense based on the data.

And so this is a data-driven decision following all the rules and rules and protocols that were placed before us, and I hope that my fellow counselors will agree that this is probably one of the places in Carmel where speed humps belong.

Thank you, Mr.

President, and Dr.

Joshi.

Excuse me.

I always feels weird calling you that.

Counselor Joshi.

Dr.

Joshi.

Um, thank you for clarifying the signatory because I was very concerned with you know, things change.

People move, then suddenly you're saddled with a responsibility you didn't know you had, which actually happened to me in my own neighborhood.

And knowing that if you guys decide to move that you're still on the hook for it when and I just was I'm just really grateful that you you clarified that.

So thank you.

Appreciate it.

So I spoke to Council Josh by the state.

So we've had a couple of, they don't happen very often.

I've had, I think in my six and a half years in council, I've had two in my district that we had approved.

But I had another neighborhood try to get speed humps and they couldn't meet the threshold because it is uh it is a rigorous process on purpose because as we say, sometimes people think they want them, and then once they're put in, they they get a little buyer's remorse.

Um so we want you to really think about it before you go through all these steps.

Um but it's kind of seeing the bigger picture here.

I'm gonna ask you a hypothetical question.

So if uh money was not a problem, I'm not saying unlimited, but you know, we have money to spend, and there was a other infrastructure improvements or fixes that could be done to the area, because as you see, there's no sidewalk, it's a narrow road, it's uh getting a lot of traffic.

What would you suggest if you had tools at your disposal to improve the road beyond what we're doing tonight?

Yeah, so additional pedestrian facilities can lower speeds, multi-use path.

Um I would say it's on our list of targets, it's just not um one that we're in progress on right now, uh, to borrow a term from earlier roundabout efication, maybe uh at the intersection, which causes some problems.

So those kind of those kind of items.

I think we actually did talk about that in one of our meetings with um and with the community and with that the likelihood we looked at the actual numbers and the likelihood that this project would ever take place within seven to ten years.

So that was kind of the projection out.

And since it's five years for a speed hump, if the city decides that we suddenly come into a different um state uh legislature that will give us some uh more value for our money, um perhaps we will have more to spend in the city of Carmel to do these projects.

But for now, or we do not so there's nothing about the terrain that would prohibit some of the things that you're suggesting.

Correct.

Okay.

And I you know, I don't know what kind of impact those would even have.

It's it is a rural low density area.

But um and the cut through traffic that was described before, just the context of that is hard to tackle uh with our traditional roundabouts or other items.

And you did say that that I I I I heard some, I think Mr.

Edgerton, I think is that your name.

Did I say that correctly?

Oh, they left.

Okay.

Um I believe that they mentioned that they live in a conserved con conservation district, so they they're not allowed to put thank you, conservation coordinates.

So they would not be able to put a multi-use path through there then.

Um they still could.

They still could just wanted to clarify.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um just quickly following up, I think, on something Dr.

Joshi said.

So there's gonna be probably future improvements down the road, uh, down the road, literally, along West Road.

Um and when those happen, like curbs go in, those types of things.

Um, what will had to happen to the speed bumps?

Will they have to be taken out when you do those things?

Can you keep the speed bumps in?

Um you could keep them in.

Okay.

So obviously at that time we would kind of assess how things have changed over time, if track traffic patterns have changed, all that kind of stuff would go into a study, but physically they could be still there and you could put curves in.

Hi.

Okay.

Um so I I just wanted to speak to the neighbors um of that area who spoke tonight.

Very impressed.

I want to uh congratulate you on the process that you followed.

The emails that I received were extremely well thought out, convincing, and reasonable.

Um, but I and and and I fully support you.

Uh, but I think it's a shame uh that um as we heard parents worried about their bicyclists and worried about a basketball rolling into the street.

I am sensing that there is a lack of concern or compassion, these cars going through your neighbor through your neighborhood, cutting around.

It is me, me, me at your expense.

And I um I sense your frustration.

I can't change that, but I wanted to at least acknowledge it that I'm going to to work on, you know, if there's something I could do that it's you know, you're having to make an adjustment to your lives.

These things are not fun.

I I avoid them.

So now you have a hardship in your neighborhood because of someone else.

And I think that's a shame, and I think we should acknowledge it, and I doubt things are going to get better.

Uh based I went out and sat out there one afternoon and just watched it.

It's it's uh very interesting to watch that cut through traffic.

So I have empathy for you.

I we should have done this sooner.

Didn't know about it.

So thank you to Dr.

Joshi for all you've done to make this happen.

But I suspect you won't take them out, and I would caution you if things get better, it's because they're there.

Don't get fooled into taking them out that the problem's gone.

Um but yeah, but I congratulations.

You are a perfect example.

What is the name of your neighborhood?

I could never figure that out.

Okay, and that's why I couldn't figure it out.

Yeah.

All right.

Um so uh you guys are awesome.

And uh you know your neighbors, you take care of each other.

I just I just want to draw attention to that.

I think that's awesome.

And I apologize that we have to uh make your driving daily driving less nice.

Uh Director Pease, one thing that could probably help expedite um trail multi or multi-use path access is there, these neighbors are obviously very organized, and um one thing I had tried to work on on with my neighbors north of Grey Road is to be able to dedicate a trail easement to the city of Carmel.

So that's something you guys might want to organize and consider to work with Director Pease.

That can help expedite versus having to go through the acquisition process to to acquire if you are interested in a multi-use multi-use path up and down west, you could get with your neighbors.

You could all uh decide to um uh uh contribute an easement or work with uh uh director pease to provide an easement to the city for a future multi-use path.

So I just wanted to mention that as a part of a process that might be able to help expedite a uh connectivity.

And thank you to Dr.

Joshi for working on this.

Okay.

Um I I agree with a lot of the things.

It's a shame that this has been 30 years of failure.

I mean, when for that, all I can do is apologize.

Um but baby steps, 30 years later.

Um I do think that roundabout the roundabout evoc there at the intersection does probably make long-term sense, and I do think that it probably needs that as well as the pedestrian facilities.

Now I have heard from several people on one side of the road that aren't in love with it, but uh the probably needs to go into our transportation plan just so that we are being reminded of it as we review that.

So when that comes up for review, if engineering thinks it's prudent for public safety, I I think that we should need should be included.

Um it's probably already there.

Uh, but if not, well, I don't think it would have it wouldn't have the pedestrian facilities in it.

It might.

I'll take a look, but okay.

We have certain projects that are on there.

Um that's a good question.

So uh I'll have to get with our street department will contract through their uh paving contractor probably to do this to get uh best cost for us.

It's not usually the highest profile work because they want to put a lot of asphalt down, fix bottles and stuff like that as soon as the weather turns.

Um it's also just low quantity kind of expensive work, so I don't want to commit to anything, but uh it'll happen this summer.

So as a warning based on my experience, not warning, but heads up to the homeowners, it may be very little notice.

It may be you've got a paving crew repaving a stretch of road in the northwest area, and it's just more economic for them to jump over, put those in really quick, and there may not be much notice, and I just want to make sure we're aware of that.

Yeah, that would be the way for us to get the cheapest cost is to really give a lot of option to the contractor about when they can kind of pull off.

So any further comments.

Council rules requirements we heard twice, so somebody would have to make a motion to enter it into action weigh the rules.

Can I motion to suspend the rules and act on this this evening?

Is that the it's the first reading?

It's first reading.

Yeah.

We have a motion.

Second.

Now we can act on this.

And we will be acting on this this evening.

Dr.

Joshi.

Make a move to approve.

Second.

Thank you all for sticking out this meeting.

And I hope you got the result you are looking for.

Mr.

President.

Yes, sir.

I'd also like to thank our police department.

I know they spent a lot of work out there here tonight, you know, trying to help out.

So I just really acknowledge you sitting through this meeting, and thank you very much for everything you do to.

I know that the neighbors mention that to me.

For those of you here for this past um law which is passed, you would nobody will consider it rude if you want to leave.

I don't know how much longer this meeting is going to go.

Can we come C first reading of ordinance D 2820-26, ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana, amending chapter 3, Article 2, Section 3-58, and Chapter 8, Article 5, Section 8-45 of the Carmel City Code.

Sponsors Minar, Taylor, and War Al.

Move to introduce.

Second.

Would uh you've got it up, Councilor Minar, if you'd read the synopsis.

Thank you, Mr.

President.

This ordinance and ordinance amending the collection of civil penalties under the jurisdiction of the city's violation bureau.

Police Chief Drake Sterling.

Uh Chief Police Drake Sterling Carmel Police Department.

Uh this ordinance in front of you paves the way for a few things.

Uh the first of which is that it allows the clerk to designate uh vendors uh for parking violations.

Uh it also uh establish uh it expands the uh enforcement capabilities to our new park uh parking enforcement officers as well as code enforcement officers.

Uh it allows us to mail violations, which is the uh one of the primary functions of this new software that we're looking at, and then it also amends the prices or the fee increases on par general parking as well as handicapped parking violations.

Thank you.

Um there have been some general questions raised, and there were some dollar amounts uh sent out in an email that had some raised some eyebrows.

So this is gonna go to committee uh to be further discussed just to make sure all the math lines up and what the expectations are.

There's also some concern about are we going to become overzealous in an effort to pay for software?

Um we don't believe that to be the case, but we do want to speak about that publicly and and really understand what the um what the end game here is, um which I believe is to protect the motoring and pedestrian public and protect the valuable parking spaces we have for various items.

Yes, sir.

Um you've gotten a lot.

Do you want this one?

Moon introduce, sure.

Second.

Uh this will go to uh finance and rules committee.

Thank you, Chief.

Understood, thank you.

First reading of ordinance D-2824-26, an ordinance of the common council of the city of Carmel, Indiana, amending Article 4, Section 2-128 of Carmel City Code sponsors uh Taylor and myself.

Uh Council um introduced uh would you read the synopsis, please, Councillor Amends Article 4, Section 2-128 of the Carmel City Code to establish the non-reverting city assets repairs and maintenance fund.

Go ahead.

Yeah, uh just as I was mentioning earlier, so uh D E and F all go together here.

We've got the the creation of a new fund, the transfer from the general fund to this new fund, and then the appropriation within that new fund.

Thank you, Zach.

Uh to counselor Taylor, our parliamentarian or Sergey.

Um since D E and F are all linked, can they just all go to committee and do they all need to be introduced?

Resolutions.

I can't hear you.

Okay.

So that goes to uh finance and rules committee.

Resolution C C 0518-26-05.

Resolution of the Common Council approving a transfer of funds between fund 101 and the to be created maintenance repairs and maintenance fund.

Sponsors Taylor and myself.

Moon introduce.

This will go to rules and finance, excuse me, finance and rules committee.

Um first reading of ordinance D-2823-26, ordinance of the Common Council of the City of Carmel, Indiana authorizing and approving additional appropriation of funds from the city asset repairs and maintenance fund 927.

Sponsors, Councilor Taylor and myself.

This is to move the aforementioned million seventy-four thousand dollars.

This will go to uh finance and rules committee.

Resolution CC-05 182601.

The resolution of the Common Council of the City of Carmel approving certain Carmel Redevelopment Authority, at least run all refunding bonds to refinance certain outstanding bonds and related matters.

Sponsors, Taylor, Councilor Taylor and myself.

This will also go to Finance and Rules Committee.

Resolution CC-05-18-26-02 resolution of the Common Council, the City of Carmel Indiana approving.

Certain redevelopment authority bonds sponsored Rich and myself.

Move to introduce me, Councillor Taylor.

This is going to uh finance and rules committee.

Resolution CC 05-18-26-03 related to bonds.

Sponsors, Taylor and myself.

Move to introduce.

This is going to finance and rules committee.

Resolution of the City Council approving the issuance of refunding bonds pertaining to stormwater.

District, our stormwater district and related matters sponsors, Councillor Taylor and myself.

Move introduce.

This is going to oh thank you.

This is going to finance and rules committee.

And unneeded.

We are on, I think comments.

Agenda items.

There are none.

Other business.

Anybody have any other business?

Hearing none.

Announcements.

So sorry.

Two Memorial Day.

Very important.

Our City Memorial Day event is Friday, May 22nd, 9 to 10 a.m.

at the Carmel Clay Veterans Memorial across from the palladium.

It will include those of us that are able to make it and the mayor, Brigadier General Stuart Goodwin, United States Air Force will be speaking.

We will have the honor guard from the fire station or from CFD and from American Legion Post 155 and the VFW.

Last announcement, the uh I think 2017 has not called his own.

No, he's not.

Oh.

Last announcement is a event being put on by at all.

Uh MC.

Okay.

Well, you can let you can let uh Mr.

Bill Brooks know.

He only served us for 12 years on the CRC that he is no longer the MC, because that's what I have.

But um that's awesome.

Tony Green is a veteran with the distinction of the only person we can find that was able to serve 10 years, over a decade, in three different branches of the military, and that is a distinction that's incredible.

And seeing his retirement ceremony is still one of the coolest things I've ever attended.

Now, Mr.

Greenwall will be speaking uh as well at uh on June 26th at the American Legion Post 155.

Um it's a uh event being put on by one of our wonderful volunteers, uh Tina Mangos, um in coordination with the Veterans Um Commission, and it's called Beyond the Headlines, Veterans Stories.

It's June 26th from 2 to 4.

Uh Councilor Green will also be speaking there, and this is part of Carmel's 50th birthday uh as a city and America's 250th anniversary.

Councilmanar.

I'll make mine short and sweet.

Uh the mayor's advisory admission ten times.

The mayor's advisory commission on housing will be on Thursday, May 28th at 9 a.m.

here in City Council Chambers.

We will be going over some of the results that Opticus has done on our UDS scan.

So anybody who enjoyed the uh educational uh talk that Mr.

Parole gave at our last meeting in March, uh please come to that one as well.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Are there any further announcements?

Thank you all.

We stand adjourned at 8 54.