The Columbus Board met on June 23, 2026, at 3:00 PM to approve routine items, hear reports on animal shelter progress, fire department software, and janitorial services, and handle public works contracts and bids. Board members present: Melanie Henderson, Jeff Pickett, John Pickett, Brenda Sullivan, and Eric Fry.
There's like very possible training spectrum. Yeah. So I'd like to call the meeting to order. Can somebody grab the doors in the back? I think that's normally is that I think he's he's still on the job. All right. Uh first up is uh roll call, Melanie Henderson. Jeff Pickett. I'm here. John Pickett. What can I say? That's okay. I re answered a both. Brenda Sullivan here. And Eric Fry. So um first up on the uh agenda is Columbus Animal Care Services. Oh, approval of the minutes. I am a mess. Yeah, please please keep me on track. Um I will move to approve the eating minutes from uh June the 16th. I'll second. All right, we have a motion and a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed. All right. Now I go with animal. Okay, I'm gonna go with animal care services. Um Doug's uncle. So good morning. I'm not sure how much you I didn't, I wasn't planning to pull up the presentation since you said you had it, but today we have for you. We would like to enter. We're in the we've been in the process of working with force for the last several months after awarding the RPQ to them. We've been finalizing the construction, getting getting things ready to go for permitting. Uh we're at the point where we do have drawings ready to submit for permit, uh, but we're still a couple three, four weeks out on getting the final PPA uh agreement finalized and structured. Uh everything's uh lined out, but we just it's just working through the final details and legal review and things like that. So uh realistically, it's probably three to four weeks out. And from a lead time standpoint, you know, the the permitting process, which includes storm water and state building permits, there's several different permits that will have to be submitted for. We just like to authorize force to move ahead with the filing for those things, and they have requested you know to do that. They've requested that we enter into a letter of intent that says we're planning to move forward, which I think we yeah, obviously we already were when we submitted or we approved them for the RFPQ, but this basically um just outlines uh expectations that that we will continue to move forward. We're working on finalizing the contract, and that if for some reason we were to terminate that agreement between now and the final signing, that we would compensate them for services that they've and and any cancellation fees that they've incurred on anything that they've ordered already. So that's what the letter of intent is uh requesting. Asking for your approval today for that. So okay, so uh just for larger picture, assuming this this will go through and and that when do you anticipate breaking ground and starting actually starting construction? Uh I we're we're looking in mid the mid-August time frame, but you know, for approval. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. So I mean, obviously, permits uh take a little bit of time. I think I don't know if they yeah, I'm not exactly sure whether I have to have every single permit in line before they can start moving Earth, but but we're targeting for a mid-August time frame of of breaking ground if things continue along and we don't see any other extraordinary delays. So and uh I don't know if Nicole wants to speak on the capital campaign and fundraising.