Like a fraud questionnaire one day.

Today, if I got it today, I don't know.

Okay.

Because I've been on the right.

I think uh he said one of you and Marty and Mayor.

I will, except for I can't get my iPad to come on.

I'm assuming it's a pillow PDF.

Okay.

Oh thank you.

Yeah, he said he probably said that's the way you didn't know.

Okay.

Well, sit right there.

You're gonna sit up there beside the mayor.

Well, this is Elliot.

He is Mayor Elliott.

This is Elliot.

He's been a pit pal with Mayor Gregory for the past uh how many times?

Couple a month, couple months.

So they write back and forth.

So Elliot is in the third grade, his mom home schools him, and he is mayor for the day here with Mayor Gregory.

He's taking a tour of City Hall.

And so you're gonna sit here at these guys indoor decisions.

So you can go right there with Mr.

Mayor Gregory.

Oh look, Elliot, did you see your name is right here?

Look here.

There's your uh we gotta put this pen on you too, okay?

It makes you official.

That's fine.

Elliot wrote me a letter.

A month or so ago.

Yeah, well.

I've explained to him what my role is and what your all's role is and what other people's roles are.

Yeah, smile now.

So remember I told you that we have a legislative body that makes all the decisions, and it's my job to go out and admit it's what they tell us that they want to happen.

This is the legislative body.

Does that make sense?

Alright.

So you gotta see him like the rest of us.

Can you read it?

Recognition proclamation.

So I'm gonna sign it, okay?

And so what we'll do is I'll open the meeting and welcome everybody.

I'll have you get together first and then I'll welcome everybody.

And then we'll ask you.

And then when he gets done with the prayer, I'm gonna ask everybody to join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

And when I do that, all you gotta do is you've got to talk a little louder.

Start saying it.

Everybody'll jump in.

Okay.

We gotta turn and face the flag over there and then we'll start saying it.

Hi.

And then I'm gonna introduce you to the people out here in the audience.

And then we're gonna have the Christmas in the park.

We just kind of hang out and then we walk in front of them and take their hand and tell them how good a job they did.

And then we're gonna have an update from our finance director, Jeff Hawkins.

Hi, I think.

And then we'll have a couple of announcements, and then we're gonna have to go close session real quick to talk about some property, which you don't have to do when you often hear it out there tomorrow.

If you get bored, just elbow me and you can go sit with the marriage.

It's all right.

Mayor Jane Third.

Mayor.

This is Elliot.

Mayor Elliot.

I'll be right back.

Mr.

Tony will watch it.

Spam in hammer.

Boom, boom, boom.

Oh, so I'm just taking a hammer once.

Idiot on it.

This one.

What was your birthday?

Twenty thirds.

I can see my uh PBA and her crazy right here.

Um, I'll draw the change up.

Okay.

That's a bird.

Yeah, so I think that's what you're gonna see.

I mean like simple smell.

It's called Hubble in there.

He's over there.

He's over there hammering out the thing.

Oh, you've got rid of the case.

You didn't like church out there.

Yes.

Take that hammer when you sit down next to you just walking off the side.

Can I sit next to you?

I'm already full.

I'm glad you're here.

That Jeff Gregory needs some help.

Keep me in the line.

Don't want to get out of line.

Oh Ellie, I'm gonna put I'm gonna put him inside the trouble and make a phone with my own.

You know I'm gonna reach out.

We don't want to work on the work.

You got about a minute and a half.

Chris.

Oh my god, did the same thing.

Yeah, that's what we're doing updates.

Same as everybody else.

Hey man, we'll have a package distribute off just as you know.

I was good for an answer.

So go back to Scuff.

There we go.

All right, thank you.

I don't think so at all.

Slamming.

You don't have to slam.

That's why I put you over here talking about that.

There you go.

Welcome everyone to Elizabeth Town City Council regular meeting for November 10th, 2025.

And I'd like to ask Councilman Marty Fulkerson if he'd lead us in the indication, please.

Let's pray.

Father, we come with grateful hearts to live in this community that is so giving.

Father, uh, we're just so blessed that in times of needs that this community steps up.

We're blessed to have employees that'll stand in the rain and the thunder to help those that needed food and for this community that recognizes the needs and rises to the occasion each and every time.

We're so thankful for that.

And Father, we realize that we're able to do it because we are a blessed community, and we thank you for those blessings.

God is we are in this holiday season.

That we will continue to rise and meet the needs of those of our fellow citizens.

And each and every need that we can.

And Father, we thank you for those men and women that were the logo.

We're not only a pride that they do and they take in their job as they serve our citizens each and every day.

But when all the bond, they'll go the extra mile.

God to help lift those in need.

And may we be a community without giving.

Because we've been given so much.

Father, be with us during this meeting, but all we do brings you glory.

And in your son's name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Go ahead and start loud.

One nation.

Indivisible.

So before we sit down, I want to introduce a special guest.

This is Elliot Hornbach, and Elliot is a homeschool third grader.

And he has been my pin pal for the last four or five weeks or so.

He sent me a letter and he thanked us for all the work that we do in the city of Elizabeth Town.

And uh I appreciated that, so I wrote him a letter back, and then he wrote me a letter back, and uh he asked if he could come for a visit one day, and I said, sure, why don't you come on a Monday when we have a city council meeting and you can be Mayor Pro Tim or Mayor for a day?

And so Elliot is helping us with our meeting tonight.

So we're very proud to have him, and I appreciate him uh reaching out and having interest in what we do as a community, especially as a third grader.

I thought that was pretty impressive, so he's gonna hang out with us tonight, and we're glad to have it.

And with that, I am going to turn it over to Beth Powells and Priscilla to tell us about our poster contest tonight.

As you all have noticed, we have some guests joining us tonight, and we are so excited to have them.

Um this is an annual event that goes back many, many years.

I know my children participated in it when they were uh younger, but the Christmas in the park poster contest is a fantastic uh event that we do each year.

I think we had schools, eight schools represented in entries, which is fantastic, and I think we had close to 65 entries.

So the competition was stiff.

Um, and we've got some fantastic winners with us today.

We also want to thank our local financial institutions that support us by providing the prizes for our winners.

And so not only um have they been chosen as winners, and they'll get a prize from the banks that represent um our community.

They'll also get a preview pass to come through Christmas in the park a day before everyone else, and that is a coveted prize because not very many people get to see what everyone else is is anxiously awaiting.

So without further ado, we'll talk, we'll introduce our winners.

So this year, our kindergarten winner is Thomas Crowder from GC Burkehead and his financial representative from German American Bank will present his award.

So if you'll just walk up front and stand in front of the blue tablecloth, we'll get your picture taken.

And we're gonna let all of you guys stand there.

So if you'll go all the way to the end of the table, our first grade winner is Olivia Mary from GC Burkhead, and her financial institution is a bound credit union.

Our second grade winner is Carter Bruce from GC Burkehead, and Magnolia Bank is his sponsoring bank.

So our third grade winner is Kennedy Alsip from Cecilia Valley, and with her is Jeff Flair from Wilson and Mirror Bank.

Fourth grade is Logan Turner from Lakewood Elementary, and his sponsoring bank is the Sicilian Bank.

And Seth is standing in today.

Our park uh and rec department head will stand in for Sicilian Bank.

And then fifth grade is Alina Stoltz from Morningside, and her sponsoring bank is Kim Douglas with West Bango.

So as you can see, I mean, these are just fantastic.

I just can't, you'd just be amazed.

So all of these posters will be put on display at the sponsoring banks for the month of the rest of November and for December.

And we just appreciate all of the hard work that went into that.

We had a picture of you guys for the council.

We all see them now.

Everybody's always close.

Are you ready?

Thank you very much very much.

Great work, guys.

And if you'll just follow Miss Priscilla over there, she'll lead you guys out into the lobby.

Jump on around the line.

Before I leave the podium, because I might not see you all for a while because it's Christmas.

I just want to remind everybody we've got a lot of Christmas events coming up.

The 35th Annual Christmas in the Park, which we just had the poster contest winners uh here for opens on Wednesday, November 26th, and that will run nightly from 6 to 11.

Uh this year we have over 115 displays from not only the city of Elizabeth Town, but many local community partners.

Um you will be surprised we've got a lot of new displays and a lot of new businesses have joined in.

Uh the light of E Town Parade and Tree Lighting is December 5th.

Um that has become a fun annual event and a great way to kick off uh the holiday season.

We will step off at 7 p.m.

and it's our backwards parade.

So we'll be coming from St.

John Road, and uh Santa will take up the rear of the parade, and he and Mayor Gregory will light the Christmas tree when they come to downtown Etown.

That is probably one of the best luxhibitions and the ones that we get a lot of calls from.

I think it's one of those traditions that have um surpassed not only our community because we get a lot of people that come from around the area to witness that.

Breakfast with Santa is the State Theater tickets are on sale now.

Um you can purchase those at the state270.org.

Um that is Saturday, December 6th.

And we are bringing back our center house again for I think this is our third year since we uh revived it.

That would be December 6th and 7th from 4 to 7, and December 13th from 2 to 4, December 14th from 4 to 6.

So come downtown, Santa will be in his um house on Walker Square.

It is completely free and open to everyone.

Um I know the mall is undergoing some renovations, and that was kind of the traditional place where everyone got to take their picture taken with Santa.

So Santa is joining us for those two weekends for folks to come down and take their own pictures and just spread some Christmas chew.

Um we've got a lot of stuff going on at the state theater with movies as well as the Holly Jolly Experience from Parks and Work Department, which leads off from this location.

So if you need any information, you can always go to etonevins.com.

Thank you, ma'am.

You're welcome.

Thank you guys.

Elliot up next is Jeff Hawkins, who is our director of finance who's going to give us an update on our finance department.

This isn't as fun as Christmas in the park.

Jeff might think of this.

This is Jeff's Christmas.

I gotta say that's not a little save.

Good afternoon, everybody.

Special welcome to Mayor Elliott.

Y'all don't know this, but we had a conversation earlier, and he promised to give me a raise because that's a whole close session to discuss.

Okay.

Today I'm gonna give you an identifiance department.

Um come in here and I've just gone over numbers with you, and y'all can read the numbers, and y'all know for a minute.

Um, and we're kind of early in the year, so I thought I'd do it a little bit differently this year.

I want to give you more of a talk about our department and what's going on.

Um just okay.

Typically, all year long, as department heads get up here, what do they do?

They bombard the parking lot with trucks and fire engines and stuff like that.

So you're gonna be well, I thought about doing that too.

But I thought finance can't really do that because honestly, if I bring a laptop in here and set it in the parking lot, or a floor scrubber, or an aero reading meter, even my old 1920 or 2021 Jeep, it's not gonna look too impressive.

So I didn't do that.

But what I can say is whether it's a fire truck, police car, dump truck, electric mower, or if Jeremy one day does get his Corvette, one thing I can say is they're all bought with funds collected by the fire.

So we technically have made sure all that that comes into play.

So I did want to give show some numbers.

Cash is one that everybody's always interested in.

So these are the 930 uh balances.

Uh we didn't have um October quite ready, but as you can see, right now everything is up.

Um gas fund is a little bit up, they're still relatively flat.

Uh restricted funds are those funds that we collect, like our employee benefit trust, um the insurance premiums, those are all restricted until they get moved over into the general fund.

So right now, everything's looking good.

Silver fund, you can see the impact of the higher rates that we did.

Uh I hate to say higher rates because a lot of people have not been too happy with those, but I don't think that's I think it's usage.

But um, general funds looking good.

We did finally start replenishing from all our bonds that we issued for the fire station and um a little bit for the PD, but also for the outdoor music revenue.

We have been paying those out of general funds, and now we have started paying ourselves back.

And here's the debt schedules.

Um, nothing's really changed on those except for maybe the bottom two lines.

You can see we've had we have added the police and fire station four or bond number four there.

Um payment in there.

We also have the outdoor music venue bonds.

Um that payment on the right far right column, 2.5 million dollars.

A million of that is the city, and the rest is going to be paid by tourism.

Uh just want to give you a quick update on our organization chart.

This is where we are currently.

Uh we have a current staff right now of 21 approved for 23.

You can say we have two open positions that we haven't filled, and we're trying to avoid filling them if at all possible.

The key thing here is you can see the item or the people that are in blue are probably retirements within the next year and a half to two years, if not sooner.

Uh David Evans is retiring at the end of the year.

Um Tim Compton and Tim Reynolds are either August or next August.

And Cheryl, our treasurer, um, is gonna be August of 27th.

So we're gonna start planning now, probably next budget, especially for Cheryl's position.

We may use that open position as a way to hire somebody to get them trained, but probably not backfill that position.

Because her position will take some time to train.

Okay, I wanted to show you some 10-year comparisons.

Um a lot of times we do look back and say, okay, where were we back then?

Where are we now?

So if you look at that, 2015, we were collecting uh $13.6 million in occupational.

Last year, 33.2 increase of almost 20 million dollars.

Net profits we've gone from 2.3 to 6.8, 6.9 increase of four and a half.

So that's related to the increase in tax rate.

A lot of this is due to growth, as you can see by the business licenses.

As you can see by the business licenses, we've gone from just under 4,000 to almost 6,000 business licenses.

That's a lot.

What I'm most proud of is our staff.

We had three back then, we got three now.

You know, you get the right people, you get the right technology.

Uh it makes it a lot easier to take care of the business.

Restaurant tax, hotel tax insurance premiums tax.

They're all the same way.

You can see the growth that we've had in those.

Restaurant tax last couple years has kind of leveled off a little bit.

Um the new restaurants we say we're getting them.

Maybe the people you may see that go up again.

Um you can see we've gone from 6.9 million to 13.4.

So a huge increase, six and a half million dollars in a 10 year span.

Again, one person back then, one person right now.

City staff.

As you can see, we've gone from 300 in 2015 to 367 last year.

These are budgeted numbers, and the salaries have almost doubled in that time.

Um back in 2015, we also had 11 of those people work at the sports park, and 18 with my water department.

So they've now been gone, so we've we've changed those out with full-time employees.

One person does all that.

Lamar knows a little else, it's barred.

I say all this with the number of people.

I just want to let you know that we made a choice back then, back in 2015, start leveraging technology.

When I came in, it was a lot of manual work, a lot of tedious.

We got old computers, old softwares, and uh it kind of made us all feel like this a little bit.

You know, we're just kind of going through the motions, old equipment.

I was gonna say that was Diana originally, but she might get off.

But through our technology improvements, we have been able to uh get a lot more efficient.

Utility office, um same situation.

Back at 15, we had seven in the office, now we have five, and our customer service, which is with our meter eaters, we had eight, and now we're down to four.

And we have not dropped one bit in uh in the quality of our service that we can do.

We did sell the water department and we outsourced sewer billing, but um Spreebrook has really helped us a whole lot, improve our technology.

They're not keying in the readings like they used to be, and through our aerial reprogram, they're not walking to every single house like we used to do.

So those have really helped us.

And our custodial staff back in 2022, uh we kind of did a little swap.

Uh, IT went to the PD and the custodial custodial staff came to finance.

Totally new to me, I don't know anything about it.

But uh we currently have in my department we have three.

We have Von, she's a supervisor, Don at City Hall, and John Powell at Public Works.

We had one at PD, but she transferred into a records club position, and the person that we hired is actually Yvonne's husband.

So basically, do the city policies, they they both can't report to me.

The same employees can't report husband and wife cannot report to the same department head.

So John is his name, he uh now reports to Jeremy in PD.

We also have um basically one and a half.

We have Jack Lutrel and uh Dave Barry at the theater, so they take care of all those buildings.

Um, both of those reports new death.

And to me, it's kind of amazing.

We all know what our campuses look like.

It's a lot of work, and for one person to handle all those buildings.

I don't know how they do it.

I think they've got to have help somehow.

But they they all do a great job, and we appreciate everything that they do, and they're also willing to, if one's out sick, they they rotate buildings.

So we do uh appreciate all their work.

Okay, current projects.

As you all have requested, we did send an RFP out for banking services.

That was mailed out on uh October 31st, and we've asked for them to be submitted back to us by 1231.

They were sent to all the local banks with the exception of one, uh, and the reason being is the one that we did not send it to was Wood Forest out in Walmart's lobby or that little kiosk area, and we just didn't feel like they were really capable with who they have in town to handle our business.

But they were all sent to all these different banks.

I'll be honest, I didn't know all the presidents of each location, so if I didn't know the person, I just put it to branch manager, but I knew several of the presidents, and they were addressed directly directly to that person.

The goal when that comes back is to hopefully get valuations the first quarter next year and then make our decision.

Uh it's not going to be an overnight change if we do change banks.

Um it's gonna take a while.

We can move to the to a new bank if we do make a change somewhat quickly, but we cannot close out for quite a it could be a year because we're gonna have outside checks, we're gonna have money that still comes in.

Um you just gotta make sure you have all that encompass before you actually close out any former bank.

We only have checks outstanding for more than a year.

No, but we could there's things that we could be writing, and there's also funds that we get from like state agencies, federal agencies.

Uh we get seizure money that just shows up in our bank, and we don't necessarily know where else coming from until it shows up.

So we want to get have time to be able to get some of that money in to know where it's coming from so we can notify the agency or whatever of the new change of things.

And it affects payroll, all the payrolls we have to check the change.

Now we don't leave checks out staying that long.

Okay, our new website, as I've talked about before, through the new website, we are gonna have capability to do online forms.

Um we're gonna try to put all tax forms on there, business license.

Um we want to we want to be able to allow the businesses to pay their taxes, um, submit their business license and everything, and make their payment online.

Um want that, and we want it to, you just gotta do it right because we do have to have a credit card PSS with that.

So we want to make sure we capture all their information.

We can't just take a payment online and call it good.

We have to know where it's coming from.

We have to collect all the data that we're going to cut, um, but through the new website, that's what we're hoping to do.

Um we've seen the demos of it, and we think it's gonna work just fine.

Uh, we'd like to have an online employment application.

Um we noticed this past week, actually, somebody called in on our current website, somebody had gone in and filled out a job application online, and then somebody else came back behind them later, and all that first person's information was still out there in the forum.

Somehow it saved, should never happen.

Call it Google Docs, I don't know.

Uh we are coming up on our medical insurance renewal.

Um I think when I last spoke to you, we were talking about some potentially very high renewal rates for our stop loss.

Um, those we think are gonna take care of themselves.

I think there's one still gonna be out there possibly, uh, but we do think they're gonna come in at either completely removed or much lower than what we're expecting.

Um I think we're gonna see a slight increase, like minor, but nothing compared to all you hear about is the cost of health care going up, up, up.

Our renewals are still gonna come in pretty favorable.

We when you say explain to us what you mean by insurance.

Does that mean that that's policy renewable?

Or this is just a rate adjustment within a current policy that we're well every year, you know, we get our every year we go through our process of getting our new uh renewal.

Um, you know, Anthem comes up, and um, like our our broker goes, talks to Anthem, and they look at it and they come back and say, Okay, you might have a slight tick up in this, it could be an admin cost, it could be something else.

Um USI's at rates aren't changing, that's always been the same.

But there could be something that comes up.

And well, and my question is is it an opportunity for us to bid that?

Well, I understand you all want to bid it, um, but we have a contract, what, two more years?

Well, that's why I'm asking if we have a contract or we don't, and I don't understand when you said to renewable what that is.

Our contract is with USI for their service.

Okay, and every year they and they they do go back and they look at you know, is there another carrier out there that could come in and do it better?

And um, from what they've looked at, the one we currently have Anthem has been our best option for us that can handle all of our needs and everything.

Um, and again, stop losses for those claims that are extremely high.

Um, they look at history and things like that in the past, and they did laser out.

I always say less than five because that's what uh we try to be correct.

Um, but we think those are gonna come in favorable a lot better than what I showed you, which was a potentially of what 2.5 million dollars, I think it was over all of them.

So, but on the base premium rate for that renewal, though there it's minor increase of saying, Yes.

Yeah, we're not gonna see like a huge like a 20%.

It could be three, four percent, I think is what we were talking about.

We were supposed to meet with them, I think two weeks, yeah, and I think that has to be moved.

But um, we feel pretty comfortable aware of that, and again, it's all based on claims.

You could look at it, you could have a perfect year, no claims at all, and you may see a maybe I don't think we're gonna say decrease, but we may not see any kind of increase.

And then the meeting you could hit with surgery, surgery, surgery, or disease or something.

It's kind of uh, you know, it's a shot in the dark, you just don't know what's gonna happen with it.

And we did, if you remember, we did up our contribution that that the city puts in.

It was 700, I think, and I think we upped it to I think it was 10,000 person, is what it came out to be.

And we lowered it because we we were expecting those lasers to come out.

It's an audit.

Um essentially the fieldwork's complete.

Um we feel like we've had a good audit again.

Uh learning a new auditor is a little bit different because they do things a little bit differently.

Before it was like we know what they were gonna ask before they asked it now, so we're having to learn things a little bit, not expecting any major issues.

There'll be some adjustments, there always are.

What they say is that you get a grant award award, you recognize it as revenue right then.

We've never done that.

So you know, how you know take take for instance uh um some of the lists grants uh the block grants.

You might get awarded in year 2000, but we don't draw down until 2020, according to what Gaz are saying, we should have recognized it as a revenue back then.

We may have some adjustments on that.

I'm just telling you ahead of time that was all 10.

Our prior auditor never said anything like that.

Um, but that could happen if it does.

We just we know now we can go forward if we do it the right like the right way or the way they want us to do it.

Does that include like the highway funds like the 11 million or 13 million?

I mean, yes.

Yeah, it could for all grants.

It's more important for again, it's one part for federal grants because you you exceed a maximum amount or minimum amount of grant revenue, then you've got to have a single audit.

So I think last year we didn't have that, but how do we recognize a grant?

Like they say it would have kicked us into that single audit, which is a little bit more work, but it's more work on the grant side.

Um so we're learning as they're learning on that same process.

There are things we push back on like that.

We don't think we should recognize revenue 10 years before we actually get the money.

So that's why they're they're looking at it again, and they they understand our point of view.

They're looking at it from it's kind of like can we say the law says this, you have to do it this way.

I agree with you, but um, so we're waiting to see if that's gonna work or not.

They are hoping to be here and present to you before the end of the year.

Tourism has just started their audit, so it may not be until January again before we get to file numbers.

Um, and I don't say too much about this other than um the contract is up at the end of the year, and you don't have to decide do we keep going or do we not?

And that's pretty much all I have.

I appreciate everything you'll do for all of us in this room and for the city and all the support we get.

And the last thing I'd like to do is close with this.

Um State Park passed away uh last week, uh, or November 5th.

Um, Steve was finance director before I came on, and um he was here for 32 years, and we didn't work together a whole lot, but what we did I learned a lot, and I know a lot of you did work with him and really had good things to say about Steve, and he's one reason we are in the shape we are today.

So I'll give him whole credit on that.

I like the quote he said one time.

He just came in as finance director, worked 32 years, and he said he never got a promotion.

So I think it's pretty good.

Good money where else is money right in.

But I still tell it's appropriate for me to say something about that today.

Uh given that it's finance day.

So trust me.

So I appreciate all what you did.

Do you have any questions for me?

I will just comment on Steve.

He was the tightest person in the world.

He treated the city's finances like they were his own.

And we did not have a reserve balance until Steve became and got in there, and and he was tight.

And he is uh the one that came up with the garbage can theory of finance, but you will not find any any accounting or CPU courses.

So it made sense.

And I will say two or three times a year.

I still hear.

Well, Steve did it like this, or Steve said that you know that's like okay.

So appreciate it.

Good job.

But Mr.

Hawkins was born wait till this next guy comes in.

You have over there the general sewer natural gas.

Um we have 350, and you've got public safety of 16 times.

Shouldn't those numbers be combined for a employees?

Well, you've got that on dashboard.

Yes, yes.

They the numbers on the left include the ones on the right.

Okay.

The reason I put the ones on the right are because you know, it's your police officer, your uh dispatch and your retirement.

A lot of people like to know those separate.

They are included, they're just broken out separately, so you can see that.

I thought you did an honor of Steve Park because he usually that's the most expensive part of the city.

Thanks, Jeff.

Up next, we have Joe Reverman, who is our director of planning and the vote, and he's gonna speak to us about the Nickel Street Master Plan.

All right, yeah, so you had the first reading on a zoning map amendment last week on for Oak Hills development on Nicholas Street.

So just to talk a little bit about uh that zoning map amendment because it's a little bit different for most of them uh that you see the plan development district zoning district that was requested with that uh is the new zoning district that was added to our zoning ordinance in August when we updated our residential development regulations.

The planned development district, zoning district that was requested with that is the new zoning district that was added to our zoning ordinance in August when we updated our residential development regulations.

And so what that does is it's not just a zoning map amendment with that request, it's also a master plan approval.

So the master plan in this case kind of sets forth the development standards within that development in that zoning district.

So for land uses setbacks, building designs, site design standards, locational parking, all those types of things.

This master plan sets out all those standards, and so that is this is different from a standard uh zoning district because the master plan with this PDD does apply only to this development.

So with the typical zoning district uh map amendment, what you have is someone requesting to rezone their property to a zoning district uh say to C3, whereas that C3 regulation applies to all C3 properties within the city.

So when someone requests this planned development district, they adopt their own regulations in essence.

So the city council in this case is not just uh changing the zoning of a property, they're also adopting the regulations for that specific property.

Um so the master plan that you see is also going to be adopted by uh the city council if they choose to zone that uh property to plan development district.

Uh so with the master plan for this specific development, again, that would only apply to Oak Hills over there on Nicholas Street.

Um, what's proposed in that is that it separates the site into five different use areas.

So each use area sets forth permitted uses, uh, open space requirements, dimensional standards such as building setbacks.

Uh plan also sets out standards applicable to the entire development for streetscape, signage, landscaping, lighting, um, and then finally the plan sets out administrative procedures for future amendments to the master plan.

So there's different, just like other uh development proposals, there's different levels of changes they could request in the future that maybe staff could handle that maybe the planning commission could handle, or that may be significant enough that would need uh would justify coming back to city council for for approval.

Um so the plan that they're proposing calls for 594 total housing units across three sections that include single family houses, duplexes, townhomes, and multi-family units.

Uh it also includes a small commercial section along Nicholas Street and approximately 22 acres of open space along Valley Creek.

Um again, the the main difference with this one to keep in mind is that that master plan is a written document of standards applicable only to this development, it won't apply to any other development or property in the city.

Um, and the city council would need to consider that master plan along with the zoning map amendment uh when you look at taking action next week.

Um, and I can talk about more details of that plan if you have questions or the process in general, uh, but that's kind of a high overview of uh the PDD district regulation as well as the Oak Hills development.

Questions.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna open it up for public comments, Mr.

Deacock.

You're fine.

I'm Phil Dekoff, uh President of Etown for 50 years, and and I think your family has been residents.

64 years in the current house.

Yeah, yes.

Sometime in the past, we had brought to the attention of council a development or a concern of three acres that sits behind our homes on Pawnee Drive.

Now we know that closer to French Street, we have a large development thing, but there was three acres that was undeveloped at the time, but also there had been a proposal that I think is brought before the council, but not a plan.

And so at that time we had submitted a uh a letter of concern that was drafted up, and I'd like to read but also update what was written at that particular time, and that was back in December of 10th of last year when we brought that to the council's matter.

A lot has developed in that time, especially within the past three weeks, which brings a concern to us as a residents that are backed up to that.

But multiple residents of our area on Pawnee Drive became aware of a commercial commercial proposal to build a new construction of business, and that was last year, a parking lot and a road traveling from Ring Road into the new construction behind our homes in a small rectangular area of three acres.

There's also knowledge of the city giving the okay for a residence in that is now being built, and I can hear the hammering continuing to go on somewhere near the area where the window world is located and across the street from where Elizabeth Town Swim and Fitness Center is located, or the past E Town Swim Fitness Center.

Not to mention that the town swimming center is roomed rumored to be shutting its doors for good.

Well, we know that has taken place as well.

The proposal loan has already created a lot of anxiety from the affected residents of a multiple for multiple reasons.

Many of these residents have lived here for many decades, such as we have.

Sitting all night and sitting all night and running the engine.

Which brings to a point that it was it was heard by Karen more than it was by me because there was more of a buffer of trees in between, which would bring us up to date and say that that buffer is now as of this morning gone, totally gone.

I was hoping that there would be at least 12 feet, 20 feet or so from the property line, but they have taken all the trees up to the property line without leaving any kind of buffer zone that there's there.

And in addition to that, uh will be affected and or have been affected by some of the bright lights, and uh that's located actually behind our homes.

Now I brought to the attention of Jeff that that uh you know that changes are made and the city makes a change, but sometimes what we're asking is that there would be a proposal if the building plans come be free be up to Joe and Joe's consideration, your consideration, to take in account the uh the privacy and the security.

Uh, we've had security reasons by people wanting to go from the neighborhood and and just crossing across our property line to get to uh Krogers, and now without a buffer of any sort whatsoever, and a commercial development there, we anticipate that there'll be continued security problems in that in that particular area, especially also with the development of the condos, but we can't stop progress, but I think we can be very considerate of progress.

Um quite a long letter that was drafted.

I'll try to shorten as much as I possibly can.

Um, the development of businesses, it is currently zoned as C3.

C three C3.

With that, we don't know what's coming in, and I have tried to walk through or read through the zoning and planning guidelines, and it's very hard to do to see what uh zone what the zoning of C3 could bring about, but I know it wouldn't be conducive to the residential area that there is now that we have at the present time.

Also, the proposed construction could possibly bring about more safety concerns for children.

It already has brought about concerns with the development of the condos that are further up on Pawnee towards French Street, and I'm talking about our Pro 10 mayor that we have.

And I'm talking about our Pro 10 mayor that we have.

We have some small ones in our community also.

We have a speed limit sign on Pawnee, but it's not adhered to.

And so they're going to continue to cut through there whether there's construction that goes on French Street, or whether they just want to make a cut through.

And that is proposed a safety concern for those residents that have children as well.

So all this is leading up to if a particular type of construction that is within the approval of a C3 zoning area is brought about.

We can anticipate not only for us the property homes possibly declining, but also the safety concerns that it brings about as far as the cities is concerned.

And I have talked to some of our patrolmen about that.

They are also aware they do make some trips through there as far as the traffic that's concerning.

And they have had some calls as far as the sealing and breaking in of vehicles.

And I don't own a Hyundai, by the way.

I so don't send them my way.

But there has been in the near neighborhood vehicle, I think, in the last couple nights or so that has been sold.

So it's a security issue that we have.

What else is it?

I guess what what oh the other thing is the flooding, the drain that goes between my particular house, which is right on the corner of the where the makes dog lake, and the next house that lives on is a is a drainage ditch.

A major drainage ditch for probably about a third of Pawnee Drive.

And when there's a real gully washer that comes about, it does overflow and comes onto my property.

So that drains currently it's draining off into that property into that three acres.

That of course is their problem to how they're going to contain it, but it also becomes the city's property and Joe's concern as to how to best contain that because we have had that area to flood in the past.

It has flooded, and they have protected the creek, the creek that goes between that area, which I think is mandated that that that creek would be protected, but it also is a flooding zone.

If that's not properly corrected by whoever is going to submit a plan, that can create flooding problems.

It also with the trees having been totally taken down up to the property lines between our homes.

There's going to be some erosion problems, unless they could they have a buffer.

How that planning and zoning reads, I'm not sure, but I I think that that you have within the plans, there has to be a buffer between there.

So we're just bringing that to your attention to uh to actually consider that as well.

So not to put you on the spot, but can you speak to that piece of property?

He has Joe's visit has visited with us.

And I guess my question would be in the planning commission.

Did they talk about buffering in that?

So someone has approached us a year or so ago about development of the property.

They've not formally submitted any proposals for that.

Um it was a conceptual plan that they were just looking for general feedback about setbacks and stormwater issues, uh, but we don't have anything formal.

I shared that with Karen just in the interest of transparency because they were aware that someone was looking at developing it, and so I was just letting them know that yes, someone has approached us and talked to us, they still have not submitted anything to us to date.

But at the planning commission level, you think we can request that there's buffer.

Yes, there's a buffer required.

The property's on commercial, their properties obviously residential, so there is a minimum buffer, it's typically at least 20 feet, uh, and it requires a screen and tree plannings.

Uh the planning commission can consider potentially increased uh screening or buffering uh requirements when they review the development plan given specific circumstances of what's being proposed.

But it's premature now because we don't have development plan.

Correct.

And uh to my knowledge, we've not been contacted in the last uh at least this calendar year, I believe, about any development of the property.

Is it about three acres?

It's three and a half.

So basically they've just started cleaning off the property at this time.

And that's typical when someone's looking to develop a property.

Many times they'll clear the property and kind of get its site ready for some type of development.

Um so they work with uh Rita's stormwater department to make sure they're not impacting negatively streams or adjacent properties.

And reading not to put you on the spot, but I know we talked about it a minute this morning.

Can you talk a little bit to the drainage over there?

What you all see remediation that we need to do.

Yeah, so there is a uh a creek that runs through there without having a development to review.

I can't really say what's going to happen with that.

Um we did require the 25-foot buffer from type of bank um when they came in to request their tree clearing um permit.

So we so that so that has been um regulated, but as far as the drainage and what's going to happen, I'd have to have plans and you know, I'd have to have the plans and and engineering calculations to kind of show what their intent is to get that drainage through their property and make sure that they're not impacting other properties when they do so.

So that'd be something we'd be reviewing at the once we get a development plan.

Have you looked at if you looked at that green that Mr.

Deacoff was talking about by this house?

Is that adequate?

What's uh I know you know when you get the downpour, yeah.

So yeah, so to my knowledge, that's not causing any type of actual flooding of structures that will just occasionally come up out of the banks a little bit and flow down in between the properties.

Um so so yeah, we're not seeing that as a major stormwater issue unless you can say that it's causing major damage or anything into his gone, it has gone actually into my pool at once and when was that time was that recent?

No, okay.

It's been several years ago.

It also overflows and goes in my back shed, goes through the back.

So actually it's not deep enough at the end towards that property that's being sold.

And it's eroded.

So what they're gonna do, I mean it the ditch ends there and then it has routed down into three acres.

Okay, so the erosion would probably be taken care of with the development.

Uh we can take a look at that again.

I know uh we had looked at it at one point in time and didn't feel like there was a whole lot of action that we needed to do at that point in time, but we can look at it and see if there's anything that needs to happen.

So to sum it up, we're waiting on development before we can really take action and do design and figure out how to get both of these people some relief.

Yes.

There's five, there's five houses that are affected by this.

Sure.

And we talked a window work without the glass pressure and stuff.

Yes, I have.

Okay.

Has it gotten better?

It's a little better.

Okay.

It's a little better, but now we don't have trees.

I got you.

They can down the trees or the leaders of that.

Yeah, and we're here in the hotel now, being built.

But that's that's our point when we get to the planning commission side of things.

We can make them put a buffering call back in.

I don't know.

I don't know why they do that.

Okay.

So thanks.

Okay, I've got a couple of things.

I'm about to marina, I'm sorry.

Okay, okay.

I've got a couple of things.

So I'm Karen Macy, I live on Pawnee Drive.

According to KRS 224.30-100, excessive noise is a serious hazard to the public health and welfare and the quality of life.

Each person has a right to an environment free from noise that jeopardizes the health or welfare and degrades the quality of life or lowers property value.

It is the policy of the state to promote an environment for all people free from noise that jeopardizes the health welfare or degrades the quality of life.

Okay, and then uh almost four years.

I've been dealing with this noise for almost four years.

So back in April of 22, I wrote to the mayor and the and the council, of course, three of them are no longer here.

So I I had a couple that responded.

And so I'm gonna read the one that that that responded the most.

Okay.

So they said I should have mentioned that E Town doesn't have a nuisance ordinance or really a noise ordinance that is very helpful.

I think the noise and lights would be less impactful once the trees between the properties have more leaves on them.

In the meantime, the best course of action is for you all to go speak with the company.

That probably will do they probably do not realize that the noise and lights from the truck can be seen, heard, or all the way to the street.

Having a conversation with the manager might be helpful, and hopefully they can make some changes that will make their business.