We will call this meeting of the Board of Public Works to order.

Can I get us started with the old business and an motion to approve the July 23rd, 2026 BPW minutes?

So moved.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Moving on to new business.

The City of Evansville Animal Care and Control requests approval of a grant agreement with Best Friends Animal Society.

Best Friends Animal Society will partner with Evansville Animal Care and Control to help transition the facility to a no-kill shelter.

This contract is fully funded by Best Friends at no cost to the city and may include additional grants on donations for animal control.

And we have Missy Mosby with animal care.

Thank you, Missy.

What else can you tell us about this?

Missy Mosby, Director of Evansville Animal Care and Control.

We do have a contract with best friends that I would like for you to review and hopefully pass.

What this will allow is for best friends to come in and actually work with us for the next six months.

They will send one of their employees here, and it's free of charge at no cost to our city or taxpayers.

And they will work with us for the next six months.

They will work five days a week, 40 hours a week, and help us set up the standard operating procedures, certain protocols to make sure our animals are healthy, and also to help us strive to do the to get to 90 percent where we are in no kill status.

Outstanding.

Yep.

Received your your uh contract here, thank you in the information.

Um any questions from the board?

No, I just want to say I love this and thank you for everything you do for um our four-legged friends.

Thank you.

We have a great team going.

This is a great win-win.

Can I get a motion for approval?

So moved.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you all very much.

Thank you, Mr.

Yeah.

Next up, item B, the City of Evansville DMD requests approval and authorization for the President and Secretary of the Board of Public Works to execute loan documents for a 425,000 dollar affordable housing trust fund loan to Grandview Apartments Preservation LLC for the Grandview Tower Rehabilitation Project, including the loan agreement, permissory note, mortgage, assignment of rents and security agreement, limited non-recourse carve out guarantee, and applicable subordination agreement, subject to final legal review and any non-material revisions approved by City Legal Council.

Lisa Foster, Contract Manager DMD, is here.

This is one of the three agreements that are here for the Grandview Tower Project.

Um we'll be using Affordable Housing Trust Fund money plus home funds plus home ARP funds.

So these all go together for the one project.

So actually C and D go with this.

Outstanding.

So this is approval for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund portion of the funding.

Any questions from the board?

No.

So move.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Moving on to the next chunk.

The City of Evansville DMD requests approval and authorization for the President and Secretary of the Board of Public Works to execute loan documents for a $260,000 home investment partnership program, loan to Grandview Apartments, Preservation LLC for the Grandview Tower Rehabilitation Project, including the home loan agreement, permissory note, mortgage and assignment of leases and rents, certificate of project completion, and the combined documents applicable to the home and home ARP loans, including the regulatory and land use agreement, limited non-recourse carve out guarantee, and applicable subordination agreement, subject to final legal review and any non-material revisions approved by City Legal Council.

Anything further, Lisa?

Not for me.

Any questions from the board?

No.

Can I hear a motion for approval?

So move.

I will second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

And moving on to the third item for this project, the City of Evansville DMD requests approval and authorization for the President and Secretary of the Board of Public Works to execute the loan documents for a $390,000 home investment partnership program, American Rescue Plan Loan, to Grandview Apartments Preservation LLC for the Grandview Tower Rehabilitation Project, including the home ARP loan.

Agreement, permissory note, mortgage and assignment of leases and rents, certificate of project completion, and the combined documents applicable to the home and home ARP loans, including the regulatory and land use agreement, the limited non-recourse carve-out guarantee, an applicable subordination agreement subject to final legal review, and any nonmaterial revisions approved by City Legal Council.

Anything further, Lisa?

I don't have anything further now.

Any questions from the board?

No.

Thank you for all your work on this.

Thank you, Aaron.

Exciting project to see come to fruition.

Can I get a motion for approval?

So moved.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Lisa, thank you.

Thank you.

Next up, item E.

The City of Evansville, Evansville Climate Control, requests approval of contract and with approval with sorry, approval of a contract with Groundswell Incorporated to conduct a feasibility study and design a plan to develop resilience hubs in the city for residents to have safe refuge during extreme temperatures and power outages.

This is a professional services agreement with a consultant with the expertise and team to plan the hubs.

And a 2026 update, this study was postponed due to groundswell having limited staff capacity while managing a large workload in early 2026.

The original contract end date was for June 15, 2026.

And my understanding is there's also an additional add-on for uh this department for some surplus activity.

But Lauren, you're here and can explain further for us.

Yes.

So this is a contract you already approved to begin early 2026, like it says, uh we've had to push back the study because of the um consultant having um having a large workload.

So our contract has expired.

Um it expired June 15th.

We need to extend it till December 31st of this year.

Um, and we're getting ready to launch our work.

So we should be done by the end of the year.

So I'm just asking for your approval to extend the agreement.

Outstanding.

Another uh another great project.

Um any questions from the board?

No.

So move.

I will second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

And then my understanding is you had an additional.

Thank you.

Uh yes, it's a request to surplus um vertical filing cabinets.

I have 22 empty vertical filing cabinets to surplus.

Um I think uh six of them are um fire safe, the rest are regular uh metal filing cabinets.

Um, and you should have um a list in front of you.

Thank you.

Um we had um the Vanderburg County Treasurer take four of them, and we're going to auction the rest on Gov deals.

Outstanding.

Any questions from the board?

No.

So move.

I will second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Thank you.

Thank you, Line.

Next up, the City of Evansville City Engineers request approval of corrections made to change order number five with ENB paving LLC for the 2025 mill and overlay phase one project, project number 25-001.

This is a decrease of $33,736.28 cents.

The original contract amount was 1,430,831 dollars and thirty-eight cents.

The contract amount after change order number four was one thousand four hundred eighty-four, two hundred forty-three dollars and seven cents.

And with this change order five, the new total contract amount will be one million four hundred and fifty thousand five hundred six dollars and seventy-nine cents.

Brian Mundy, bringing it down.

This project has been completed.

This is the final change order to true up quantities.

Okay, so this is a closeout.

Yes.

Outstanding.

Any questions from the board?

No.

So move.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Next up, the city engineer's office requests board consideration of appendix A right-of-way permit applications with the following recommendations.

Right-away permit applications 3,087, 3088, and 3,090 through 3093, 3095, and 3096.

No exceptions as submitted.

Exceptions are taken on applications 3081, 3089, and 3094 as that proposed work is in the county.

Compliant maintenance of traffic procedures per the Indiana M U T C D should be implemented as required for each site specifics.

Board of public safety approval may be required prior to any lane restriction or street closure.

Any open pavement cut repairs shall adhere to the current city engineering utility cut repair detail requirements.

Brian Mundy, is there anything further?

Yes.

Uh we had two other permits come in, number 3,099 and number 3100 from Dyke Brothers.

They're working for Evansville Water and Sewer Utility on a lead line service project where they have to pothole to look for lead service lines.

They're going to be in the area of a school, and they would like to get that done before school starts.

So they're asking that if we could go ahead and approve those so they can get that work completed this week.

We have no exceptions with those either.

If you would entertain those.

Or those being added to this added to the list.

Yes, added to the list.

Okay.

Can I hear a motion for approval with the addition of 3099 and 3,100?

So moved.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Next up, the approval of use and barricades, signage and other items as requested for the following events and road closures.

The following events are being approved on behalf of the Board of Public Safety.

The Board of Public Safety will meet after these event road closures take place.

The stronghold requests the approval of their kick it tournament, closing Bellmead Avenue between Morton Street and Evans Street, August 5th, 2026, from 12 p.m.

to six p.m.

for the purpose of a kickball tournament, swimming for kids at the pool, and a car show.

The place to be on August 5th.

And barricades are requested.

Next up is a street closure for Locust Street between Martin Luther King Jr.

Boulevard and Southeast Ninth Street, as well as the street between Locust and Walnut for the Evansville Police Department.

This is Sergeant J.

Brewer submitting for Tuesday, August 4th, from 3 p.m.

to 9 p.m.

for the purpose of national night out, another great event, and barricades are requested.

Todd Robertson, anything further.

Pipe work is a note if you deem necessary to approve.

Outstanding.

Can a motion for approval?

So move.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Is there any other board business?

I can go ahead and do it.

If that's okay.

Sure.

You go with that?

All right.

So I just want to talk for a minute about sidewalk standards.

We have several areas within the city where we have trees that are planted between the back of curb and the sidewalk.

And some of these trees are starting to push up the sidewalks, causing them to be out of compliance with ADA requirements.

We also have people that have requested that we replace some of those sidewalks.

The issue that we're running into is some is these trees aren't necessarily structurally unsound.

And I've gone to the tree board, I've I've worked with Sean.

They've asked us to consider alternate materials such as rock, which is not an ADA compliant material.

So that's an automatic no.

But they've also asked that we look into changing materials around these trees to rubber or some other material.

Or actually routing the sidewalks around the trees.

So I guess I'm looking for some guidance from the board as to what your thoughts are on these suggestions.

Just to give you an idea, a rubber sidewalk is going to be two to three times as much as a concrete sidewalk.

If we were to route around trees, we would have to buy right-of-way in those areas because typically the sidewalk is on the back of the right-of-way.

And then rerouting sidewalks could also cause issues with drainage, utilities, things like that.

So it is an issue in in certain areas of the city where these trees are just, you know, they've gotten too big for where they are.

And you know, obviously the tree board and the arbors don't want to take the trees down.

I don't want to take the trees down either, but I'm having a hard time coming up with a solution.

So I just wanted to bring that up and see if there's any suggestions from you.

I I'm certainly not going to make a decision here without further information, but certainly would like to receive some of that.

And um and I certainly get the challenge.

I'm aware of uh trees downtown that look like they should be buckling a sidewalk and they're not.

And it's like a kind of a case-by-case situation, right?

Yes.

Um I would love to see us have standards that take mature trees seriously because the benefits of them are pretty compelling.

You know, shaded asphalt lasts longer, et cetera.

So I would love to review that information and see if see if there's a way we can make some things work and maybe be a little more flexible and make sure that we're taking care of our infrastructure, but also keeping in mind the value of of large trees.

Yeah, I just wanted to bring it up to the board and let you uh start thinking about it because it is it is a thing that we are feels like we're kind of going in a circle with, and I I need to find a solution that works for everyone.

And um I just wanted to start that discussion.

Thank you, Brian.

I look forward to receiving that uh more information.

Any any questions from the Yeah, are you taking these by case by case situations or are you trying to set a standard?

No, I'm trying I'm asking more on the lines of changing materials, mid-sidewalk, um, you know, trying to snake sidewalks.

So the other the other side of this is we could go in, put a rubber sidewalk in, and two years from now that tree continues to grow and all of a sudden it's out of compliance because the compliance standards are pretty strict uh on slopes.

So it just makes it it makes it difficult to uh to deal with.

So I would concur with Brian uh Brian.

This has been an ongoing issue that uh we've toggled this back and forth between uh two different deport uh boards and departments, and I understand the the benefit of both, but I'll uh understand that uh if we don't do the sidewalks, then we create the trip it hazards, which also could contribute to our uh you know, lawsuits that we you know, our tort claims that we have, and then I also understand the benefits being the person who's also responsible for urban forestry also understand the benefits.

So this this any kind of guidance between the two boards, uh I've I've listened to the argument on both sides and hear the argument on both sides, but it would be nice to come to some kind of uh reasonable consensus of what do we do in scenarios of a case-by-case scenario.

All of them, uh of course, uh you know, Sean and I have had the same conversation.

You know, a lot of this we are uh reaping the uh uh repercussions of planting the wrong tree in the wrong place.

And that's that's pretty much of what we're all suffering when it comes to scenarios like this.

It was you know, and I think that's why it's important that if uh for the generalized public going forward, make sure that we are planting the right trees in the right place so that we don't have to have those issues and those conversations about tearing up the infrastructure or taking down a tree.

That's just my two sets.

Sure.

I agree with you a hundred percent.

Yeah, I'm Brian knows how much I am passionate about sidewalks in the city and how there's no budget for it.

Um I'm happy to be in those conversations to find a solution.

But I like I I love trees too, so I'm gonna do that.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, thank you for bringing that up.

I can add a little context because I sit on the uh tree advisory board on council tonight.

Uh so this is an ongoing conversation.

I think next Thursday's meeting uh we'll be talking about.

I'm gonna I'm doing some research into this because I did share with the engineers office center and sort of what we're doing to kind of show that we're making progress, they're kind of investigating the difference in the cost.

I've explained the cost of you know, if we tried to route it around this tree, and the feedback I got was well, we're not taking down a uh healthy tree.

So uh they want me to look into ways that we can and their understanding was the property owner is responsible for the sidewalk.

So it was uh so we're gonna look into sort of a and I was sent a really long document about how like a different city in a different state, how they kind of go through a framework on a case by case, which is probably what we're gonna have to do and look at it.

Okay, what type of tree is it, how tall is it, how old is it?

Because he had calculations of how much value you get in return for for having a certain type of shade tree.

Right.

And he said that's the thing we're not getting here.

It's like we're just uh so it was more, but this was the first time in the the three years I've covered it that this was brought up.

So this is good that we're finally addressing it.

But from what I've heard, I've heard that this has been brought up before, and then I don't know if we ever get it to a finish line.

So let's the goal at this time is to get it to that finish line.

So um so we'll be talking about it next Thursday and then probably uh over the next couple months.

So I'll make sure to give uh Marco an update so that he can keep you guys informed.

Thank you.

Sounds good.

Yeah.

Thanks for that update.

Is there any public business to come before the board?

Seeing none, can I get approval a motion for approval of bills and payrolls?

So move.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

And can I get a motion for adjournment?

So move.

I'll second that.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

This meeting is adjourned.