All right, colleagues, we're gonna get started on this very casual uh municipal corporations committee on this day of February 4th.

Um tonight's agenda is light, it is really just an open discussion amongst members to um lay out our expectations for the year, um, particularly hosting meetings outside of this room and throughout the city.

Um if you served with me on parks, you know I'm a big fan of getting out of the CCB.

It's not an easy place for people to access and get to, so I'd much rather um have the ability to take it to the actual municipal corporations and perhaps let them see those facilities that their tax dollars um help support and fund.

Um, as well as any particular agenda items that we'd like to see discussed from our municipal corporations uh throughout the year.

Particularly, I recall in last year's budget season, uh several of you commented about Health and Hospital Corporation and wanting them to come back before us to discuss the um or break down their budget and have a little bit more in-depth conversations.

Um, and then the third thing that I have, unless something imminent should happen, uh I'll we're gonna be canceling July's committee meeting uh is for you guys to have the the summer.

So if we can make sure that all the municipal corporations know that's the expectation again, if some sort of fiscal matter happens that they actually absolutely have to have us meet, uh then we will do that.

So first question to our attorney or legal counsel.

What are the rules with regards to hosting meetings outside of the building?

I believe the state law changed last year.

So what does it look like?

Does it complicate it?

It does help to do this.

She's listening to minutes and she knows what happens.

Now it the only change was for if you are an entity in a government facility that is meeting in the normal space that the legislative body meets in.

You have you have to have them taped or something.

So ours are always taped, so nothing really changed for you guys, or and or and or streamed live.

So nothing really changed for you all.

Okay.

So you can have them wherever.

Usually channel 16 is pretty, and as long as they're not five other things going on.

If there's two other things like today, there's two things going on.

One will stream live.

The one the other will be taped and run later.

Um, sometimes they'll do them on the two different channels.

I don't know where you see that other channel.

I've never seen the second gym, but they'll they'll stream them the other way.

They as long as it's taped, and it can be seen live or taped.

That's all that matters.

And like you said, channel 16 is pretty good at following the city wherever parks goes all over.

This parks committee goes all over.

So as long as it's someplace where I mean I would go.

I think I told somebody, I go test it out ahead of time.

There are a couple of times when parks board met when I was representing them at a gym where the the cut uh uh the acoustics.

Oh no, I was okay.

The acoustics were bad, and so it was hard just to hear across the room.

So yeah, I think we had that and uh I think we had it at one of the park rangers facility.

That was a tough one.

And it's so I would do that just to test it out or make sure, but most of if you're gonna go to most of the Muni Corps are being streamed, so they have a meeting room.

So if you go to Capital Improvement Board, they've got where they normally meet, and I'm gonna meet there in that room.

I don't know, we'd have to make arrangements or you know, um, I don't know where health and hospital meets, but they have meeting rooms and conferences and stuff.

So no big deal.

So I suppose on that conversation, I'd like for our March meeting to go ahead and um where do we want to go?

Let's how about we work with our municipal corporations and see who's ready to host us?

Um, the library, CIB, airport authority, NDO, and uh Health and Hospital Corporation.

Leslie, were you gonna say something?

Okay.

We had uh sorry.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh we had a discussion on that.

So if you want to change them around, we can discuss the set.

Do you have them with you?

Do you know CIB and library is March over at the CIB?

Okay.

Um other months I can't remember off the top of my head, but that was the first one that I remember us discussing that you wanted to have it at uh CIB.

But if you want to change anything, that's just fine.

Can you email that to the committee so they're aware of where we're gonna be meeting at?

Um then okay, so that part of what's taken care of.

Another item is to ask our board appointees specific to those municipal corporations to attend those uh meetings and be prepared to give a uh five-minute briefing about things that have been going on and um the work that they've been doing.

Committee members, any comments on that.

Just briefly thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh I I agree with that and support that entirely.

I also wonder, I have no problems with any current board appointees that I can think of right now, but when and if we get vacancies, um I've noticed we tend to have just like one person come before us and not really a competitive process for fill in board vacancies.

I know that's partially just timing and things like that, but I would just love to see some way that the committee could weigh in a little bit more publicly and try to figure out like what role are we trying to fill with a vacancy, et cetera.

Uh when and if that comes up was my only thought.

Thank you.

Counselor Gibson.

Well, thank you, Mr.

Chair, and I uh like the idea of going out to our municipal corporations and just to understand more about where they are and how things are progressing.

I really like the idea about uh going to uh the library.

Um I would love uh hope they uh they they've made some commitments about the the East 38th Street Library.

So I'm hoping that uh I can get a timeline on that, and me and Keith can get a gig on that.

So uh that's that'd be very interesting.

So I would just encourage that.

Thank you.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Um I would just say I talked to Director Pierce today of IndieGo and told her that we were gonna have this meeting and this is what we're gonna talk about.

And she they have a boardroom at their location on 38th ish in post, um, and would love to have us there.

And they could also even if we don't have to go live, we could even take a meeting on a bus.

We could do a bus tour, but we could also take a meeting on a bus, which might be an interesting thing, even if it's a s like a seated bus too, somewhere.

The the issue is once people are on, they can't get off.

Well, we have to then publish it so that people can participate.

Now, IHBC did a tour of historic buildings, and we it was a lot.

It was a lot.

So we had buses and we had cars, and we had to stop at a certain time and say we're gonna be here.

If you want to participate in this tour of historic buildings, you can get on the bus or drive and buy.

It was a lot.

Um we did it though.

We didn't know.

We might skip that.

I would say maybe outside it'd be really cool if we had a bus tour of where the blue line is going, just as counselors.

I think that would be a neat thing.

I also wanted to suggest if we do a library, because we now have six sensory certified libraries in in Indianapolis, which is amazing.

Uh April is autism acceptance month, and it would be kind of neat to highlight what the libraries have done in April along with that.

So just throwing that out there.

Duly noted, thank you.

Can you make a note of that and we'll discuss that?

Um the only other comp piece that I have for discussion are agenda items.

So a few of you walked in a little bit later.

Um last year in budget season, it was mentioned multiple times that you guys had a wish to have Health and Hospital Corporation come before us and have their different experts come to break down their budget a little bit more for deeper dive.

Are there any other items?

So we'll make sure that uh when we schedule Health and Hospital Corporation basically they need to bring all their budget teams with them on that.

Councilor Brown.

I think it would be nice if like an organization like Health and Hospital Corp, which is has so many things underneath it, had somebody from Eskenazi come and explain, had somebody from the health department come and explain, almost kind of break down their sectors for us because we look at the budget as one big lump, but it's really these multiple countywide agencies that I think would be kind of good.

Yeah, counselor Allen.

That's right.

Counselor Brown.

Thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh thank you, Counselor Brown senior.

Uh I I think on that same point, um, you know, it strikes me that municipal corporations are just one way for uh the population to administer a still public service.

And so, for example, like uh CEO Pierce, I think did a really great job of trying to talk to those of us who had significant bus routes in our districts about the fare increases and try to get our input and weigh in early on.

And that said, I just wish I I feel like as elected officials, we should kind of um try to get our arms around the uncomfortable conversations about that.

And I would have loved if we could have had public discussion about that as a committee, whether or not the city is gonna be able to cough up the money to to fill that gap or philanthropy could, et cetera.

Um, but it just I just felt a little disappointed that indigo got left kind of holding the bag about that whole fare increase.

Um when really it's just a city service, it just happens to be a municipal corporation.

So I don't know how to operationalize that.

Maybe it's as we take a tour, it's like, okay, what are some difficult conversations or what's your funding situation, just to have more of a public conversation about that?

Um, but yeah, I've been trying to ring rack my brain about how to how we could have gotten ahead of that.

Thanks.

Counselor Allen.

Thank you.

Uh Mr.

Chairman.

So um, Councillor Brown, this is where I will have to ask you a question, and anybody can answer this question.

Um for me, if that was indie go's um process to increase the fair.

Is it our responsibility to help engage the community?

Because that was one of the things that I encourage them to do is make sure that they encourage specifically my community, and especially when they was breaking down and given the ratio of you know, black women rioting the bus versus black mothers and white, you know, when they was giving that ratio, I wanted to make sure that they were engaging the community and was partnering with um P30, even coming to when my church did a community resource fair, um, invited them out to that that um coming to the um community far east side alliance meeting.

So I guess for me, and I'm all about controlling the narrative.

So my question is is that a responsibility as us as a municipal corporation committee to engage the community, or does that fall back on indie go with that community engagement?

Yeah.

Well, I guess I would say I think for um the fee increase, right?

I mean, it was all it was their decision to be made, and they had a multitude of public meetings and hearings.

I think where it was more upon us was educating the community and letting them know that these are the outlets, right?

And if a particular counselor was opposed to it, they could be there.

And um, but I think certainly too, if issues ever arise to the occasion, um, giving a little bit of a shout out, such as the leap project and what's going on with Eagle Creek, the chair of that committee's having a hearing and giving the public that opportunity to weigh in a little bit more, right?

So I think we could have done that too if there was that sediment.

Um I don't believe personally during that entire process that I I don't think I ever heard from one constituent on the fare increase.

You know, I saw things on social media, but nobody ever actually reached out, sent an email or a text or anything of that nature.

Are there any other agenda items that well actually I'm gonna bring it to you?

Did you want to say something or have a question?

I did have a question.

So okay, so just to really quickly you guys were talking about the uh municipal corporations budgets and whatnot in those presentations.

Would those with those Mini Corps be talking about that on their various months or at their actual budget presentation themselves that provided that more detail?

I think actually Councilor Brown broke it down for Health and Hospital Corporation.

I think it was a deeper dive into their different uh there may be a budget component, but it wasn't more focused on the budget as much as it was their what they do more so like we all when we think of CIB, you can only segment it this stadium, this stadium, this the medicine.

But when you think of health and hospital court is such a large thing, I was thinking more of breaking down each organization because we approved their budget in one large lump that we may not all know everything that falls inside of there.

Okay, so when we get to like September and their and their budget are introduced, that would be our status quo, but the part of diving more in depth about their operations or whatnot, that would be done during the the prior meetings throughout the year.

Okay, that was all that was my question.

Counselor Allen.

Sorry.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Uh so when you say do the breakdown, I know going to the budget.

Breakdown is gonna be split up in several meetings, not just one.

And the reason why I asked that because I've been on the other side of the fence, and it's a long process to hear the breakdown from HHC, IMES.

Um, they do have the long-term um facility, they do have Eskenazi.

And so I just want to make sure that when we ask them to do that, which I do think it makes sense to break it up instead of just doing it lumping it all together.

But I just want to make sure we know what we're getting into, and it may take hours.

Okay.

I think the idea was to have a pre-committee meeting where we sort of break things up.

Maybe you learn more.

You can ask us questions ahead of time.

You may get those answers offline, or they may be prepared during their budget presentations to answer those.

Instead, we've got to they've got to share it with two others, one or two others.

Councilor Graves.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair Keith Graves, uh District 9 on the East Side.

Um, I I absolutely understand what my colleagues are saying.

Uh I do think that that's a great idea.

And I'm I mean, like over the next few months versus during budget season.

And it doesn't have to be specific to this budget that's going to be outlined later this year, but just kind of the structure.

These are some of the things that we're thinking about.

These are some of the things that we want uh to accomplish, and this is why this is what we did last year.

Uh things like that, I think go a long way to educate our community uh as well as some of our colleagues.

So uh I I can definitely visualize that being meaningful and helpful um a part of our uh next few months.

Yeah.

Um Leslie.

No, it's okay.

It just made me think of like a school girl or something.

Um agenda item I think should be up for discussion.

Indigo, we briefly touched on this last year, the um updated bus stops and funding them.

Um I think there was some questions with regards to one, how many bus stops do we have?

How many of them have been updated?

How many of them still don't have sidewalks or benches or anything?

There was some um, I know I think the east side got an investment this year or late last year, maybe.

We got some investments.

So if they could just speak to that, because I think they said that they're they were gonna didn't they say something about they were they were giving they were doing a study or something, they were analyzing it.

Well, I last it's open conversation.

Come on.

I know for me, um, the last two years I've asked about the writer writership, you know, from like uh coming down 42nd Street, going over to Pendleton Pike and coming down 38th um street, going all the way to Carroll Road or even a Washington Street, only because there is businesses that is going further east and is creating more traffic, and then it's more homes that are being built, has um German Church Road to Kill Road, so it only makes sense if we got these two buses going towards uh Pendleton Pike and or Washington Street where there's Walmart or Kroger's at I would think it would increase the ridership there, and for my understanding, they don't even look at that every three years.

That's my that's my that's the reason why I kept saying, can we start looking at it more and more because it doesn't make sense if we're doing all of these increases on infrastructure and businesses?

Why aren't we at least looking at it at least a year, maybe a year and a half versus wait every three to five years to do that?

Yeah.

Um other agenda items?

Councilor Brown.

Tiny one on that same point is you mentioned earlier, Mr.

Chairman, and I'll say it on the mic so you get credit.

Uh that you volunteered for the Snow Buddies program and and helped uh several neighbors, which thank you for that.

I was thinking about whether it could make sense for Indigo to be plugged in with that because there were many bus stops in my neighborhood that did not get plowed at all, and so I saw people standing out in the street waiting for their bus.

So, but I think it would be pretty unreasonable to ask Indigo to plow every single sidewalk for every single bus stop.

So good point.

Anything else?

Um CIB.

Probably would be time for them to tell us what's going on with this money that we've invested in a stadium construction design.

That could be an agenda item for them by the time they come around.

All right, anything else?

All right, committee members.

I'm uh that's all I've got.

Councilor Graves.

Thanks, Mr.

Chair.

I just want to say thank you for this type of leadership.

This is excellent.

I think this is what we what we should be doing.

And uh I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Um just want us to be a little bit more, you know, the the public has a lot of questions, need to hear things, and and I think the more transparent and the more information we can give them, the better.

Right.

So all right, colleagues, we are adjourned for the evening.

Have a good rest of the night.

Thank you.