Uh well, good morning.

Sorry for my tardiness.

Um I will hereby call to order the January 7th meeting of the Board of Public Health and Safety.

My name is Andrew Merkley, the director of the Office of Public Health and Safety.

Um Abby, can you please call the roll for 10 minutes?

All right, Ingram.

President Webster.

Present.

Thank you.

Um has everyone had an opportunity to review last month's meeting or minutes?

Yes.

Any discussion or changes?

Hearing none, uh, I will uh entertain a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting.

So moved.

Second.

Motion has been moved and seconded.

Uh minutes passed.

Uh the first item on our agenda today is item number 010726A.

And we'll be hearing from IMPD.

Sorry.

Good morning.

Trying to squeeze into the chair.

Now I'm stuck.

Uh good morning, Mr.

Chairman and members of the board.

I am Kevin Weddington.

I am the deputy chief for IMPD administration.

And I am here today to request uh approval to enter into a new slash renewal lease agreement for five years uh for our uh investigative property or investigative location at 4 1 4134 North Keystone Avenue.

Um I guess I'm I'm seeing 4150.

Um the lease legal term is 4150, but we use 4134 as a mailing address.

I just realized that.

Uh and this is uh where we will lease uh right at 27,010 square feet.

It is a five-year lease uh with an option to renew for additional five-year agreements.

So the history of this building is that um for over 20 years, uh Indianapolis Marion County has occupied this space.

Uh the youth emergency services, the Marion County Sheriff, the Marion County prosecutor, um, family family advocacy.

Uh there have been a number of county agencies who have occupied this building.

And when IMPD and Marion County Sheriff merged in 2007, uh, we moved some of our investigative units there.

And uh IMPD paid uh a proportionate share of the lease through the Marion County Auditor, so we never had our own lease uh with the police department in 2022.

All of the Marion County entities vacated that building, uh leaving us as the remaining tenant.

Um so in May of 2021, IMPD CFO Mitchell came before this board uh to request a new lease with uh the then receiver uh bank uh who had taken the building back in receivership from the landlord um and we entered into our first lease agreement in 2022 that was approved by this board.

It was publicly vetted uh as the process we're doing right now.

Uh all lease agreements have to be uh publicized, uh public hearings, council approval.

We went through all of that the last time.

So what happened was we signed a new three-year lease in 2022 with options to renew.

The landlord, we needed them to do some additional building modifications and tenant improvements for us to for them to agree to do that and roll it into the cost of the rent.

They asked for a new five-year lease.

And per state statute, you can't renew a lease for a period longer than the initial lease period.

So what we did is we renewed in August under board authority of the original contract.

We renewed for three years, so we're currently under a lease agreement, but now we're coming before you to start a new five-year to replace that three-year and then continue forward.

Uh we've increased our footprint, we decreased our footprint the last lease term.

We've increased it a little bit this time to where we're now at 27,001 square feet.

We've consolidated two other satellite investigative offices into this building.

So it's more efficient, it's better cost savings, uh, it's more effective for supervision, uh, for assets, resources, technology.

Um it's uh a good uh central location, lots of parking, accessibility to victims, uh it's in the community.

Uh we have a good partnership with the landlord, uh and the price per square foot is uh very competitive.

Um we would ask for your approval of that.

And I'd have be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Uh questions from the board.

Um I only have one question.

I thought and maybe you said this and I might have just misheard it.

At some point you guys had more space in this location and in reduce the city county did oh so when we when we were the last man standing, we had to take on that extra space to fulfill the original lease obligation with the Marion County auditor.

So we had more square footage than we needed because of those other county agencies that had vacated.

And then once we renewed in 22, we reduced our footprint, and this time we increased it by like 600 square feet.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

And what uh what is that square footage?

27,000 zero one zero.

That's not what I'm gonna ask, sorry.

I'm sorry.

The price per square foot.

Um so in this renewal term.

Find it in the agree with here.

In in this uh new renewal term, we are now at 14.50 per square foot, all in.

So they provide janitorial, um they they provide everything in uh total turnkey.

Wow.

That's a pretty competitive rate.

It is a very competitive rate.

We've got our city real estate manager here uh to put him on the spot.

And uh, I'm not the expert in real estate, but I do this a lot, and I would hope he would agree that's a competitive rate.

Yeah, we got a brother's opinion on value that put it around 15 to 70 market rate.

Good job negotiating it down.

And we were at 1385 a square foot last term.

It did bump up a little bit, but they did about 120,000 dollars of tenant improvements for us, putting up some demising walls, new carpet, new paint, new lights.

Um so they they put about 120,000 in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any additional questions or discussion?

All right, hearing none, I will entertain a motion to uh adopt item number 010726A.

So moved.

Second.

Item has been moved and seconded.

All in favor?

I mean, hearing none, the motion is adopted.

Thank you very much.

Mr.

Chairman, if I could um if if I could, um so I came back to the police department from running a different city agency last year.

Uh you all know that.

Um so uh yesterday, I'm sorry, on Monday, uh I am super excited that the chief uh promoted one of our command staff members already, an existing member, he was a major in the command staff.

Uh he's now been elevated to the rank of commander and he is now my number two for admin.

Uh he's sitting here, Seth Farrell.

And then to his left as uh Lieutenant Nate Schmidt, uh Nathan Schmidt, he's filling a role that I filled 10 years ago, and I just wanted to put it out there that uh I see in the very near future both of those two covering these hearings uh if I'm not available.

Uh but uh Commander Farrell and and Lieutenant Schmidt will be uh also acting uh to help me get things on track.

Great.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you very much.

All right, next on the agenda item number 010726B.

I don't know that we have to use the contract for this one.

Um draft the contracts agreement has area.

It's in I think it's in the middle somewhere.

Yeah, I saw on the computer.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Associate.

This is a Can I pause you just for a second?

Can you state your name for the record and title?

I'm Dintab Brahman.

Um the new grant manager for um Indiana Task Force.

And I'm Tom Neal, division chief with the Amplus Fire Department and Program Manager for Indiana Task Force One.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Um so I was saying that I came before you to seek approval for a contract with um John Gerdish and Associate.

This is to provide a training to our logistic members on Hazma regulations, the align with the 49 CFR.

Um NSAF good regulations and military air lift, also call AFM AN 246.

Um this will include the shipping of lithium batteries, something that we offer.

This will be a six-month contract with enough to exceed 23,45, and it will be coming from our 2024 grant money.

Any questions or discussion?

So these are funds that are in a grant or fundamental grant.

How how um when is the 24 grant scheduled to expire?

Um 2027.

Okay.

So it's a three-year grant you have got.

Okay.

This is a training grant.

Uh-huh.

Well, because I think we've had in the past, we've had a training.

Yes.

Some training.

So this is this is the FEMA use our cooperative agreement, which we operate um our funds through to the city.

And so this grant is a 36-month period of performance, and so we still have training money within that grant.

Um, so that this training can be paid for out of the 24 funds, which we just received the 25 funds to operate in 26.

So we still have money left, so we're trying to spend down the older grants first, and so we still have balances in the training uh budget so that we can pay for this training.

And do you anticipate any additional trainings um to be scheduled and confirmed that will come before this group?

Um throughout the year we may have additional trainings.

Um but with this training being held, it's currently scheduled to be at the end of this month.

It's a four-day training for 23 individuals, and this is a FEMA required training per their position description.

And so um there's only two companies that provide this training, and so we use John Gerish, we've used him for a number of years, and he's very, you know, he comes in person, he's very knowledgeable, he's considered a subject matter expert in it.

And so um our 23 members will spend four days with him and get the certification that they need to meet the female position description requirements.

Uh I have a question just about the the grants.

Um, like you said, you um the task forces come here for other things.

And you talked about the grants and you know, when you receive them and how you're you know expending the money, the dollars within the grants.

When you receive the grant, are the grants earmarked to say they're only for this purpose, or do you just get an allotment of dollars and say we'll allot within the task force, we're gonna allow 25,000 towards training and 25.

Remember, I think you guys bought a truck or something.

Yeah.

So um the FEMA cooperative agreement funds for we we are now on 17 years of having a flat line budget from FEMA.

So we're not a line item budget within the FEMA FEMA itself.

So we fall under um preparedness grants.

So we call they call it a cooperative agreement.

And so with that, um we uh develop a city budget which is submitted through OFM, and then we have a federal budget which we have to abide by because FEMA requires us to meet certain requirements for position descriptions.

We have continuing education, um, we have a variety of other things, but we allocate money to not only for admin costs for salaries and benefits, part-time uh contracted workers, but then we have training costs.

This is a training cost in which our training manager uh battalion chief Jay Settergren is here.

Um so we allocate this, you know, our budget for FEMA as well as the city budget.

We cover training admin, and then we have equipment needs, which if you follow the federal government, FEMA and the federal government is the defined equipment as anything over $10,000 starting January 1st.

And so that changes things before it was anything over $5,000.

So they've changed the definition, so everything else is supplies.

And so and then we also have storage and maintenance, which we pay a lease, just like IMPD was just getting approved, so we're in a 10-year lease uh with the owner that owns our facilities, and so um you know that's how we budget our money in in those in those categories, yeah.

Thank you.

This is just a comment.

Um under pricing number three on in the scope of services, uh your your written number for the cost for additional students does not match the uh the numerical version.

Um so the total that we're being charged for the number of students that we have, and then the cost that's listed individually is anything over the 23 students.

Sure, I understand that, but they don't but the the words don't match the numerical.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't yeah, the total is 23,435.

Okay.

Oh, because it says 23,435.

No, if you go to the next line, it says 333.40 cents, but then in parentheses it says 459.41.

They don't match.

Yeah, so you I don't know if that matters.

I haven't seen it, so I apologize.

In the recommendation, in in pro under pricing, that's the last sentence of the first paragraph.

I think are you looking at the contract?

I'm looking at the scope of services.

Maybe I'm making it.

Yeah, so this that contract that you have is a draft because Adam Wicker has not approved the contract yet.

He still has uh revisions for it.

Okay.

And so uh Abby had asked me to submit uh draft contract so that at least you guys had a version of what uh they were under two years ago when they performed the same training.

What I will do is make sure that that makes sense legally and what the price is before it's actually uh gone through the portal for C.

Understood.

Yeah, just wanted to make sure you guys are aware.

Okay, no, I appreciate that.

Any other questions, discussion?

None, I will entertain a motion to adopt item number 010726B.

So moved.

Second motion has been moved and seconded.

All in favor?

Any opposed?

Hearing none, the motion is adopted.

Okay, thank you.

All right, so the last item on our agenda is item number 010726 C.

I believe it's also you.

Yeah, we were um I sent an email to Abby to invite all of you to our facility for a tour.

Since many of you are new and you don't have a lot of background on what we are and what we do, um, other than the short news clips in the news media when we deploy, um, we wanted to invite you guys out for an opportunity to tour our facility and kind of get uh a little bit more awareness and knowledge of what we do since we come before you guys, and since we're a I hate to say the word, but we're a quasi-federal agency under the city umbrella.

Yeah, and so it's a little different um perspective, and what we come before you is to approve professional services agreements and a lease agreement, uh purchasing of equipment, and so that you guys have a better awareness of what we are and what we do and how we do it.

Yeah, I I think we'd be open to that.

Um feel free to work with Abby uh and we can get something scheduled.

Yeah, and she asked me for dates, and we're pretty open.

Um, so it's kind of if you guys look at your calendars and decide do you want to do it during the daytime morning?

We could even do an evening if you guys are busy um doing your other duties, and so we can do an evening tour if that fix works best for you all.

And uh Rich, you're more than welcome to come out.

Um and so um, or if Ethan wants to come, anyone's available if you guys want to come.

Um I I welcome you guys.

Great.

Abby, can you send out uh some options to the group so that we can pick a date?

Thanks.

All right, um, with nothing else on the calendar, I believe we can adjourn for today.

Do we need to adrup the opening room in the chair there?

You know, I should.

Ethan is uh no longer with the city, so uh we will have Rich is filling in for him until we have a new corporation council.

Right.

All right.

Well, thank you.

Thank you.

We adjourned one else.

Totally needed.

Yeah, we need to do that.