City Council Update 12/04/24
Hello Neighbors! Here to give you an update of the most recent council meeting, land use meeting and exciting happenings in Carmel.
Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We were blessed with a house full of family!
CITY COUNCIL MEETING UPDATES
Special Recognition
We recognized two fabulous young people, Julia Hohne & Madeleine Arroyo, who were winners at the Junior World Food Championship. I'm so proud of these young ladies and look forward to seeing them achieve their culinary dreams in the future!
We also recognized local artist John Moore who created the beautiful Love Eternal Sculpture on Carter Green in Carmel.
Report from City Departments
The CRC director Henry Mestetsky updated us on all the ongoing building projects in the city. As part of the report we discussed parking issues in the city and a parking study to help us plan better in the future. The study should be conducted by late summer.
The Climate Action Committee updated us on their progress in looking at issues and goals established through the Climate Action Plan. Transportation and stormwater management were discussed. The quarterly reports are important to update the council on how internal departments work on the implementing aspects of the climate action plan. Sustainability is important for the future of Carmel, however there was some internal pushback on the goals and even the need to have a committee. Both Councilor Locke and I feel very strongly that the committee be given resources that it needs to be successful. We need a centralized place to focus the efforts of city departments and report to constituents on the importance of implementing the Carmel Climate Action Plan.
Ordinances & Resolutions
Ordinance D-2726-24- Third Amendment to the Interlocal Cooperation Agreement
Returned back from the Land Use Committee with a positive recommendation. We believe that this will allow the parks department to try and work on long term funding solutions. We have a gold winning parks system and we need to continue to allow it to operate in a way that keeps it independent. The city and the township need to come together to take care of the capital investments in the parks system.
Ordinance D-2740-24: Amends Chapter 2 Article 1 sections 2-1,2-3,2-6,2-10,2-12,2-13 &2-14 of Carmel City Code
Clarifies the duties and components of government
Remains in Finance Committee
Ordinance D-2741-24: Amends Chapter 2 Article 6 sections 2-302,302 and 303 of Carmel City Code
Ordinance amending the budget procedures of the City of Carmel
Remains in Finance Committee
Petition for Ally/Street Vacation or Order to Remove Obstructions
Remains in Land Use Committee
Resolution CC-11-18-24-06: A confirmatory resolution designating an economic revitalization area and approving tax abatement for qualifying certain personal property Alliance of Cooperative Energy Services Power Marketing LLC
Resolution confirming the designation of the real property located at 4140 W 99th St, Carmel as an economic revitalization area and granting a partial abatement of property taxes attributable to certain eligible equipment installed therein.
NOTE: I believe that the capital investment of $6M in personal property, the retention of 214 current positions and increase of 45 more employees at an average salary of $118,000 that the ACES corporation has promised is a good deal for the City of Carmel.
Very proud to announce its passage with a vote of 9-0 in support!
First Reading of Ordinance D-2746-24. Ordinance appropriates funds for Prime Life Enrichment and Historical Society's operation expenses
I do believe that Prime Life and the Historical Society both provide important services to our community. The amount of the transfer being requested is $100K for each entity directly to the MAC budget. We need to work on how we provide funding to sustain these organizations. Currently, the money is coming out of the police department budget because they were over budgeted. According to Carmel PD Chief Sterling, this was because they have not yet achieved their staffing goals and so did not use the amount of money they had budgeted. No other policing programs will be impacted by this transfer.
NOTE: The questions of transferring monies within the budget brings up the importance of being more deliberate and careful as we established policies and procedures for the budgeting for next year. The past administration's practices of allowing large amounts of money to be encumbered by departments to hold on to for next year has, in my opinion, led to bad budget practices. I am pleased to hear these will be limited in the future.
The entire process of working on more accurate budgeting and planning for the next years budget is critical. I feel very strongly that we as city counselors are responsible for ensuring that the public's dollars are accurately accounted for so we will be tabling these transfers that still have remaining questions until the next council meeting.
Ordinance D-2749-24: Appropriates $71,900 from 2018 encumbrances for sidewalk and drainage improvements in the 2024 budget in the Auman-Newark neighborhood.
Ordinance D-2751-24: Creates Fund #910 and amends Fund #911 in order to manage forfeiture monies for the City of Carmel and the Hamilton Boone County Drug Task Force.
This allows the drug task force and the police department to operate their own seperate accounts to manage forfeitures, one recent forfeiture brought in approximately $100K.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-02: Transfers $104,232.37 within the Human Resources Department budget to account for the department taking on the payroll function and contracting for ADP, and an interim HR director.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-03: Transfers $55,000.00 from full time regular line item into the other contractual services line item within the 2024 Carmel Police Department Budget.
This pays for the contractual services of former police Chief Barlow.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-04: Transfers the $197,500.00 within the 2024 Mayors Office Budget.
Part of this accounts for the salary of the chief of staff and the PTO of the previous departed chief of staff, the rest is for the remodeling of the mayors office suite. This resolution will be pending more information on the specifics.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-05: Transfers $275,000.00 within the 2024 Marketing and Community Relations Department.
This was tabled and held till next meeting pending more specifics.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-06 Transfers $5,000 from the Grant Fund into the General Fund to reimburse previously appropriated expenditures relating to festival and community events.
Resolution CC-12-02-24-07: Transfers $8,000 within the 2024 MVH fund engineering department budget to cover departmental promotions and personnel departures.
Ultimately we are determined to be financially responsible and committed to advocate for transparency. It is our fiduciary responsibility as a city council. We are actively going to work to ensure that we are doing our job as the legislative branch for the city in a thoughtful and deliberate way.
Land Use Committee Meeting
We held our last land use committee meeting for the year and we conducted a review of the sections of the UDO that we were able to examine this year. We are excited to have a plan in place to be able to fully update this document by this time next year and appreciate the work of Mike Hollibaugh, Adrienne Keeling and Sergey Grechukhin for all their expertise.
I encourage all of you to come out and celebrate the holidays at the Christkindlmarkt! I also encourage you to Shop Small in Carmel this Saturday! More details at Shop Carmel Facebook event page
If you have a fifth grade Carmel student who would like to give the mayoral update at a council meeting next year please reach out to me and I will be happy to put your student's name forward.
As always if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please reach out to me. I’m always here to listen and advocate for you. If you wish to review the details of our city meeting, the recording is available here, and the meeting agenda is available here! If you’d like to attend a city council meeting, committee hearing, or other council events, please visit our website for the calendar!
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