President's Letter:
Dear Neighbors –
I hope you are all doing well! It is
nice to see everyone out and about as we walk to and from school.
Hopefully the cooler weather holds for a while so we can all spend
more time outside.
As you have seen in the recent weekly
newsletters, Mayor Emily Styron and the Town have begun the process
of pulling together development ideas for the entrance to the
Village. (More information can be found at
http://www.zionsville-in.gov/567/Gateway-Redevelopment-Plan)
The VRA has expressed interest in being involved in the process
given that the development area will impact most, if not all,
residents on a daily basis. This is a huge opportunity for us to
pass along our ideas to the Mayor and Town at the beginning of the
process. The input meetings are set to begin at some point in the
fall but the VRA has a survey out now to gather ideas from our
members (https://forms.gle/xprWfLgDDDgvJdi19).
Please consider filling it out if you haven’t yet.
I hope everyone has a great September!
Best,
Julia
president@zvra.com
Town Council:
Greetings
As many of you know, Town Council meets
twice a month. This wasn’t always the case, it used to be a single
meeting a month, however in the spirit of ensuring issues didn’t
have to wait so long, the bi-month schedule was adopted a few years
ago. There is one evening meeting (7 PM) and one morning meeting
(7:30 AM), and they typically occur on the first and third Monday of
the month. They are more accessible than ever, especially in COVID
times as the Councilors themselves are participating via Zoom. The
public is welcome to attend/participate over Zoom, and all meetings
are live-streamed and archived on YouTube.
I will admit they are not always
action-movie caliber entertainment, but they generally include
several issues that can have local impact. I would highly encourage
you to attend a public meeting, whether it’s Town Council, Planning
Commission, BZA, or even some of the lighter attended meetings like
Safety Board or Parks Board. You will certainly learn something
about how your Town government is being run.
I looked over our meetings for August,
here are all the things discussed in those two meetings:
Approving of previous meeting
memorandums (X2) – Each meeting we approve the previous meeting
memorandum. This is done by Amy Lacy, the Town’s Municipal
Relations Coordinator. Each memo states how each issue was voted,
and who voted on it, to ensure that action items, public speakers,
and votes are properly documented for the record.
Purchase card approval ordinance –
Our new CFO, Tammy Havard, has asked that all purchasing be done on
Town-owned P-Cards instead of personal cards for reimbursement. It
both centralizes purchasing on a common platform and makes it much
more transparent in terms of who is spending what within the Town.
This was on both agendas because the ordinance requires two votes to
enact.
A resolution on designating an
area as in need of economic revitalization and property tax
abatement – It sounds funny having to do this for a Town as
prosperous as Zionsville, however this is something we have to do
for certain economic development opportunities. In this case it was
for a new Prologis distribution facility planned along I-65 in
Zionsville. I spoke about these in the last update, and the
economic power/engine they can provide for our Town revenue, and was
thrilled to see this passed unanimously.
A salary ordinance for the
wastewater department – One of our plant technicians, Danny
Stogsdill, passed his level 3 certification for running a wastewater
treatment plant. Not only was this a big achievement, but also
allows us to promote him and fill an open position. This was a
position that was budgeted for, but because it was open, we had to
amend the salary ordinance to show what he would make. That’s
unusual, typically we have budgeted positions in the salary
ordinance but this one wasn’t included for an unknown reason. The
good news is we fixed the glitch and have a more senior person in
the wastewater department to make sure what is flushed doesn’t
return!
One other note on this, because it was an ordinance
we would typically need two meetings to pass. Because of the
immediate needs, we did what’s called a three-step process, which
allows us to vote, vote to suspend the rules, and vote again. We
try to avoid this type of procedure, but have done it in the past
for salaries that may be needed for candidates that are available
today, both so we don’t lose them and pay them appropriately.
Approval of claims – All money
spent by the Town is sent through claims and is available for the
Council to review and approve. It is also a public document and
available for the public to review as well (aided now with the
p-cards). Since the Council approves the budget, it’s an
important step to ensure that what is budgeted is spent
appropriately.
Adjournment (X2) – Sometimes my
favorite agenda item, it’s the “class dismissed” item of the
meeting.
This wasn’t a particularly busy month
but does have a good representation of what can come across our
Council meetings.
Have a good rest of the Summer, Fall is
right around the corner.
