OurWeek The Grant County Record in Grant County · Regular meeting (part 1) · 2024-11-19 · full transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEfi3UzDtOg Exported Fri, 14 Aug 2026 22:40:04 GMT Source: YouTube automatic captions. The available transcript ends mid-sentence at 44:29; the remainder of part 1 is not indexed. Copied into the combined index from the marion-city-council-indexed report; same text, key prefixed by body. These transcripts are machine-generated. They garble proper nouns badly — company and personal names especially. Watch the recording before repeating any name, number, or quotation. The video is the record. ============================================================================== Indexed at https://ourweek.in/grant-county/reports/grant-county-record 0:28 e 0:58 e 1:28 e 1:58 e 2:28 e 2:58 e 3:28 e 3:58 e 4:28 e 4:58 e 5:28 e 5:58 e 6:28 e 6:58 e 7:28 e 7:58 e e 8:36 good evening we're going to call to order tonight's Maring common council meeting today's date is November 19th 2024 7 8:46 p.m. in Maran City Hall I welcome everybody that's here and um we're going to go ahead and go right into today's 8:54 prayer and today we have Pastor Tom mansbarger from Grace Community Church Pastor Pastor if you want to make your way to the mic uh make sure you hit the 9:01 red button and um share your prayer thank you let's pray together father thank you for this privilege and thank 9:09 you for these men and women around this table and I just pray tonight that you'll help us as a community help us to 9:16 be strong I pray for good leadership that we would do things that are best for the people of this community and Lord we would bring back that marry and 9:24 pride that we've always experienced bless us now and may we see good things happen and keep your hand upon us we thank you in Christ's name 9:34 amen thank you and to lead the Pledge of Allegiance councilwoman Erica divine al to the flag of the United 9:42 States of America to the for it stands 9:48 na God indivisible withy and justice for 9:55 all thank you again Pastor mansberger for coming tonight you're welcome to stay I really do appreciate um you 10:03 taking time at evening for us so thank you again all right uh we're going to go into roll call so Madame clerk roll call 10:11 Kane here Marshall Here For Eyes here Brunner here Klein here Divine here Wht 10:20 cgill here McKinley here all right thank you and so we're going to go into tonight's Community 10:28 spotlight and let me get this graphic pulled up here 10:35 first and tonight's Community Spotlight is Megan stra and um she is the new 10:42 owner or the owner of the new counseling um place here in town Megan why don't you to come up front here and um you 10:50 could stand on either side and uh so Megan um you come on over 10:57 here if you'd like uh Megan just recently opened one of uh Marian's newest counseling centers uh used to be 11:05 a chiropractic place right what was the Arnold Chiropractic yep so if you know where Arnold Arnold Chiropractic was what's the address 11:13 there1 West Street right behind tractor supply and launch yes so uh I've been 11:20 inside uh been it's beautiful in there renovated they've invested time money and 11:27 resources um into that building it looks phenomenal and not only have they invested into that building but I really 11:35 appreciate them investing in our people um and as we know you know I don't think you could ever have enough counseling 11:43 services and enough resources for our community um just for everyday counseling let alone addictions counseling um so we just really 11:52 appreciate Megan investing in Maran and opening a wonderful Counseling Service um available to to all of our residents 12:00 and our Grant County um and then of course the the mission I just wanted to read that is empowering the lives We Touch by healing hearts and nurturing 12:08 resilience res resilience to build a community where mental Wellness thrives so I think that was uh nailed it right 12:15 on the head so Megan I just want to uh give you the floor if you want to share anything um and maybe future plans you 12:23 have maybe with the counseling service sure yes well thank you for having me tonight I appreciate the the invitation 12:32 um he started with three therapists I just hired my 10th therapist and have um 12:40 two more identified that I will be making offers to probably this week and 12:46 have three interns coming in um January as well and then one um psych nurse 12:54 practitioner that will be I will be her preceptor in January we have 12:59 big goals and big plans um everything from possibly you know offering meds in 13:08 the future um we right now have one school contract we intend to build upon 13:15 that to um grow our school contracts uh right now we in the last in the last two 13:22 months we have served 75 students within the missal school corporation Within um 13:30 traditional just gaining clients to get 75 clients in two months is is a little 13:38 difficult to do but within our school contracts we are just really growing and we're not only able to serve the 13:44 students but their families as well um we are just the growth that we have seen has been incredible it's it's I thought 13:53 that we might have we have eight offices in our building and I thought we might have eight people 13:59 Maybe by you know a year from when we opened so next July um my goal is 20 14:08 employees by next October so um We're Dreaming big and I think we're gonna we're GNA get there um we have big goals 14:17 as far as the way we can support our local industry um critical incident support so that's something that I do as 14:26 a contractor was lafette um at a factory there was a person who lost their lives 14:34 lost their life in a factory and I went in and did um critical incident support for the team after that person was 14:42 tragically killed and so I um I went in that's something that I'm training my team to do and will be offering here in 14:50 Grant County so we're excited to be able to offer that that we have so much industry here that people get injured on 14:58 the job or are tragically killed on the job and we can come in as a local resource within 24 to 48 hours and meet 15:06 that need um just you know paranal support the family support we don't um 15:13 do addiction support we think that there are people who are really really great at doing that here locally and so we make those referrals um domestic 15:21 violence is something we can we can do but Hands of Hope is really crushing that and so we let them handle that 15:29 um I'm trying to think there's there's other service providers that we collaborate with and work well with um 15:39 but for now we're we're doing as much as we can do being a private practice here in Maran and seeing as many clients as 15:47 we can see within a week so great thank you so much yeah definitely I mean just the the rapid growth you've already had 15:56 just shows the need we have in our community so we just appreciate you investing your own time money and resources and expertise so thank you 16:04 again Megan um for for investing and marrying so yeah um I would like to get a quick photo if that's okay so if um 16:13 our unofficial photographer Marty if the rest of the council wants to come up 16:44 all right ready one two 16:59 no no he took all he took yes we did a lot 17:14 of yeah part of the reason I wanted to Spotlight is just so people know there are other resources in town and a new resource so um you know I encourage 17:23 anyone that especially going into this time of year I think this is appropriate to Spotlight this um a lot of people have struggles and a hard time going to 17:31 this time of year so if you're listening watching online or in here and you just need someone to talk to stop by um 17:40 Megan's uh counseling so thank you so much and moving on into the city employee 17:48 Spotlight there she is I making sure you didn't hide on me um one moment here let me Swap this out 17:59 okay so tonight's City Spotlight um is somebody that um doesn't 18:07 like to be in the spotlight which is the perfect candidate for a city employee Spotlight um well come on up Linda you 18:16 you come up here um so you know you can read the screen it just says she began her career in the mayor's office 18:24 um and really he's been with the city for 18 years and and um served in the controller's office the last 15 years 18:34 but uh Linda truly if you talk to anybody in City Hall is somebody that doesn't look for credit um but really 18:42 has been an engine driving this city for years across different administrations uh I was just at the um 18:50 City's Thanksgiving lunch in today and talking with our controller Dana GT and she was just commenting on how uh much 18:59 of an asset Linda was when Dana took over the controller position and really is just kind of an engine behind the scene and um I had reached out to her 19:08 before I put her on the agenda I didn't hear back from her in time so she ended up on the agenda anyways so I'm going to share this Linda I have to that when she 19:17 I kind of asked you know is that okay she's well I'd rather not you know I like to just be behind the scenes I'm like it's too late you're on the agenda 19:25 uh it's already been released and um but that just goes a show she just really is here for the right reasons and um she 19:34 does a phenomenal job I will say just in in my role as a council member and council president um she has been a very 19:43 very huge asset and just providing information from years past to current and so we just really appreciate you 19:50 Linda I know all the council members do and everybody in the audience here that's part of the administration just appre appreciates everything you've done 19:58 done so um yeah thank you so much and would you like to share any 20:06 words thank you president mck and Council for recognizing me mayor that hired me 20:14 back in 2006 thank him for giving me the opportunity to be able to serve the city as well as the 20:26 controllers Julie thank you for investing in me and nurturing me along the way I truly appreciate that um I don't take this 20:35 opportunity for granted I'm grateful every day to be able to serve not only the citizens of Marin but all of our 20:42 employees current employees and previous employees I truly thank you all so yeah well thank you Linda don't go anywhere 20:51 yet you also what you don't see is that she puts in countless hours Works overtime I mean there's many times we in a council meeting she's up in her office 21:00 watching it online doing her work um and you know the joke is we really like you because you run payroll around here too 21:07 you she gets everyone paid so yeah everyone she's the favorite yeah she gets everyone paid so thank you so much we definitely want to get a photo um if 21:15 everyone wants to come back up again also I I know from being with the city for so many years whenever there's a question that nobody knows everybody 21:22 says go to Linda 21:42 all right ready one two three 21:59 out thank you so much I know these add a little bit of time to the meeting um I re I recognize 22:09 that but I just think it's so important that we do this um so thank you council members for uh allowing this so yeah 22:17 we're going to move on and into the consent agenda for the approval minutes consideration of pre-approved claims and 22:25 consideration of claims so I would entertain a motion I got a motion by uh councilman 22:35 Kane a second by vice president calill any discussion Madam clerk roll call Kane I 22:44 Marshall I for eyes I Brunner I Klein 22:49 yes Divine yes cgill I McKinley yes and moving into committee reports do we have 22:58 any committee reports Mr chairman go ahead the rules committee did meet tonight at 6: p.m. to 23:05 discuss General ordinance number 26224 which addresses uh the upcoming 23:13 election of officers for the city uh Council and we will address that further 23:20 down in the agenda so that's all I'll say at this point I'll keep it short thank you thank you councilman Kane any 23:28 committee reports I look it to you yeah councilwoman Divine go 23:38 ahead okay um the Utility Board met last week um they introduced and welcomed 23:46 Chad guy the new assistant director um they also uh did a moment of silence 23:54 for Mr dorsy who had passed as one of their board members um then they gave updates on the 24:03 projects that are ongoing the srf projects uh the distribution system that they were doing is complete I believe 24:10 that was down on Western area um as far as the lead service lines they're about halfway through the completion and that 24:17 will continue through into the spring um I know they've also sent out new um questionnaires to different areas uh 24:26 about lead service lines as they keep working their way through the whole system um as far as meter replacement 24:34 goes they're at about 2500 meters they said that pace should start picking up now um now that they're off of some other projects and can free up into 24:42 there the water tank um the one on Butler is pretty well complete except for the fence uh for Meridian the 24:50 interior is about done um they're trying to get to the point of having the primer done on the exterior before it gets too 24:57 cold to be able ble to paint um but they that way it'll hold what they've done until they can do the final paint next 25:05 spring after the winter um they also talked about the uh request that they had for vacating part 25:14 of Clark Street because they have another tank proposal they're going to build another tank down in that area which will be somewhere between 1 to two 25:22 million gallons to help with them more of the service area see 25:32 um they also talked about um paying out some of 25:39 the on some of the projects they are partnering with Grant County Learning Center in order to have um an internship 25:48 with uh high schools and a they're also going to help assist with a homeb build 25:54 project to be um one of the local um I I can't remember which one um does 26:03 the class where they actually build a house from the ground up and so the class got to the point where the only thing left is the hookup through the 26:11 water lines into the system and that that became cost prohibitive for them so the utility services is going to assist 26:18 with that um look for volunteers within the the water distribution system to come out and help them do the hookups and and partner with the high school 26:26 group to do that I thought that was a great project um so that they can get that house complete and um and 26:34 sold the they're reviewing requests on water adjustments um they gave some 26:42 information about the number of tens through the transfer station with this last month which was 26:49 969 they talked about the number of disconnects and reconnections um and they are working on 26:57 the 20 2 budget and looking to hopefully have that passed by the first meeting of 27:04 December and then they also talked about changes to their health insurance plan so they've also had to make some adjustments like the city did which is 27:13 not unexpected so that's the Utility Board uh Board of Works met yesterday um 27:22 they did um the swearing in of two firefighters to go from probationary to private after their completion of one 27:30 year and then they had a number of uh homes that they talked about for the 27:37 demolition orders um those were all approved they did stay one of them 27:44 um that the project has had some Forward Motion from the owner they've started working on it and so they've allowed 27:52 another 60 days to see if that progress continues to to get it back up and and back safe 27:59 um and that was it all done great thank you so much I was appreciate the 28:07 thoroughness so any other council members with committee reports I do yes if I may go ahead thank you uh the board 28:14 of Aviation Commissioners met November 7th design Works ahead of schedule for the extension of Taxi way B part of that 28:22 extension is going to go through some Wetlands so they're now talking with the Army Corps of Engineers that work and the rest of the planning ought to be 28:29 done and construction started in about a year the electronics have been ordered for the new approach path lighting for 28:37 the runways and work on that ought to be done in the spring uh plans are to work uh start installation work on the new 28:45 fuel tanks in the spring and paperwork they're working on the paperwork to turn in so that our airport can maintain its 28:53 Regional Airport status uh maintaining the regional stat status over just being rated as a local airport means about 29:02 $100,000 a year in funding for the airport and if you haven't been out to the ice cream shop out there they have good ice 29:11 cream great I appreciate the ice cream plug councilman Klein any other council members with the committee 29:19 report all right we're going to go ahead and move into unfinished business General ordinance 19- 2024 petition to 29:27 vacate a portion of public RightWay second reading and public hearing an ordinance to vacate a portion 29:34 of South John Street from 3906 South John Street to East 41st Street from 29:42 Nebraska Street to South boot Street in the city of Maran Indiana Indiana Wesleyan University would like to vacate 29:50 a portion of a public way of South John Street from 41st Street to the south side of 3906 South John Street and the 29:59 vacation from 41st Street from boot Street to Nebraska speaking attorney Phil 30:09 Stevenson I appreciate the opportunity to be here again tonight uh as already indicated to you that this is Indiana 30:16 Western University's request to close a portion of John Street which is from 30:23 3906 South John down to 41st Street a portion of 4 First Street from Nebraska 30:30 to South Boots the purpose of that as we've told you in the past is to build a new Arena which we think will be a substantial benefit for Indiana Westland 30:39 University and also a substantial benefit for the community so uh I think we've answered questions before but if anyone has any 30:48 additional questions they'd like to ask we certainly would be more than happy to try to respond or if there's any people in the audience who may speak tonight we 30:56 would obviously be more than happy to respond to any of those issues which may be raised great thank you so much Phil 31:04 appreciate it um I will uh just quickly add so Phil and I have had some communication um over really the last 31:13 week um just for the other council members to give you uh up to dat information here so on the council 31:22 packet you received it showed the response from some of the um entities like the fire department and all that there were two of them that we still 31:30 haven't received and that was or at least I didn't get it was from um Indiana Michigan Power a and also 31:37 Centerpoint formerly veteran uh so I reached out to the government Liaisons at both of those organizations last week 31:44 and um just wanted to get their blessing um make sure there was no issues so I've been working with them talking with Phil 31:52 as well um both entities in fact right before the meeting tonight I had a call from the liaison from um Indiana 32:02 Michigan Power a uh both entities are have been communicating now with IW to 32:09 you know make sure that they don't uh have utilities that um necessarily would be of concern if we were to vacate um I 32:18 I will say U Indiana Michigan representative stated that you know they they do have quite a bit of substantial 32:25 underground um wiring underneath the ground there uh Center Point is still kind of checking 32:32 into where things are located um so my request tonight and we can have the the public hearing but I'm 32:39 just my request is is If This Were to pass we would take it to a third reading 32:46 um because that's actually By Request um from Indiana Michigan Power uh they 32:54 still have a few things they want to make sure that they're comfortable with that if we were to vacate the road or the street that they would still have 33:02 access to the easen now in the ordinance um it does state that the the easements stay but they want to make sure that 33:10 they have access to those easements um and they just want to work out those those details with the engineers and the 33:17 firms that IW has been working with for the stadium so just want to give you bring you up to speed on that um so 33:25 yeah I if no other council member want to adding at this time I will go ahead and open the public 33:32 hearing public hearing is open so if you like make your way to the microphone go 33:43 ahead I don't see anybody making their way to the microphone so we will go ahead and close the public 33:50 hearing um any council members have anything like to share or ask questions I I'm a little confused used because if 33:58 you have an easement then you have an easement so to vacate it will not nullify the easements is that correct 34:06 correct that is correct um I don't foresee any issues and nor do they but 34:13 um Centerpoint specifically not centerp Point um Indiana Michigan specifically said well you have an easement but you still have to access 34:22 that easement you want to make sure you have rights to take you know with what they have I mean it's not not like it's empty grass I mean they might have to 34:30 get equipment in and they want to make sure that there's um something in place that states that they are able to access 34:39 it through whoever's property it is and I don't know the full legalities of that that's not my expertise I'm just relaying what the uh representatives 34:49 from each of those entities they just they don't foree this being an issue I don't foresee this being an issue um long term but they would feel more 34:57 comfortable if uh they can get back to us and say yes for sure we are comfortable with you guys vacating the 35:05 street before uh or after we have confirmed that this potentially wouldn't create any issues with their e uh their 35:13 easement um so yeah did they provide any timeline as to when they would give you a response because sounds like a lawyer 35:21 just saying ah um so the only one that gave me a timeline uh right before this meeting so I haven't even had a chance to tell fail 35:29 this yet because it was right before the meeting but um anyana of Michigan Power they said typically these are about six 35:36 weeks but I did tell them you know where we're at in in this process uh I said if it goes through a third reading um then 35:44 that would be in you know approximately two three weeks um and I think it basically what he said I think he's 35:52 going to try and speed that up by the time we got to that third reading but he said worst case is if they're not quite ready he would ask that at the third 36:01 reading we table that to the next meeting to give them a little more time to sort all of those details out so 36:08 again I I this is more of a procedural thing but I think it's the right thing to do just make sure our major utility companies are comfortable before we 36:16 vacate any streets um and they actually really thanked me for for reaching out from the council um and they've been 36:24 working with IW and that I don't foresee any issues um um they don't but again it's one of those things they just want 36:32 to be 100% sure and talk to the engineers oh councilman Force could I 36:40 have H Phil speak on that please for within Westland absolutely I'm sure this is arise before Phil 36:48 on the gas company and Electric Company and I haven't foreseen any problems in the past from what I have known but 36:57 could you interested well you know the clerk's office sends out the notices to everybody and I think they have them all 37:04 back except for those two I would say typically that's not surprising the trouble is the bigger the 37:11 organization the more difficult it is when they get this notice to get around to the right person and come back so not having those back is not unusual which 37:20 is the reason that I put in the ordinances I always do that the easement stay in place the theory behind that 37:27 that is if say Center Point comes back at some point saying oh no we have a problem we're not going to be able to 37:34 build that building over the area unless we work with them to reroute whatever that line is and if I don't know for 37:42 some reason it's it's a problem that you can't reroute it and you're going to have to change the building structure uh because that easement has to stay in 37:50 place by your ordinance so that's the reason for it's there it's there to essentially ensure that there's protection 37:58 because sometimes it's difficult to get them to raise their head I think they've done more than they normally would because your president's really done a lot to step out there and try to get a 38:07 hold of them and try to get them to pay attention uh so I think that's the situation Phil would you have an issue 38:15 with the waiting for it to go to third reading we can obviously work with that I mean we came tonight prepared to request you to move to the third reading 38:24 okay but we you know we can certainly handle that and deal with that and come back another time okay thank you whatever the council 38:34 prefers and just to give you a little extra info on this so when I initially spoke to the gentleman at Indiana Michigan Power like I was over the phone 38:43 I could tell he was probably looking at Maps I was telling him where all this was going to take place and at first he was like yeah that's probably not going to be an issue you know there just some 38:50 houses and some some wiring and then um he reached back out to me I think it was the next day and he said oh um 38:57 we actually have some pretty substantial stuff buried out right in that area um so I think if if it was some just normal 39:05 wiring and and and all that um I don't think it would have been as big issue but apparently there's some major stuff is what he says I don't know what that 39:13 means that is right there where we're going to requesting to vacate and and build that and and the other thing too 39:20 is and I really hope this wouldn't happen um but if the utilities come back and go there's something Ma under here 39:28 that you know we would request that the building wouldn't be built on top or it's going to add a huge expense or or whatever 39:36 there's all these uh situations that could come up um at that point if we've already vacated the street then how do we go back on that right so I think it's 39:45 just um and not having that response back from the uh the clerk's office um those requests and I was like okay well 39:53 then we should probably hear and that's why I reached out to both of those government relations Representatives so and I'd really just H they were going to 40:01 be like yeah it looks good um but the like he said there's they're a bigger bureaucracy they have different departments that they're trying to 40:10 coordinate and then they're coordinating with the engineering firm that IW is working with right now as well to to clear all that 40:17 up can you turn the mic on I just have one more Point um with us vacating the uh portion of the public 40:26 RightWay just because we vacate it doesn't mean that you know we're going to interfere with those utilities if the utility 40:34 company has a problem with it they won't be able to build the building or they'll be able to change the building so I 40:41 mean I don't see that just in my personal opinion I I appre I appreciate your due diligence and I I think we need 40:48 the blessing of the utility companies but just because we're vacating the street doesn't mean that they're going to dig tomorrow and without APS and the 40:57 gas company's you know verification on on the project but I mean I understand it but no I I fully respect what you're 41:06 saying and I understand that as well I mean the the firm that's going to build this building are experienced they know how to work with the utilities companies 41:15 I'm just saying from our Silo um I'm really just relaying I'm being The Messer at this point I'm relaying what's 41:22 been told to me from those two entities and want to make sure everyone have that information I as just the council member am 41:31 comfortable um passing this to a third reading and then and hopes that by the third reading we have some final answers 41:38 or some more Comfort to go hey let's let's go ahead and be done with this on the third reading but um it's one of those situations where I feel like the 41:47 one time maybe you don't um something could come up and uh we wish we'd have done maybe a little more due diligence and there's a 41:55 reason they're on that checklist um um and not getting anything back was like we should probably check so any other 42:03 council members okay I would entertain a motion 42:11 I would make go ahead go ahead Gary I would make a motion to pass General ordinance 19- 2024 to third 42:21 reading I have a motion by councilman for I second by vice president cgill any other discussion 42:29 Madam clerk roll call Kane I Marshall I for I yes Brunner hi kleene yes Devine 42:39 yes calill hi mckenley yes General ordinance 19-20 24 will move to a third 42:47 reading at the next council meeting I appreciate all the representativ from I IW for being here tonight and ready to answer questions but I think it's just check in the box and then I think we'll 42:56 be good to go and then can't wait to uh see the new Arena and moving on to General ordinance 20-22 24 elected 43:05 officials ordinance second reading and public hearing an ordinance prescribing the process for determining salary 43:11 increases for Maran Municipal elected officials and providing for the effective date thereof this ordinance 43:19 limits pay raises for maran's 12 elected officials mayor city council City Clerk 43:26 and City court judge to no more than the average raise given the city's full-time employees the previous year the 43:35 ordinance also allows for very limited exceptions to this in the cases of changes in city ordinances or state 43:42 statutes and it explains how the average of City employee raises is calculated the goal is to maintain 43:50 fiscal responsibility and to avoid large disparities with salary increases given to city employees speaking councilman 43:58 Mike clein thank you thank you um I said before say it again the ordinance is 44:07 very simple if Marian's elected officials get raises and nothing against that they're not going to be exorbitant 44:14 and out of line with the raises that our regular our City's regular full-time employees get some folks have mentioned 44:22 that well we've never done this before my short answer is so what there was a time we didn't have one-way streets or a 44:29 dedicated truck