Tonight’s meeting of the Carmel City Council should have some interesting debate. You can follow me on Twitter for live updates at @adamaasen (click here for link). But let’s look at some of what will be discussed tonight.
Click here for the agenda and paperless packet for tonight’s council meeting.
REFLECTING POOL
Most interesting tonight is a new resolution to take $613,200 out of the city’s Rainy Day Fund, a reserve savings account, and use it to make repairs to the long-deteriorating reflecting pool. The Carmel Redevelopment Commission, the pool’s owner, commissioned the 84,300-square-foot pool over a decade ago using some money from a $1 million federal grant.
CSO Architects designed the pool but now-defunct Eden Enterprises did the construction and several city officials say the work wasn’t done properly. There are cracks and crumbles which have made what was supposed to be gathering place look somewhat “run down.”
Eden Enterprises filed bankruptcy and closed. There were subsequent legal issues brought out regarding the work. A serious leak was diagnosed early on and finally fixed in 2009.
City Councilor Rick Sharp told me that he is in support of fixing the problem, but he has an issue with the money coming from the taxpayer-funded “rainy day” fund. He said it was a CRC mistake and the CRC owns it, so why can’t the CRC pay for it? Especially in light of the $2.1 million sale of the Shapiro’s building which means a million dollars — after the debt is paid/forgiven — in the CRC’s bank account.
Mayor Jim Brainard has often said that the CRC is part of the city so he doesn’t understand the reluctance to “work together to fix these problems.”
Click here to read our past coverage on the problem and the promised repairs.
PUTTING MONEY BACK INTO THE RAINY DAY FUND
The City Council will introduce a bill to transfer $220,000 from the Cumulative Capital Sewer Fund #206 to the city’s Rainy Day Fund. This is because the city borrowed money from the fund to help pay for engineering costs associated with starting storm water drainage repairs for the Emerson Road project. At the time, Brainard said there was no money available to start on engineering but City Councilor Luci Snyder said she did some digging and found money in the Cumulative Capital Sewer Fund. Sharp said he felt the mayor was either uninformed or misleading the council about how much money was in the budget, which he finds frustrating.
OLD BUSINESS
There are several items that could be voted on tonight if they are ready to come out of committee, including approving the new tax increment finance districts that will help continue work on Pedcor’s City Center Phase two. There’s also TIF questions surrounding Olivia on Main that could be discussed. It’s likely that no housing will be voted on since the Land Use committee hasn’t met yet.
JOHNSON ADDITION CONSERVATION DISTRICT
Tonight there will be a public hearing to discuss the proposed Johnson Addition Conservation District. You can read all about the issue in an article I wrote. It will be interesting to see how many people show up for and against the project.
Here is the complete report that the petitioners filed for the Johnson Addition Conservation District. They went from home to home, taking pictures and detailing the architectural characteristics of the houses to chronicle the “historic” quality of the neighborhood.
[gview file=”https://youarecurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Johnson-Addition-Conservation-District-Standards-FINAL.pdf”] [gview file=”https://youarecurrent.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2014-0925_-Mailing-to-Property-Owners-Adjoiners.pdf”]Any thoughts or questions? Feel free to comment below. Also, remember to follow me on Twitter for live updates at @adamaasen (click here for link).
