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REGULAR MEETING – MARION COMMON COUNCIL – JUNE 5, 2018 – 7:00 P.M., CITY HALL The Common Council of the City of Marion, Indiana met in regular session on Tuesday, the 5th day of June, 2018 at the hour of 7:00 pm in the Council Chambers, City Hall. On the call of the roll the following members were shown to be absent or present as follows: Present: Miller, Homer, Cain, Henderson, Johnson, Batchelor, Brunner and Luzadder. Absent: Smith. (NOTE: Councilman Smith entered the meeting at 7:03 p.m.) The minutes of the previous regular meeting of May 15, 2018 were presented. On a motion by Homer, 2nd by Henderson, the minutes were approved as presented by the following vote. Aye: Miller, Homer, Smith, Cain, Henderson, Johnson, Batchelor and Luzadder. Nay: None. Abstain: Brunner. COMMITTEE REPORTS: Councilwoman Lynn Johnson said she has minutes to report from May 21, 2018 on a Code Enforcement Committee meeting. They began at 4:03 pm. They were brought to order by Deb Cain and present were herself with committee members Jan Bowen, Linda Wilk, Jerry Foustnight. They discussed and reviewed the Vacant Structure and the Vacant Abandoned Real Property Ordinance. They had to go through and look at different questions and answers and proposed explanations in order to explain the ordinance to the general public and they are going to have a questionnaire that will be ready by January of 2019 for the City Council to help them with any information they might not have been able to obtain by not coming to their meeting. And they are going to have that ordinance ready for a first reading by June 19th. And so they’re pretty excited about that and they look forward to all of them being able to read that ordinance. It’ll be in their packets before the next meeting. And they adjourned at 5:10 pm and they’re reserving the right to have a meeting at a later date, Johnson said. Councilwoman Johnson then reported that tonight they had a Compliance Committee meeting and Mr. Steve Henderson as the Chair and Dave (Homer) and she were present and Councilwoman Deborah Cain joined them and they reviewed and approved 19 Compliance with Statement of Benefits for 19 companies and they made a motion to pass them all through to Mr. Luzadder for his signature. And then they had another set of two compliance, benefit requests that they are going to put up for review and they passed those into a review by the county before they ask Luzadder to sign them and they are going to have another meeting on June 19th at 6:00 pm in the 2nd Floor Conference Room and they’re going to continue to review any compliance and benefits requests. Council President Brad Luzadder said he had a few things to bring to the attention of all of the members. He would first like to congratulate all of the 2018 graduates, Marion and all of the Grant County schools. He’s seen a lot of good young people walking across the stage with quite great honors. It’s pretty neat to watch the ones in which he was able to attend. He doesn’t know if anyone has seen but they do have one of Marion’s own, Caleb Marshall, he’s known as the Fitness Marshall. He’s a You Tube sensation. He was named the top 100 of the most influential people in health and fitness in the world. He is ranked #9 on the list which includes people like Oprah Winfrey, all the Biggest Loser coaches and so quite a great honor for a Marion alum. Also, everyone is invited tomorrow to the groundbreaking for Carey Services. That will begin at 1:30 pm tomorrow and it will be held at Carey Services. That will be a groundbreaking for Pleasant Square Apartments Project that they went ahead and voted through and so Jim has invited each and every member to that tomorrow, as well as the general public. If they would like to come out for the groundbreaking, that will be at 1:30 pm tomorrow afternoon. He would also like to wish the Special Olympics of Grant County good luck. They will be leaving here on Thursday to go down to the Indiana State Games in Terre Haute. They’ll be competing at Indiana State University and also at Rose Hulman University and there’s a delegation of about 125 headed down that direction to represent us here as Marion and also Grant County. Also starting this weekend, on Friday CSA is going to have their productions at Marion High School at the F. Ritchie Walton Performing Arts Center. Their I Dance will be on Friday evening at 7:00 pm, Saturday at 1:00 pm. Their I Perform will be Saturday at 7:00 pm. The I Create, which is their visual arts, will be in the gallery from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm reception. And then also they have the I Company which will be at 4:00 pm on Sunday afternoon. Then also, this Thursday, Let My Light Shine, the group that actually raises money to put the solar lights on the graves out at our veterans cemetery, they are doing their fundraiser and it’s Thursday through Saturday of this week and that’ll be at 700 Lancelot in Westlea Addition. So, a lot of things coming up for them in the community to be aware of and to get out and do things. So, six pretty great things for them to look at, Luzadder said. NEW BUSINESS City Clerk Kathleen Kiley told the Council that Randy Miller is going to speak tonight for Lockwood Real Estate Investment & Development to address the Council to seek support in an effort to redevelop the Five Points Mall. Randy Miller from Randall Miller & Associates thanked the Council for allowing them to be here. Before he starts, he guessed another good thing for the community is that, he believes it’s been in the paper, June 12th is the ribbon cutting for the new hotel for the Holiday Inn Express. He hopes to see everyone there. It’s another great advancement for their community. This is a very interesting presentation because they’re not asking for anything, which is kind of unusual for him. He was talking to Mr. Stephenson and he wouldn’t be Randy Miller if he didn’t bring some drawings and pictures to entertain all or at least (inaudible) and have some fun discussing it. But he’s here representing Lockwood Real Estate & Development. Charles Everhardt is here and he will be making a few comments a little bit later and he also has Jim McDowell, who is the manager of the Five Points Mall, he’s also here and if he (Miller) gets in trouble, he (McDowell) can try and bail him out, along with cutting off his mike. So, this is a very interesting and unique development that they’re looking at but if he can regress, about a year and a couple of months ago, they were here and they were doing a Planned Unit Development for the mall. Do they remember that? About a year ago last March? And he said, you know, we’ve got some things coming. We’ve just got to get this organized and we’ve got to try to see what we can do to energize the mall. And then we lost Carson’s and he bet they thought well, what was Randy talking about? What’s he got up his sleeve? Miller said well, fortunately, very fortunately, they have a gentleman here, Mr. Everhardt and Lockwood Developments, who has taken an extremely keen interest in an extremely unique development. Malls as they know them today are all having very much a hard time. It’s very difficult. In fact, he remembers they rejuvenated one, the Markland Mall, and they actually took out sections of the buildings and removed them and put in courtyards. They condominimized or PUD’d or they made lots and subdivisions. They’re doing everything they can across the United States to keep the mall, to keep those base stores. Well, Mr. Lockwood has years and years of experience and he has many, many, he’ll say it one more time, many developments. If they’d like to look at his website, they certainly can. He’ll give them that. He’s very experienced in what he does, well financed. He has all the wherewithal to do something and what’s interesting is he’s doing something that is near and dear to us, us having a Veterans Administration Health Care Facility in our community. In fact, there’s only two cemeteries in the State of Indiana, the one at Crown in Indianapolis and the one here and this is the only one in Indiana that actually has burial spaces available. Crown is full and that’s why we’re having so many funerals and burials at the V.A. Well, as part of that, leading to this, he has a huge relationship with the Veterans Administration and the veterans as a whole. The concept that they’re going to do is kind of, well it is very unique. It’s never been tried before in the United States but he and his investors and his group have decided and they’ve went all the way through the V.A. channels and they’ve talked to some very important people in the government at the United States level and said, “you know what, we need to do a different model”.

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