[0:01] - We will call to order the Monday, September 28th, 2026 meeting of the Elstville Town Council. Chief,
[0:07] - prayer. I have the Father again become before you when he asks that you be with us tonight to make the
[0:14] - decision to defect this little town. Mr. Wilson, always we thank you for the blessings you've bestowed
[0:21] - on every one of the representatives here. We ask that you say in Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. I pledge allegiance
[0:28] - to the flag of the United States of America.
[0:31] - And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice
[0:41] - for all. Roll call, please. Here. Dan Swafford. William Ellis. Here. Trevor Sager. Here. Pamela Samples.
[0:53] - Action for minutes of the 914-2026 town council meeting. So moved.
[1:01] - Motion second all those favors say aye aye any opposed any abstaining Acts to pay accounts payable vouchers
[1:07] - and payroll vouchers. So moved second motion second also favor say aye aye any opposed any abstaining
[1:13] - This is a little bit of an unusual council meeting and that there are no resolutions There are no orders
[1:20] - on first reading their orange is on second reading. There's no old business which takes us to the bottom
[1:26] - third of our
[1:27] - Little synopsis here and we'll start with area 10 agency on aging executive director I'm the new director
[1:35] - for area 10 agency on aging and rural transit. Thank you for letting me speak to you this evening area
[1:43] - 10 rural transit has been honored to serve your community and we understand that this service has been
[1:50] - an important and
[1:52] - resource for riders traveling to work, medical appointments, shopping, and essential daily activities.
[2:00] - We know that losing this service will create challenges for many, and we want all of our riders to know
[2:09] - that this is solely due to required funding loss for area 10 rural transit. The 2020 census,
[2:16] - as you may know, determined an urbanized area for Ellitsville.
[2:22] - And because Area 10's rural transit operates with funding from NDOT's Rural Transportation Grant, we
[2:29] - were advised that we would need to stop providing transportation for the urbanized area. The only way
[2:37] - rural transit is allowed to continue serving the urbanized area of Ellitsville is if the operating costs
[2:45] - are paid for and funded by other entities. So I'm here today
[2:50] - to request that the town of Ellisville consider funding public transportation for the urbanized area
[2:57] - of Ellisville. There has been a 2% increase in ridership each year for the past three years. So with
[3:05] - this projected increase in ridership for 2027, we estimate the cost for providing public transportation
[3:12] - for the total urbanized area of Monroe County to be $200,000.
[3:17] - Ellitsville ridership has been consistently 70% of this urban transportation so far in 2026. So we're
[3:26] - requesting 140,000 from the town of Ellitsville to help support rural transit, public transportation
[3:34] - for the urbanized area. I hope you've received my little handout, kind of broke it down a little bit for you.
[3:45] - I'm happy to answer any questions, or if I can't answer them right now, research and get figures to
[3:52] - you if you'd like. Any questions from council? I just want to say we have tried to get funding for rural
[3:59] - transit. The county currently collects a food and beverage tax from Ellitsville, and the county fought
[4:06] - us on taking that tax and using it for rural transit. So until that changes, I mean, I'm just speaking
[4:13] - for myself here,
[4:14] - We can't be in the transportation business. There's just no funding to scale up for that Other questions
[4:24] - from council Thank you, ma'am, okay, I appreciate your time Next we'll move to a presentation from disc
[4:34] - golf club Colin Frank I'll try to be quick. So for those of you who don't know me, my name is Colin Frank and
[4:44] - I'm proud to live in Ellitsville. I'm also a proud member of the Bloomington Disc Golf Club. I'm proposing
[4:50] - that we add a disc golf course to the Ellitsville Town Hall Park. I was here two years ago and gave
[4:56] - a very similar presentation, but we've definitely refined things, and this is a much better plan than
[5:01] - I initially had. So what is disc golf? So for those of you who are not familiar with it, it's very similar
[5:07] - to golf. Your goal is to try to throw a disc, or you can think of like a thinner frisbee, into a basket,
[5:13] - and as few throws as possible. It's playable by all ages. So recently, there's the World Disc
[5:19] - Golf Championships. The oldest competitor was 88 years old. The youngest was 13. In our club, we have
[5:26] - a member who's four years old who shows up regularly. So this is a very accessible sport. It's a very
[5:32] - affordable sport. You only need one disc to start. Discs typically sell for $10 to $25. So this is not
[5:39] - a high-cost entry.
[5:40] - It can be played all year round. So we play in winter. We play in the summer. Doesn't matter what the
[5:46] - weather is. We're out there. It's one of the fastest growing sports in the world. So the Professional
[5:51] - Disc Golf Association 2025 reported that there were over 1100 new courses worldwide. So this is something
[5:57] - that is growing.
[6:00] - So what would a disc golf course look like? So typically disc golf courses are nine to 18 holes. People
[6:05] - typically think of wide open holes, but they can be placed in a large variety of outdoor settings. So
[6:11] - on your screen there is a picture of a hole from Ellettville, a disc golf course in, or sorry, Edgewood
[6:17] - disc golf course at the elementary school. Disc golf courses can be designed for a variety of players.
[6:23] - So it can be designed for beginner players, advanced players, or professional.
[6:28] - You can use multiple, that should say, T positions to offer a variety. So you can have a short T to
[6:34] - make the whole easier. You can have a longer T to make it more difficult. And then just to kind of offer
[6:40] - some comparative courses. So Edgewood is the closest course, but it is closed during the school hours,
[6:46] - so it is not publicly available for most of the day. And then you have Carson Farm Park, which is on
[6:52] - the southwest side of Bloomington, and then Crestmont Park, which is in Bloomington.
[6:58] - So just some benefits of a disc golf course. So it provides a recreational activity for Ellitsville.
[7:05] - It's a low-cost, high-return investment. So a course typically costs $10,000 to $20,000, which we'll
[7:12] - talk about that a little later, which is significantly cheaper than something like a basketball court
[7:19] - or a tennis court.
[7:21] - It provides a social activity for youth and adults. So disc golf is typically a social game, if you
[7:27] - can't tell from all my supporters who came out tonight. With youth, it's really important to
[7:32] - offer recreational activities that they can play with their friends that don't cost a lot, right? So
[7:39] - this is something that gets them out, gets them away from their phone, gets them offline, enjoying nature
[7:45] - and enjoying their community. We also have community events.
[7:49] - There are tournaments that we host throughout the year. And there's a lot of community engagement. So
[7:55] - you can think of like golf scrambles at a golf course. We have fundraisers as well in Disc Golf.
[8:01] - So in 2026, we hosted the Wintry Indiana Frozen fundraiser event or what we call WIFs. And all the proceeds
[8:08] - went to the Hoosier Hills Food Bank. So we do support local businesses and charitable groups.
[8:15] - Other benefits, so it doubles as a walking and biking trail. So here's another hole from the Edgewood
[8:21] - course. So you can see the trail going up through the woods. If someone's not playing that hole for
[8:27] - disc golf, there's nothing stopping you from just enjoying a nice walk out in the woods. It also reduces
[8:33] - crime in the park. So these are typically areas where you don't have a lot of people, which adds spots
[8:39] - where people could engage in illegal activity. So you are adding surveillance throughout your park.
[8:45] - It improves forest health, so part of this project is removing a lot of undergrowth as well as invasive
[8:51] - species. That introduces a lot of disease and decay within your woods. So by going through and removing
[8:57] - that, you actually improve the health of the mature trees. And then to improve utilization of the park.
[9:03] - Speaking a little bit more about utilization, there is a disc golf app called UDisc. It allows you to
[9:09] - track your disc golf rounds, so it keeps your score for you. But one of the really nice things that
[9:15] - it does is it provides reports on courses. So Karst Farm Parks would be the most comparable course to
[9:21] - one that we'd put in here. In 2025, there are 4,200 rounds. UDisc estimates that it captures about half
[9:28] - of all rounds.
[9:29] - When I play, I don't always use UDIS, so this is probably pretty accurate. Assuming that, that's 8,400
[9:35] - rounds a year, which means 24 people per day, regardless of weather or snow or cold, go to Karst just
[9:42] - to play disc golf, right? So that's 24 people per day that would be coming to this park. And then, another
[9:48] - really interesting fact is they show distance that people traveled. So over 300 people traveled more
[9:55] - than 30 miles away. So now, you are bringing new people
[9:58] - to Ellitsville. So why this park? So disc golf courses are fairly large. Here's a picture of the property.
[10:05] - Half of it has already been cleared, and you guys have plans for most of that. But half of it is wooded,
[10:12] - so there's about 22 acres of wooded hilly land that's really not suitable for other buildings or activities
[10:19] - other than trails, but we already talked that this would double as a trail. So we need about one acre per hole.
[10:27] - so we need about 18 acres, you have 22. Currently in Eltsville, there is no course publicly available
[10:33] - during school hours, so this would add a recreational need, once again, and then it would fit in with
[10:40] - all the other current plans, so it wouldn't impede anything out in the open. So what would that look
[10:46] - like? So here is a proposed design for the 18-hole course. So I have actually been out in those woods,
[10:52] - walked up and down, found different areas where we could put holes,
[10:56] - The course would have beginner tees and advanced tees. That way, new players could come out here and
[11:02] - enjoy the woods, but then advanced players would have a little bit more challenging of a course. We
[11:08] - would initially just have one pen placement. In the future, we'd have other spots where we could move
[11:13] - the basket, which adds variety to the course, but it also allows some of that land to take a break from
[11:19] - things like erosion and different things that come with having a course. So what would implementation
[11:25] - look like?
[11:26] - So once again, this is another hole out of Edgewood. Basically, we'd have to remove underbrush along
[11:31] - our fairway. Some saplings would have to be removed, so that's small trees, four inches or less at chest
[11:37] - height. We would not touch mature trees. Mature trees actually help your course. It helps define your
[11:43] - course. We would have to dig a hole for a basket, and we'd have to place the basket, put cement around
[11:49] - it. We'd have to level an area for a tee pad, and same for a sign.
[11:54] - You may be wondering what all that cost. Like I said, typically it costs between $10,000 and $20,000
[12:00] - to put in a disc golf course. Not included in that is all your labor cost, right? And this is a big
[12:05] - cost, and it's something that we really need to consider. What I really want to drive home is that this
[12:11] - is a community-driven project. Like I said, I'm a member of the Bloomington Disc Golf Club. I have many
[12:16] - more members back there with me today.
[12:19] - One of our missions or our goals is to increase access to disc golf. We already have a full set of 18
[12:27] - baskets. We had fundraised for another local course and improved their baskets. We took the baskets
[12:34] - that we took out of the ground, and now we want to create another course. So that lets us avoid almost
[12:41] - 80% of the cost. In terms of labor, we have 1,100 members in our Facebook disc golf group.
[12:48] - I currently have over 50 signatures of people who are willing to help put in the labor to put this course
[12:54] - in place. And we already have experience doing this. We already do a lot of the maintenance work over
[13:00] - Edgewood Disc Golf Course and at Crestmont Park. So that leaves about $2,000 left. Usually what we do
[13:06] - is we do some sort of fundraiser where someone can sponsor a hole. So on that sign for the hole, just
[13:12] - underneath it, it would say sponsored by so and so.
[13:16] - We'd offer those for about $150, and that would cover the remaining cost. So to taxpayers, it wouldn't
[13:22] - cost a dime. Future projects. So if this project goes well and the town wants to invest in it, you can
[13:28] - always add more money into things. Sometimes, holes get busy, and you have to wait a little while, so
[13:34] - benches would be a really nice amenity. Some of the land back there gets a little rough, because there
[13:40] - is a creek going through it.
[13:42] - So adding a small bridge in the future would just help with accessibility. Trash cans strategically
[13:49] - placed throughout the course would just de-incentivize any sort of littering. Our group is usually very
[13:55] - well at picking that up, but it would help. Eventually we would upgrade the baskets, do kind of the
[14:01] - same thing. So we'd fundraise, replace the baskets, take the old baskets, try to create a new course.
[14:08] - And then, you can always get really fancy. You can always add things like retaining walls or elevated
[14:15] - baskets or different tricks to the course. So just takeaways, this is a prime location for a disc golf
[14:22] - course. It's 22 acres of woods that really can't be used for other things. It would offer a low-cost
[14:28] - social recreational activity for the community. It fits within the current plans for the park. There
[14:35] - would basically be no cost to the town.
[14:38] - and then it would significantly improve utilization of the park. I'd like to thank you for your time
[14:47] - and consideration in this project. Do you have any questions? Questions from council? I like it. I mean,
[14:56] - I'll comment that. So I don't really have a question. Do you want to weigh in? Well, I would say, I
[15:05] - had a warm up to it and it took,
[15:08] - meetings and we he Collins come over a couple three times and after looking at the proposal and thinking
[15:19] - about our mission to expand our parks and create new amenities that'll Get people out and recreate.
[15:28] - I think this is a good good proposal Again, I think it's a good idea if
[15:36] - as long as it's not costing taxpayers any money. But I'm not so sure this is something that's best directed
[15:43] - to the town council. It's probably better directed to the parks board than rather it is for the council.
[15:49] - I agree with that. And I would say that I'm prepared to utilize some of our equipment for clearing when
[15:56] - this, if this takes off and I, you know, if we're going to have a golf course here,
[16:02] - Again, I don't think any of the three of us and I speak for my colleagues have an issue with this Just
[16:09] - what's the appropriate venue for and what are the the liabilities that we have to make sure that we're?
[16:16] - Come here first and sure in Fill you out take your temperature and you need a vote from a star list
[16:23] - specifically I do not
[16:25] - It's going to go before the Parks Board. I think consensus of the councils, we are completely good with
[16:31] - it. Right. We can get it to the Parks Board. Collin came to the Parks Board about a year ago, two years
[16:37] - down, and we indicated that we were in favor of that. I think we're probably gonna need a little more
[16:42] - formal from you guys at this point to make it happen. Well, we'll be meeting the sixth, so. Okay. Okay.
[16:48] - Thank you so much. There are no other items.
[16:53] - There are no other items on the agenda, so now we'll move to privilege of the floor and having business
[17:00] - for council that's not part of the normal agenda. Seeing no one in chambers and no one online, we'll
[17:06] - now move to supervisor comments with the town manager being first. Okay, I just want to remind everybody
[17:13] - we're gonna have a public hearing on Monday, October 5th to introduce the budget and there'll be first
[17:19] - reading and then on October 19th will be the adoption meeting and
[17:23] - that both meetings are at 6.30. There are special meetings too, by the way. I'm sorry, anything else?
[17:34] - No. Chief? I'd like to take a moment to recognize I got to work the Peden Family Farm Festival this
[17:44] - year. Trevor was there as well. And the fire department.
[17:50] - A lot of people was representative, but it's their 72nd year of having that festival for a bunch of
[17:57] - second and third graders. I just, Joyce and Joe and their family have done that for 72 years and I thought
[18:05] - it was worth mentioning. The thing I'd like to mention too is I'm not sure who has more fun.
[18:12] - if the peons have more fun or the kids have more fun, particularly Joe. I'm not sure. And there's a
[18:20] - lot of older gentlemen and ladies that come and volunteer. Everything out there is volunteer. There's
[18:28] - no charge. It's just America at its best. I agree. Chief? We should be taking delivery of our new engine
[18:36] - tomorrow or Wednesday. And yes, it's blue. And one could always hope.
[18:42] - The goal is maybe the next council meeting will have it come up here But we're hoping that it'll be
[18:49] - in service middle of October by the time we get all of our equipment and the radios and stuff put in
[18:57] - it and which Which unit is it replacing? It's replacing the station engine that's here in town So the
[19:04] - current engine will go to a backup position Anything else that's all I've got. Thank you. I have nothing
[19:13] - So I wanted to thank Elena Allen of Blackwell Construction. She coordinated a house they were going
[19:23] - to demolish to be used by local law enforcement and their canine partners for practice and they had
[19:32] - use of it for about three weeks. So I just wanted to thank them for doing that. No, sir.
[19:42] - Seeing no further business, we're adjourned.