Following is the text from the Spring, 2004, City of Indian Hills Newsletter:

We are happy to welcome warm weather. It is nice to have winter behind us and to look forward to spring and the upcommg BIG EVENT in Louisville, the Kentucky Derby. At this time all of us appear to be sprucing up our properties; certainly your city is in the process of accomplishing that task. Indian Hills has been clearing trees and upgrading the islands. You will notice that we have installed a number of curbs, especially in the Robinswood, Winding Falls and Country Club sections of the city. These curbs, mostly at intersections, have been installed to eliminate damage to our grassy areas, which required constant repair. With these additions, we feel as though the city is in excellent condition. Both your Council and your Police Department do our best to identify problems, but if you see something that needs attention, please do not hesitate to call either Jim Graven, Public Works Director (552-4250) or any of the City officials. One of the advantages of a small city is that your Council responds quickly to a resident's call, usually within the same day the call is made Springtime is generally a time when many residents think of making changes to their properties. We remind you that permits are required for any home additions, fences, tree removal, swimming pools, etc. These permits can be obtained from the Building Committee, which consists of Councilmen Jim Aubrey, Marie Bukowski, Bruce Madison and Public Works Director Jim Graven.. F.Y.I. Annexation As you know, we have been in litigation of our annexation of areas that would basically square out the city's boundaries. We began the annexation process after we determined that 85% of the residents in these areas wanted to be annexed. Since our last newsletter, the Board has decided to drop the annexation effort for a couple of reasons 1) the legal cost to go forward and 2) the revenues generated fiom the annexation areas would have been about as much as it would cost to service the areas. In other words, from a geographic standpoint, it would have squared out our city's boundaries, but from a financial standpoint, it was neutral. As you know, this annexation was brought to us by our Metro Council Representative when he was running for office. Once Indian Hills passed the ordinance necessary for the annexation and the Metro Government lawsuit was filed blocking the annexation we heard nothing from our elected Metro Representative. We were certainly disappointed. Delinquent City Property Taxes As of the writing of this newsletter, approximately 98+% of you have paid your taxes on time. However, there are 18 of our 1250 homes which have not paid their taxes, and tax liens will soon be filed. Budget We are currently working on the budget for the next fiscal year beginning July 1, 2004. Councilman Lyle Spalding does an excellent job on the preparation of this budget, which will be presented at the May City Council meeting. This annual budget is over $900,000. As we have mentioned many times before, the two items on the budget, police and garbage collection, will be 80% of our expenses. We hesitate to put police and garbage in the same sentence, but nevertheless they are the two big factors in our budget. As soon as this budget is approved by your Council, we will publish it. Speaking of budget, we want to report that we have a resident angel who last year advised us that the Kentucky Treasurer's Office had listed an unclaimed item from the Indian Hills Cherokee Section. We investigated this and found that an insurance premium tax fee payment of $135.36 had been misdirected by the insurance company. We made application and received the payment from the state. We thank our alert resident! Insurance Premium Fees While we are on the subject of insurance premium fees, this is a good time to remind everyone how important the insurance premium fees are to our city. It does not cost the policyholder any additional money, but if the fees are not directed to the City of Indian Hills, they go to Metro Government. They account for 10% of our annual income and it is very meaningful to all of us that the insurance fees come to the city that provides the services for our residents. Without these insurance premium taxes, The City of Indian Hills would have to increase our property taxes. Please advise your insurance company to REMIT MUNICIPAL PREMIUM TAX to CITY OF INDIAN HILLS P. O. Box 6289 Louisville, KY 40206-0289 Police Department We feel that our Police Deftailment is doing an excellent job. Our crime rate remains low, and good service from this department continues to grow: Chief Spratt has done an outstanding job in his leadership and the staffing of this department. Attached to this newsletter you will find the Police Department Report for 2003 that Chief Spratt presents to the city on an annual basis. This report covers not only the City of Indian Hills, but our two contract cities of Rolling Fields and Mockingbird Valley. Garbage As you are aware, in July of 2003 we entered into a new garbage contract which provided significant changes in our city, mainly the once-a-week collection, and the recycling and yard waste collections for the entire city. We feel this has been very successful, and we have had very few complaints about Rumpke's service. Remembering the December Holidays - Winding Falls Section This year's home decorating contest was a great success. Many households chose to participate this year, giving the neighborhood a festive appearance. Thanks to all who helped make this year's judging more difficult. Steve Gruebbel, the 2002 winner, was this year's judge; he did a wonderful job of making the evaluations. The results of the 2003 holiday decorations are as follows: First Place: Bill and Kathryn Noble, 5901 Hickman Court Second Place: Don and Sarah Allison, 6006 Hackney Coach Honorable Mention: Judson Wagenseller/Linda Lawrence, 2107 Bainbridge Row Donald and Marjorie Patterson, 5914 Apache Peter and Mary Flaig, 2004 Bainbridge Row John and Millie Fitz-Gibbon, 1904 Bainbridge Row We would like to give a special thanks to Austin's Restaurant and Indigo Casual Gourmet Cafe for their contributions of girl certificates to the first and second place finishers. We are happy to support these restaurants who so generously support our annual contest. Cops Corner By Chief Kelly Spratt Warm weather allows more opportunities for people to be out and about. This sometimes also brings an increase in things such as thefts and motor vehicle accidents. During 2003, there was a significant drop in thefts from vehicles in our jurisdiction. I believe this happened because of our police officers' diligence and our residents' awareness. This year I hope to extend both these factors to reduce vehicle accidents in our area. The Department has investigated several accidents, along Brownsboro Road, mostly involving driver inattention and/or speed. The Department will increase its focus on traffic enforcement in the Brownsboro Road area to allow motorists to travel safely and without becoming involved in a traffic collision. Please pay particular attention to your speed ... if not, we will! HAVE A WONDERFUL SPRING ... AND MANY DERBY WINNERS !!