Council 7-28-2026 [50:13-54:22]

Does anybody have any questions for... Okay, we're going nothing. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Okay. But that one, I want you guys to know what those are in the back. Okay, market fiber type. All right. And that may be in the back of the package too. Hello, thank you for having me. My name's Mike Dercasey. Fairly new to the company. I'm their new chief financial officer. I've been with them about 90 days. I'm just here to give you an update on our tax abatement request for American fiber tech. American fiber tech for those of you that don't know. We are a company that manufactures and recycles hardwood pallets. We are known about putting our customer first. All of our byproduct from our plants and mills goes into mulch that gets sold all over the state of Indiana. Animal bedding used by farmers in the state of Indiana. And even our sawdust goes into energy for our plants and external. Energy. So we try to utilize everything with our product. Due to the high demand of our product, we needed to upgrade our sawmill here in Mitchell to increase productivity and efficiency. So we have decided back last year to implement a project of $12 million to completely upgrade and renovate the sawmill. It was supposed to be launched November, December of 2025. It was delayed due to vendor reasons till this May. We shut down completely in May. Took all the old equipment out, put all the new equipment in. It was up and running about three to four weeks. All labor was maintained through that period to help with tear out and install cost in any downtime at the head. We took advantage of utilized for new equipment training, new safety training, any employee training that we could fit in. We didn't want to lay off a single employee. Obviously, we are not. We are about up to 60% of its capability, so it's been a stressful few months financially. But the hardwood industry has taken quite a big hit over the decade, margins of really strength. So we are trying to basically increase volume. Luckily, we do have the ability and demand to increase that volume. We just need to get the productivity in our operation to get that. So that is kind of the update. Any questions? That was a five-year one. Yes, yes. I'm curious. Do any of your products go to companies that are getting what pellets for energy are you aware? We are very popular in this. So due to the cleanliness and the quality of our product, we're very popular in anybody in the food industries and anybody that really appreciates a strong quality palette. I don't know all the customers yet. I'd be shocked if there's not. But a lot of high-end manufacturers, distributors, utilize us. Again, we're in a lot of food companies because we're one of the few pellets that can qualify. Food industry is very, very hard to qualify for. So even plastic pellets now are getting scrutinized big time over bacteria and things like that. We're a hardwood dry palette. We actually cure our pellets. We actually have these big ovens that they go through to cure. It's a great company. I've been there 90 days. I've really enjoyed working with the leadership and the team. Again, they just, they really put their customers first and performing for them. But