VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

APRIL 4, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 4^th day of April, 2006 at 3:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Cheryl Musgrave presiding.

President Musgrave: Ready, Ted?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Ready.

President Musgrave: Okay. Good afternoon. I want to call to order the April 4, 2006 meeting of the Board of Commissioners. We will start with introductions.

B.J. Farrell: B.J. Farrell, Superintendent of County Buildings.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Ted Ziemer, County Attorney.

Commissioner Nix: Bill Nix, County Commissioner.

President Musgrave: Cheryl Musgrave, County Commissioner.

Commissioner Shetler: Tom Shetler, County Commissioner.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Bill Fluty: Bill Fluty, County Auditor.

President Musgrave: Will you please join me for the Pledge of Allegiance?

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Musgrave: We have the approval of the minutes of March 21^st.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: Action items, County Engineer, permission to open proposals for Baseline Road, Cross Pointe Boulevard, and Green River Road. Is there a motion to begin opening those?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Burdette Park, permission to open quotes for the spray park construction. Is there a motion?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The attorney will begin opening those, and we will have a report on them later.

President Musgrave: Front Door Pride Initiative. I’m pleased to welcome Greg LaMar, Director of the Department of Metropolitan Development, and Carolyn Rusk, Brownfields Coordinator. Carolyn and Mr. LaMar will make a presentation about our, it’s mostly your work, but we had to give a little bit to get you going there–

Greg LaMar: Absolutely.

President Musgrave: –and we’re pleased to continue doing so. You will be making this presentation also at a state conference later on?

Greg LaMar: Yes, next week, at the Indiana Brownfield Conference.

President Musgrave: Okay, so, this is a preview.

Greg LaMar: There’s going to be a lot more of it. We wanted to condense it down a little bit. First of all, thank you for the invitation for us to describe our Front Door Pride Initiative. One of the questions I know that has been asked, the Brownfield Corporation, and Carolyn is going to talk a little bit about that here in a minute, has been showing up at tax sales buying a lot of tax sale property. The reason for that has been basically two major projects that the city is undertaking. The first one is the Center City Industrial Park, which is up on Fulton, and we’ll talk a little bit about, which, as you can see up there. The other is actually our Neighborhood Initiative, which is our Front Door Pride. What we’ve been trying to do is really take properties that have been abandoned, orphaned, vacant, you name it, and we’ve tried to select properties that we can use for furthering neighborhood development in our industrial park. What I would like to do is call on Carolyn right now to give you kind of a background on what we’ve done and the corporation itself.

Carolyn Rusk: Good afternoon. Just to give you an idea first of all about the Brownfield Corporation. It was formed in 2003, and it is a 501C3 tax exempt corporation. To give you an idea of what we have purchased so far, in the last seven months on the tax sale, the certificate sale, and the expedited sale at the end of February, the corporation purchased 117 properties. Many of those are chronic tax sale properties. So, we do have that objective, to get those out of the system and back into productive use. Of those properties, 27 purchased at the tax sale last fall, six of them have only been redeemed to date. In the certificate sale last September, five of the 63 have been redeemed to date, and of the expedited sale that was held in February, only one has been redeemed. At this time we’re working with some of the county representatives, hoping that we can take title to another seven that we’re looking at through you, and one through ECHO. So, we’re still working on acquiring more. I hope to get some of those out there next, this summer into productive use, private hands that will be tax paying entities. Then we’ll just keep on purchasing additional ones. But, my major objective here is to talk about the Center City Industrial Park. Greg will be talking a little bit later about the Front Door Pride. So, if we would go to the next, I just wanted you to see where it is. This is the opinion survey that was taken, just to give you an idea of the property owners within the park, how many of them were in favor, and how many were opposed to that development. This, you can see, these are some of the purchases that we’ve made. These are properties that came up in the tax sale and the certificate sale last fall. I think, right now, we own ten parcels within that industrial park. So, this is an area, again, that has been long neglected. It, again, has a lot of vacant land. I didn’t do any kind of a screen shot to show you the vacant parcels, but there were about 60 parcels that were vacant out of the 270 or so that are in that area. So, we need to get back to making those be in productive use, and, hopefully, help the neighborhood, as well as the entire county and community. So, with that intro, I can answer any questions that you have about this, or I can turn it over to Mr. LaMar, whichever you prefer.

President Musgrave: When I’ve mentioned this project, some people ask me where the money came from for the city to begin to buy these properties.

Carolyn Rusk: Well, these properties we have bought with some of our CDBG money. But, those ten properties probably we spent a total of $20,000, maybe. I don’t recall the exact amount, but we haven’t spent a lot on them yet. Then, in regards to the investigation of those properties, in terms of environmental contamination that may exist, we are using a USEPA federal grant to do that. We’ll have a whole variety of resources that we’ll use to fund actual redevelopment of this park. Okay, I’ll turn it over to Greg then. Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

Greg LaMar: Really, with the park it’s a little bit, we also have a half million dollars set aside from the community, or, excuse me, the Capital Development Fund, which is from the Aztar lease, set aside for doing initiatives there in the park, so that we’ve got more money. Besides the, we also then, for the Front Door Pride, the Community Development Block Grant, we’ve set aside $200,000 to do the acquisition, demolition and maintenance of properties as we go through this. The Front Door Pride Initiative is basically a program that was started by Mayor Weinzapfel in 2004 to really start to turn around the inner city neighborhoods. We went through a process of determining exactly where they, which ones to take on, through a series of meetings over the summer and fall of 2004. The area that you see there in green is made up of ten neighborhoods that we meet with on a monthly basis. That’s called the Focus Council, although there’s also additional neighborhoods that we also meet with who are also in Pigeon Township. The, in looking at the real thing about Front Door Pride that we tried to do was to really involve the neighborhoods in what we were trying to do. Not only from the standpoint of discussing with them the general initiatives, and, basically, there are four general initiatives or goals, whatever you want to call them, that we have for Front Door Pride. The first one is to clean up the neighborhood; the second one is to increase personal and/or household income; the third one is to increase personal and/or household wealth; and the fourth one then is to actually deal with creating a diverse, mixed income neighborhood. When I say neighborhood, I’m talking about just more than just a single neighborhood, but community. The, and as part of that, one of the first things we started doing was last year we did a, basically, a windshield survey of the exteriors of houses, using a PDF file, and using the Assessor files. What we did was we went out and actually checked property by property on the exterior a variety of things. If you look at, let’s see if I can get that, obviously, the tax code, here’s the address, this is what the status is, what it is, what the neighborhood association is. Then you’ll see down here a variety of numbers. It was from zero to ten in terms of what needs to be done to that particular property. Since this was an unoccupied lot, it seemed like it was pretty well kept, so, the score, you add these up, the score was zero. We then had a program that took that, and, basically said, okay, how much is it going to cost to do the, mothball it, if you will, on the thing? This is a different one, an unoccupied single family. Most defects are street visible. Again, as you can see, if there needs to be some foundation work, gutters can be in bad shape, and detached garage has a problem, and there’s just some general problems. Again, it got a score of 42, so, it’s going to cost about $4,500. What we then did was, if you’ll go back to the previous one. What we then did was, this is what we produced for the neighborhood. We then went to the neighborhood and said, okay, here are all these addresses in your neighborhood that have problems. Again, what we were looking for were basically vacant or abandoned structures and lots. We said, okay, what do you want? What do you think we ought to do? Which is the proposed action. No action, do we want to mothball it? By mothball it what we mean is, basically, set it aside so that the property can be either fixed up on the exterior so that at some point in time we can sell it or get it rehabed, but not necessarily for immediate action. For the, when there’s a vacant lot, either lot split, that is split the lot between the adjoining owners, or infill housing, and I’ll talk a little bit more about the infill housing later. If there is a property on there, to, basically, demolition, if that is what is needed. We then took that and developed a, plus you will see that there was also priority issues in terms of, at the bottom it asks what priorities the neighborhood had for that. In particular, the appearance of a neighborhood, particularly the curbside appeal has a very dramatic effect on, obviously, its value. One of the things that we’re doing this year, again, on the clean up side, is we’re going to be doing a summer youth program. We ran this last year to some extent with Memorial Community Development Corporation. We’re also looking at a 96 gallon container pilot program. This is in terms of, using the big 96 gallon containers that we would give out to, we’re picking one route to do that on. Again, because, what we’ve found is a lot of the trash and debris is actually coming from the trash collection and time. Either the dogs, animals get into it, or the bag splits, so you have a continuous generation. Then, finally, the third one is, basically, exterior code enforcement. As you know, the city has worked to develop a new property maintenance code, which has really done a, will be doing a very good job. At the same time, as you may know, the city has funded, through the Community Development Block Grant, Rodent Control. We have taken those over. They still are housed in the Health Department. We’re searching for space, so when we get to that discussion, we’ll talk about that, to bring them over to the city. We’ve actually retitled them, not Rodent Control, but rather, Exterior Enforcement, because they’ll be doing rodent as well as exterior enforcement. When we asked all of the neighborhoods, okay, now tell us what they want to do, this happens to be Bellemeade-Bayard Park, the red are unoccupied structures, the green are unimproved parcels, that is there’s no improvements on that. As you can see, there’s a lot of parcels that need to be helped. What we’ve tried to do here is, again, to identify those, and as part of this program, was to capture those properties that were problem properties. We discovered a lot of them had to deal directly with the tax foreclosure issues. That’s when we came up with the idea of buying the properties and putting them into a land bank. Legally we found that the best way in which to legally do the land bank was to do it through our Brownfield Corporation, which is what now is, again, our official land banking agency here in the city. The next slide, what we then did was, of the ten neighborhoods, what we did was we’ve asked each neighborhood to pick 20 percent of their neighborhood of where we should concentrate first. How we picked that was, in terms of which neighborhood to take on, we had ten cards and with numbers one through ten and they randomly drew and that’s where they were in terms of where we would go first. We then asked them, in your neighborhood, to pick out 20 percent of your neighborhood, or divide it into five parts, with whatever you think the first one we should be involved with as the highest priority. This happens to be the Goosetown 20 percent, that is our first round. What will happen is, we’ll do 20 percent of like Tepe Park, 20 percent of Culver, 20 percent of Goosetown, 20 percent of Bellemeade-Bayard Park, down the line. Then we’ll go back again and do the second 20 percent of all the neighborhoods. Again, to try to bring neighborhoods up. I’ll just kind of divert here just a real quick second, in the past, what the city has done is we have had a rehab program for a number of years because of the Community Development Block Grant. What we’ve been able to do with that was we were able to fix up one property, but usually that property was not necessarily next to another property that we’d fixed up. So, many times, which was the case, we would fix up a property, put $25,000 into it, which was next to, on either side, properties that were in the tax sale. So, although we made an investment in an individual property, which was very good, it was not really bringing up the neighborhood, as a whole, but rather just one property. What we’ve tried to do with Front Door Pride is to focus on bringing the whole neighborhood up. What, again, on the survey that we did, this is how, we again used a PDF, and this is how we basically did a lot of things. We also had a lot of other things we’ve did in there, the conditions, what the condition was, what we should do, the fence type, you name it and we were trying to again capture the information of which we were able to do. Trash and debris, vehicles, again all of this was turned over to the appropriate things, or appropriate enforcement arms and things like that. Besides our clean up, we’re also doing exterior repairs/improvements. This is where, if you will, the next generation type of rehab that the city is going into. As I said before, we before did one house scattered throughout Pigeon Township. Again, we’re trying to now concentrate on doing many houses in one spot, but several different spots. We have basically three programs that we’re offering, you probably read about the Washington Avenue, which was one of our first ones that we did, meeting where we had, I think it was 80 some people show up between Washington Avenue out to Kentucky. The program is, on the roof and gutter program we offer up to $2,000 on a 50/50 basis as a grant, so that if a roof costs $4,000, we’ll pay $2,000, the owner pays $2,000, that gets you $4,000. If it costs $5,000, we put in $2,000, the owner puts in $3,000 to do the work. This will all be done through city contracts. The second program is the paint/siding program. We provide a grant, again, up to $500 for materials; paint, brushes and so forth. The property owner has to basically apply the paint and get it on, on the facility, or on the building itself, the structure. The final one is the exterior program or repair, and that is, except for the roof and the paint, we’ll provide a grant of up to $2,500 for replacing doors, windows, foundation, whatever, if the cost is more than that, again, the property owner has to cover that. If, for example, they say that, okay, we can replace five doors, or five windows, and there’s ten windows, again, we will ask that the property owner, we have to do all ten windows. We’ll do our $2,500 worth, and they do their, whatever the extra share is. Next slide. As you can see here, what we’re talking about in terms of what the exterior can and can’t do, and what it does and doesn’t do. Unfortunately, again, appearance does make the house. What we’re trying to do again is to bring a neighborhood up, a whole neighborhood up. Again, we’re giving, if you will, giving away $5,000, but it’s going to do exterior things that people can see. Hopefully, that will, again, start turning a neighborhood around. In the same neighborhood that we’re doing this, we’re also doing the tax sale stuff. That is, because usually, not always, but usually the tax sale has a direct impact on the visual blight of the neighborhood. The only way to basically filter out the bad is to take it over somehow and solve the problem. That is why we’re doing most of our purchasing in the Front Door Pride area, is to take out those lots. As I indicated before, we’re simply a land bank, and what we’re going to be doing is, hopefully, putting all the properties back into productive and taxing use. For those houses that can be rehabed, we’ll probably do a one dollar lottery. We did something like this a number of years ago. We’re looking at doing the same thing, where we will lottery off, for a dollar the property, but the individuals have to already be pre-qualified to pay for all the rehab costs from a conventional finance, in terms of a bank. So, that whatever the cost of the property is will be the amount of money that it costs them to put into the rehab. The demolition, again, once we do the demolition, we’re looking at doing one of two things with those properties, either to lot split it or to new housing construction. For the sales, these are the properties that we’ve bought. That’s a total of how many?

Carolyn Rusk: 117 to begin with.

Greg LaMar: 117, plus whatever has been redeemed.

Carolyn Rusk: Twelve.

Greg LaMar: Twelve of which have been redeemed. Okay, next slide. New house construction. Everybody says, okay, how are you going to construct new houses? The city last year received a one million dollar grant from the state, where we can, basically, underwrite the construction of a new house, up to $25,000, as a grant. So, let’s say that the house itself costs $75,000, and if you’re talking about the house itself for $75,000, you’re talking about a decent house, because we are looking at probably giving the property to the individual for a dollar. We are looking into the question of doing waivers for Building Commission, or building fees and so forth, again, to lower the cost. So, let’s say you have a $75,000 house, which is actually worth a lot more, so, you need a $25,000 grant from us, which would be a $50,000 conventional loan. What we’re looking at again is to make the corresponding loan, the actual loan that they carry, close to what the actual appraised value of the house would be. So, a lot of times in these type of programs, the after rehab value is a lot less than when you add what the initial cost was plus the rehab. So, we’re trying to not mix the market up too much, but to actually make the market work with us in terms of doing the rehab. We’re also, you see Habitat up there. We have been working very, very closely with Habitat in a variety of programs. In the Front Door Pride area, the neighborhoods have indicated that some of them do not want to see Habitat houses built there anymore, because most Habitat houses that have been built, have been built in that Front Door Pride area. In fact, I think it’s 270 almost, 275, 76 houses that they’ve built. The neighborhoods have said, we’ve done our part, now we need to do something else. What we’ve then done is to work with Habitat, through the tax sale as well, that’s why, if you noticed, Habitat is not buying houses in tax sale anymore, because we’re buying it through the land bank and working with them to put them in neighborhoods that want to have the Habitat houses. It’s working out very well. I think we’ll be transferring a bunch of property to them here in the near future, and there’s some other announcements that we’re working with Habitat on. Again, the before, as you know, or travel through some of the neighborhoods you’ll see some of this. Then, of course, the after. Again, the before, and the after. This one is, interestingly you’ll see a little sign over there, on the right one, that says World Changers. We’ve been blessed to have World Changers, which is an evangelical organization where teenagers pay to come to Evansville to basically, for one week to work on houses. Just like, as you know, you’ve heard about going to Birmingham, Alabama or someplace, or wherever, or overseas to do that, actually, we have about 300 people, kids who come for one week during the summer, usually I think it’s August to do this. They do about 25 houses. Again, this particular house that they did, again, it was all exterior, but it sure makes a difference. If you look at the before, go back a few more. This is the house before. The house after. Obviously, that’s going to have a very different impact on the community and the neighborhood itself and how people perceive their neighborhood. Are there any more slides? That’s it? I think overall, again, what we’ve tried to do is, through the Front Door Pride program, through the tax sale acquisitions, is to, again, filter out the bad, and then to convert those into productive properties. I could go on for a long time, but I’ll stop. If there’s any questions, I’ll be more than happy to answer them.

President Musgrave: Phil, would you turn the lights on please? I don’t have a question, but I’m often asked by people who think that the city owns these properties, what role is there for the county? For I’ve mentioned that the county has worked closely with your office, the Commissioners and the Auditor to transfer these properties to you. So, I just want to briefly outline that when people fail to pay their property taxes, and their tax becomes delinquent, after three bills have become delinquent, then it goes up on tax sale. Taxes are assessed and collected by the county, and then the county becomes, they used to become the owner of the property, now we just hold the right to sell the property. So, that’s why the County Commissioners are in the position to be working with the city to be turning those properties over to your not-for-profit or the other entities that you may choose to take those properties from us. So, I did just want to educate that the county and the city have to work very closely to make this happen, and that we’re pleased to. I live in this area, and I’ve witnessed over 25 years the flight of capital from the inner city. There’s only been, I believe, one new house in our whole area, and that might be from 41 all the way to the river, that was not a Habitat house. So, the only new construction that’s being done there is by not-for-profit. So, I have great hopes for this project of yours that it will redefine people’s attitudes for their own neighborhood, give people from outside the neighborhood a fresh look at it. But, I did want to ask, how’s that trash and debris ordinance coming?

Greg LaMar: We’re making some final revisions to it at the next Council meeting. There was some legal issues that we had to get all resolved, and that, the lawyers tell me that it’s all resolved, and, hopefully, we’ll be on our way.

President Musgrave: Okay, I would like our attorney to review that ordinance, because they’re going to adopt it for the city, and we may need to adopt it for the county as well.

Greg LaMar: I’ll get with you.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Okay, good.

Greg LaMar: One point I should point out here is, although a lot of programs are designed for low and moderate income, and by low and moderate income we’re not saying poor folks. A moderate income family of four, if they make $46,000 is considered a moderate income individual or a family. So, you can still make a lot of money and still be considered moderate income and eligible for the programs. For those who are not eligible for our programs by virtue of income, we have, through the Housing Trust Fund set up a special program where we will contribute up to $5,000 for a down payment and closing cost assistance for non-low to moderate individuals and households to buy property within certain parts of Pigeon Township, if they make that property their residence, primary residence, for five years.

President Musgrave: What’s the number that people can call?

Greg LaMar: 436-7823.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Nix: I just had one question, when you approach these people about improving homes and that, you’ve got a way of showing them that a certain amount of money will bring, make their investment worth that much more? I mean, you’ve got a way of equating that somehow or another?

Greg LaMar: We’ve tried to explain that to them, that there’s....I mean, one of our problems right now is that, obviously, the market has been going down, and what we’ve got to do is, basically, stabilize it first, before we can turn it around, honestly. The stabilization is really through a lot of the exterior and the clean up programs. What we hope then is to start turning it around is through the new construction. Hopefully, the investments we make in the non-low mod individuals, who are also eligible for some of our programs, but it does take time. Of course, the first question out of everybody’s mouth is are taxes going to go up? The answer is, yes. I mean, even if we didn’t do anything, the taxes are going to go up. I mean, that’s the reality of life. The question is one of wealth building. Again, you can have a property worth $25,000, and if you put $25,000 in to it, it now may be worth $40,000. Again, it may not be a one for one, but it’s worth more than it used to be. Again, over the long term, if as a community, as a neighborhood, with our programs we can spur additional investment, I think that will be a very important element. One of the, because one of the big problems is not that there’s a disinvestment in the neighborhoods that we’re talking about, it’s that there’s no investment in the neighborhoods.

President Musgrave: That’s right.

Greg LaMar: There’s no investment. So, when you have a decision to make, I can put $5,000 into my house for a new roof, and what value will that add? Well, it may not add a lot of value. If we can help make that decision of putting a new roof on a house less cumbersome, that is by actually doing some grants, hopefully, they’ll put the roof on the house, then you’re starting to see the investments made. Yes, they are subsidized, but there are investments being made, and, hopefully, those will start turning the neighborhoods around.

Commissioner Shetler: You had mentioned that there was, that you’re utilizing some faith based groups that come in once a year. Have we tried using local? That might be something–

Greg LaMar: Yes.

Commissioner Shetler: –on a more durable basis.

Greg LaMar: There are a number of groups out there that have indicated that they would like to work with neighborhoods, work with individuals, and we’re putting together a program, a faith based effort to, in fact, do that. To not only do like clean up, which is one of the things that people do, but also to do like the paint and just some of the general exterior. In fact, we are also looking at, working through the faith based community, to do credit counseling, budget management, monitoring through the faith based community, as well, on a long term basis to help individuals who not only become homeowners, but who are homeowners and need help to get their credit straightened out, because that’s a biggie. There’s a lot of, we’re all filing our taxes here, or have filed our federal taxes, and what we’ve found was that there’s about 2,000 families who are eligible for what’s called the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is a special on the EZ, the 440, or 1040EZ form that if you make less than basically $25,000 gross, you can get up to $1,500 back. Right now we’re leaving, in the community, by people not knowing how to fill out, not knowing to do it, they are eligible, there’s nothing illegal about it, they are eligible, on an average of $1,200 per family for 2,000 families.

President Musgrave: Wow!

Greg LaMar: That’s going to be another big effort that we’re going to really take on this coming year and the next year, so that we get the word out that you can, by doing, just filling out the right form, you can get some money back.

President Musgrave: Greg, there is a program, defined by statute, for tax abatement for renovating single family or multi-family homes. Are you connecting people with their township assessors to get that?

Greg LaMar: Yes. Again, when we’ve done that we’ve explained the various programs, one of the questions, of course, is now under the new system, everybody’s kind of used to the old system where you had to do certain things. Where as now it can actually talk about the money that you put into it, which will actually have, you can get a deduction on. But, yes, we are working with people who do that.

President Musgrave: Okay. Well, thank you very much for the presentation.

Greg LaMar: Thank you for having us.

President Musgrave: Look forward to working with you in the future.

President Musgrave: Now we have SMG, John Bolton, to make an announcement regarding the Centre. As you know, the Centre is operated by the Commissioners, and we contract with SMG to manage that for us.

John Bolton: Thank you for allowing me to come today and announce the Broadway series to you and also your viewers out there. We are very pleased to announce two anchor shows in our series this year. One being The Producers, and the other being Mamma Mia. Producers is the most award winning Tony musical ever in the history of Broadway, and that will be coming her next year for our series in October. Also Mamma Mia which is one of the most popular Broadway musicals currently on Broadway right now, and that will be coming in February of ‘07. We have four other shows; I Can’t Stop Loving You, which is the story of Ray Charles on December 1^st; Urban Cowboy in January; and Jesus Christ Superstar starring Ted Neeley in April. Those series subscriptions are on sale now. We would love to have you stop by the Centre, or you can call our number at 435-5770. The four show series starts at $79 and goes up from there. So, certainly affordable for Broadway shows. Some other things happening at the Centre, quite busy in the theater there. Tomorrow night James Farley will be the speaker on the University of Evansville global speaker series. He’s a Toyota executive. Friday night is Kenny Rogers, and this will be a live concert taping for a DVD that he’s going to release of all of his hits. Next Wednesday is James Taylor, followed by Saturday, blues legend, B.B. King, followed by Monday, April 17^th, David Copperfield for two performances. Later in the month a performance by Rockapella, which is a fundraiser for Red Cross. In May, Cinderella by the Children’s Center for Dance Education. Then in June we have two music legends, one being country, George Jones, and the other being pop, Sheryl Crow. Then we finish up in July, this summer, with the summer musical by the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation of West Side Story. So, certainly a lot of events to choose from, and we encourage everyone to come out and purchase tickets and support these events, so that we can continue to have more.

President Musgrave: Thank you very much.

John Bolton: Thank you.

Commissioner Nix: Thanks.

President Musgrave: Any questions?

John Bolton: Appreciate it.

President Musgrave: Purchasing, Mr. Lawrence, permission to award VC-07-2006, Burdette Park t-shirts.

Phil Lawrence: Madam Chairman, thank you. You have in your packets the bid tabulation for 2006. It’s a three tiered bid; Chips for $1,965, Phoenix of Evansville for $1,008.95, and Southwest Grafix for $402.60.

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

Commissioner Nix: I was just curious, is there a reason why there was such a big spread there?

Phil Lawrence: No, it’s, we all took a look. It was the lowest bidder in each section.

Commissioner Nix: Okay.

Phil Lawrence: So, yeah, it’s–

Commissioner Nix: It is what it is, huh?

Phil Lawrence: It is what it is.

Commissioner Nix: There you go.

Phil Lawrence: I mean, you look at Chips’ bid of $2.50 for a shirt, Phoenix was $2.51, Southwest Grafix was $2.55, and Siegel’s was $3.50. So, everybody was right on the mark, but in all cases we chose the lowest bidder.

President Musgrave: Okay.

President Musgrave: Permission to seek quotes for VC-05-2006, moving of election equipment.

Phil Lawrence: Yes, I would like your permission, this is for all of the voting machines for the primary election. We will open the bids here April 18^th at 3:30.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Thank you, sir.

Phil Lawrence: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Contracts, agreements and leases, Homeland Security grant program sub-grant agreement. Mr. Greer, are you here to address this?

Sherman Greer: We have about three grants before you to be signed. One memorandum of understanding, and I also have an application, grant application signature page that must be signed by the President of the County Commissioners.

President Musgrave: Do you want to go over what each of them is?

Sherman Greer: The first, well, we have the weapons of mass destruction, hazardous materials exercise grant for $44,190.74. That is reimbursement for overtime for the law enforcement agencies, the fire departments, all the agencies that were involved in that exercise that we had September the 23^rd and 24^th. We also have the–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Excuse me.

Sherman Greer: Yes.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: If I may ask you, I noticed in the language of the grant it says that the grant amount is $44,190.74. Then it says from fiscal year 2003. What does that mean? Do you know?

Sherman Greer: I have no idea, Mr. Ziemer.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: But, it is a reimbursement amount we’re getting, is that correct?

Sherman Greer: It’s a reimbursement grant, yes, sir.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Nix: Could that be a typo?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Well, it’s not for fiscal year 2003, because–

Sherman Greer: I have no idea.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: As long as it’s reimbursement for expenses, we’re satisfied.

Sherman Greer: We’re happy with that, yes.

President Musgrave: If you can hold on while we change the tape.

(Tape change)

President Musgrave: Go ahead.

Sherman Greer: The second one that we have is the 2005 Emergency Preparedness grant program. That is the 50 percent of my staff, the three employees that we have for Emergency Management, that the state picks up every year. That’s $56,855.07. The next one is an MOU, memorandum of understanding, this is the agreement that we have with the State of Indiana on the use of their towers and equipment that they’ve provided for us. They’ve provided 54 radios for Evansville-Vanderburgh County for the new Hoosier SAFE-T communications system that they’ve got. I think that Mr. Dave Vice was here to give you a presentation on that earlier, a couple of months ago.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Commissioners, those are in the order that Sherman mentioned them, they are items little i, little three i, and little iv on your agenda.

President Musgrave: If there’s a motion to approve those?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Thank you. Is that it?

Sherman Greer: Unless you want an update on the ‘05 grant.

President Musgrave: Yes, please.

Sherman Greer: Right now the ‘05 grant that we’re just now entering in, we just got the paperwork and everything for that, for the approval. Our task force has had two meetings on that. We’ve got some items that we’re in the process of getting approved by the state so that we can make the purchases. That grant was for $527,507. $332,588 of that is from the Homeland Security side. $194,919 is for the law enforcement side. But, we’re all meeting together to figure out how we’re going to best spend that money. We’ve got some items that are right now being approved by the, we hope it’s going to be approved by the field rep so that we can send that in to the state. We have 60 days to complete this grant. They’ve put that on us that we have to make sure that this is done in that 60 day time period. I think we’re out ahead of the curve already, because we’re just now getting the paperwork signed to get it back up there to them. So, we should have, we shouldn’t have any problems at all in making the 60 days.

President Musgrave: Okay, thank you very much.

Sherman Greer: You’re welcome.

President Musgrave: Now, we have County Commissioners request to release funds agreement. Mr. Ziemer, do you have information on this?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, this is in connection with the Knight Township Volunteer Fire Department and the $500,000 grant from the State of Indiana. To be able to have the funds released we needed to provide assurance to the state that we met all environmental impact requirements, and 90 percent of this document sets forth correspondence with various agencies that do indicate that we meet those requirements. Then there are two pages in the document that require the signature, if this is approved by the Commissioners, require the signature of the President of the Commissioners, to authorize the release of funds effective as of April 10, 2006.

President Musgrave: I’m pleased to say that we had the groundbreaking today for the Knight Township Fire Department. That will be built next to the mobile home park, on land donated by the mobile home park owners, the Whitehead family. The Lieutenant Governor came down and spoke, as did a number of other dignitaries, so this, I understand that they’re going to start construction soon, perhaps June, I think, and it is expected to be complete by the end of the year. I’m really looking forward to that. Is there a motion to request release of the funds?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: We move now to five, Health Department, Albin-Barr Cleaning Service contract.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That is simply a contract between the Commissioners on behalf of the Health Department for cleaning services for the WIC program at the Fulton Clinic. The charges on the contract are $129 a month for all cleaning services, supplies, and so forth for those services. We find it satisfactory for execution.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: Six, Superior Court ICJI Byrne grant agreement.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: This agreement is for a grant of $95,393 to the Superior Court in connection with the Byrne program. The agreement provides that it covers services listed on exhibits A, B, C, D and E. My copy of the agreement, nor did the Commissioners copy have A, B, C, D or E attached. So, I don’t know what services are to be provided for these grant funds. But, subject to that caveat, the agreement is satisfactory for execution.

Commissioner Nix: Do we want to table that until we can–

President Musgrave: Yes.

Commissioner Nix: –yeah, I think that would be a wise thing to do.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Is it, I don’t know, is anybody here that could speak to this? It would be somebody from Superior Court. I don’t know whether it’s time sensitive or not. There’s nothing in the document that indicates that it is. Well, excuse me, let me see, no, no, I don’t see anything that makes this time sensitive.

President Musgrave: Is that a motion?

Commissioner Nix: That’s a motion.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: If you could contact the Superior Court and get a copy of that.

Commissioner Nix: Let me just say something to that. I had signed that about, probably about a week and a half ago to get it sent off. It had to be presented the next day, and they overnighted it. So, I had gotten it to that point, and then I think we just need to clarify what exactly it covers.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Then have it ratified, yes.

President Musgrave: Okay, that’s fine.

President Musgrave: And also for the Superior Court, Home Verification Officer agreement for professional services.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That’s an agreement for Vanderburgh County Day Reporting Drug Court. It’s for the services of Michael Collins, who is a deputy Sheriff, who will provide home verification visits for the Day Reporting Drug program. He will receive, as an independent contractor, he will receive compensation of $1,545 per month, on a bi-weekly basis. The agreement is for one year, running from April 1, 2006 through April 1, 2007. It’s satisfactory for execution.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Looking over our agenda today, and reviewing the report that the city gave us, there’s a tremendous amount of federal grant money flowing through to local government, and we’re pleased to have it, it’s just that we can always use more.

President Musgrave: Building Authority, Mr. Dave Rector, letter to pursue design services for demolition of the old jail space.

Dave Rector: Good afternoon. Dave Rector, Building Authority. As you’re well aware, the old jail has moved. Commissioner Nix and I have been working on the next steps with that. With that, we’ve requested some scope of services from engineering/architectural firms to, one, provide a specification for demolition of the old jail and to prepare it for build-outs. The other to prepare the multitude of preliminary plans that we’re going to have that may develop as to how we use that space. My board last week had voted to award that to a combination of American Consulting and Veazey Parrott Durkin and Shoulders, to be paid from our joint agreement checking account from the defeased bond surplus money. One being not to exceed $43,500, and the other not to exceed $56,400. Because it’s the joint account, it requires both of our boards approval. I’m requesting your approval to go ahead and pursue those.

Commissioner Nix: I guess, just for the record, could you just give us a summary of each one of the two not to exceed prices? What they intend to do.

Dave Rector: Yes, the not to exceed $43,500 is for the demolition scope of work. To, I guess, gut the place, tear it down, disconnect all the utilities, piping, electrical, H, I would say HVAC, but there’s no AC–

Commissioner Nix: Or lack of it.

Dave Rector: –yeah, and the other is to work with everybody, take the old surveys, starting in at say here’s how this space can be used, here’s how, this person’s going to fit here, here’s how this group’s going to move there, what’s going to happen when areas in this building move to other areas. So, they’re two separate services and two different specifications that we’ll get.

Commissioner Nix: I think it should be clear that this doesn’t really get us to a complete build out of all the spaces.

Dave Rector: Absolutely not.

Commissioner Nix: This is, basically, one the demolition, like you say, and the other is just getting us to the point where we can put this back.

Dave Rector: Hopefully, who knows if we’re going to do three preliminary layouts or 20 preliminary. But, once we get there, then we’ll do a design package for bidding purposes on that final build out. I think the thought is we could probably get better prices in a bid for building out, than trying to demo and build out. Hopefully, too we’ll get some after market value on some of the old jail stuff, being the doors, the toilets, some of the bars. The price of scrap steel is up really high right now too. So, that may help some with the project.

President Musgrave: So, is this the time then that anyone in the government agencies that occupy this building or at scattered sites, is this the time for them to come forward and say I would like that space?

Dave Rector: Many already have. As you’re aware, a survey was done to the (Inaudible), and there’s an idea of how we use that space. Yes, if they have some requests and needs, they need to start funneling those our way.

President Musgrave: Alright, how are we going to manage that? Do we want you to be the primary recipient and send a copy to us? Is there a form that you have?

Dave Rector: We had a survey that we distributed two years ago now, three years ago. There’s been administration changes since then, if those folks want to look at what a prior administration had already submitted, we can give them new copies. We can be the source for distributing those and disseminating it. Obviously, we’re going to be working with the Commissioners and the Mayor as we move through this whole cumbersome process. We’re going to have county offices asking to move into county space, we’re going to have city offices asking to move into county space. The Commissioners are going to have to say, yeah, we agree for the city to go. The city is going to say, well, we don’t want to go, it’s going to cost too much. This is going to be a whole cooperative effort that everybody is really going to have to work closely together on.

President Musgrave: Well, one thing that I would like to request is that you deal with the elected official, and not their staff. That their staff should work through the elected official, through the department heads if it’s the Mayor. If it’s a board that has, that meets for example in one of the rooms here and has a request, then I would ask that the board vote on it before a request is brought forward. I would like to have a running rendition of who’s asking for what. Don’t just save it up and spring it on me at one time.

Dave Rector: Yeah, I’ll just give you a recap as we move through it.

Commissioner Nix: Mr. Rector and I have had quite a few meetings, and kind of walked through some of the different scenarios, and a lot of it really make sense, you know, the stuff that we’ve looked at recently. Of course, we’re going to have a lot of space in the old jail when we get that all–

President Musgrave: Theoretically.

Commissioner Nix: –well, theoretically. I’m sure that space will go in a hurry, once it’s available. But, there are some things that we can do economically within the existing space and new space to make this all work. I’m comfortable, we just need to move forward with it.

Dave Rector: Probably one of the more interesting things is, as we’ve talked, the referendum for consolidation and how that works.

Commissioner Shetler: That’s right.

Dave Rector: If we have this proposed new Council, it’s not going to work in here. Then are we going to have a whole new high tech Council chambers in a new area?

President Musgrave: I think we need one of those anyway. So, maybe I should just make that motion now.

Dave Rector: It’s going to be frustrating, but it’s going to be kind of fun too. It’s the first time we’ve all had this opportunity in 35 years.

Commissioner Shetler: Dave, I was about to bring up that point about the possibility of the consolidation, and, you know, that this would be one room that would have to be completely redone–

Dave Rector: Yes.

Commissioner Shetler: –to accommodate 15 people, or whatever they’re talking about. The other thing I might just suggest for today, we had, a while ago lined up here two different projectors, and some days it’s two and three from different departments. I mean, personally, I feel like rather than every department running out and buying their own projectors and setting up their own gizmos and re-establishing everything, it would be wise and prudent for us to look at some kind of a deal here where it’s all centrally used and everybody just plugs in their laptop one after another, and it would be a lot quicker, easier, and much easier to maintain, I believe.

Dave Rector: Absolutely.

Commissioner Shetler: So, just a suggestion for today, that we might do immediately and not wait.

Dave Rector: I think we could look at that technology where they come in much like, I think Area Plan Commission kind of uses to project their GIS on the screen.

Commissioner Shetler: Right.

Dave Rector: I’ll go ahead and look into that.

Commissioner Shetler: Right now, like I said, now everybody’s using their own.

Dave Rector: I know we’ve been frustrated with some of the sound system in here, and we’re also looking at what can we do with that?

President Musgrave: Be sure and touch base with Matt Arvay, the CIO. He has already priced out, several times, the joint projector.

Dave Rector: Oh, okay.

President Musgrave: And it’s costly. $40,000 plus.

Commissioner Nix: Yeah, they’re not cheap, I know that.

President Musgrave: But, it’s the sort of thing that would be reused if we moved to another room.

Commissioner Nix: You touched on a minute ago, and I think it’s important that however this ends up, whether the unification, government unification/consolidation whatever you want to call it, if it does in fact happen, that the things we do outside this space are well thought out enough to where we’re not going to have to come back and spend a whole lot more money again in different departments and that. I think we just need to make sure that we look at that at the same time.

President Musgrave: Alright, so you are going to pursue design services for the demolition and then for crafting various alternatives for use of the new space?

Dave Rector: Yes.

President Musgrave: So, I’m sure this word will spread around the government like wildfire, but now is the time, and they should work with you and copy us on those requests. Is there a motion for that?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Musgrave?

President Musgrave: Yes, Ma’am?

Madelyn Grayson: The documents that your board approved, where are those housed? Because there is not anything here for the Commissioners to sign. If someone wants to review them, they normally would come to us.

Commissioner Nix: She’s a step ahead of me there.

Madelyn Grayson: So, they should go to the Building Authority?

Dave Rector: We just got them in the mail.

Madelyn Grayson: Was that something they need to sign? Or your board signs it?

Dave Rector: Our board.

Madelyn Grayson: Okay.

President Musgrave: Then we’re granting our–

Dave Rector: Normally, the Building Authority handles all of this, it goes through our books, does it, and then as the project moves it reimbursed on that. Because this was a fairly good sum of money, instead of the Building Authority carrying all that money on our books for the next year or two years, we have this joint account, so we requested that we share this one.

President Musgrave: I want you to make clear to anybody who comes forward asking you for space, that there is no money in place, right now, to actually build out the space. There is no time table right now for getting moved in to any space. Everybody is free to dream, but not to plan.

Dave Rector: Exactly. So, don’t start packing your boxes yet.

President Musgrave: No.

President Musgrave: Alright, the City of Evansville letter requesting use of unoccupied Sheriff Department space. That’s not you?

Dave Rector: Do you want me to stay up here for that?

President Musgrave: Is there somebody from the city here?

Dave Rector: Chief Hill is here.

President Musgrave: Chief Hill.

Dave Rector: I think. Commissioner Nix, did you copy the other Commissioners on the Chief’s letter to me and the Mayor’s letter to me?

Commissioner Nix: Yes, I did.

Dave Rector: Okay.

Commissioner Nix: You all got that, didn’t you?

President Musgrave: I got it.

Commissioner Nix: I sent it yesterday.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Brad Hill: Brad Hill, Chief of Police.

Commissioner Nix: Good afternoon.

Brad Hill: How are you? We were wanting to move offices into the space that’s being vacated by the Sheriff’s Department. We, as you may or may not know have our personnel and training office up here on the third floor of the administration building. We would like to consolidate the department all together. It makes a certain amount of sense for us to be on that end of the building, where the rest of our offices are. There’s some security issues there. I think, it makes a certain amount of sense for us to be there also by the fact that the prisoners are being transported there, busloads of them on a daily basis back and forth in that area where those offices are, and walked up to go to court each day. We also bring prisoners to and from the Police Department, and it makes more sense to me for that to all be law enforcement on that end of the building, and law enforcement parking on that end of the building, because of the fact that we are dealing with suspects and prisoners in that area. So, that’s why we’re proposing to move those offices there. We are looking at the possibility of moving our administration offices over to the Sheriff’s Departments administration office, and probably move personnel and training to where our administrative offices are right now.

Commissioner Nix: Is Mr. Rector still here?

Dave Rector: Yeah.

Commissioner Nix: We had talked about square footage and space and that, and this would be, basically, if they would move out of the second floor–

Brad Hill: Third floor.

Commissioner Nix: –excuse me, third floor, down at the end, the training, that’s a training area for you all? That would be a net add of about 500 square feet, is that what we came up with?

Dave Rector: 556.

Commissioner Nix: 556, okay.

Dave Rector: 556 moving to the city, and then if this is allowed, that space would then be used for the expansion, we’re thinking of DMD. They are quite cramped.

Commissioner Nix: Which is adjacent to this space now. So, that would make sense to, if they did, in fact, need more room, that...how many square feet do we have in that space upstairs?

Dave Rector: 1,900, I think it’s 1,968 upstairs here, and the space that they are going into is a little over 2,500. So, that’s 556 net. Training is 1,968 square feet. The Sheriff’s space is 2,524.

President Musgrave: Is there money budgeted by the city to pay the increased?

Brad Hill: Yes, there is.

President Musgrave: Okay, and, now, are you aware that there was a prior plan to move another office into part of that space down there?

Brad Hill: I had heard some rumors of that. I personally don’t think that’s a good idea to move other civilians in that area. Just for what I’ve said already. As Dave said, we’re not increasing our kingdom too much. We’re just kind of consolidating it a little bit.

President Musgrave: Because there has been that other move, and it allowed the computer services to consolidate, if you did that. Consolidating computer, consolidating police–

Brad Hill: I would vote for police.

President Musgrave: This other office though–

Commissioner Nix: Do what, Chief?

Brad Hill: I would vote to consolidate police on that.

Commissioner Nix: You would.

President Musgrave: I would request that we review this for at least a week to try to come to some terms of what we will do, since this throws a wrench into the computer plans that were in place.

Commissioner Nix: Could we look at that as another location for...that was Solid Waste is what we were talking about.

Dave Rector: That’s in the mix of things that we’ve looked at before. They do need to move for the expansion of computer services that are cramped. We’ve looked at other possibilities for them. We could go back and revisit that, look at it. I understand Chief’s desire to have the space to himself, but after listening to him and Assistant Chief Hahn and what goes on in the Police Department, I think we need to try to find another space for Solid Waste. It’s probably not a good mix for them down there.

President Musgrave: They need to be by the loading dock. That was the attractiveness of that other space. It’s by a loading dock. There’s only a couple of other places. Are you going to turn over the smoking room?

Dave Rector: Well, according to what may happen here in the next couple of week’s, that’s (Inaudible).

President Musgrave: Well, the more things change.

Commissioner Nix: Mr. Rector, stick around.

President Musgrave: Yeah, you might want to stay. Okay, alright, so, we have a couple of things to discuss, and I would like to table this while we do work that out in the background. Commissioner Nix, do you want to take the lead on that? What are your thoughts?

Commissioner Nix: I’ll do it.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Dave Rector: I’ll get with you then, Bill.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Do we need a motion to table it?

Commissioner Nix: I’ll make that motion.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: We’ll work on it.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you very much.

Dave Rector: Thank you.

Dave Rector: Could I take one more moment to apprise the Commissioners of what you and I talked about earlier? There is an event going on at the Centre, early June, I think June 7^th or 8^th I told you, where there is a helicopter show, for lack of better terms. They’ve rented the whole Centre, many, I think 1,000 hotel rooms. A big event, but it’s going to entail me having to reserve part of the parking lot to set some helicopters down in. Anytime we do anything with parking that reduces the availability during the day, we hear of it quite loudly from folks. I just wanted to let you know that we’re going to have to do that, and probably you’ll hear some of the complaints too. I don’t know that we have a solution. A helicopter can’t go too many places. I am going to talk to the Safety Board and see if maybe we can do it in the street, instead of the parking lot. But, I wanted you guys to be aware that that’s coming in early June.

Commissioner Nix: The area that you’re talking about is basically just up against the back 40, along Ninth?

Dave Rector: Obviously, with the show going on in the exhibit hall, they want to have the helicopters directly across Ninth Street in that immediate part of the parking lot, instead of way in the back where nobody parks.

Commissioner Shetler: How many days would be affected?

Dave Rector: Just one day.

Commissioner Shetler: Oh.

President Musgrave: Are you considering closing off Ninth?

Dave Rector: I’m going to address that with the Safety Board to see if that might be an alternative to the parking lot.

President Musgrave: I think that would be nice.

Commissioner Nix: Then they would land on Ninth instead of the parking lot?

Dave Rector: Yes.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Dave Rector: So, I just wanted you to be aware of it. Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Department heads, Mr. Craig, Burdette Park, permission to receive quotes on parking lot development and landscaping.

Steve Craig: Steve Craig, Manager of Burdette. I was seeking permission to pursue quotes for the parking lot renovation and landscaping.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Commissioners, if we could, while Mr. Craig is here. There was only one bid for the spray park, and I’ve opened that, and it’s from ECI Construction for $73,990.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion to take under advisement?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Steve, are you going to take this?

President Musgrave: Are you going to review the bid?

Steve Craig: I would like to review it, then I’ll return it to, I guess, Madelyn.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yeah, maybe let Phil have a look at it as well, Steve, after. I mean, you’ll be looking at it from the point of view of substance, and he’ll look at it from the point of view of bid qualification.

Steve Craig: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Mr. Stoll, County Engineer. If you would like to go, Mr. Ziemer, over the quotes after he gets done with his report.

John Stoll: The first item that I have is a cover sheet for the Old State Road bridge plans. This is for the bridge rehab. It’s between Mt. Pleasant Road and Hillsdale Road. Bernardin Lochmueller and Associates is doing the design, and I have the Mylar cover sheet with the plans that needs the Commissioners signatures.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: Next, I’ve got an inspection report that Bernardin Lochmueller submitted for the Kuebler Road bridge. This is bridge number 1160. They were hired to do an evaluation of the bridge and determine what needed to be done in conjunction with the rehab. I e-mailed each of you a copy of their inspection report that indicated it needed a new concrete deck and that it needed the wingwalls on all four corners of the bridge extended, and it needed additional guardrail installed on three of the four corners. I would like your approval to sign off on that inspection report that would allow them to proceed with the design of all those features they identified.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: Next, I have a change order on the concrete repair contract from last year. This is for an increase of $400, and in going through the invoices we found that the sidewalk repair that was added to the contract on Lincoln Pointe Boulevard was not included in a prior change order. So, this just needs to be added to reconcile the balance as far as what the contractor has billed us.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: Next, I have a street plan approval request for The Glens Subdivision. This is located near the northeast corner of Oak Hill Road and Lynch Road. This subdivision is the one where the developer is providing right-of-way stubs to the north that would lead up to Elmridge Drive and to the east over to Congress. They extend the roads as far as they can within the limits of the areas that they need to fill. They do stub driveways out to the property lines, so that way the county could come back at a later date and potentially connect those roads up. We’ve reviewed the plans. The designer has made the changes that we had requested. So, I would request approval of the subdivision street plans.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: Next, on that same subdivision, the engineer has requested a sidewalk waiver. I would recommend approval of the sidewalk waiver.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Shetler: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: The last item that I have is a brief update on the Green River Road-Millersburg Road intersection project. Commissioner Shetler and I met with Clark Dietz, who’s the designer of the project, we met a couple of weeks ago to go over where we need to go with the project. The, one of the comments that was received during the public hearing back in December was redesign the project, provide curb and gutter and storm sewers, as opposed to the shoulder and open ditch design that currently exists. That was evaluated, and depending on what right-of-way figures you want to assume, as far as how much right-of-way savings there would be versus the increased construction costs, the overall increase in costs by going with the curb and gutter and storm sewer design would add something in the neighborhood of a quarter million dollars to the project. It would also lead to another 12 month or so delay in getting the design revised and resubmitted to INDOT. As a result of all that, Commissioner Shetler and I, when we met with Clark Dietz, told them to proceed with the design as it currently exists with the shoulders and open ditches. On that basis the consultant is going to go ahead and wrap up their public hearing transcript and the comments received at the public hearing and submit that to INDOT, which in turn would allow us to proceed with right-of-way acquisition here soon. In conjunction with that, once INDOT approves all the public hearing documentation, our next step will be that we will need a supplemental agreement to deal with the right-of-way engineering and right-of-way acquisition services. So, I’ll bring that to you at a later date. I just wanted to give you an update on the discussion that we had with the consultant.

Commissioner Shetler: In addition to that, John, correct me if I’m wrong, but, also the savings of actual right-of-way or property that we would need for the right-of-way would have been very insignificant to most of those property owners. It would have created a great deal of hardship, particularly as we look at four laning the rest of, from Millersburg on back to Lynch Road and then transitioning that beyond a bit, that would have created some difficulties and caused us perhaps to go back and get that property again.

John Stoll: Right.

Commissioner Shetler: So, there was, you know, a great deal of complication here that it was really beyond the point of trying to go back and recreate.

John Stoll: The estimates were that it would save about five feet, give or take, on right-of-way on each side of the road, depending on where you were along the project. Like Commissioner Shetler said, long term we know Green River is going to be widened on out to Boonville-New Harmony or 57, who knows to what point. If we acquire the right-of-way now, then it would be available for the future widening later. In the future, to be consistent with what we’re looking at for everything up to Millersburg, it will be a curb and gutter design later. So, the right-of-way we’re acquiring now could be reused at a later date, and, hopefully, we won’t have to go back to those property owners a second time at a later date.

President Musgrave: Okay. You don’t require a vote on that?

John Stoll: No, that was just an update. That’s all I have.

President Musgrave: Would you like to read off the quotes?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, for the record, let me say that as I’m going to be reading these, Green River Phase One is Lynch Road to Hirsch, Green River Phase Two is Hirsch to Heckel, Green River Phase Three is Heckel to Millersburg. I’m going to read the contractors, and I’m going to indicate the various phases that they bid on. The other two are Baseline bridge and Cross Pointe Boulevard. Bernardin Lochmueller has submitted a, responded to the request for proposal for all five projects. Morley and Associates has responded for Cross Pointe Boulevard. The Corradino Group has responded for Green River Phases One, Two and Three, and Cross Pointe. Clark Dietz has responded for Green River Phase Three and Cross Pointe. Beam Longest and Neff has responded for all five projects. R.W. Armstrong’s proposal was received at 3:42, the deadline was 3:30. We consider that a late submission, and it’s not been opened. American Consulting, Inc. has responded as to all five projects. RQAW Corporation responded as to Green River Phase One and Three and Baseline bridge and Cross Pointe Boulevard. M.D. Wessler and Associates responded for all five projects. Level Five Engineering responded for only Baseline bridge. Commonwealth Engineers responded for Green River Phase Three, and Cross Pointe Boulevard. Q.K. Four has responded for Green River Phases Two and Three, and Baseline bridge and Cross Pointe Boulevard. DLZ has responded only