VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

FEBRUARY 27, 2007

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 27^th day of February, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Cheryl Musgrave presiding.

President Musgrave: Good afternoon. I’m calling to order the February 27, 2007 meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County. We will begin with introductions.

Marissa Nichoalds: Marissa Nichoalds, Superintendent of County Buildings.

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

Commissioner Nix: Bill Nix, County Commissioner.

President Musgrave: Cheryl Musgrave, Commissioner.

Commissioner Tornatta: Troy Tornatta, Commissioner.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Bill Fluty: Bill Fluty, County Auditor.

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

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Musgrave: Our first action item is Mr. Jim Dittoe with Winning Communities presentation. He has not yet arrived. So, we will move to Mark Barton, the public hearing and first reading of the vacation ordinance CO.V-02-07-001, for vacation of public utility easements in the Vanderburgh Industrial Park.

Mark Barton: Yes, I’m Mark Barton with Bernardin and Lochmueller, representing the petitioner, the Evansville Industrial Foundation. They are wanting to vacate two ten foot public utility easements at the back of what used to be lot six in the park. They vacated part of that lot, and down zoned, and now want to remove two easements.

President Musgrave: Are there any questions from the Commissioners? Anyone to speak on this? In that case, is there a motion?

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: I believe I need a roll call vote for this. Commissioner Nix?

Commissioner Nix: Yes.

President Musgrave: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Yes.

President Musgrave: And I vote yes. Thank you. Will this come up for second hearing next meeting?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Whatever you decide. I mean, I don’t know–

Madelyn Grayson: It’s an ordinance. So, it would need second reading.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yeah, I know, but has it been advertised as to when that’s going to be?

Madelyn Grayson: Just the public hearing for today was advertised, but next week would be fine for second reading.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Whenever you want to set it.

Commissioner Nix: It wouldn’t be next week. It would be the following week.

Madelyn Grayson: Right.

President Musgrave: That’s March 13^th would be the second reading.

Madelyn Grayson: Correct.

Mark Barton: Okay, thank you.

President Musgrave: Today is the final, did you have something to ask?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I just want to ask a question. When you turned in your materials you didn’t have all the green cards. You’ve got more then, I’m sure.

Mark Barton: As we receive them back, I’ll turn them all in.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: In to Madelyn.

Mark Barton: Yes, correct.

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

President Musgrave: Today is the final reading of ordinance CO.02-07-004, the ordinance authorizing and establishing criteria for use of credit cards. These are for the credit cards obtained by the government for use by the government. Is there any questions from the Commissioners? Is there anyone here to speak to this? Seeing none, is there a motion?

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Commissioner Nix?

Commissioner Nix: Yes.

President Musgrave: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Yes.

President Musgrave: And, I vote yes.

President Musgrave: County Highway, Mr. Mike Duckworth, permission to place EMA warning siren on County Highway property.

Mike Duckworth: Yes, good afternoon, Commissioners. Mike Duckworth, Superintendent of the County Highway. I am bringing a letter to you on behalf of Sherman Greer that was sent to me, requesting permission to place an emergency warning siren on our property at the Highway Department at St. Joe and Mill. This is going to be placed on the northwest corner of the property to ensure that folks that live in the trailer courts and the homes and the businesses in close proximity would be able to be notified in the event of inclement weather or tornados or whatever.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion to approve placement of the warning sirens?

Commissioner Nix: Move approval

.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Mike Duckworth: The next thing I have here is to request permission to seek bids for the equipment storage building that we have been funded by the County Council to construct on our property. We will be, we have developed a design, and we’ll be applying for site review. We’ll go through that process on Monday. We’ve also, I’ve met with Roger Lehman of the Building Authority, I mean, Building Commission, and he has authorized us to go ahead and move forward to applying for state permits. We want to get this project moving. Upon the obtaining of the permits and approval of site review, we would like for your permission to go ahead and seek bids at a later date for this.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

Mike Duckworth: Just one last thing, we do have our final county road hearing, district two, Commissioner Tornatta’s district, would be, it was going to be handled tomorrow from 6:30 to 8:30 at Hamilton Golf Course club house. We’ve had two previous, one at Plaza Park Middle school, one at Helfrich Park Middle School. This will be our third. John Stoll, the County Engineer, myself, of course, the Commissioners will be there to field questions and inquiries about folks out in the north part, portion of the county, or anywhere else that maybe was not able to attend the previous meetings. From that time on we will put together a list, with pictures, and then we’ll forward that information to the Commissioners for priority.

President Musgrave: Thank you, Mr. Duckworth.

President Musgrave: I would like to ask Mr. Adam Groupe of Emergency Management to come forward and discuss other weather warning sirens.

Adam Groupe: Good afternoon. This year, out of our planned budget expenses, we’re able to actually get four new sirens. We want to place one at Resurrection church and school off of Highway 65. We plan on placing one at Mt. Pleasant between Baumgart and 41. As you know, we’ll be placing one at St. Joe in the County Highway garage, and we’ll be using one of the new ones to replace one that was damaged at Morgan and Stockwell in the city. Then, when that insurance money finishes coming through, we will put that one out in the county. Now, as you know, we don’t pick these locations arbitrarily, we work with the Area Plan Commission, look at demographics, where the trends are, where people not only are moving now, but where we think they will be in a few years. We are growing outward.

President Musgrave: Are there any questions? When do you expect to have the tornado sirens placed?

Adam Groupe: They should be finished, these are all custom built, of course, we expect to see them delivered in three to four weeks. Then we, of course, have got bids out to do the installation. So, we’re hoping to have them still this spring. Have them up by the end of spring.

Commissioner Tornatta: Adam?

Adam Groupe: Yes, sir?

Commissioner Tornatta: Give me some of the other criteria that go into letting the sirens blow. What different things–

Adam Groupe: Well, when we activate them?

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah, when would you activate?

Adam Groupe: Okay, we activate them, first of all for severe weather incidents. That would be an actual warning product from the National Weather Service, be it a tornado warning, a severe thunderstorm warning. We would also activate them if a public safety officer, a law enforcement officer, a fire fighter, a paramedic, an Emergency Management weather spotter physically saw a tornado or a funnel cloud in Vanderburgh County, we would set them off for severe weather. We also use them for such things as hazardous material spills. Not only can we set them off as a group county-wide, we also have them broken down into quadrants, and we can even set one individually off, to warn people of a chemical spill, for example.

Commissioner Tornatta: Then, in the event that we would have some type of terrorism act, potentially they could be set off at that?

Adam Groupe: In theory, unfortunately, the warning sound of the siren can only give you so much information. What we train people is that when they hear the siren, to go inside to a safe place, put on a local t.v. station, put on a local radio station, and get local, current information on what’s happening. Unfortunately a wailing sound of a siren can’t give you much more information than that. But, anything that we would need people to go inside to a safe place and turn on local media, we could use them for.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay, thank you.

Adam Groupe: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you, Mr. Groupe.

President Musgrave: We move now to contracts, agreements and leases. County Commissioners, Alternative Service Concepts LLC, claims service contract. Does anyone have any questions on this? Or, is there a motion?

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Second is the Health Department’s Steri-Safe agreement. It is essentially the same as last year from what I understand. Are there any questions?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, no. That, this is a new contract, but that’s alright, I mean, I did advise the Commissioners about this. I did have some questions about the contract, and I prepared an addendum, which I wanted Steri-Cycle to sign. They have signed that addendum and Madelyn has that. With that addendum being executed along with the contract, it’s satisfactory for execution from a legal perspective.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Ted, can you turn your microphone off?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Sure, glad to.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Alright, we move now to the confinement officers contract. I know that there have been long negotiations on this. Commissioner Nix, would you?

Commissioner Nix: Yes, hopefully, today we can get this passed. With the help of, I keep wanting to say Chief, but now Sheriff Eric Williams and Rick Voyles from the Teamsters, these guys have been working for the last probably 18 months to two years on a new contract. Basically, what’s taken place is, at the old Safe House we had Correction Offiers, and at the jail we had Detention Officers, and at the new jail and Community Corrections facility we have Confinement Officers. These officers before they either worked at the Safe House or the jail, and now these guys are cross trained, or these people are cross trained to where they can work back and forth between the two. Needless to say, it’s taken a lot of time because of the occupying the new jail, and it’s just taken a tremendous amount of time to get to this place so that everybody is comfortable with the contract. I can’t say enough about the job these guys have done putting this together. It’s a very, very lengthy process, covering all the bases, and then the membership ratifying this sometime back. So, saying that, I would like to make a motion that we approve this contract today. Believe it or not, I think it’s up in 2008, I believe we’ve got about a year and a half and we’ll go over this whole thing again.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: I would like our attorney, Mr. Ziemer, to comment on the last page, the last section of that contract.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: When we were given this contract to review, which was after the completion, I think of the negotiations that Mr. Nix spoke about, it was our opinion that the last paragraph, let me just find this, Article 55 of the agreement has words at the end of it which says;

“This contract shall remain in full force and effect until superseded by a new agreement.”

In effect, that language, based just on a plain reading of that language, would say that this contract goes on forever. If there’s never a new agreement that takes it’s place. We suggested that the language be removed. I think, due to a combination of the membership already having approved the agreement prior to our making that recommendation, there was some resistance to taking that language out. In view of that, we did some more research, we found an Indiana Appellate Court case, a 1990 case wherein the Appellate Court says, in a case almost exactly like this contract, that the language that we wanted removed is not enforceable in any event. So, we don’t care whether it’s removed or not, because it won’t be enforceable. Having said that, go ahead with your business.

President Musgrave: What was the name of that case, Mr. Ziemer?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That is the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 52, Appellate, versus the Civil City of Elkhart, Indiana, Appellee, and it’s 551 NE Second, 469, a 1990 Indiana Appellate Lexus 312.

President Musgrave: Are there any other questions? Anyone to comment? All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: We move now to department head reports.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, I have another contract. Purdue Co-Op Extension, an agreement on their behalf for maintenance of their copier. It’s identical to last year’s agreement. It did not get on the agenda. Last year the cost of that was .00305 per copy. This year it’s slightly higher, .0042. The contract is for one year, which would end February 1, 2008.

Commissioner Tornatta: I make a motion to accept the contract.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’ll also say that I received and have reviewed a specific services agreement relative to a phase one environmental site assessment for the 73.91 acres that the county is proposing to buy from the State of Indiana. I have contacted Summit and have not heard back from them. The contract contains no provisions regarding their maintaining insurance, and that’s important since they’re going to be operating that site assessment on our property or state property. In any event, we’re not recommending that you go forward with this, because I have been in discussion with this whole matter with the State of Indiana, and I’m waiting to see what accommodations we might get from the State. So, it’s not appropriate to be reviewed today.

President Musgrave: Alright.

President Musgrave: Mr. Stoll, County Engineer? While he’s coming up, are there any other department heads with a report?

John Stoll: I have two items. First is a request for storm sewer acceptance in Section Two of St. Charles Cove Subdivision. This request is for accepting 228 feet of twelve inch storm sewer. The developer has paid the two dollar a foot maintenance fee. The pipe has been inspected by people in my department. So, I would recommend acceptance of the storm sewer.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: The only other thing I have is an announcement in regard to a public information meeting on the Green River Road project. This public information meeting will be held on March 14^th from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at Christian Fellowship Church. This will cover Green River Road between Lynch Road and Millersburg Road. We will send out letters to all the abutting property owners along that segment of the project.

Commissioner Tornatta: John, this by no means is any type of hearing, and we will not be hearing, getting input from the constituents about the project going forward? This is just to tell them about what’s going to happen with the project?

John Stoll: Right, this will be to, basically, explain the phasing, explain the project, explain when we plan to get it out for construction and things like that. It will also exclude the Green River Road-Millersburg Road project in the sense that that public hearing was held in late 2005. That public hearing was all certified by INDOT, all the proper procedures were followed. So, we aren’t really opening the door for changes to that project at this point. That one, while the people who live in the vicinity of that project are more than welcome to come to the meeting, it won’t be specific to that project either. So, that will really be the scope of what we’re looking at there.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

John Stoll: Thanks.

President Musgrave: Old business. Commissioner Nix, you have an update on the Old Courthouse.

Commissioner Nix: Yes, we’ve been working on, actually we’ve hired through the Courthouse Foundation, an architectural firm to do a preservation master plan, and they’ve been on this, I guess, about six months or so. We’ve got a summary here of that report. It’s, the board, or is willing to, and with money provided through the Council, would like to move ahead with construction and renovation of the Wedgewood Room, which is money that was appropriated last year through the Council. We met the other day and discussed, so, what we are going to ask RATIO to do is come back at our next meeting, RATIO with Veazey Parrott Durkin and Shoulders, for a proposal to renovate the Wedgewood Room. Now, the idea behind that is, is to, we would like for this to be similar to what the rest of the interior finishes will be, so that we’ll be able to rent this out. Of course, we can rent it now, it’s in pretty dire need of repair, but we will, our plan is to finish this room off and start renting it, this part of the Old Courthouse, with the understanding that we can get some funds raised through private and public monies to complete the interior renovation. We’ve discussed this before, I guess, over the last four or five years we’ve actually, Council and Commission, I guess, from about six or seven years back, actually, have renovated the roof and all the flashings and gutters outside, and brought the interior electrical and heating and air conditioning up to code. So, this final phase then is the interior renovation work, architecturally, and then probably some site work on the outside. So, but, once again, we’re trying to get the Wedgewood Room moved forward to get it completed.

President Musgrave: When you say the Wedgewood Room, is that both of those rooms at the end of the hall with that little room that’s in between them?

Commissioner Nix: Yes.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Nix: That’s what we’re looking at.

President Musgrave: Well, that sounds wonderful. Do you need a motion on that, or that’s just an update?

Commissioner Nix: That’s just an update.

President Musgrave: Commissioner Tornatta, I know we had a long discussion about the animal control ordinance in the department head meeting.

Commissioner Tornatta: Right, and just for those who are concerned with animal control issues in the county, we do not have an ordinance, but we are looking to look at the city’s ordinance and just craft some stuff from the city’s ordinance with the Sheriff’s Department and try and get something that is, that will just give them some type of enforcement on issues relating to animal control. So, we expect in three to four weeks to have a document back in front of us. Sheriff Williams says four weeks. We expect to have that document in front of us so that we can look at it and have it to our attorney and then, hopefully, approve that in a timely manner.

President Musgrave: Members of the public who might want input on that, Sheriff Williams is taking the lead on drafting the ordinance language. He’s being assisted by Kerry Kamp and the Health Department. Then that language will be sent for our review, again, in four weeks. Marissa, what was the date in April we were targeting? Is it April 10? It’s around April 10^th. We don’t have a calendar up here, unless you have one.

Madelyn Grayson: April 10^th or 17^th.

President Musgrave: April 10^th was the date we were looking at. So, hopefully, you can look forward to seeing a draft ordinance at that time. Is there any other old business or any other new business?

President Musgrave: Is there any public comment?

President Musgrave: Is there a vote to adopt the consent agenda?

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 3:50 p.m.)

CONSENT ITEMS

Employment Changes: Health Department (2)

Travel Requests:

County Surveyor (1)                 County Assessor (1)                 Treasurer (1)

Commissioners (1)                   County Attorney (1)                  Health Dept (1)

County Highway (4)

County Engineer: Pay Request No. 18: Burkhardt-Green River TIF: $9,650.50

Commissioners:

Curran Miller check for County surplus sale.

Wolfe’s Auto Auction checks for sale of surplus Sheriff vehicles.

Sigecom notification letters to consumers of rate increases.

Department head meeting notes: February 20, 2007.

Auditor: Surplus letter request: PC’s and monitors.

Department Head Reports:

Burdette Park                           County Engineer                       County Highway

Ozone Officer                           Supt. Of Bldgs.                         Veterans Services

Those in Attendance:

Cheryl Mugrave                        Bill Nix                                      Troy Tornatta

Bill Fluty                                    Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Marissa Nichoalds

Madelyn Grayson                     Mark Barton                              Mike Duckworth

Adam Groupe                           John Stoll                                  Others Unidentified

Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, President

Bill Nix, Vice President

Troy Tornatta, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)