President Jerrel: I'd like to call the Vanderburgh County Commissioners' meeting to order. At this time I would like to introduce those of us at the front of the room for the people in the room that do not know them. To my right is Tony Greubel, the Superintendent of County Buildings; Joe Harrison, Jr., the County Attorney, is next to him; Commissioner Pat Tuley to my right; far left is Charlene Timmons, the Recording Secretary; Suzanne Crouch, County Auditor; and Richard Mourdock, County Commissioner; and my name is Bettye Lou Jerrel. I would like to ask you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.
 

President Jerrel: Thank you. The first item on the agenda is the approval of the minutes of our previous meeting. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the minutes of January 11th.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: The next item is the certification of the Executive Session. Do we have the book?

Suzanne Crouch: No, we changed the way we were doing that. We gave that to Tony.

Tony Greubel: It's in the signature file now.

President Jerrel: Oh, okay.

Commissioner Mourdock: Well, I'll move approval of certification for the minutes of tonight's Executive Session at which time we discussed the...a real estate lease issue and also certain outstanding litigation that the county is involved in.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: The next item is Item C which is permission to apply for federal grants for internet infrastructure for county offices and Bill Cottun is here to begin the presentation. 

Bill Cottun: Thank you very much. We come before you today to ask your approval for a process that is going to be led by Liv Watson of Gaither Rutherford. I will be part of the project team and we've given a name to this project called the Infonet Project. Initially it was just to get us an internet presence. Over the last several weeks in talking about this project it has really grown in scope. One of the grants that we'll be discussing in a few moments also will allow us to address the development of databases, not just putting those databases online. In that we're going to be able to address very large projects such as geographic information systems and document managing including document imaging. Liv will briefly touch on some of those capabilities. We also have with us Mr. Scott Hartig from Network WCS. His group has been putting together some of the expertise that is going to be necessary for us to have online access. We believe that we've got a real good private public partnership here to address the needs that our county offices have requested because of what their end users have been requesting. I'll turn the meeting over to Liv Watson. 

Liv Watson: Thank you. My name is Liv Watson. It's kind of an exciting time to be alive because of the information age, I think so many changes. We can hardly pick up a newspaper or watch tv anymore without hearing something about it and I think one of the issues is perhaps not when or how can we put that information on the internet, but how can our community benefit from having information online. I think part of the study that we would like to present is to find out where information is coming from. I can see us 500 years from now unless we address this issue we're all going to be sitting with paper up to here so we would like perhaps maybe to look at the issues. What can we do today to help reduce paperwork and paper flow and what can we digitize? In a sense that we can communicate, not perhaps just internally, but with certain end users and what kind of information and perhaps what we're not addressing totally is should everything be to the public. Perhaps we need authenticated access to certain information so that bankers, lawyers and other people can have information in a more restricted format. So we are here today to give a handout to show the infrastructure that we are looking at and looking at end users. I think perhaps all of you here in this room could have some input to this project and find out what the needs of our community are. The mission of the Infonet Project of Vanderburgh County is to study governmental processes and operations to determine how information technology can be used internally to improve efficiency of operation and externally to provide governmental data to the end users, individuals, businesses and other outside agencies in an online environment. So I would like to introduce Scott Hartig. I am proud to be part of this team. 

Scott Hartig: Thank you. I really didn't prepare anything to say, but our company has been involved with a number of nice projects around town and really this came about because of the vision and idea of both Liv and Bill and they called me in and wondered if we might, at least in the beginning stages here, offer some guidance in the direction of what works well on the internet, how can we keep data secure, how can we maintain people's privacy but still provide a good service to citizens and to other interested parties with governmental data. One of the projects that we were...have been involved with over the last year was taking the County Assessor...some of the County Assessor's data, namely property tax records, and placing them available...placing them on the internet to be available essentially to anybody. So you can go to her web site now and search for a particular address or by a number of other variables and pull up the property tax record. According to Cheryl, I don't know because I'm not down here everyday, but according to Mrs. Musgrave it has really had a profound affect on her office in reducing the number of foot traffic while still providing the services that she has been elected to provide to the citizens and to the businesses around this area. It's really enhanced her office. I know that since August, was when the site went live, she has had about 40,000 searches for property tax records. I meet regularly...we work with a number of the real estate offices in Evansville and also with the Central Board and I meet regularly with them and they told me a couple of weeks ago that the site is generally up all throughout their workday as they are doing their work there so they can go on and search for properties. That used to be phone calls, and faxes, and trips to the Civic Center that they had to use to take care of that. Now it is right there available. I think that Gaither Rutherford will play the part certainly in the beginning rules of finding out what each individual officeholder wants to present to the internet, how do they think they could be helped, what types of steps need to be taken to get there in working out budgets and other information like that. I guess we'll probably step in probably...or hopefully we might step in at a later date and try to keep things on track in terms of the internet and make sure that everything is secure, looks nice and professional and is created in the way that each individual officeholder would want to have it created. That's all for me. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Let me ask a question if I may, Scott. You said she has got 40,000 searches, 40,000 searches or 40,000 hits? 

Scott Hartig: She has had 40,000 searches on her database. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Really?

Scott Hartig: A hit is actually a very misleading term.

Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah.

Scott Hartig: A hit is anytime a file is downloaded. When you look at a web page you might be actually looking at 20 files.

Commissioner Mourdock: Right.

Scott Hartig: Each individual photo and graphic is one file. There have been 40,000 searches, active searches on her database.

Commissioner Mourdock: Actual searches, wow. 

Scott Hartig: In what...six months time. I think it has been a big success.

Bill Cottun: I did one of those searches!

Scott Hartig: We took out the first 3,000 or 4,000. That was probably us testing it. 

Bill Cottun: One of the things I would like to mention is we have tremendous support for this project. In fact, not support, the driver for this project are the offices of the county officials, elected officials. We have several here today. I'm not real sure we get officials in a meeting like this a lot. I feel very honored. Today Betty Hermann is with us from the Recorder's Office; Jayne Berry-Bland, who is the Treasurer; Marsha Abell, from the Clerk's Office; Judge Knight, from Superior Court. Am I missing anyone? I'm sorry? Oh, Suzanne, I apologize. Suzanne Crouch.

Suzanne Crouch: I'm always here. 

Bill Cottun: I would like to--

President Jerrel: Cheryl sent a letter to us. She was unable to be here, but she did send a letter.

Bill Cottun: Cheryl Musgrave has been instrumental. I spoke with Chief Eric Williams today. He was not able to make the meeting, but he wanted to express that the Sheriff's Office also supports this. The support from the elected officials is what has us standing here today. This is not a drive by any of us, it is a response to our end users, to our public and to our county...city and county users. I mention city because this is something that as we build this infrastructure we have spoken with the Controller's office, with Becky Dixon, and there will certainly be at a future date city participation within this project and they will also support it financially also. I'm sorry, sir.

Commissioner Mourdock: I was just going to say, with all that you're doing with the various offices if you have not already done so could you provide or if you have not already put one together would you please provide a plan of sorts so that we can see how you're rolling this out through the various offices. I know Bettye Lou and I had the discussion the other day and I can picture a lot of this happening with the different sets of data, but I think the Recorder's Office, and I think Betty is back there, and of all of them it would seem to me her information would be the most difficult to provide and get online and I would just like to see some sort of timetable as to how you might roll that whole thing out.

Liv Watson: Perhaps I can answer this question. It is very difficult for anybody to make that decision before we have actually been in the office and evaluating, but I can see that this project is an ongoing progress from anywhere from a year to a year and a half to implement. I think it is a good and wise choice to use a pilot project and then bring everybody else in and to get the infrastructure that will be in place like T-1 lines and databases that are internet enabled and that is what we're looking at and the rest of the infrastructure, but any project like this is anywhere from a year to two years but the benchmark as we go along there might be more requests and more things added on so I see it has a lifetime long progress, but I think our immediate need to is to look at what the officials would like to put online and digital imaging and things like that so I can see this go from anywhere to...implemented successfully anywhere from a year to two years. 

Bill Cottun: If I may, sir, I do project scheduling. Bettye Lou will tell you that's probably one of the reasons that we get a lot done. We'll have a project schedule for you. We will have it by office whenever that's going to be. Liv has to do some due diligence before that is put together, but we'll certainly have project schedules for you. 

President Jerrel: I'm correct in assuming, too, that this is one site where people can go in and pick Recorder, or Treasurer, Auditor, or Assessor, Clerk?

Liv Watson: At this moment Scott has been very kind and they got Vanderburgh.org registered so that will be the county's domain name. The offices that now have online access should probably move their sites over to the Vanderburgh.org, Auditor, Assessor, so that we start unifying where people understand...not unifying as far as political parties, but unifying where people know where to go. I guess we should do that, too!

Commissioner Tuley: You don't want to do that. 

Commissioner Mourdock: You can say unified, just don't say consolidate!

Liv Watson: I think that for the citizens it would be much easier to remember to go to Vanderburgh.org as far as going to all different...everybody getting their own. So this is in a sense making it more easily available for everybody to find us and eventually benefitting this community.

Scott Hartig: I think really the plan is not only to have one site, but that the sites are very...that the individual offices have...it's a very coherent look and user interface so it's a very low learning curve. I think that learning curves are very important with new applications and the goal is to make it very simple for people. I don't think this needs to be something that is terribly complex, but not only one common interface, but also one very common look throughout the entire site so there is a lot of coherence to all the data. 

Liv Watson: I think one thing also that is important here, each individual office will be in control of their data that they provide. By no means will the Infonet site be owned by anybody. Like the internet, nobody owns it. It's just where we can all be reached.

President Jerrel: Could you speak just a little about...you had at one point said something about seeking a grant or grants, could you speak just briefly to what you kind of had in mind?

Liv Watson: Perhaps my background should be addressed a little bit with it. I sit on the National Board of the Institute of Management Accounts. I serve on their IT Committee. And with Rutgers University--

President Jerrel: Do you mind translating IT into--

Liv Watson: Information Technology, sorry, I keep forgetting that. Information Technology, and what we do is we research and find out how the future of the internet will impact communities, businesses and governmental agencies. Through Gaither we have networked all of the largest accounting organizations in the world, FASBE, American Accounting Association. Our site at Rutgers gets about two million hits a month and that is two million people come through or they come back. It's not one page being downloaded. Through Rutgers we have also done extensive research of how accounting standards will change, how our roles will do. But talking about the grant we're looking at different grants. I think that first we need to come in and look at what the needs are. We're specifically looking at one from the Chambers of Commerce given by the federal government and they give out grants from anywhere to $350,000 to $1 million to communities, localities, and to not-for-profit organizations. I think it's important to know that grants do not come and they just give you free money. I mean, there is a lot of stipulation, a social thing. They want to learn something from your project so that is part of this whole project. We have total support with true professionals for Rutgers that is just as well interested in our work, goals to find out and learn from what we do as to share information with us from their experience. I don't want to just stick to one grant. We have looked at about seven or eight grants and they're all due within the next six months, six to seven months, so we will...as soon as we find out what the needs, I think the most important is you can't just go after a grant and look. Let's look at what the needs of the end users are. Let's look at what the needs of the elected officials are and then look for a grant that fits that need and it doesn't necessarily mean that it is just one grant. If there is more needs it doesn't stop at just one grant, but the infrastructure and the plan, what is needed and what can be done, will come from this research project.

President Jerrel: The National Science Association stresses one thing which is probably very appropriate here. It's the portability of the information that you gain for other communities.

Liv Watson: Yes, and perhaps the support from our community will also benefit a grant like this. This is...all of us, let's work together.

Scott Hartig: One thing that we are going to offer to do with permission, of course, is place a link to a small little survey on our Evansville.net site. Our Evansville.net site gets about 40,000 views per day and about 90 to 95 percent of those are local people. We can place a link on there that allows people to go in and fill out a short survey as to the types of things that can be available. The question is will they use them or are they having comments about the availability of those types of services and information. Given that we have the type of visibility on our site we can draw in a lot of local internet users to the survey, that is one thing that we would certainly offer to do and try to gather some initial feedback from the general public as to their feelings on the project. 

Suzanne Crouch: I think that's important because we know what information we have in our office, but I'm not always sure that we know what the people want because we have clients that want certain things out of our office, so I think that is important.

Scott Hartig: I'm sure realistically that there will be some data that will be used by a very small audience, the abstractors, and bankers, and insurance companies, and folks like that will use some information more than just the general public might, but for instance something like paying parking tickets online or something that might save a trip down to the Civic Center to do business with the government. There have been a lot of things done through other communities. You know, there has been a lot of projects that I have looked at that city/county governments have done to provide more services and the availability of information on the internet to their citizens that may or may not be good ideas.

Liv Watson: No kidding. The LA Sheriff's Department sales LA hats and jackets, and I'm not going to bring that to the suggestion table, but they do that to raise money. 

Scott Hartig: That is definitely one guideline that we use is what other people have done. There have been a number of very large ones that encompass a lot. I think that certainly we should be able to put the amount of information we have and with the support of, and it seems like such wide reaching support so far from the officeholders, that we can provide just about anything you have. There are steps to take to get there, certainly it is not an easy thing, it's not flip a switch, but particularly services that the public and other interested parties may have and providing you (inaudible).

Bill Cottun: If you'll excuse me, we can stand up here probably talk for another two or three hours about this.

Liv Watson: It's the internet!

Bill Cottun: In addition to the approval for the Infonet pilot project there is also a contract approval before you with Gaither Rutherford not to exceed $40,000 for the services of Gaither Rutherford for the pilot project to apply or to do the due diligence and apply for these federal grants. There is money currently in the Computer Services' budget which we will pay for this grant out of our budget with the full intent that upon receipt of the grants we receive our funds back and will request funding at that time, so this project is fully funded.

President Jerrel: Well then maybe the appropriate thing we ought to do is move approval of that letter of acceptance at this time.

Bill Cottun: Yes, the letter of engagement from Gaither.

President Jerrel: Right. There you go. While you two are reviewing those is there anything any of you officeholders...I know you're here I'm assuming as support, but I really appreciate it if there is anything any of you...

Jayne Berry-Bland: Jayne Berry-Bland, County Treasurer. I just want to say as a group, and I think Ms. Musgrave did lead the way into this and we have a lot to thank her for, but I think doing this as a whole says a lot for our community and for the officeholders also. I think it is something that we absolutely need to work together on and I am so excited about this because I can envision down the road that not only will we get very many people from coming actually down here and into our offices, but the access of just inquiry alone of what your taxes are, or what you paid last year, or whatever the case may be and then on down the road a little bit more actually going online and paying your taxes. Oh, what a day that will be! So I am really excited and I really appreciate the opportunity to be a part of this. 

Betty Hermann: Betty Hermann, County Recorder. I am in full support of this, the Infonet project. I have a very, very, busy, busy office as most of you know. Last Monday for instance 1,400 pieces of mail came into our office. Today, on Monday, 900. Now this doesn't count all the people. We have for one year been inundated with recordings and people. I see this as a great help not only to my office, but it will minimize the extra flow of people daily in our office which could be from 40 to 70 people a day. I mainly want to come up here to applaud this gentleman here, Bill Cottun, for getting this many elected officials together to agree on anything! 

Commissioner Mourdock: See there, Liv, they may be more unified than you thought. Just, Joe, have you reviewed the letter here previously?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Yes, a copy was faxed to me today. The only question I had was funding and is funding available for this?

President Jerrel: Yes, he just said it's in their budget. 

Commissioner Mourdock: With that I'll move approval for the engagement letter with Gaither Rutherford for the Infonet project.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. Thank you all very, very much for coming. I'm looking forward to working with you on this.

Bill Cottun: Thank you very much. 

President Jerrel: Liv, just out of curiosity because I know people want to know, you want to tell us your country of origin and kind of how you got over here.

Suzanne Crouch: Kentucky!

Liv Watson: You truly don't want to know this, but I won the European skateboard championship when I was 16 and I came over here to skate with Hobie Team and ended up staying. I come from ten years...I worked and produced videos for MTV. Technology was something that we always was the first to use because Hollywood had rules, with MTV we could do everything. MTV is not what it is today, what it was when I was there. Technology was always something that fascinated me and then somebody hooked us all together to communicate and since then my college education has been online, all my research and time as probably everybody knows, they never see me around because usually I am home on the internet. It has been a wonderful experience. I'm a native of Norway originally, but I was raised in many, many different countries. My father is an independent programmer and we lived in Borneo, France, England, but I call this my home. I've lived here for ten years now and I love the midwest. Thank you for having me. 

President Jerrel: Thank you for sharing that information. 
 

President Jerrel: Okay, the next item on the agenda is the County Clerk concerning the approval of the contract with Government Payment and you have that also. This is the contract that relates to the Government Payment Service, Inc. You've looked at this one, Joe, would you want to comment on this? 

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Yes, I have looked at it and discussed it with Marsha and we were able to get a provision put in there that I had requested essentially that the county can terminate the agreement for any reason at any time, so if something happens and it needs to be canceled I think that would be appropriate.

Commissioner Mourdock: I would just add that this subject has come up at I think two of our Blue Ribbon Jail Committee meetings as one of the ways that might help us move some people through the process a little faster as well. Marsha and I spoke to that last night a little bit, but just being able to bond some people out on credit cards might help here and there and every available space in the jail helps. 

President Jerrel: So that's essentially bonding by credit card. And we can get out of the contract at any time that we choose if it isn't working, so is there a motion?

Commissioner Mourdock: Marsha, do you have anything to add to that? Okay, I'll move approval then of the signing of the contract between Vanderburgh County and Government Payment Services.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. Thank you.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: If I could add one thing, it also would permit, I think, the payment of tickets. 

Commissioner Tuley: Right.

Marsha Abell: Not yet.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Oh, not yet?

Marsha Abell: See how this goes first.

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Okay.

Marsha Abell: The possibility is there.

President Jerrel: Thank you very much for coming. 
 

President Jerrel: The next item on the agenda is another presentation that we're looking forward to and this is IDEM and the Soil & Water Conservation and the Department of Natural Resources' group. I don't know who is going to be the initial spokesman to introduce everybody. Okay.

Judy Dicus Thomann: Hi, I'm Judy Dicus Thomann. I am the Director of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management Southwest Regional Office. I'm joined here this evening by Randy Braun, Chief of Storm Water and Sediment Control Program for the Department of Natural Resources and Reggie Baker, Section Chief of the Pretreatment and Urban Wet Weather Section for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Both of these gentlemen are specialist in this issue and they both work out of Indianapolis. I would like to thank you for allowing us to come and speak with you on issues surrounding the Rule 5 which deals with storm water runoff associated with construction activity. As is with many of the rules and regulations that we deal with Rule 5 not only involves one state agency, but two along with the local agency. Rule 5 involves the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the Department of Natural Resources and the local Soil & Water Conservation District. These three agencies have worked very cooperatively to address the concerns regarding the implementation of Rule 5 in order to implement it in a more efficient and expeditious manner. I first became aware of the Rule 5 issues when I was asked to attend a Vanderburgh County Soil & Water Conservation District Board meeting. At that meeting it became very apparent that there were issues and questions that needed to be addressed. These were concerning enforcement and compliance. At a later date Mike Wathen and I met with developers and went to see property in Vanderburgh County to enable Mike to further illustrate his concern. At that time Randy Braun from the Department of Natural Resources and Reggie Baker from the Department of Environmental Management were contacted. They along with Mike Wathen, myself, and Lynn Miller met to discuss and more clearly define the roles of the respective agencies and how we can implement Rule 5 in a more efficient and expeditious manner. The reason it is important to Vanderburgh County that this rule be implement expeditiously is because of the number of development and construction projects that are being done here. In addition, it is not fair to the developers who are in compliance with this rule to allow others to remain out of compliance without any repercussions. Before I turn the mike over to Reggie Baker and Randy Braun to further explain their agency's roles I would like to take this opportunity to commend Mike Wathen for the energy and effort that he has put into this trying to get more clarity on this issue. He has worked very hard to see that the issue was brought to the table so we could discuss it to enable Rule 5 to be implemented in Vanderburgh County in a more efficient manner. Now I'll turn the mike over to Reggie Baker from IDEM and he'll explain our role on this and then Randy Braun from DNR will explain DNR's role and after they finish the presentations we'll be glad to answer any of your questions.

President Jerrel: Okay, thank you.

Reggie Baker: Commissioners, thank you for this opportunity to come and address you. I trust you've gotten a copy of the Board packets that I sent down. What I'll be discussing here will mirror what you were sent and what is in the overheads. I would like to start with the definitions that surround what we call 327 IAC, which is Indiana Administrative Code, 15-5, or what we refer to affectionately as Rule 5 and that is specifically storm water associated with construction activity. There are other storm water programs, but this one centers around things that are associated with land disturbing activities. I would like to go over the definitions to start out to start to provide some clarity to all this. This rule, this Rule 5, applies to persons who are involved in construction activities which include the clearing, grading, excavating, and other land disturbing activities except operations that result in a disturbance of less than five acres. I'll stop it right there because the sentence kind of carries on, but that's an important part. Generally it starts with land disturbing activities that are greater than five acres, but if there are situations where there is a larger common plan of development or sale than activities that are less than five acres are thus covered. An example would be if a developer has a 20 acre parcel and they choose to do it in five phases, phase one through five, and only do it in four acre increments that is part of a larger common plan of 20 acres are involved in their sale, so that clearly is covered by the rule. Operator, that's the person required to submit the notice of intent under this article and required to comply with the terms of the rule. Generally we have been holding...not even generally. We have been holding the developer responsible for complying with this rule for obtaining coverage under Rule 5 and carrying that coverage throughout the entire life of the project until all of the sites are built out or there is no longer any land disturbing activities. Site, means the entire site included in the legal description of the property and, again, land disturbing activity I discussed above. It's the clearing, and the grading, and filling and transporting and all the things that happen in the course of development. The requirements for the notice of intent letter are actually found earlier in Article 15. We have Article 15-1 through 4 which are the general requirements for all of the general permit rules. This is a permit by rule. It's not an individual coverage like a regular industrial discharge site or a municipal waste water treatment site. We have rules that were developed and put in as a general format because of the large number of sites that were covered. It would be totally infeasible to issue an individual permit to each and every construction site that goes on. The name and mailing address and the location of the facility for which the notification is submitted is the first thing required. The standard industrial classification doesn't generally apply under this article for Rule 5, but a person's name, address and phone number and ownership status are the next item. Latitude and longitude are required or the township and range coordinates for the facility. Probably most importantly the name of the receiving water. Where does this water that may run off the site go? What may likely be impacted? Description of the facility of how the facility applies...excuse me, applies to the requirement of the rule and any additional information for the general permit. It must be signed by a responsible officer, general partner, or proprietor, ranking elected official and that is something that is important because municipalities are covered under the general permit rules for storm water. There were some exemptions that were provided under the original rules that came out under the federal rules in 1989 but they were never technically included in Indiana's rule in 1992 and has been determined that they never did apply in that particular case and the federal exemption has expired since then, so municipalities are now required to comply with this rule if you have land disturbing activities greater than five acres or a duly authorized representative. Now we get into the meat. Most appropriately we need a description of the construction project, especially the total acreage of the site and more specifically the number of acres that are going to be disturbed or involved in land disturbing activity. An estimated time table and this is important because all of the people that are covered by permits would like to see an end somewhere along the line and what it does is it helps our agency if there is an estimated time table we can put into our files some sort of tickler that will come up and say it's time this project probably should have been completed by now, we haven't received any notices of termination and we can start to inquire about the status of the site. A written certification that by the operator if your erosion control measure is included in a control plan. There is a requirement for the development and most importantly the implementation of a soil and erosion control plan and that these plans have been submitted with the applicable...or comply with the applicable state, county or local erosion control requirements and that they will be implemented in accordance with the plan. It's not good enough to just have a plan on the books it has to be implemented. That's the core of how this program can work. The notice of intent must include a verification that the Soil & Water Conservation District has received the plan, that they've had an opportunity for review and comment on that plan and that's the vital link with the Soil & Water Conservation District and the Department of Natural Resources. The verification that the erosion control measures will be implemented by trained personnel and erosion control practices. I'm not quite sure what that means. I don't know if there is a special certification out there for that. There isn't under state rule, but the Department of Natural Resources has extensive materials on common practices for erosion control. Proof of publication in a newspaper of general circulation. Basically, it's to notify the public that A, that there is a project and B, that they intend to comply with Rule 5. Probably most importantly is that all of this information, the notice of intent, the administrative things that come to my office, is the erosion and control plans that go to the Soil & Water Conservation Districts, they must all be submitted and approved prior to the initiation of any land disturbing activities. Finally, the operators shall certify or notify the commissioner in writing, we have a form, that the project is completed. This is important because of the sheer number of projects that come in. We average 1,200 to 1,500 projects a year all over the state. We could surely have files as high as the government center north if these projects weren't terminated in some fashion. That's the meat of my presentation. I would like to kind of update you on a couple of things that may be of interest to the Board. These storm water regulations have been on the state books since 1992. They're in full compliance with the federal Clean Water Act requirements, but there is a new requirement coming down the road and it's what we call phase two storm water. Phase two is going to impact communities and developers in that it is proposed that the acreage covered be dropped from five acres to one acre, so the sheer volume of plans and sites is likely to go from three to five fold over what we already have now. The time table for that is that the draft rule is out. The final which is being driven by a Natural Resource Defense Council suit against USEPA is supposed to be released on the streets in March of this year, in `99. It will allow two years or until March of 2001 for the state to come up with corresponding regulations to implement this rule. There are some good things about that. While the one acre seems a bit unnerving not only probably for the regulating committee, but for myself and my staff, there are going to be opportunities for people that submit notices of intent to opt out of the program based on some soil loss equations that they can certify non exposure because of their geological or geographic setting, that they're in a flat area or they constructed the site in such a manner that all the flow is into the center, into a common pond in the center that doesn't have a discharge point. So there are going to be some outs for people that if they want to construct their sites in such a way with a geographic center is such that they are eligible, so that is kind of the yin and yang of storm water in phase two. I guess it is more than rumored that the Board is somewhat interested in the proceedings of an enforcement of some cases and I would like to report at this time that our Office of Enforcement, which by the way is separate from the Office of Water Management and IDEM, has issued a notice of violation to the Eastbrook Mobile Home Park dated January 20th of this year. The basis of that violation is that they conducted land disturbing activities without benefit of any permit, without filing the proper plans and things like that. So an enforcement proceeding is in the mill. That's about all I can say about it right now since it is now somewhat deliberative in nature because it is an enforcement scenario, so that is good news I hope to the Board. Any questions?

President Jerrel: I have one real quick question and it is just me. I don't know that anybody is going to be terribly interested in this, but I am. Typically the federal government develops the regulations, federal regulations. My question relates to DNR and IDEM, depending up which agency, takes those regulations and attempts to develop rules that correspond to those and for those rules to be promulgated do you...how many hearings do you hold and how widespread, you know, because people will call an office like ours and say, you know, who started this and so knowing a little bit about the process I understand the federal government has an enormous staff that they begin writing these and then you get them. Now how do you promulgate those rules for the entire state? 

Reggie Baker: It goes through a pretty rigid adoption procedure starting with the first notice or notice of rule making itself. That is published in the Indiana Register. It's also distributed around the state, notices in the newspapers, of this notice of rule making so we don't rely solely on everyone having to read the Indiana Register which I don't think a whole lot of people do. I think that it's probably important to note that now that IDEM, the Department of Environmental Management, has gone into a rather extensive outreach program with two new regional offices, one here in Evansville and the new one that just was announced in South Bend, that that will give a better springboard to the community and outreach into the community. As we go through the rule making process there will be notices of subsequent parts of the rule once we have the draft rule onto the streets and we start to receive comments during the public comment period we will have outreach programs or hearings in various parts of the state. Where, I can't tell you exactly, but certainly where the regional offices are located I can probably almost bet.

President Jerrel: You think you'll ever be doing some of this just like the group that was in here before you? Since you often don't hold hearings in all parts of the state, you hold whatever the required number of rule making.

Reggie Baker: I think we go above and beyond that now. I think those days are long gone of just having a hearing in Indianapolis and the supposition that the world revolves around Indianapolis. I think if that were the case then we wouldn't have a regional office here in Evansville.

President Jerrel: Right, but I mean--

Commissioner Mourdock: I think, yeah, your question was--

President Jerrel: --the internet. My question is for public comment you heard the group before you describing Infonet for this area. The state government could do this sort of thing with their rule making process, too.

Reggie Baker: Oh, we do. I'm sorry, we do have that actually on internet. We have a web page for the Office of Water Management and for IDEM in general.

President Jerrel: To solicit? 

Reggie Baker: Correct.

President Jerrel: Okay.

Reggie Baker: And we do post that on the internet also. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Taking that one step further is when the permits will be on the internet and people just go to the internet and pull the file down and fill in the permit and just e-mail it back.

President Jerrel: And e-mail it back to you.

Reggie Baker: That's where we are hoping to head. That's another story. 

Commissioner Mourdock: So is the long and the short of this that what we used to know as the old Rule 5 under phase two basically just gets extended from five acres down to one to five? 

Reggie Baker: Correct.

Commissioner Mourdock: That's the bottom line.

Reggie Baker: Plus some of the benefits of being able to opt out of the program or to certify no discharge. Again, you need to understand that the storm water program is a part of the National Pollution and Discharge Elimination System, the NPDES permitting system is just one of many point source discharges. 

Commissioner Tuley: The question immediately comes to mind if we're talking about going three to five fold of people filing these permits and then the question of overseeing and enforcement and what have you how is that going to be addressed?

Reggie Baker: We are having dialogue between the Department of Natural Resources and IDEM at the highest levels concerning how to grapple with this very issue not only when it goes to phase two, but even some of the things that we're doing right now. I think that there is probably going to be a greater role for the Soil & Water Conservation Districts throughout the state. Of the 92 counties I think there are 17 of those counties that are really actively involved in this Rule 5 business. I know we have kind of a black hole that the Department of Natural Resources picks up with their District Soil & Water Conservation Specialists and Randy Braun will be describing that process in a minute. Right now the whole program is driven by permit fees under Indiana statute. Again, it's part of the permitting fee process that the legislature gave the agency back in 1994. The good news is that we do get fees for this. The bad news is that only IDEM seems to be getting these fees and some of the folks that are really doing the work, the Soil & Water Conservation Districts and DNR are kind of left holding the bag and that's what we're having dialogue about now just how to have a more equitable split of the fees that come in and also the possibility of using some other tools with the Soil Conservation Board to get more of the Soil & Water Conservation Districts involved in this process setting up a program of their own where they can maybe get fees, charge fees, for the actual review of the erosion control plans which is a real substantive part of this program. 

Commissioner Tuley: I hope that comes about and I'm sure Mike does too because I know--

Reggie Baker: I bet he does.

Commissioner Tuley: --that's one of the things that, you know, Mike as you are well aware has been extremely instrumental in getting us onboard and bringing us up to speed and I know I've met with him a couple of times and Lynn Miller and different ones to go out and look at sites and when it gets reduced down to one acre I just...like you say, that will be something that we'll be able to opt out, but man that is going to be a lot of work that somebody has got to pick up and generally what we hear is a lot of extra work and no funding to go with it.

Reggie Baker: Unfunded mandate, I believe.

Commissioner Tuley: Yeah, I believe that is the exact term.

Reggie Baker: The correct term.

Commissioner Mourdock: I knew those two words would get in this conversation somewhere. 

Commissioner Tuley: Yeah, at some point.

Commissioner Mourdock: The other question this brings up in my mind, especially when we start to look at the one to five acre sites, this Board as you know also serves as the county Drainage Board and in that role in addition to being Commissioners we're judges under the 1997 Indiana statute that basically allowed for any obstruction in drainage to become a lawsuit before the Drainage Board. I'm wondering as this is enforced on even a one to five acre basis what the overlap with that statue is going to be? I wonder if it's a good thing or a bad thing, I don't know. Right now we have neighbors coming in and suing neighbors and is there going to be some other recourse whereby they bring in government to deal with the issue under phase two? In other words, can the Soil & Water Conservation District become responsible to make a judgement call to go out there and see what the drainage issue is and what it isn't as opposed to what the Surveyor's Office is doing presently for us. I don't know, it just seems to me there is some overlap somewhere and I'm not quite sure what the result would be.

President Jerrel: I don't know. I know that Bill Jeffers, you know, it's a very in-depth part of his job. I don't know. We'll just have to wait and see what comes to our plate. 

Reggie Baker: I think there are two issues here. One is clearly our charge under the NPDES permitting program is water quality and in my mind the Drainage Board is mostly concerned with water quantity.

President Jerrel: That's right.

Reggie Baker: So there certainly may be an overlap because if there is a lot of quantity of water it may be a quality issue to go along with that. Any further questions? If not, I'll be followed by Randy Braun of the Department of Natural Resources. 

Randy Braun: It's a pleasure to be here tonight. I appreciate the opportunity to come and speak to you about Rule 5, DNR's role as well as the Soil & Water District. My name is Randy Braun and I'm with the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Soil Conservation in the Storm Water and Sediment Control Program and I am the Chief of that program. What I would like to do is just give you a brief history of Rule 5 and start basically why Soil & Water Conservation Districts and DNR are basically involved in this process. By state law Soil & Water Conservation Districts are responsible for the natural resources within their boundaries. When I say partnership I mean DNR and Soil & Water Districts basically have a very close working relationship. In fact, Soil & Water Districts and DNR are tied together by state law. Again, the Division of Soil Conservation specifically is responsible to provide technical support to Soil & Water Districts as well as administrative support. Soil & Water Districts as well as DNR in Indiana and, in fact, Soil & Water Districts nationwide are recognized for their expertise in soil and water conservation. Rule 5 basically is an extension of a program that was established in 1987, the TY2000 program. TY2000 program is a water quality initiative to address erosion and sedimentation statewide. One of the components of this program was non agricultural erosion and sedimentation. So, in fact, in 1987 we started a program up to start addressing these issues. Basically, this process stayed as a voluntary approach. In 1992 when Rule 5 was being discussed it was a natural that the Soil & Water Districts and DNR become involved in this process because we had a program established. Our State Soil Conservation Board is a policy making Board appointed by the Governor. We approached IDEM on this issue, we sat down and had discussions and several months later we had a memorandum of understanding that we would participate in the program. The other item with the state regulations being Soil & Water Districts are local, they exist in every county in Indiana, everyone felt that local implementation of this program would be beneficial. Having people actually located within each county through the Soil & Water Districts would be a benefit. The erosion control plans could be delivered to the local offices. That local office is more open to the contractors and developers. It's a local place where they can go in and exchange information and deal with the issues. In fact, the Division and Soil Conservation we have scattered throughout the state we have not only a regional specialist, and someone has mentioned Lynn Miller's name, Lynn Miller is a Storm Water Specialist. He works under my program and he has got the southwest part of the state here as well as we have a resource specialist, I believe 43 of them, scattered throughout the state, so basically one for every two counties. Where we don't have district employees like Mike we've had to basically go in and either our regional specialist has taken on the workload or our resource specialist that is local has taken on that workload in addition to their other duties dealing with agricultural erosion. Through the memorandum of understanding I would just like to go over what our rules and responsibilities are. Basically, we have field level oversight to assist and ensure our applicants are complying with the regulation. We review and comment on erosion and sediment control plans that are delivered to the Soil & Water District office. We send comments and plan requirements to the responsible party. We actually approve these plans that meet the minimum requirements of the rule. If they don't they are sent back to the applicant for revisions. Once we get an acceptable plan we notify the IDEM Office of Water Management that we've received the plan and basically in our role at all our districts at DNR we've been deemed as agents of IDEM through the memorandum of understanding. That gives us that authority to go on the sites and enforce the regulation. We do provide technical assistance to responsible parties. One thing we did try to do when we took on this regulation was to treat people fairly. We're wanting to give them an opportunity to comply. Our intent with this rule is to get compliance, it's not to see how many people we can get through enforcement. What we want to do is see something happen out in the field and make an effort there and we have more progress if we can get people to comply. We have had to take sites to enforcement and people would...I guess they haven't taken it serious or we've had a significant impact in the environment. Both agencies provide training along with IDEM on erosion sediment control principles, that's management practices. We've actually held quite a few training session in the state. When the rule was first kicked off with IDEM the Indiana Builders Association held somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 sessions throughout the state to inform the public about the rule and in addition to that over the past few years we've held quite a few sessions. In fact, the division had a grant a few years ago and we brought a consultant in from Maryland, which is one of the leading states in the country on erosion and sediment control, and we put a session on here in...one of three here in Vanderburgh County which was well attended. On a state level DNR we also coordinate implementation of the rule at a regional level, that would be Lynn Miller for this part of the state. At the state level, which would be my position and I work on a day-to-day basis with IDEM and other agencies to ensure that the process is moving on. I briefly covered this, but it looks kind of complicated. I believe you may have this in your packets.

President Jerrel: Yeah, we do.

Randy Braun: I'll just go through it very quickly. This is just a flow chart of how the process works. In fact, once the erosion control plan is submitted to Soil & Water District we review the plan and then we make a determination whether the plan is sufficient or not. If the plan is found to be sufficient we notify IDEM and the operator that they can go ahead and commence construction on the project. If it is deficient we basically go in the circle here and we ask for a resubmittal for a deficiency. If we get those resubmittals back and meet our satisfaction we go ahead and continue the process and tell them they can go ahead and start construction. The space of this loop does not define how many times you'll ask for revisions of a project. A lot of times we get projects up front, the projects haven't started so you've got it say six months in advance, you could technically review the plans (inaudible comments made away from mike). If the project has already started and you ask for revisions you may ask one time and if you don't get a response you would refer the project to IDEM compliance or possibly even enforcement. The last thing I would like to talk about is site inspection. We're responsible for inspecting construction sites. As it has already been alluded to it's a big job and we are, I would say, short staffed in the field, but we're trying to do the best we can. We try to prioritize sites as we work in different parts of the state. Basically it is a pretty simple process. The reviews are done basically by DNR and Soil & Water District personnel. A lot depends on what county we're in how we participate and how we carry out the program at the local level. A lot of it is determined at the local Soil & Water District Boards, the local level, how that process is going to work. Their employees are involved and our employees are involved. Basically, when we go onto a construction site we look for erosion and sedimentation, off-site sedimentation, if they implement the erosion and control plan. Our primary concern is an impact to a water of the state. It's a violation to receive sediment going into a water of the state. It's going to be a more serious violation than if it were just failure to implement the plan and we saw no problems on the site. We would basically fill out an inspection form and I believe you have an inspection form in your packet. It's a standardized form we're trying to use throughout the state. What we tried to do is so the developer no matter what county they are working in or engineer for whatever county they're working in they basically receive the same kind of information. It's basically to try to be consistent across the state. We have the same with the plan review process. We have a form that is used for that. If you look at the form, after we evaluate several of these items there are nine items anywhere from installing appropriate sediment control measures to off-site sedimentation. What we basically do we rate the site as far as status of the sediment retention on-site. If there is a high potential for sedimentation we point that out and if we see evidence of off-site sedimentation we provide that information to the developer and the engineers as well as specify where that problem exists on the site. One thing we have tried to do is address these issues and give an individual a deadline. For example, if they have sedimentation running off-site we will give them a deadline of, for example, say two weeks to correct the problem. I've had staff on some of these situations give an individual a half day to correct the problem in one county. Basically I have left it up to the judgement of staff and field to evaluate the site based on their knowledge and training and their skills in this arena. We see them vary from kind of one extreme to the other based on what the potential problems are at the site. If we have an area where there is no potential for off-site sedimentation we may give an individual two weeks to correct the problem. One situation I was talking about earlier, the half day, basically the employee was on the construction site at 10:00 in the morning and on his way home he was going to be going back through that area and he told the contractor I need a rock check dam to trap this sediment put up because it is going into a creek and I'm coming back through about 4:00 in the afternoon and I need to see it installed or I am going to refer it to enforcement. We do try to take a stern approach with this. A stern but fair approach. In fact, I think it is appreciated by developers when we take that kind of approach and basically they know where they stand, so we have tried to do that and tried to come up with some consistent materials to provide them across the state. Are there any questions?

President Jerrel: This has been very helpful, the packet with everybody's materials in it. In fact, I'm going to give mine to the Auditor so they can...do you have one? Okay, include it in our official record. Are there any other questions?

Commissioner Tuley: No, I don't have any.

President Jerrel: Thank you very much. Are there any questions of any of the members that are here of any of the other parties? 

Commissioner Tuley: No, for me it was good to have the information. As you know, we've worked very closely with Mike, but then to have the actual people and the agencies represented that are involved beyond Mike is helpful to know what role each agency has and how you work together and what have you, so this is very...I'm glad you guys were here and lady. 

President Jerrel: It's a good cooperative arrangement that probably hasn't surfaced very much before. Yes, sir.

Tom Nix: Good evening. For the record I'm Tom Nix. I'm one of the Supervisors at the Vanderburgh County SWCD and I had the thought that I just wanted to tie the two presentations on the internet and the one you have just heard together, that being the digitized soil survey. I think from our standpoint it is probably imperative that we try whatever we can to get that. I see Mr. Morley back here would probably be quite in favor of that. 

President Jerrel: You know, we're working...Roger Lehman's office is working towards the grant money. We really have a hard time coming up with the money to do all of these projects so we're searching for grant funds in order to bring those about. 

Tom Nix: Yes, and I think you and I, Ms. Jerrel, had a conversation about May or June.

President Jerrel: Right.

Tom Nix: We found out the cost of that is going to be $43,000. The photographs have already been flown. That is the cost of digitizing that, but there are many agencies within the county, for example the Health Department could look and see what soil types in requiring the specifications for septic tanks, the Drainage Board, private enterprise such as landowners and many other uses, so I think it is important and I appreciate your efforts on that, but I think that is imperative that it is...as soon as possible we can achieve that.

President Jerrel: Right.

Tom Nix: Thank you.

President Jerrel: Yes, sir.

Jim Droege: Jim Droege. Excuse me, I'm Jim Droege from Posey County. I also serve on the State Association of Soil & Water Districts currently as their Treasurer. The comment I wanted to make following Tom here as he eluded to GIS perhaps it would behoove you to speak to the representatives in the State Assembly. There is and has been, as is our understanding, a state GIS Coordinator position on the books for years, but it has never been funded by the General Assembly. Part of the Natural Resources Committee of the state association worked to get and is currently working to get that position funded and a person in that position. The thought being that if there were a state GIS Coordinator in the State of Indiana then that GIS information that were to be developed in Vanderburgh or Elkhardt or wherever suddenly it is now transferable as you were eluding to earlier. Instead of one of them speaking French, and one German, and one Italian, and one whatever and not being able to go across the lines, but I guess I would encourage you to look through that. There is a state GIS Committee that is working on that made up of agency people, private industry people and that and any encouragement to the General Assembly for funding of that GIS Coordinator. 

President Jerrel: You might want to send me the enabling legislation that set up the position.

Jim Droege: I'll see if I can find that for you or through the association.

President Jerrel: What I started to say a minute ago and I didn't do it very clearly, we have a local committee, GIS Committee, and it is...the Chairman of it in kind of an overall position has been Roger Lehman who is the Director of the Building Commissioners' office, but a number of agencies have been involved in this and we have hired someone to do grant writing just for that. Not the lady that was in here, this is another effort that we are embarking upon with the City of Evansville, it's a joint project. So I think what we're saying to you is, yes, we can help you with that state position, but we gave up on trying to get that done and decided to go ahead and do it ourselves. But if you'll send that to me I'll do some letters and I plan to be up there several times in the next few weeks so maybe I can--

Jim Droege: I'll see what I can find on that and have that sent to--

President Jerrel: Okay, to the Commissioners' office.

Jim Droege: --the Commissioners' office here in Vanderburgh County. Thank you.

Commissioner Mourdock: That does beg the question though, Jim, short of having something statewide on day one and with the reality being what Bettye Lou just described, how well are the southwest Indiana counties working together so we're not speaking French, and German, and English, and Spanish and whatever. 

Jim Droege: The point you raise is clearly a valid point. The need...the possibilities for natural resource concerns and management under a GIS system are almost unlimited depending on what we can do in layering, but if my system can't talk--

President Jerrel: Won't talk to yours.

Jim Droege: --and both of ours cannot talk with that gentleman's system then what we have each one of us is our own little priority area, if you will, and I think you've already eluded to the idea that there are issues of natural resource concerns that go across political boundaries, area concerns. Suddenly if we don't have that means to collectively view data and organize or means to approach problems in that way we hinder ourselves.

Commissioner Mourdock: Over on the bulletin board, and I realize you can't read it for the size of the font there, but under our 1999 goals and priorities for this Board one of the things that we've spoken of is to try to find ways to better connect with the surrounding counties in these types of issues. So I'm going to spin the table a little bit here maybe, but I would challenge you and Mike and your counterparts in Warrick County and Gibson County, and maybe even Spencer and Knox to schedule something where you all get together and sit down at one time to try to unify the type of presentation that you have given to us so that multi language situation doesn't come up because it is in no one's best interest and yet all too often we quit trying to go across the county lines to do anything cooperative.

Jim Droege: We have...our Board in Posey County has discussed the idea of just a very short preliminary exposure to the County Commissioners, County Council about what GIS is and then perhaps moving beyond that in doing something in a regional kind of forum so everybody could begin to see that and the need for it and the benefits of it. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Yeah, and I am not going to speak for the other two members of this Board let alone the other County Commissioners surrounding us, but you raised the issue a moment ago of possibly having a state GIS Coordinator and you suggested that maybe we ought to contact our state reps about that. It might be a much more influential presentation to them if you and your counterparts put together a letter that was, in fact, signed by 18 County Commissioners of six counties for southwest Indiana. So find a way is what I am saying.

Jim Droege: Our Board won't give up on it, I can tell you that. 

President Jerrel: While we're...if you could do that with us then Roger Lehman...the basic approach they're taking begins with infrastructure, and sewer, and water, all the utilities so if we had a disaster for instance we're going to at least know where that infrastructure is to get the community back and running. That language that we select when that process begins ought to then be the same language that is utilized in the district for other layers of information.

Jim Droege: Exactly.

President Jerrel: I don't know. We've got to keep talking. Everybody has got to keep talking about this.

Commissioner Mourdock: Is everything that is being done...well, for instance we have a state plane coordinate system which is based on a detailed point outside the State of Indiana, but does each county have some state plane like system within itself? John, do you know or, Mike? 

President Jerrel: You know what...I know what you're saying. You're saying the same thing about the issue of reassessment. There are three languages out there, three different software programs and there is no requirement that each county select the same program. You're referring to the language.

Commissioner Mourdock: In the sense of surveying that's right.

President Jerrel: Yes, same.

Commissioner Mourdock: The question being what it is it is not saying it any differently than I said it a moment ago, I guess. If we can find out how we all stay on the same type of GIS system and how we do that, you know, we just need to find a way that we're all coordinating what we're doing.

Jim Droege: That's the question that really came to the Natural Resources Committee of the state association and they moved that forward, brought in private industry and state agency people and began a discussion on that and at that point there was the discovery that the position had been available in state government, but not funded before nor manned. The position of that committee was to go forward and say the 21st century is coming let's get on the same train. I will have our people to get as much together both in terms of where that committee sits and the background legislation that put the GIS position on the state books.

President Jerrel: Send it to us. Okay, thank you very much. I'd like to thank all of you for coming and for your input. It was interesting and helpful for us to know. Thanks, Mike.
 

President Jerrel: Okay, moving along the next item on the agenda is the Veterans Service Officer. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the reappointment of Mark Acker as our County Veterans Service Officer for a term of one year.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: You also have in your packet and I would like a motion to accept the Knight Township Trustees' eligibility standards for poor relief assistance. We should really contact...they all should turn one in to us.

Commissioner Tuley: We should. 

President Jerrel: We've gotten this one. Maybe, Tony, you could follow through with contacting. Is there a motion to accept that?

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: The next item on the agenda is our own employee assistance program. This is a renewal with the Southwest Indiana Mental Health Center. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval as submitted.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: Also in your packet are the year 2000 holiday schedule which we do a year ahead of time, so is there a motion to approve?

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the holidays for the year 2000.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

Commissioner Mourdock: They look funny in print.

President Jerrel: Yeah, they sure do.

Unidentified: You're not beating the Y2K are you?

President Jerrel: No, no, we've got that under control.
 

President Jerrel: The next item on the agenda is Auditor's Office to set date for Commission surplus real estate property sale.

Commissioner Mourdock: The only question I have regarding that is as it was given to us it says either May 11th or May 18th. Do we need to approve one or the other?

Suzanne Crouch: That is correct. This is the Commissioners' sale that you have annually. There will be about somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 50 properties that will be offered and those were the two dates that the County Attorney suggested, so whatever your pleasure is. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Is there a reason why one is better than the other?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: The only thing I was wondering, it may be that we may want to auction these like we did in the second phase last time and in order to check with an auctioneer like we had before I wanted to maybe give them two dates when we could possibly do it.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, so we do not now have to select one?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: What I would do is approve one of those two dates maybe within the next week or two. 

President Jerrel: The other as an alternate and then we'll--

Joe Harrison, Jr.: Yeah, tie it down later.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move that we do the County Commissioners' surplus sale on May 11th with the alternate of May 18, 1999.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: Also we do need to set and advertise hearing date for the vacation of the easement for the Buente Trust.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll suggest a hearing date of February 8, 1999 and that is for the portion out on Virginia Street on the far east side.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: The next item is from the County Assessor and as you recall she did have a previous attorney a year ago and she is asking that we permit Becky Kasha to serve as attorney to the Tax Assessment Appeal Board.

Commissioner Mourdock: That's actually a reappointment isn't it? Hasn't Becky been doing that?

President Jerrel: No, I don't think she has.

Suzanne Crouch: Mike Cox.

Commissioner Tuley: Mike Cox was right.

President Jerrel: And chose not to.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of Becky Kasha as the attorney for the County Property Tax Assessment Board.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. 
 

President Jerrel: At this point is there anyone here that has not had an opportunity to speak before the Commission that would like to? 
 

President Jerrel: Hearing none, I'm going to move on to the County Engineer. 

Commissioner Tuley: Are we...where are the rezoning people?

President Jerrel: Huh?

Commissioner Tuley: Do we not need to--

President Jerrel: Yeah, we've got five minutes. 

Commissioner Tuley: Oh, 7:00 is rezoning, I'm sorry. Drainage Board was 6:30, okay. I'm sorry.

President Jerrel: Yes, sir.

John Stoll: The first two items I've got are ordinances that need to be advertised. The one is the weight limit ordinance on the bridges. This is the current ordinance that will match the latest bridge inspection we just had done. This involves posting ten bridges for reduced load limits. The second ordinance is the speed limit ordinance. This is updating the entire speed limit ordinance. We're making four changes on Acre Drive, on Burkhardt Road, on Estate Drive and on Laubscher Road and I just need these advertised. 

President Jerrel: Okay, what if somebody wishes to make a change?

John Stoll: We could just do the procedure again. 

President Jerrel: Okay.

John Stoll: We've been holding the speed limit until we got a reasonable number. I mean, we don't do it every time we get a single one. We just hold it and try to accumulate several of them before we make the final ordinance change so it would be another one they can study and have later. 

President Jerrel: Okay, is there a motion to permit...advertise?

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the advertisements for the weight limits and speed limits as presented.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next I've got an easement document that needs the Commissioners' signatures. This is to dedicate a 12 foot by 50 foot area at the northeast corner of St. Joe and Mill to SIGECO. This is a small easement area just out in front of the County Garage. I've reviewed this, Cedric Hustace has reviewed this and Joe Harrison has reviewed this and would recommend that it be signed. We did have some language put in here that says in the event we ever want to widen St. Joe or Mill we don't pay SIGECO's relocation costs for their facilities on our property. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the easement as recommended.

President Jerrel: Is there a second?

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next I've got agreements for right-of-way engineering services for Eickhoff/Koressel Road. This is for the first two miles of Eickhoff from Lloyd up to Upper Mount Vernon. It's for an amount not to exceed 70...let me find it here, $73,727. This is with Bernardin Lochmueller. The County Attorney has reviewed the document and it is recommended that this be signed.

Commissioner Mourdock: That is for actual field work, is that right?

John Stoll: This is for the consultant to draw up the legal descriptions and the parcel descriptions and do title work.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay.

John Stoll: The actual field work and appraisals and offers for purchase would come next when we do a right-of-way services agreement. 

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay, I'll move approval of the request for the Eickhoff/Koressel title work.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next I've got a request for street acceptance in Keystone Subdivision, Section 6B. This is for 247 linear feet of Long Pond Way, 577 feet of Pembroke Drive, 777 linear feet of Shoreham Drive, 885 feet of Winnett Drive, 239 feet of Saybrook Drive and 116 feet of Rimridge Drive for a grand total of .55 miles.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the street acceptances as recommended by the County Engineer.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next I have a change order on phase two of Burkhardt for $9,218.97. This is an increase. This change order only reflects the increases. There have been decreases in a number of other items that offset this increase. Primary reasons for this increase were changes to the Vogel Road traffic signal and we found that the concrete pavement item...the removal of concrete pavement, that item was originally omitted in the contract and that item was $4,592 of this change order, so those are the two biggest items on this. It is recommended that this change order be approved.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the change order for phase two Burkhardt Road.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: The next item is also a change order. This is on the 62 and Cross Pointe project. This is for an increase of $9,886.80. The primary reasons for this increase are due to signal changes that were anticipated prior to the project ever being awarded. I don't know if you recall that, but back before the job was awarded there were changes made to the signal plans approved by INDOT and I don't have the exact dollar figure, it was in the neighborhood of $25,000 worth of changes that they had made to the signal plans prior to us even awarding the contract, so this reflects some of those changes.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the change order as recommended.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

John Stoll: That's all I have unless you've got any questions.

President Jerrel: Getting ready to move. The weather is going to be nice. Getting right along and January 31st we've got to know are we on the March bid letting for the Fulton Street Bridge.

John Stoll: Everything I know as of today we still are. 

President Jerrel: Okay, we'll don't let--

John Stoll: I talked to Steve Dilk today and based on us getting the asbestos report up there and working with Bernardin Lochmueller on getting the construction engineering agreements prepared those are the only two items that I know that they were waiting on from us.

President Jerrel: That's...so you've got Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. 

John Stoll: Right.

President Jerrel: Okay.

John Stoll: Supposedly we're on it regardless, but that remains to be seen.

President Jerrel: Okay, thank you.

John Stoll: Thanks.

Commissioner Mourdock: Take nothing for granted.
 

President Jerrel: The County Garage was down earlier and we met with them briefly. Is there a motion to approve the Garage progress report?

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll do that, but before I do would you pass word on to Erik, I was hoping to see him here tonight. I've got several calls on places where we have county roads, such as on Green River, where there is also sewers alongside the road and we put down with the ice a lot of sand and salt and I mean a lot in several spots. When we put the sand down on those same streets where there is going to be sewer we're only getting in our own way later on, so those areas need to be just salt if there is a practical way of doing it.

President Jerrel: Tony, will you make a note of that so Erik knows that first thing in the morning?

Commissioner Mourdock: Having said that I'll move approval of the Garage report.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

Commissioner Tuley: Along...not along that line, but while we're talking about the Garage, and John maybe you can answer that, with this current freeze and thaw and everything we're getting a lot of potholes and a lot of breaking up of roads and what have you. Is it feasible to think that we can do anything about it now or do we just have to get weathered out? I'm talking about in my case Upper Mount Vernon and there are some pretty rough areas around the county that I have just run into.

Commissioner Mourdock: Old Petersburg has got a bunch of them.

Commissioner Tuley: Yeah. Is it feasible to go out and try to patch them now?

John Stoll: When I was out at the Garage last Friday Erik said that he was trying to get patched, but--

President Jerrel: Then they was out.

John Stoll: Right.

President Jerrel: We had all that rain. Tony was telling me that today. I took a couple of calls and they go and they fix it, but then all that rain and it just--

Commissioner Tuley: Before it sets up.

President Jerrel: Yeah, it gets washed out again.

John Stoll: And the next time they go plow they peel it right back out of the pothole they just patched.

President Jerrel: But we are keeping an ongoing list, so any of them that you get we'll just pass them down here or to the Garage so we can keep a record.

Commissioner Mourdock: Okay.
 

President Jerrel: Okay, County Attorney. 

Joe Harrison, Jr.: I don't have anything.
 

President Jerrel: Superintendent of County Buildings.

Tony Greubel: In regard to the Futrell dump illegal clean-up...or the Futrell illegal dump clean-up I recommend that we award that bid to Floyd Staub, Incorporated for $231,888. 

President Jerrel: We do have in front of us the composite sheet describing removal, transportation, disposal, the subtotal and the consultation and they were the low bidder.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the award as recommended.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. Is there anything else?

Tony Greubel: That's it.

President Jerrel: Okay, Burdette Park.

Commissioner Mourdock: Time out, Steve, we need to change the tape.

Tape change
 

Steve Craig: The first thing is, I guess, do you have any questions on the papers that I gave you on the status of the rental facilities at Burdette Park? 

President Jerrel: No, does anybody else have any questions about it?

Commissioner Mourdock: No.

Commissioner Tuley: Did we increase prices last year for `98?

Commissioner Mourdock: We did on several things.

Steve Craig: Yes, and that is really why I did this because I wanted to show, you know, that we increased the percentage of rentals because we haven't quite got our financial statement done for the year.

Commissioner Tuley: Right, that was the reason for my question.

Steve Craig: Even though we did raise them we went up.

Commissioner Tuley: We're still up on rentals, okay good. 

Steve Craig: Okay, then the other thing that I had in there was I had Barb Abell from Grandy's on their donation for our billboards to rewrite it where it was for 1999 and then they gave us a picture of the two bulletin boards that was going to be put up.

President Jerrel: Oh, that's nice.

Steve Craig: Over the two phases we're going to be on 61 billboards in the Tri-State area for a period of three months...or two months.

President Jerrel: That's good.

Steve Craig: At no charge to the county or Burdette.

President Jerrel: We sent out letters and the booklets and everything to all of the Ways and Means Committee. Tony did that today. How many, about 20 something?

Tony Greubel: I think 23 members on the House Ways and Means Committee. 

President Jerrel: So everybody has...new members. Did you check, were they new? 

Tony Greubel: There was...Bales was replaced by Peggy Welch.

President Jerrel: Okay.

Tony Greubel: We got that taken care of. The other one is still on there, so there is one new member.

President Jerrel: Okay. Everything is out and rolling.

Steve Craig: Then we had our minutes from our Advisory Board meeting. 

President Jerrel: I appreciate your including...I appreciate this in our packet because it gives us something...I like to save this stuff and go back and look at it and I appreciate that. Is there a motion to accept these materials?

Commissioner Mourdock: I move acceptance of the Burdette Park report.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

Steve Craig: Thank you.

President Jerrel: Thank you very much.

Steve Craig: You all have a nice evening.
 

President Jerrel: We also have Soil & Water and Ozone report. Is there a motion to accept? 

Commissioner Mourdock: Let me do those separately so I can make a real quick comment, but I'll move approval of the Soil & Water report.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.

Commissioner Mourdock: Just secondly on the ozone report I thought I saw it included in the packet, I don't see it right at my fingertips, but there is also a letter that Joanne wrote in response to...yeah, there it is...in response to some of the federal proposals which I just wanted to point out to you. As I told her, these kind of comments, I think, are very helpful to give us the guidance and to give someone at the state and the feds the kind of guidance we need from the county. That's why she was hired right there, so I appreciate her comments.

President Jerrel: Right.

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move approval of the ozone report.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: The consent items. 

Commissioner Mourdock: I'll move acceptance of the consent items as filed.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered.
 

President Jerrel: You have your meeting list. 
 

President Jerrel: Is there anything under old business? 
 

President Jerrel: How about new business? 

Commissioner Mourdock: I have just one item that I think it's appropriate. We need to adopt by motion a recommendation to the Building Authority regarding some contract...well, not contract changes, but some funding changes for the auditorium. Steve Utley gave me a call regarding some modifications we needed to make to go ahead with the previously approved package for furnishings and fixtures. Towards that end I would move that we ask or indicate to the Building Authority our acceptance of the purchase of $43,859 of furniture and fixtures and also be ready to use $68,527 from continency to help make that purchase. 

Commissioner Tuley: I'll second your motion.

Commissioner Tuley: So ordered.

Commissioner Mourdock: Just for the record their meeting is tomorrow, so, Tony, will you communicate that?

Joe Harrison, Jr.: I'll handle it.

Commissioner Mourdock: Joe, okay, very good. 

President Jerrel: I have one item under new business that has been kind of hanging out there and that is I've been trying to negotiate a settlement so that we have a place to put the State Board of Accounts.

Commissioner Tuley: Oh, yeah.

President Jerrel: So just for the record we are going to give back a portion not all of the space to the Treasurer that the Treasurer had originally given to the Election Office. I've met three times with Tom Simpson and he understands that I fully do not think we should pay a nickel for any of this. He agrees, so he negotiated with Steve Utley. They will put in the wall at their expense and Jayne Berry-Bland has agreed to move there and open the large room again for the State Board of Accounts so they can be in there. Marsha and Sue Hall are onboard and the Treasurer is onboard and Tom Simpson is onboard.

Commissioner Mourdock: Sounds like it is a full board.

President Jerrel: Everybody is in agreement, but for the record I would like to note that we would also like for you to pass that on. I'd like a motion to approve that move. 

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. Okay, any other business? Motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Mourdock: So moved.

Commissioner Tuley: Second.

President Jerrel: So ordered. The meeting was adjourned at 7:10 p.m.
 

Those in attendance:

Bettye Lou Jerrel Richard E. Mourdock

Patrick Tuley Joe Harrison, Jr.

Suzanne M. Crouch Charlene Timmons

Bill Cottun Tony Greubel

Liv Watson Scott Hartig

Betty Hermann Jayne Berry-Bland

Marsha Abell Judy Dicus Thomann

Reggie Baker Randy Braun

Jim Droege Tom Nix

John Stoll Steve Craig

Others unidentified Members of the media
 

Vanderburgh County
Board of Commissioners

Bettye Lou Jerrel, President

Richard E. Mourdock, Vice President

Patrick Tuley, Member
 

Recorded and transcribed by Charlene Timmons.