VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

JULY 19, 2005

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 19^th day of July, 2005 at 3:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Suzanne Crouch presiding.

President Crouch: Good afternoon. I would like to call to order the Vanderburgh County Commission meeting on July 19^th. We will start our meeting with introductions, and we’ll start to my far right.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’m Ted Ziemer, Vanderburgh County Attorney.

Commissioner Musgrave: County Commissioner, Cheryl Musgrave.

Commissioner Nix: County Commissioner, Bill Nix.

President Crouch: County Commissioner, Suzanne Crouch.

Madelyn Grayson: Recording Secretary, Madelyn Grayson.

Bill Fluty: County Auditor, Bill Fluty.

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

President Crouch: Please join us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Crouch: Our first item is approval of prior minutes.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

President Crouch: Our first action item is an opportunity for a board or a commission that this body makes appointments to, to tell us a little bit about what’s going on. We had the opportunity of hearing from the Airport Board earlier this year, but they’re back today to give us an overview of their master plan, which they will be presenting, I believe, next week to the general public. We have with us today Mr. Nelson Bailes. Welcome, and we look forward to your presentation.

Nelson Bailes: I would like to thank you for allowing me the time here. This is Tiffany Mangold, she’s my assistant. We prepared just a brief Power Point overlay of the master plan. What the master plan is, the master plan is we’re looking at the airport for the next 20 years. We basically, it takes about 18 months to do this study. This study is about $350,000, about 90% of it’s paid by the federal government, so, we’re responsible for 10 percent of it. The company that’s doing the project this year is the Corradino Group. They are actually an engineering firm for the airport, and Dave Ramacorti is the project manager for that. Darrell Veach works for the Corradino Group here in Evansville, and then for the forecasting Landrum and Brown is doing the forecasting for us. The master plan overview, as I said, is a 20 year plan for the airport. We just finished up the last 20 year plan here, so, we’re starting on this new one here. What it does, it looks at everything overall through the airport, the facilities and everything. It looks at the existing facilities, the projected aviation demand, future facility studies, community and environmental effects, our funding sources, of course, that’s an important thing. The plan needs FAA approval, actually, the plan itself, airports do not have to do a master plan, but whenever they ask for funds, the master plan helps them in getting the funds from the federal government, and it also shows the reason why we need the plans. It shows in conjunction with the different projects that we have. The study priorities; the airfield and nav aids; terminal related facilities; GA, which is general aviation; FBO, which is fixed base operations, which is Tri-State Aero at the present time. The other aviation facilities on the airport, of course we have to look at the ground transportation, that’s getting in to the airport and getting out of the airport. Once people get there we have to look at the parking situation. Then, the land use, the airport has now about 1,400 acres, and we just bought 90 acres. So, we have to look at how we’re going to use the land. Besides just for the airport, it’s used for aviation. We have advisory committees, the advisory committees, we have a regional planning committee, we have a technical planning committee, and then we have an air commerce/roadways advisory committees. And put together they all work on the different things, how they’re going to use the land, and how they’re going to best get revenue from the airport. The committee’s role is to provide general guidance for the master planning. It validates aviation demand for the projections that they make and the planning assumptions, identifies the current deficiencies and future aviation development needs for the airport, and also participated in alternative developments for the airport. Also, it serves as a champion to the facility industry and community support for the studies and recommendations that the committee has. Looking at the terminal building, to kind of give you an overview here of what we’re looking at. The terminal building at the present time there, it’s built to accommodate 350,000 people a year. The boardings right now are in the 235,000-240,000 range. It looks like for 2024, boardings may go to 330,000 with the projections. It looks like the terminal itself is going to be good for the duration of the 20 year plan. The terminal originally was built to accommodate future plans for the city. EDS, that’s something that the Transportation Security Administration, the TSA, that’s something they’re putting in at a lot of the airports. Right now we screen bags that are being checked and put inside the cargo compartment of the aircraft. We screen those in front of the ticket counter. If you’ve been out there and watched them do that, they have a new system called the EDS system. The system is an in-line system which will go probably downstairs at our airport. The bags that are checked will go through an x-ray machine very similar to what they do for the carry on bags. We feel that the apron there is adequate for the airplanes that we have today, mostly regional jets. We are looking in the near future for loading bridges. The things that I’m going to show you today probably are just some things that are projected that they may do and they may not. These are just things that we’re looking at on the future for improving the airport. As I said, this study is about 18 months, so, it will be a while before we come down to the final part of this. Now, right now we have 1,088 parking spaces. We have increased that since we built the terminal building. It looks like we’re going to have to increase it again in the very near future, probably 45 to 50 additional parking spaces, because at peak periods we’ve had to open up the short term lot because of the overrun on the long term lot. It looks like eventually we’ll need 1,250, and something we may look at too is a parking garage. The terminal is situated so, the way it’s set, we could easily build a parking garage there if we have a demand for that type of parking. For the rental car parking lots, we’re looking at no expansion hardly. In their make up they look pretty well. But, going down to the walkway going down to their lots probably needs a cover over it eventually. I’ll go into that in just a minute and show you some examples of that. Some lighting down through there and some just improvement in the signage going down to the lot down there. Hangars, looking at the general aviation, we have an immediate need for “T” hangars. We only have one set of “T”hangars out there. As you know, we just tore down the hangar that was built in 1928. We hope that we’ll replace that hangar there with hangars for general aviation, probably corporate aircraft. Parking, we don’t have parking, overnight parking on the apron right now, we hope to have that in the near future. Of course, that will bring maybe some additional office space and some shops in that area. The facility needs at the airport is our fire and rescue, they are well staffed right now. We probably will see some growth there, but probably it won’t be a whole lot of changes in the personnel, because we are actually operating at a level above what we really need to be right now. The snow removal, we’ve always done a really great job there. Our maintenance people do a great job there, with maybe some additional runways and taxi ways, there’s possibly some very, very small changes that we might have to make there. But, looking at the roads and land use, of course, roads again at the airport, we built William L. Brooks Drive going in there to the foreign trades zone. It looks like if we do have some expansion in that area. We may have to build some roads going down in to the area there on the east side of the airport to accommodate maybe some industry that might build in that land there. Terminal needs, airline needs, it looks like we’re pretty well set with that, because we have empty counters right now. But, for shops and the gate areas, we may have to look at those in the future. That kind of gives you an overview of what the technical part of it is. To give you really an idea of what we’re really talking about here, so that you can look at it from how we’re going to set it up. Eventually, the runway here, this is 422, this is 57 here to give you an idea, and this is route 41. This is the existing terminal building right now, and this is the Tri-State Aero lot over here. What we may look at is sending this runway out, maybe 10,000 feet out this way. It’s not that we need the extra 10,000 feet, we have plenty of runway to accommodate the flights we have operating right now, and we do have most of the RJ service. The facts are that the RJ service will probably, we’ll have probably almost all RJ service here for the regional jets in the very near future. Probably by the end of this year we’ll have all service with regional jets, with the exception of maybe the two flights to St. Louis. But, in any case, we planned on maybe putting some taxi ways in here to make it better for the aircraft when they land. Then we’ll look at the cross runways here. This would be the expansion of like runway 422 to give you some practical idea of what might happen here. The big problem here as you can see, the runways cross here. This restricts the aircraft from taking off simultaneously. We can’t have aircraft on runway 1836 and on 422. So, the safety factor there, what we would hope to do maybe in the future is to move the threshold of this runway up a little bit so that it doesn’t cross over the other runway there. To do that we would have to move it out to the northeast. Looking at some of the things that we’d talked about as the bridges. When the terminal was built a few years ago, this is the opening for the second level boarding. We kind of thought that probably that would be the thing of the future because we had larger jets coming in to Evansville at the time. But, as you know the whole picture of aviation changed, and so we’ve changed over to the RJ’s. So, what we need now is ground level boarding. Now, they’ve come out with a new jetway, and this is called a dew bridge. The dew bridge can be hooked up to ground level boardings, and it will fit any of the RJ’s that service the airport. So, this will provide the people with a covered walkway, getting on and off the aircraft. We hope that in the future we will have those. We talked about covered walkways, this is a picture that I took of another airport here. This is some of the things that airports offer in terms of covered walkways going down to the rental cars. Also it might be a fact that in the terminal, from a terminal out to the parking lot we may want to build something like this to keep people out of the weather when they are going back to their car. Just to give you an idea, and this is kind of the commercial part of it here of what’s happening with aviation in Evansville. The facts are that non-hub airports, which Evansville is a non-hub airport, basically, we don’t see a lot of expansion from the major carriers anymore. They’re competing in the major cities. So, we have to be very careful about what we do and how we get new service in to Evansville. We’re always needing to look at airline expansion, we always need to look at new markets. But, the big thing is here is economic development for this community. The airport needs to be a part of that, and the airport needs to look at that as an economic development anytime that we get new flights or new destinations, and I’m sure that Toyota for example would not have been here in Evansville if they had not, if we had not built a new terminal building as we had it then. The old building was so bad, but anyway, just to give you a why we need incentives here. A lot of time airports, which is Evansville, only account for about three percent of the traffic in the United States. But, they have 409 cities like Evansville. The small hubs about eight percent, but look here at the large hubs, the large hubs they account for 89 percent of the passengers in the 66 airports. So, as you can well imagine, the larger airports, the larger airlines are looking for some type of incentives to come to Evansville. So, they want us as a community to share the burden of start up costs. In this case they look at revenue support. They’re not asking to supplement each passenger, they want each route to support itself. Marketing money, Evansville, not because I work for the marketing department, but they were a step ahead of most of the airports by forming a marketing department. Now, all the airports serving all the communities have marketing departments. Simply because no one markets your airport unless you have a marketing department. The big airlines they don’t do that anymore. There’s too much competition in the major hub cities. You never see them advertise hardly in the small markets anymore. They want waivers of airline fees, they want waivers of the rent for temporary start ups, they want upgrades like new counter space. The travel bank is something that we did with the Indianapolis service, where people bought the voucher coupons and used those. Basically, the bottom line is here, the airports want long term success when they start a route, they want to partner with the community so that the community shares part of the responsibility for serving, for the service that they start up. They want to limit their start up lists. In other words, for the first year maybe they want free rent, or they want some type of concession just so they don’t have a lot of costs to start up. Bottom line is they want to mitigate their risk totally when they start new routes. We’re going to have a public hearing on July the 26^th, it will be at Christian Fellowship Church from 4:30 to 6:30, and I invite you to come to that, and hope that you can answer some of the questions some of the people may have about....we’ll have a display there and we’ll have a session with questions and answers. Thank you.

President Crouch: Questions, Commissioners?

Commissioner Nix: I’ve got one. Can you explain just real briefly the funding for the airport? How that funding comes in and how it goes out?

Nelson Bailes: Actually the funding of the airport, the funding of the airport, there’s no tax, we’re one of the few airports that do not have tax money for the operational costs. Our operational costs of the airport come from our rental. In other words when the aircraft land there, we charge a fee, a landing fee, we charge rent for the space for the rental cars for the airlines for, of course, we get revenue from the parking lot. The parking lot is a big part of our revenue there. So, we want to be sure that we always have adequate parking for the customers coming in. But, we do get, we do get money for capital funds. We get tax money for capital funds. It’s about I think a half a million dollars a year. That money is used to leverage money from the federal government. In other words if we need to extend a runway, which we did, we just extended 1836. We use that money, or a portion of that money to leverage money from the federal government. As an example, the master plan, we pay ten percent, they gave us $350,000. Now, that’s what we use the capital expenditure money for for the airport. But, basically, the revenue, operating costs we generate that within the airport there.

Commissioner Musgrave: Will the public hearing touch upon the proposed industrial park?

Nelson Bailes: Yes. We have several different ideas. We feel like we have a lot of land on the northeast side of the airport there. There is a possibility, like the foreign trade zone for an example, that’s developed into a business there. We feel like there’s land there, and the public will take a look and see, you know, what can be done there. We’re inviting industries to come and take a look at that too. To see if it’s a possibility that they could relocate in that area. Now, as we go back to the roads, we have to have access roads to go into that area. The access roads have to be outside the security area, because we can’t have people within a security area. So, that presents a little bit of a problem. But, nothing insurmountable. I’m sure that industry will, there’s a lot of opportunity there we think.

Commissioner Musgrave: Well, as a former assessor, I just want to make sure that the industries that do come to the airport property, which is tax exempt, that they’ll be subject to taxation like any other for profit entity in the county. Is that going to be the case?

Nelson Bailes: Well, you know, there is some advantages to, you know, the taxation of airports, companies that locate at the airports. There is some tax relief there for those companies. I’m not sure to be honest with you exactly how they apply for that, or how they gain that tax support. But there is some tax relief for people that locate on the airport, or in the airport area. Maybe Mr. Ziemer can help me there.

President Crouch: Any other questions? Thank you very much, Mr. Bailes. That was very informative.

Nelson Bailes: Thank you.

President Crouch: Thank you.

President Crouch: Next item, County Engineer, permission to award bids.

John Stoll: We’ve got two contracts that need awarded. The first is to E&B Paving. This is on the repair and repaving of Cross Point Boulevard and East Virginia Street. This is contract number VC05-06-02. The amount was $228,279.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval of VC05-06-02.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: The other contract was to Deig Brothers, and this is for the St. Joseph Avenue culvert removal and replacement. They provided the low bid of $59,137.50.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval of VC05-07-01.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you, Mr. Stoll.

John Stoll: Thanks.

President Crouch: Purchasing, we have permission to award, and then a permission to open bids.

Phil Lawrence: Madame Chairman, other Commissioners, Phil Lawrence, Purchasing. I would like permission to award APA041-2006, road salt. The low bidder being Morton Salt for $42.17 a ton.

Commissioner Musgrave: How does that compare to our prior years pricing for that?

Phil Lawrence: It is about seven percent higher.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval of APA041-2006.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Phil Lawrence: I would like to open VC027-2005, transportation services for elderly and handicapped, but there aren’t any bids here to do that. So, I would like permission to extend this opening till next week, and permission to contact the vendors who we sent the bids to. One promised us the bid would be here today at 3:30, and it’s not.

Commissioner Musgrave: But, you’ll contact everyone?

Phil Lawrence: Yes.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay. Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Phil Lawrence: Thank you.

President Crouch: Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

President Crouch: Next item, department heads. Those department heads that have business that require action of this board would appear at this time. Burdette? Oh, you’re going to wait until the County Attorney? That’s fine. County Engineer?

John Stoll: I’ve got two other items. First is some additional paperwork for the grants for the Jobe’s Lane water and sewer project. I have a certificate of accessibility, which is related to ADA accessibility for the project, which basically the project’s exempt, since there aren’t any sidewalks or any building structures associated with it. There’s also a disclosure report. Both these reports were given to us last week by the Southwest Indiana Regional....I can’t remember the–

President Crouch: Development Commission?

John Stoll: Yes, that. They need, both forms need the Commissioners signatures. So, I would request approval of those forms, and Madelyn has those in the signature file. Basically, it just needs, I guess, just Suzanne’s signature. It has to have the highest elected officials signature on these two forms. It’s part of the paperwork that has to be submitted to the state in conjunction with receiving the state grant of $141,750.

President Crouch: But, we would use today’s date, correct, on that?

John Stoll: Yes.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay, move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: The last item that I have is that I would like to request approval to have the Auditor’s office shift $298,485.21 from the Lynch Road right-of-way acquisition account to the Lynch Road construction account in the TIF fund. Basically, we have sufficient money right now to cover our actual 20 percent of the remaining costs associated with the project. However, we have to pay all of the inspection invoices for Bernardin Lochmueller up front, and we also have to pay the utility relocation costs up front. So, we don’t see the reimbursements from INDOT on a real quick turnaround, so, we’ll have a cash flow problem. So, ultimately, this $298,000 that I’m asking to be shifted from one account to another will just basically cover the cash flow. In the end the project, this amount will basically be left over unless there’s a change order of some sort. The right-of-way acquisition account is no longer needed. All right-of-way costs have been covered. So, that money is just no longer needed in that account whatsoever.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: That’s all I have.

President Crouch: Thank you, Mr. Stoll.

John Stoll: Thanks.

President Crouch: Superintendent of County Buildings.

B.J. Farrell: I have one item that I would like for the Commissioners to consider today. We have had four companies give us estimates on pest control at the Old Courthouse. I would ask that the Commissioners approve the commercial pest control agreement as they were the lowest in providing the same service as the others.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

President Crouch: County Attorney.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Do you want me to do the Artwork Unlimited? Or is that the–

President Crouch: That’s fine.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: –it’s under old business, Old Courthouse.

President Crouch: You can take it under your report.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: You have in your packets for execution a document entitled, “addendum to lease”. The lease with Artwork Unlimited for use of the sub-basement in the Old Courthouse expires September 30^th, or excuse me, yes, September 30, 2005. The owner of that Artwork Unlimited, Phil Wolter, met with the Old Courthouse Foundation, Inc., and asked for additional time this year to have the haunted house again in October. Since it was so late, it would be almost impossible for him to make other arrangements to get this done this year. The recommendation of the Old Courthouse Foundation, Inc. was that we grant Artwork Unlimited an extension of their lease through December 31, 2005. That the fee for that extension, that is running from September 30, 2005 to December 31, 2005 be $7,000, which was the fee for the full year last year. The rationale for that being that it’s that point at Halloween that Artwork Unlimited makes it money on this project, and that is the main thrust of it’s activity. We felt it was appropriate to have the entire fee charged for the extension period. Other than extending the lease and providing for that fee of $7,000, all the other terms and provisions of the original lease would stay in full force and effect through December 31, 2005. Then just by way of information, it’s the intention of the Old Courthouse Foundation, Inc. to review this matter, probably at it’s next meeting, maybe hear further information from Mr. Wolter, and then make a recommendation to the Commissioners as to whether or not to continue this kind of leasing into the future. In the event that the Commissioners wish to approve this arrangement with Artwork Unlimited, Inc. you have in your folders an addendum to lease, which does the things that I have suggested.

President Crouch: Mr. Ziemer, I believe I saw some kind of e-mail that said that the current lease provides for them to be notified in November if the lease is not going to be extended. We don’t need to do that?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, there is not a provision like that in there. The provision is that the lease may be considered for renewal at the end of it’s term. Mr. Wolter understands that this addendum takes the place of anything like that.

President Crouch: Okay. Secondly, is it a little premature for the board to make a recommendation back to us before they have the consultant come in and maybe look at a long term use of that building and what is still needed? I mean, I guess, I just, it seems that that might be a little–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It may be. I guess, you know, the board would have to speak to that, Madame President. But, Mr. Wolter does need to know at some definitive point in time whether he’s going to be able to use these premises in the future, and if not, he needs to make other arrangements. I don’t know when the consultant will be here, and I don’t know when the Old Courthouse Foundation will get the consultants report. It might be too late for Mr. Wolter to make a decision. In any event, I think that’s all, it’s just that there’s going to be another meeting, and certainly I think the board ought to be advised to take that into consideration, whether they want to make an arrangement with him before they hear what the consultants have to say. But, I’m reporting what the board did at it’s meeting.

Commissioner Nix: Now, you’re referencing not necessarily this year, but any year beyond now?

President Crouch: Right, because I thought that we had agreed to let the Old Courthouse Foundation board review the situation and extend it through Halloween. I didn’t know we were considering future years also.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: At the meeting Mr. Wolter was prepared to discuss this for perhaps another two hours. We were going to lose our quorum in about five minutes. So, it was suggested that to resolve this matter at this time that the board recommended to you that the lease be extended as I have indicated, and that at a later time they would meet with Mr. Wolter and further review his information as to whether or not this should go on in the future.

Commissioner Musgrave: So, basically, we’re extending the lease from the end of September until the end of December.

Commissioner Nix: And that gives him time, one of the things he explained in the meeting was it gives him time to get, if we decide not to renew the lease, it gives him time to get everything cleaned up and get out. He’s got quite a bit of props and those types of things stored beyond just the display for the Halloween.

Commissioner Musgrave: Well, if the Old Courthouse...what are we calling it now?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Foundation, Inc.

Commissioner Musgrave: Foundation, Inc. is going to entertain extending his lease, then I would ask them to do research in the community about what other similar organizations pay for rent. I was contacted by a taxpayer who says that a similar...what do you call it? What do you call what he does there?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Haunted house.

Commissioner Musgrave: Haunted house pays $25,000 a year in rent, and they were shocked to hear the amount of rent that was being paid to the Old Courthouse. They felt that the government was perhaps charging too little. So, I would ask that the board take the amount of rent and the competitive nature of it into consideration if they’re going to entertain an extension of the lease.

President Crouch: And recommend to us.

Commissioner Musgrave: Recommended to us, yes.

Commissioner Nix: Back to us.

Commissioner Musgrave: That’s right. Well, I’ll make a motion to extend this just to the end of the year. But, I’m hesitant to give anyone any sort of warm and fuzzy feeling about a future lease at that location.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Anything else, Mr. Ziemer?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes. We have, let’s see here, I copied you and you have copies at your desk with my letter to Tri-State Transportation relative to their continuing services outside the contract, and we’re paying them until a new contract is entered into. So, you have that in your files. You have also in your packet today a listing agreement which you may wish to enter into with F.C. Tucker Commercial to list the property known as the Evansville Plating Works. The listing contract has been substantially revised from the standard form utilized by F.C. Tucker Commercial. It is now informed, which in my opinion is satisfactory for execution by the Commissioners. If executed it would begin effective as of June, the effective date of it would be June 1, 2005, but it would run through September 30, 2005, and it provides for, it indicates a value for the building of $225,000.

Commissioner Musgrave: Do you also have the purchase agreement documents ready? Or are those to come?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, the purchase agreement documents are ready.

Commissioner Musgrave: Do we need to approve them as to form?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I don’t think you do. You certainly may. I sent copies of those to the Commissioners. I sent a copy to F.C. Tucker Commercial. They have accepted that. That document is the document which will be used by bidders to make bids on this property, which won’t start until sometime in August. You do have it, and each of the Commissioners have a copy of that.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I recommend that it’s satisfactory as well.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval of the listing contract.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: And this is, we had already approved in a former meeting going ahead and moving forward and hiring this firm.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, you had done that. I think you had not actually just approved the form of the listing agreement.

President Crouch: Okay. All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Then I have given to the Recording Secretary three copies of an architects, standard form of architect owner agreement to be entered into between the county and Hafer Associates for certain improvements to be made to buildings at Burdette Park. Originally Hafer had submitted simply a proposal. We required that they reduce that to an agreement. We then reviewed the agreement and made modifications, or suggested modifications which they have made. The agreement as you have it in the file today is satisfactory for execution from a legal perspective.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Finally, I think the last thing I have, I’m sure the last thing I have is we have received an offer of settlement in a piece of litigation involving, the other party is Hartig, and it’s a condemnation action, and we’ve received an offer of settlement. We would like to suggest that the Commissioners have an executive session at 3:15 next Tuesday, July 26^th, so that we can review with the Commissioners this offer of settlement and our recommendation regarding that.

Commissioner Musgrave: Does that require a motion?

President Crouch: Yes.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes.

Commissioner Musgrave: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That’s all.

President Crouch: Thank you. I don’t believe we have any board appointments.

President Crouch: New business?

President Crouch: Old business? We did touch upon the Old Courthouse, is that correct? So, that’s finished. Anything to add?

Commissioner Musgrave: I do. I want to thank the Highway Department, he was not able to stay today, Mike Duckworth, he worked closely with me and the Building Commissioner, Roger Lehman, and his staff Sheryl Lemmer to clean up an eyesore that has existed for several years behind the Home Depot out on the far east side. This lot became thickly overgrown with weeds, and then you could even say trees, and after much time had passed, finally this year the Highway Department went out there and made a huge effort and got all of that cut down last week. We’ve received a letter of appreciation from Regency Properties, and also a letter of appreciation from the staff down at the Building Commissioner’s office, grateful that this is finally off their desk. So, kudos to the Highway Department.

President Crouch: Any other old business? I have just one item. I did, as you recall we challenged the Warrick, Posey and Gibson County Commissioners to a canoe race at the Paddle Fest, and I did hear from Commissioner Marginet up in Gibson County, and they gladly accepted. So, that is just an update, and I’m sure more will be coming.

Commissioner Nix: Good.

President Crouch: Any other old business?

Commissioner Nix: One thing here, I would like to maybe have Mr. Ziemer look this over and the other two Commissioners, and basically it would mimic what the city has done with the sign ordinance. I think that that’s something that we might want to look at putting in place. I know a lot of people are confused with where the city ends and the county begins, and I think it would just help to do that. It would clean up a lot of areas along Burkhardt and Green River Road, those areas there. So, I would like to maybe let you take a look at this, and maybe bring this up here in a meeting in a week or so.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Certainly.

Commissioner Musgrave: If you could acquire a copy from the city of the original ordinance and the changes that were made, that will help me understand what we’re going from and to. Does the county have a sign ordinance right now? Or are we without any ordinance?

Madelyn Grayson: If it does, I think it’s contained within the rezoning ordinance.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Excuse me, are we talking, you know, there’s confusion as to what the sign ordinance is. The sign ordinance in the zoning, I believe, has to do with billboards and signs and that sort of thing.

Commissioner Nix: This is yard signs, smaller signs.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Exactly, so, I think it’s different, and I don’t think we have, at least I’ve never seen anything like this in the county.

Madelyn Grayson: Not that I know of.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Commissioner Nix, what you’ve just handed me, is this, this is the current city ordinance, is that right? As changed?

Commissioner Nix: That’s correct.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: What it doesn’t show is what it was in the beginning.

Commissioner Nix: That’s correct.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’ll try to find that out.

Commissioner Nix: Would the (inaudible) office have that?

President Crouch: Any other old business?

President Crouch: Public comment. This is an opportunity for anyone in the audience to comment to the Commission on any action that we have authority over.

Rebecca Sandoval: May I ask a question?

President Crouch: Certainly.

Rebecca Sandoval: My boss asked me to deliver this by 3:30. (Inaudible. Not at mic.) still accept this?

President Crouch: Can you come to the microphone please? I’m sorry to do that to you.

Rebecca Sandoval: (Inaudible. Not at mic.) I apologize.

President Crouch: No, that’s quite alright. If you could state your name.

Rebecca Sandoval: My name is Rebecca Sandoval. I’m the driver coordinator at River City Yellow Cab. My boss is Derek Dillon and he asked me to get this here by 3:30, but I was picking up a cab driver who was broke down in the heat. So, I’m late and she said that you might take it.

President Crouch: Well, I appreciate it. What we did earlier was we extended the bid opening to next Tuesday.

Rebecca Sandoval: Oh, wonderful.

President Crouch: But, we will accept it here today and hold it till next Tuesday.

Rebecca Sandoval: Thank you very much.

President Crouch: Yes.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: We wouldn’t open it today, just hold it.

President Crouch: No, no. We’ll hold it till next Tuesday.

Rebecca Sandoval: Thank you, I appreciate it.

President Crouch: Thank you. Anyone else? Mr. Rector, I believe you have an item to bring to the Commission.

Dave Rector: That’s what I was just thinking. I didn’t know where we wanted to address this today. I gave you three letters today on three different subjects. One is some renovation work in the Commissioners office to make it more secure. Once again, any questions on that, and if you wanted to pursue us doing that.

President Crouch: Has everyone had an opportunity to review that?

Commissioner Musgrave: I spoke with Mr. Rector today, and I am in favor of improving the security in our office. So, I would like to move approval of that. Are you going to seek bids? Or just go ahead and do the work?

Dave Rector: It’s so small and it’s the ultra-wall system, and there’s only three contractors in town that can work with that system. So, I had a quote from one of those.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay, move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Dave Rector: Thank you. Another issue I had was the letter on the Centre and some equipment that we need to buy over there. I have some pictures showing the rust on the kettles, and the expansion joints in the floor.

President Crouch: That, what we just approved, those improvements will come out of the bond defeasance money, is that correct?

Dave Rector: Yes. I’ll just keep track of that, 2006, in January.

President Crouch: And that’s supposed to be approximately in the $6,000 range?

Dave Rector: Six to seven thousand dollars in overtime, and I feel very comfortable with that.

President Crouch: Okay.

Dave Rector: From what we talked today, but, I would like to do it on overtime or the weekend so we don’t disrupt the office.

President Crouch: Thank you.

Dave Rector: As you can see, we have a kettle that is rusted and not in use now, and two steamers. I think resulting predominantly from no conditioned water to kitchen equipment that the manufacturers specifications require. So, in replacement of those, I’m also suggesting that we install a water softener system for the kitchen water only. Then you can see the hole in the floor that’s developed at that one expansion joint, and several of the other expansion joints have just depressed, and as the staff pushes their kitchen carts across in and out of the dining room, they’re spilling the carts and the glasses and the water off of it. So, we have a quote to repair those expansion joints also. I would suggest, as in the past we could use Food and Beverage Funds for that with your approval.

President Crouch: And the three quotes, do you have the lowest quote for these projects?

Dave Rector: Yes, the expansion joints was a small item, so we have one quote on that, the water softener also on the expensive equipment we have two quotes, and I will get one more at the request of Commissioner Musgrave. For the kettles and steamers we have quotes from C&T Design and Wabash Food service, and I get those from Curtis Vickers the Food and Beverage Manager over there. He knows about the equipment much better than I do.

President Crouch: So, upon receiving the third quote, then you will go with the lowest?

Dave Rector: Yes.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Dave Rector: Thank you. The last item that I had, we need to get moving on the build out of the Centre dressing rooms that we discussed earlier in the year that you approved. Doing that, I think it’s going to be over our prevailing wage amount. I need your appointment to the committee, so that we can request to the state that hearing, and then get that project bid out for early this fall.

President Crouch: I believe our, we have a legislative appointment, I believe our legislative appointment to the prevailing wage committee for the last project we did was Mr. Charley Alvey. If that would please the Commission, we could go ahead and make that appointment.

Commissioner Musgrave: I move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

Dave Rector: I’m sorry, was who, Charley?

President Crouch: Mr. Charley Alvey?

Dave Rector: Oh, okay.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Dave Rector: I’ll take care of it. Thank you.

Commissioner Nix: Thanks.

President Crouch: Thank you.

Commissioner Musgrave: Has the carpet been ordered?

Dave Rector: The carpet is on order. It has a lead time of about six weeks. I’m preparing the bid package per the manufacturer’s installation specifications. I’m going to get it out to bid while the carpet is on order, so as soon as it comes in we’ll get started. I hope to have it done by mid September at the latest.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Nix: I understand Commissioner Musgrave picked that out, is that correct?

Commissioner Musgrave: No.

Dave Rector: I showed Commissioner Musgrave the selections of the interior designer that looked at it.

Commissioner Musgrave: And her top selection looked just fine to me. I was worried that we would have purple with green stripes, and this is nowhere near that. It looks just fine.

Dave Rector: We are doing tiles, 39 inch tiles that I think you’re consultant recommended the larger one so they don’t turn with vehicles in there. But, if they are damaged, we can peel it up and put a new one down without having to replace a whole row.

Commissioner Musgrave: And this is one of the recommendations, the larger tiles, that John Christison, who is doing the overall review of the Centre, that was hired by the Convention and Visitors Bureau. When he went through they discussed the need for carpeting, and we were going to order one foot square?

Dave Rector: Eighteen inch.

Commissioner Musgrave: Yeah, and he mentioned that other centers have problems with those because the forklifts curl them up. He recommended that we go with the larger size. So, we’re already getting good advice, and moving on it, and he hasn’t even delivered his report yet.

Dave Rector: This was a product that was used in the, I want to say Hoosier Dome, but the RCA Dome, I guess, it’s convention center. So, they’ve had good luck with it. It was also used in Old National Bank’s recent construction. They’ve had good luck with it so far. So, hopefully, we will too. We were able to purchase off the GAS state contract. So, we got a good price.

President Crouch: Thank you very much, Mr. Rector.

President Crouch: Consent items.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:10 p.m.)

CONSENT ITEMS:

         Employment Changes:

         Recorder (1)                   DADS (1)                        Pigeon Assessor (1)

         Auditor (1)

         Travel Requests:

         Coroner (1)                     Health Department (4)

         Circuit Court: Adult probation- surplus letter.

         Auditor: Surplus letter.

         Treasurer: Monthly report for June 2005.

         Commissioners:

         Evansville ARC- monthly report for June 2005.

         Payment Number 11 to ARC Construction for Community Corrections.

         Payment Number 64 for jail project.

         Department head meeting notes from July 12, 2005.

         Superior Court: IN CJI Juvenile Accountability Block Grant.

         Department Head Reports:

         Burdette Park                 County Engineer             County Highway

         Ozone Officer                 Supt. Of Bldgs.               SWCD

         Veterans Services          CIO

         Those in Attendance:

         Suzanne Crouch             Cheryl Musgrave            Bill Nix

         Bill Fluty                          Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          B.J. Farrell

         Madelyn Grayson           Nelson Bailes                 John Stoll

         Phil Lawrence                 Rebecca Sandoval         Dave Rector

         Others Unidentified         Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Suzanne M. Crouch, President

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, Vice President

Bill Nix, Member

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.