VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

JULY 21, 2009

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 21^st day of July, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Troy Tornatta presiding.

President Tornatta: Good evening. We’re going to start the Board of Commissioners meeting, July 21, 2009 in room 301. Attendance roll call, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Here.

President Tornatta: Joining us today is Judi Early with Goodwill Industries, and she has a friend that she’s going to bring up to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. His name is Shawn.

Shawn Shrum: (Lead the group in the Pledge of Allegiance.)

President Tornatta: Good job, Shawn.

Judi Early: Okay, you can sit down. Thank you. He was a little bit nervous. At first I thought I was going to have to just bring his voice recording on an iPhone and say, okay, pretend Shawn is doing this. It was so much better to have him here, and his mother, Barbara, with us. I’m here, we promised...I promised him that I would give it back. We are here to talk a little bit about Ducks on the Ohio, which is a fundraiser coming up for Evansville Goodwill Industries and the Goodwill Family Center on August 8^th. We start at 2:02 p.m. Isn’t that a quacky time? Okay, that’s the only pun I’ll do, I promise. We are asking the public to adopt little rubber ducks, just like this one, for five dollars each. They are tagged on the bottom with a special number, and at 2:02 p.m., with the help of the Nighthawks Field Artillery, the 163^rd Field Artillery here in Evansville, the ducks are dumped into the Ohio River, they swim along a race course toward a tube, and the first four ducks to the tube win prizes that community organizations have donated to Goodwill. The top prize is $10,000. For every 3,333 little rubber ducks that are adopted, one of the special duck tag numbers on the bottom will be pre-selected as a potential million dollar duck winner. The duck that crosses the finish line first, if it happens to have one of those pre-selected numbers, it wins a million dollars, courtesy of Fifth Third Bank, on top of the $10,000 that we are guaranteeing. It’s just a funny little way to hold a raffle, and it is to help the families that reside at the Goodwill Family Center. We can take between eight and ten families at any one time. It’s a very intensive program. Families can stay for up to two years, working on whatever problems caused them to find themselves without a home. It might be lack of employment, or underemployment. It might be just terrible debt. It could be a medical catastrophe that just hit, but, we work with the families. We charge a very nominal fee for them to stay there, as a program fee. The rest of the money that they earn we encourage them to pay off their debts and to actually save up, so once they leave they are able to stay on their feet and be independent once more. In 2008 we provided services to 28 families. We were very proud to find that 75 percent of the families who left the program were able to move into independent housing once they left us, and to remain self sufficient. Three out of four ain’t bad. We wish it was four out of four. But, short of having fairy dust, we just can get it. So, but, the staff does a truly wonderful job out there. The facility is located at 1351 West Buena Vista, and we would like to extend an invitation to all of you to come and visit sometime and just see what wonderful things are going on at the Family Center.

President Tornatta: Judi, where can we pick up the sunglassed ducks?

Judi Early: Where can you adopt a duck? Oh, I have to tell you first that you can get them at any Fifth Third Bank branch in Evansville, Henderson and pretty much all the surrounding counties. You can also get them at any Goodwill store, you can buy them at Schnuck’s grocery stores, at Evansville Teachers Federal Credit Union branches. The Courier and Press has been very nicely putting in an adoption certificate in the Sunday paper. I actually carry a cell phone on me all the time. We call it the duck phone. If people are willing to use their credit card to adopt ducks, they can just call me at 479-DUCK and I’ll take their order.

President Tornatta: 479-DUCK?

Judi Early: 479-DUCK.

President Tornatta: Well, Judi, thanks for coming in. Shawn, thank you for leading us with the Pledge. 7^th grader at Lincoln, right?

Judi Early: Uh-huh.

Barbara Shrum: 6^th.

President Tornatta: 6^th grader, okay. At Thompkins or Lincoln?

Barbara Shrum: Thompkins.

President Tornatta: Thompkins, okay. There we go.

Judi Early: You did a great job. Thank you very much.

President Tornatta: Okay, Judi. Thank you.

President Tornatta: Alright, action items, first reading of CO.07-09-013, an ordinance amending chapter 17.36 entitled administration and enforcement. An ordinance which will amend the county zoning ordinance to establish fines and penalties for violations of the county zoning code. The APC has approved the adoption of this and feels that it will better enable it to enforce the zoning code and prevent and deter violations.

Commissioner Winnecke: Mr. President, I’ll move approval.

Commissioner Melcher: I’ll second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: County Engineer, permission to award VC09-07-01, Baehl Road culvert number 1242 replacement to Koberstein Trucking for $61,152.

Commissioner Melcher: Move for approval.

Commissioner Winnecke: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: County Engineer, permission to award VC09-07-02, Bergdolt Road-Clover Drive drainage improvements to BMB, Incorporated for $24,345.54.

Commissioner Melcher: Move for approval.

Commissioner Winnecke: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Anybody out there want to discuss? I’m joking.

(Applause)

President Tornatta: Any other discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: Contracts, agreements and leases, the CIO amendment to city-county telephone contract with AT&T. An amendment to the agreement signed in October 2008 that serves to delete five sites and add four sites for a new total of 43 instead of 44.

Commissioner Winnecke: Mr. President, I’ll move approval.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: I think I would like to bring up Dave Rector here, if I could. Dave, we’ve been working with a security contract, or some type of security in this building, and part of the process you wanted to go over.

Dave Rector: Yes, please. Dave Rector, Building Authority. If you recall, the security project that we’ve all approved to go ahead and take steps and measures to, I guess, for lack of better words, lock the building down and make everybody go through screening stations, is in place and ready to start. I had encumbered money from last year to do that this year. For the fiscal part of it Council has approved money for the screeners. In one of our meetings Commissioner Tornatta had, what turned out to be a good idea. That didn’t sound right, did it? I didn’t mean, anyway, he had a good idea.

President Tornatta: Just once.

Dave Rector: But, we were struggling with what to do with employees, and so they didn’t have to go through all the screening. He suggested that we have something that they can pass through and still wand, and if we recognize that it is them, then they can go on through. So, what we’ll do is we’ll have a turnstile at the screening stations with a prox reader that they’ll either fob or card and it will come up with your picture on it and see that it’s you, and they can go on through and they aren’t going to be impeded with having to take off their belts and go through all of that. You know, we’ll address some things, other people that come to the building frequently, as our attorneys and some of that, but there will be a committee that says who’s going to come through these, versus who has to go through the screening. But, the idea that Troy had was for the employees, to streamline it for them. What I’m getting around to, is to do that, we now have in place our loan to replace the money that we had, of our joint fund that we used for the jail demo, and I’m requesting that we use that joint fund with the Building Authority and Commissioners to spend $30,000 to $35,000 more than I encumbered to complete that project.

Commissioner Winnecke: Dave, what’s the whole time line, if you would help us understand?

Dave Rector: Actually, I’m going to go ahead and get the metal detector and the x-ray machine ordered this week. It’s got about a four week lead time. We thought we would be in place sooner. The Sheriff and I have been evaluating, struggling with some proximity reader systems, and I think we’re narrowing that down. But, hope to be up and live about the first of October.

Commissioner Winnecke: Okay, thank you.

President Tornatta: Here again, for those who are just catching this, this was recommended by the Sheriff and the Chief of Police for security measures of this building. We want to be, they wanted to be proactive with our security and not have incidents happen. So, we put the motion in place to get this security system in, and I think it’s going to serve us well in this building.

Commissioner Winnecke: So, Mr. President, are we looking for a motion on–

President Tornatta: Yes.

Commissioner Winnecke: –an amount not to exceed $35,000?

Dave Rector: $35,000 from our joint fund.

Commissioner Winnecke: I will make that in the form of a motion.

Commissioner Melcher: I’ll second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

Dave Rector: Thank you, gentleman.

President Tornatta: Thank you, Dave.

Dave Rector: Appreciate it.

President Tornatta: Alright.

President Tornatta: County Engineer, John Stoll?

John Stoll: The first item that I need approved is a change order on the Green River Road project. This is for an increase of $15,305. This increase is due to increased costs of some tree cutting that was done in advance of obtaining the Corps of Engineers permit. We weren’t able to get any equipment down there, so they all had to be cut manually, and then the contractor had to come back after the fact and remove all the trees. We just couldn’t disturb the ground in the wetland areas is what it amounted to. So, that added cost. Then this change order also covers the cost of switching out some of the geo-technical instrumentation that will monitor the settlement of the fill as it’s placed out there.

Commissioner Melcher: I’ll move for approval.

Commissioner Winnecke: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

John Stoll: The second item I have is a street acceptance request. This is on the Brandeis Equipment site that is up on Highway 41 north of Baseline on the west side of 41. The acceptance request is for 387 feet of Taurus Road and 785 feet of Aquarius Road. Both roads have been inspected and I would recommend acceptance.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

John Stoll: Then, next, I need your approval to go to County Council to transfer $2,000 from the County Line Road Account to the Legal Services Account. The County Line Account the funds aren’t needed anymore because we terminated that contract due to a lack of funding to do the construction. We’re running short on our Legal Account. So, I need your approval to proceed to Council.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

John Stoll: Then, last, I have a right-of-way certification letter to submit to INDOT for certifying that we’ve obtained all right-of-way on University Parkway for Marx to Diamond.

Commissioner Melcher: So moved.

Commissioner Winnecke: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

John Stoll: That’s all I have, unless you have any questions.

President Tornatta: I think that’s it.

John Stoll: Alright.

Commissioner Winnecke: Thanks, John.

John Stoll: Thanks.

President Tornatta: Thanks, John.

President Tornatta: Ted?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, we’ve covered everything.

President Tornatta: Okay. Super.

President Tornatta: Let’s see, we have new business. Did everyone here get the request from the McCutchanville Parks Fund?

Commissioner Melcher: I know I didn’t get anything.

Commissioner Winnecke: It’s not in here.

President Tornatta: Okay. There has been a submittal. One of the things that we have identified as a need to do a matching grant for some parks. The parks that we’re talking about are those parks out in the county. Those parks out in the county have to have private funds donated and we’ll match up to $5,000. That will be at the discretion of the Commissioners office. We do have one in, and I just recommend that we review the request for the McCutchanville Park for $5,000 and next meeting if we could go over that. Then if we have any questions, and potentially award that contract.

Commissioner Winnecke: Second.

Commissioner Melcher: I’m fine with that.

President Tornatta: Okay. Alright, any old business?

Commissioner Winnecke: Do you want to vote on that? Do we need to vote?

President Tornatta: No.

Commissioner Winnecke: Okay.

President Tornatta: We’ll just accept it.

Commissioner Winnecke: So, who has the...will someone distribute the proposal to us?

President Tornatta: Yeah, we’ve got it. Okay, we’ve got it. That goes to any other parks, the opportunity is still open to have those matching private funds with our funding source to put toward anything dealing with the park, but it would be a structure type of situation, or product. It would not be any labor. So, anyone that has a request that they’ll get it into the Commissioners office and we’ll be glad to look at your request.

President Tornatta: If there is no old business.

President Tornatta: Any public comment?

Commissioner Winnecke: Steve Craig.

President Tornatta: Steve?

Steve Craig: Steve Craig, Manager of Burdette. There was one item that I wanted to do under my department head meeting, or report. It was, I was asking permission to do my annual transfer. I know that you and Lloyd know it because you were on the County Council, but, Steve, I didn’t know if you knew what it was. But, I was wanting to transfer monies from the 3590-559 account to the line item 1180 and 1900. It’s for $80,000 for salaries, and $6,120 for FICA. Then we will reimburse the General Fund the full amount from our account at Burdette.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. Discussion? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: Steve, just, I know we didn’t talk about this before, but you’ve had some break ins at the park. I know it happens every year, but it seems like, you know, at a time, we want to make people aware in that area, if they do see people around Burdette Park, that they would want to call 911 and report anything that they see to Central Dispatch and we’ll get a Sheriff Deputy out there, if there’s not already one in the area.

Steve Craig: Yes. We have been working with them, and there’s increased patrols out there, and they’re actually bringing their dogs out there. So, we’re trying to curb anything that will happen in the future. But, I don’t know, it seems like it might be kids and that, some of the stuff was not kids stuff, but there’s been a lot of candy stolen and stuff when they do get in to some of these places. As you said, we’ve had trouble before, and we secured a lot of areas, but it seems like every time we secure one area, they move to another one. So, I had talked to you about looking into some other alternatives. I think that getting cameras out there or something in certain places would definitely curtail it once we caught the people on camera doing it. But, it seems like it happens every year for a little while, then you don’t, you know, you don’t have no problem with it again.

President Tornatta: Even thought it’s a park, we do take it very seriously those who violate the law. So, you know, (a) we want to have people out there looking and protecting our park, which is their park that they pay for as well, and, (b) we want to let those people know that if they are violating the privileges that we have out in that beautiful area that we will go to the extent that we have to to bring them to justice.

Steve Craig: Well, we have caught people in the past and they have spent some time. So, it is a serious matter and they do take, you know, the Prosecutor does take care of them.

President Tornatta: Thank you.

Steve Craig: Thank you.

President Tornatta: Alright.

President Tornatta: Motion to approve the consent items.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. If you’ll please read the consent items, Madelyn.

Madelyn Grayson: The consent items for the July 21^st meeting are as follows; approval of the July 7, 2009 Commission meeting minutes and department head meeting notes; employment changes from the various offices; there are travel requests, two from the County Assessor, one from the Health Department, and one from the County Treasurer; the Commissioners have a memorandum of understanding between St. Mary’s Hospital, EVSC and Commissioners on behalf of the Health Department; the Auditor submission of statement of salaries and wages for review; County Engineer, approve pay request number 83 for Burkhardt-Green River TIF projects in the amount $106,246.16; SMG’s qualitative measurements for performance for fiscal year 2008; Burdette Park has the 2009 January to June comparison report; the Treasurer has a year-to-date report through June 30, 2009; Legal Aid has the June 2009 statistics; Weights and Measures monthly report from June 12^th through July 15, 2009; Circuit Court has a request to surplus one fax machine; Hillcrest Washington Youth Home’s second quarter reimbursement; a waiver of conflict of County Attorney in favor of Barclay Purkans, LLC in Federal District Court Case AC Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. vs. Matrix of Evansville, LLC, et al; department head reports from the Vanderburgh County Ozone office, County Highway department, County Engineer and Burdette Park.

President Tornatta: Any questions of the Board? Roll call vote, please. Sorry.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I might just comment. The County Attorney, David Miller, gave me this request for a waiver of conflict in the middle of the afternoon. It was too late to send you an e-mail on that. It’s a suit wherein AC Heating & Air Conditioning is suing Matrix of Evansville, a regular client of our office, Barclay Purkans, LLC, and other defendants, including Vanderburgh County. Vanderburgh County is only named because it has a statutory tax lien on that property, and that money will be paid to Vanderburgh County. Nonetheless, in cases like this we do appoint other counsel to represent the county in that regard, and the County Attorney has appointed Robert Faulkner to represent the county on that. We need a waiver from the county to represent our regular client, Barclay Purkans, LLC. In the waiver document we set forth the rules of professional conduct for lawyers in the State of Indiana which provides that you can waive that if in our opinion our representing this client will have no effect whatsoever on the representation of Vanderburgh County. So, we ask that you do waive that.

President Tornatta: Any other questions? Roll call vote, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Winnecke?

Commissioner Winnecke: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Yes.

Madelyn Grayson: President Tornatta?

President Tornatta: Yes.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Tornatta: If we have nothing else, I’ll take a motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 5:20 p.m.)

CONSENT ITEMS:

Commissioners:

Approval of the July 7, 2009 Commission Meeting Minutes.

Approval of the July 7, 2009 Department Head Meeting Notes.

MOU between St. Mary’s, EVSC & Commissioners for Health Department.

SMG Qualitative Measurements for Performance: FY ‘08.

Hillcrest Washington Youth Home: 2^nd Quarter Reimbursement.

Waiver of Conflict: County Attorney: Barclay Purkans: AC Htg. & Air vs. Matrix

Employment Changes:

Co-Op Extension (3)                 Burdette Park (20)                    Circuit Court (1)

Treasurer (2)                            VCCC (1)                                  Health Dept. (3)

County Highway (1)                  Legal Aid (1)                             County Assr. (2)

Sheriff Dept. (1)

Travel Requests:

County Assessor (2)                 Health Department (1)              Treasurer (1)

Auditor: Submission of Statement of Salaries & Wages (Form 144's) for review.

County Engineer: Pay Request No. 83: Green River-Burkhardt TIF Projects.

Burdette Park: 2009 January to June Comparison Report.

Treasurer: Year-to-Date Report Through June 30, 2009.

Legal Aid: June 2009 Statistics.

Weights & Measures: Monthly Report: 6/12-7/15/2009.

Circuit Court: Request to surplus one fax machine.

Department Head Reports:

Ozone Officer                           County Highway                       County Engineer

Burdette Park

Those in Attendance:

Troy Tornatta                            Stephen Melcher                      Lloyd Winnecke

Bill Fluty                                    Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Madelyn Grayson

Judi Early                                  Shawn Shrum                           Barbara Shrum

Dave Rector                             John Stoll                                  Steve Craig

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Troy Tornatta, President

Stephen Melcher, Vice President

Lloyd Winnecke, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)