VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

JULY 25, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 25^th day of July, 2006 at 3:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Cheryl Musgrave presiding.

President Musgrave: Good afternoon. I would like to call to order the July 25, 2006 meeting of the Board of Commissioners. It is 3:30. We’ll start with introductions.

Marissa Nichoalds: Marissa Nichoalds, Superintendent of County Buildings.

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

President Musgrave: Cheryl Musgrave, Commissioner.

Commissioner Shetler: Tom Shetler, County Commissioner.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Bill Fluty: Bill Fluty, County Auditor.

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

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Musgrave: Do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of July 18^th?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

President Musgrave: First on our agenda tonight is the Vectren environmental update. We advertised this expecting Mr. Doug Pettit to come and give us this report, but we’re pleased today to welcome Ron Jochum.

Ron Jochum: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Mr. Jochum?

Ron Jochum: We’re happy to be here. Does everyone have a copy of the handout? This handout is what I’ll be speaking from. Okay. Number one, and I want to thank you for the opportunity. It’s my understanding, since Mr. Pettit did delegate to me, that I am to give a briefing, and I promise you I will make it that, brief. But, I also want to say that I am open to questions as we go along. I think an interchange would be best. So, don’t hesitate if you have any questions. I expect Mr. Pettit to come in at a later moment here. That’s what I’m expecting. If you’ll turn to page two, I simply wanted to remind you that we are the local utility, we serve about approximately 140,000 customers in this region. We serve those, from the electric point of view, from our generating stations located at A.B. Brown, which is in Posey County, and F.B. Culley in Warrick, which are located in Warrick County. We own, the Warrick unit, that is a shared ownership with Alcoa. We also have, if you’ll turn to the next page, we have six units in those two locations, and those are worth about 1,000 megawatts of coal-fired generation. We also have 295 megawatts of capacity in natural-gas fired generation. Four of those are in Vanderburgh County located at the Broadway Avenue generating station down on Broadway Avenue and out in the northeast. Two of our larger ones are at the Brown station in Posey County. We use local coal and locate generation to serve our local customers. We think that’s our obligation. We have an obligation to serve this region, and we try to do it in the best manner possible. But, from an environmental point of view, there’s been many advances in emission control devices as the years have gone along. I’ve been in the power generation business now for over 30 years. I’m almost ashamed to admit, but that’s the way it is. And, we have gotten better about using our natural resources, coal. Indiana has an ample supply of that, and we have been able to, over the years, as the demand for electricity has grown, with emission controls, we’ve been able to decrease the emissions, even though the demand for electricity has grown. On page four, the air emission reductions that have occurred nationally, and they’ve occurred nationally because of environmental regulations that have been put in place and the changes that utility companies have implemented. But, on a national basis the sulfur dioxide emissions are down about 40 percent since 1970. 1970 was the time when the Clean Air Act of 1970, or commonly known as CAA, Clean Air Act, went into effect, the NOx emissions, or nitrous oxides. Nitrous oxides, if you’re familiar, I suspect you’re very familiar, are those that are most charged with causing ozone, an issue that we face on occasion, are down about 70 percent. The particulate matter emissions are down about 30 percent. Now, that’s nationally. We believe we’ve done a better job than that, I think. Our SO2 emissions since 1970 are down about 90 percent. The NOx emissions are down over 80 percent since 1970. We have continued to improve our particulate removal through other investments. Our environmental expenditures during those periods of time, since 1970, have exceeded $400 million. We’re one of the smaller utilities in the nation, quite frankly, but we’ve expended over $400 million installing environmental equipment, to make our emissions, first, fully compliant, and, second, to benefit our region. I live in this region, and proud to live in this region, and I think that’s important, as a company, that we do that. The next page simply shows how our generation has grown over that period, over the last five or six years, and yet our NOx emissions have gone down drastically. This represents about a $250 million investment in devices called Selective Catalytic Reduction units. Those make significant decreases in our NOx emissions, and that’s what helps us with the ozone situation. Now, the real summary on the next page is simply a tutorial on how coal-fired generation works. I’ll be happy to go through that in any detail that you want, otherwise I’ll bypass it and say that the important thing from an environmental point of view is covered on page seven, which is the equipment that we use to get the various pollutants out as we go about generating the electricity that our customers expect. Selective Catalytic Reduction unit, commonly called SCR’s. The analogy is your car has a catalytic converter, and it was put on at new, this one is a catalytic converter for power plants. Much, much larger, much more expensive, requires the use of ammonia and those kinds of things, does the same function as a catalytic converter on your car. We have those on the four large units that we operate. Fabric filter, works very much like a vacuum cleaner, you pick up dust off the floor with your vacuum cleaner, we collect the dust after the burning of coal in fabric filters and electrostatic precipitators. We capture about 99 percent of that, of the particulate matter that is generated from the burning of coal. The third item that cleans up the sulfur dioxide, you know, Indiana has abundant supplies of coal, and it’s good for our economy when we use that coal, but it does have a high sulfur. Mother Nature treated us differently than she did those coal fields in the west. Those in the west have very low sulfur, ours here have high sulfur. So, we installed scrubbers to remove that by-product. One of the things that we do at our Culley station, is we use our local lime stone in a slurry process through the gas emissions and create gypsum. I’ll say it’s probably a little known fact that the gypsum that is created by our Culley scrubber, is put on the river and sent to New Orleans and becomes wallboard. So, we have, the by-product of our environmental process put to a productive use in the New Orleans area. Something in the neighborhood of 220,000 tons per year that we ship out, and we’ve been doing that since 1994. So, the common, and the second piece of this, as I’m sure you’ve heard, there are regulations coming about around mercury. In place, the rules are in place under a law called the Clean Air Mercury Rule, CAMR, and that takes effect in 2009. We believe the coal benefits of these three devices that we have on our equipment will remove, and currently is removing, approximately 90 percent of the mercury. So, we feel like we’re in good order on that subject as well. The last page, quick facts, we think our units are some of the cleanest and best controlled in the Midwest. We have expended a great deal of money and time in making them a clean operating. We’re quite proud of that, quite frankly. Then by 2009, there is one unit that does not have, the Warrick 4 Unit, does not yet have a scrubber on it. But, some of you, probably, I think, Commissioner Musgrave, you remember the announcement that Warrick is, Alcoa is putting on environmental equipment, that’s the piece that’s under construction now for 2009. I guess, I wanted to dispel either a rumor or a myth, and I want you to know it is a myth. I have heard rumors that there are those in the community who believe that we just flip off our pollution control equipment at night. Number one, that’s completely against our corporate policy, and you can see that corporate policy in our environmental stewardship manual that we’ve left with you. We would never do that, that’s not good for us, not good for the environment. Number two, it’s against the law, and I happen to be the, what’s known as the designated representative for the EPA. I have to sign off on all the reports that go out on this. We’re monitored every six minutes. If I fraudulently do that, I’m subject to not only civil penalties, but criminal penalties, and I don’t want to go there. So, if there’s ever any question, beyond the fact that the equipment is not designed to be shut off and on, our units cannot run if it’s shut off, just in case anybody had heard that rumor, I brought along a whole series of reports that I’ll be happy to share with you, if you’d like.

President Musgrave: Are those copies?

Ron Jochum: This is, yes.

President Musgrave: Well, we would like to receive copies for the record.

Ron Jochum: It’s not everything, it’s just samples. This is only for, this is one unit for one quarter. So, just a point, I wanted to get it in, had the opportunity.

President Musgrave: Well, we have heard that rumor. We’ve heard that you can tell when you shut it off, because some sort of plume then descends. So, that is a rumor that has reached our ears.

Ron Jochum: I assure you that I have no desire to go to jail. I promise you that I will not allow that to happen. I guess, I will, the plume that you hear about is probably the steam that comes out from the scrubbers. The scrubbers is a wet process. I guess, I would give you early warning, because I fear this is what we’re going to hear a lot about when the Alcoa project is in service. The stacks simply now show very little emissions, nothing very visible. When the scrubbers are put in place to remove 98 percent of the sulfur dioxide from those units, you will see a large, white plume coming out of those units. I believe everyone will say, “Oh, my gosh! It’s gotten dirtier.” That’s not true. That’s just the way it works. But, I’ll be happy, I only have one copy.

President Musgrave: Okay, that’s fine.

Ron Jochum: I would take any questions.

President Musgrave: What does the future hold? You’ve done such a great job, that from your charts here, over the past several years removing pollutants from the atmosphere, what do you see as coming our way in maybe the next ten or twenty years?

Ron Jochum: Okay, well, I mentioned that mercury rules are already in place, Clean Air Mercury Rule, with an implementation deadline of 2009. So, if you’re unable to do it through the coal benefits of the devices that I’ve explained here, then there are other technologies that are honestly being developed to remove the mercury. That’s one issue, that’s a matter of law in place as it stands today. The issue facing us in the long term is how to deal with carbon. Carbon dioxide, the suspected, and, I believe, most people believe the cause of global warming, or one of the contributants to that. There is likely to be some form of legislation, regulation around carbon. Quite frankly, at this time, from a technology perspective, there are methods, very expensive methods I might add, of capturing the carbon, and carbon dioxide, the problem at this point is what to do with it? How do you sequester the large volumes of carbon dioxide that will come out? That is the most pressing issue facing the energy industry today. We are currently investigating new technologies around burning coal. You may have heard of a Duke-Cinergy project at Edwardsport, as a company we are following that development very closely, as a potential partner, because it has some advantage around how you capture carbon. So, carbon capture, carbon sequestration is the next issue that is facing us, and a very large one.

Commissioner Shetler: Do we generate in excess of what we use, utilize, in the way of power here? Or do we–

Ron Jochum: There are multiple answers to that quite honestly. There are times during the year when we have low demand that we do generate excess. On days like we’ve experienced over the past couple of weeks, we are relying on the marketplace to provide some of our energy. So, it depends on the time of year, and the time of day, and the demand of our customers. We had a peak demand, last summer actually, not yet again this summer of 1,315 megawatts of peak demand. As you can see from our generation numbers, we total up to just slightly more than that with our internal generation. So, 1,056 plus 295, so, we’re up in the 1,340. We’re very close. We have a planning reserve requirement from the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission that recommends that we maintain a 15 percent margin over our demand, the demand of our customers, to ensure reliability. As you probably recall from the blackout that occurred about three years ago, if you get overloaded and the system starts to cascade, it goes away very quickly. So, you need some reserve margin for abnormal events. But, we’re very close and looking for our next piece of generation.

Commissioner Shetler: So, in balance, at years end, if you put it on a balance sheet, then it’s close to 15 percent excess, and that’s what required by, I guess, the Public Service Commission?

Ron Jochum: The Public Service Commission requires that you have it for a planning reserve margin. It’s not 15 percent excess in energy, but in the peak, on that one hour. Unfortunately in the electric industry since we are unable, we have not yet anyway found how to store electric energy, we have to build for the peak. That peak may only occur one hour during the year. On average then, we have a capacity factor on that (Inaudible) much lower than that, more in the 60-65 percent range. So, there are two different pieces, there’s the energy that we consume, which is much less at night and weekends and those kinds of things, compared to that peak that we have to build to serve.

Commissioner Shetler: That kind of brings in a little bit, a good segue to my second question there, which is at night, then, generation is generally dropped–

Ron Jochum: Yes.

Commissioner Shetler: –from what it is during the daytime?

Ron Jochum: Yeah, we’re able, I’ll give you an example of our units. Our units, three of our units are sized at about 250 megawatts, or 250,000 kilowatts per hour. During the day, in the peak of the day, which on a day like today would probably be at 3:00 in the afternoon, we will have them running at their capacity. Overnight, depending on how low the load goes, they can turn down, sort of like your car, they can slow down to anywhere as low as 100 megawatts. So, yes, they do, every night. We have people that are in, on duty around the clock matching up that load, telling the generator what to do to match the load that we have from our customers.

Commissioner Shetler: So, once again, that’s, I guess, a bit more proof of the fact that there is not anymore pollution being put out at night, or in the dark of night–

Ron Jochum: No, there’s less.

Commissioner Shetler: –but, actually less, because there’s less generation.

Ron Jochum: That’s correct.

Commissioner Shetler: Nobody can turn switches on or off for the pollution devices, so, therefore–

Ron Jochum: No, it doesn’t make any sense. It has no value to us to turn them off.

Commissioner Shetler: Right.

Ron Jochum: Again, it’s against policy, and I don’t want to go to jail.

President Musgrave: The report showing every six minutes worth of checking is available to anyone who wants to review it–

Ron Jochum: Yes, we file it–

President Musgrave: – that verifies this?

Ron Jochum: –we file it quarterly with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. We are monitored, not just quarterly, we are monitored every six minutes. We have, and the reports generally have been summarized, the thickest of the reports shows the six minute data, the other we summarize on an hourly basis, and they are open to anyone who wants to inspect them. We would welcome that. If anyone is concerned.

President Musgrave: What can the average citizen do to address the PM2 emissions, and the carbon problem that you spoke of?

Ron Jochum: Well, you know, it’s PM10, which is the size of the particle, and PM2.5. Certainly we have a contribution to those pollutants. There are other contributions in farming operations, just the general things that people do. I don’t know how to tell them to not do that. But, I suppose, you know, personal protective devices if they are that concerned about the PM2.5. I don’t know how to help them with that. Around carbon, carbon, the contributors of carbon are, of course, power plants, there also are fossil fuels that are burned in our automobiles. There are a number of ways, anyway that they can conserve energy will be helpful to the carbon issue. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 has provided some tax incentives for people to increase the insulation in their homes, which would help them conserve energy. We are working to develop different ways to advertise and educate people for....energy conservation is probably the best way to answer both of those questions, as I think about it.

President Musgrave: Alright.

Ron Jochum: Okay?

President Musgrave: Well, thank you very much.

Ron Jochum: You’re welcome. Anytime.

President Musgrave: This is a timely subject, and it’s good information.

Ron Jochum: We’ll be happy to take questions at anytime, even though it’s not at a meeting.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Ron Jochum: So, thank you for the opportunity.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

President Musgrave: We have next on our agenda Youth Resources quarterly update. I have Ann Burnworth here to give an update on the Youth Resources, and to perhaps discuss other things. Welcome.

Ann Burnworth: Thank you. Thank you for asking. We really enjoy being able to tell you about your investment in the county’s children. With me today are Krista Decker, Youth Resources Director of Development, and she has 15 consecutive years of involvement with Youth Resources, starting as a camper with the Teen Power camps, and Laura Ferguson, who is involved in our programs and is also president of our Teen Advisory Council, and a senior at Central High School. The brochure in front of you, we apologize, we’ve never done this, so we didn’t know what you expected. So, we thought we would just give you a brief overview and then let you ask any questions of us. Our main mission is to engage youth in leadership and community service. The reason we do that is because youth who are involved in community service are 50 percent less likely to be involved in alcohol, tobacco, other drugs and risky behavior. And, they’re two to three times more likely to be involved in the community as adults. So, we thought we would just give you an overview of the programs, and then answer any questions.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Krista Decker: I’m just going to tell you about a couple of our programs, and then Laura is going to tell you about the three of the five that she is personally involved in. One of our programs is the Make a Difference grants, and that’s actually where we involve the majority of the youth through our agency. Annually, as an agency we involve 2,400 youth, locally, in Southwestern Indiana in community service. Through our Make a Difference grants, 2,100 of those youth are involved through this program. So, what we do with our Make a Difference grants is we actually fund youth led community service projects. Any youth can apply as an individual or maybe a classroom at a class, or Habitat club, or a Girl Scout troop, or anyone who is just a young person can apply for a grant up to $1,000 to implement their community service projects. The main requirement that we have is that it has to be youth led. We want youth involved in all aspects of the process, even through the grant writing process. Then, actually, it’s interesting, the way that we award grants is we have youth who are involved in our Teen Advisory Council actually screen the grants. So, that’s really neat that they get to be involved in that aspect of the philanthropy. Then, of course, our board of directors does approve those. Then, another program that we have is our Youth Coalition, and that’s where we have adults who are youth workers in the community. We just provide a place for them to network. So, we have monthly luncheons. We pretty much operate on the school year schedule, and what we do with those luncheons is we may bring in a speaker that maybe has a topic and be an expert in a youth related field. We take suggestions from members of the Youth Coalition to actually come up with the speakers who are going to come and present to those. So, it’s good, it’s just a good way for people who work at the youth agencies to network and get to know each other, and they may be touching some of the same youth, and maybe different youth across the county and the city. So, that’s a really good one. We also honor youth who are volunteers at those banquets. It may be, maybe just someone who’s an “I did it” story, somebody who turned their grades around and started getting involved in the community. They aren’t the huge ones that may get the spotlight on them all the time. So, we just try to provide a forum for youth like that too. Then, at the end of the year, we have a Hall of Fame banquet, where we actually honor a youth worker and a youth who are volunteering in their community. So, that’s just a way, again, to honor the youth and adult partnership that we really try to focus on in all of our programs. Then Laura will tell you about our other three.

Laura Ferguson: Hi. I have been involved in Youth Resources since my freshman year at Central. I’m currently involved in the Teen Advisory Council, which I’ll be president of for this coming school year. I’m also involved in Teen Power, and the Teen Court, which is the newest program. I’m going to start with TAC, just because I like it. Basically, it’s a group of about 60 kids representative from every school in the EVSC, parochial schools in Evansville and also Castle from Warrick County. We get together at 5:55 in the morning, every other Friday during the school year. It’s pretty tough for some people. Basically, what we do is build leadership skills in the kids that are in the council, and we also do community service. Lots of that. Every student involved in the council is required to complete 15 hours per semester of community service. We are split into six, or five sub-committees, one of them is the service committee will coordinate all of those service projects with organizations and agencies throughout the county. So, that’s that. Then, Teen Power, obviously, we have two summer camps, a middle school and a high school. Basically, it’s a youth run, youth led camp that addresses substance abuse issues and prevention. We just finished both of our camps this summer. The high school was two weeks ago, and the middle school was in June. I was on youth staff for both of those. That’s the youth led aspect. The youth staff basically plans the camp starting about in January, right? In January. We have meetings every couple of months to plan the theme, to plan the workshops, to plan the speakers. Then, I would consider the most important aspect of Teen Power is the family groups. Kids come from teams, from youth organizations, and their schools, and, you know, places where they’re familiar with people, they come with people they know, and we take them and we split them up, and put them in a family group, is what we call it, because you get really close by the end of the week, with people they don’t know. There you have two youth staff and an adult advisor, like all kinds of people from the community come to help out, which is really great, the youth-adult partnership that goes on there. The youth staff will facilitate the family group time, and, basically, they debrief on the workshops and the speakers and people really open up to how they’ve been affected by substance abuse and how they work through it. It really builds a network of friendship throughout the whole camp. So, that’s really cool, and I really enjoy it. It’s kind of a life altering kind of thing. I’ve definitely been changed by going there. Then, our newest program is Teen Court. We work with Judge Brett Niemeier in the Vanderburgh County, he’s a Juvenile Superior Court Judge. A really cool guy. Basically, that program is you take a first time offender, a student, non-violent crime, you know, something like with substance abuse or something like that. They’ll come to our court, and there will be a youth prosecuting attorney, a youth defense attorney, a youth jury, and a youth bailiff. Of course, they have adult mentors that help them. But, it’s a real trial, and it really affects the student who’s involved. You know, it affects their lives. What we say, is what happens, basically. So, the prosecuting attorney, the defense attorney will actually go through an actual process of questioning the youth involved about, you know, the incident, whatever happened, and then the jury has a chance to ask questions, Judge Niemeier asks questions, and then the jury will go back and deliberate and come up with, what’s the actual term? It’s a sentence, but that’s not what we call it.

Ann Burnworth: Disposition.

Laura Ferguson: Disposition. We give them from community service, letters of apology, you know, any kind of something like that, and usually Judge Niemeier always tells us that what we give them is usually harsher than what he would give them if they were sitting in his real courtroom. Which is interesting, and it’s beneficial to that youth to see that their piers actually care what’s happening to them, and that we don’t agree with the behavior, and we think it’s better for our community if they, you know, fix up their lives. We like to help them do that. That’s that. That’s about all I have on that one.

President Musgrave: Thank you, Laura.

Laura Ferguson: Any questions? We all would be happy to answer.

President Musgrave: Where does your summer camp for Teen Power take place?

Laura Ferguson: The middle school takes place at USI.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Laura Ferguson: The high school is at U of E.

President Musgrave: You have all the schools in EVSC, including Signature, involved?

Laura Ferguson: Yes.

President Musgrave: Is it TAC you called it?

Laura Ferguson. Yeah, Teen Advisory Council.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Ann Burnworth: Laura forgot to invite you to come to any one of those 5:55 meetings you would like to come to.

Laura Ferguson: Of course.

President Musgrave: I’m going to delegate that. No, I think that was all the questions I had. Commissioners, we fund this 50-50 with the city, is that right?

Ann Burnworth: That’s not the exact breakdown. It’s 20 county and 35 city.

President Musgrave: Okay. So, this will be one of the items on our upcoming budget hearings. Marissa, which line item is that in?

Marissa Nichoalds: It’s in the Commissioners general fund.

President Musgrave: Alright, so I’ll be representing that, but I needed to know more about the program. I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen. We may call upon you, could we call upon you to maybe give us some advice at Burdette Park? We could use a Teen Advisory Council to–

Ann Burnworth: They would love to have that CO2 emissions, anytime they have the opportunity.

President Musgrave: Really?

Ann Burnworth: Yeah. You wouldn’t give them your opinion, would you?

President Musgrave: Well, I might have somebody get in touch with you, because I know that we’re having issues out there right now with some vandalism. I believe that the people who are doing this are young. So, it might be nice to have some young people perspective on the problem.

Krista Decker: Actually, with our high school Teen Power camp that we had two weeks ago, we partnered with Smoke Free Communities, and we got to have the pool all to ourselves for the camp on Tuesday night, and they absolutely loved it. Last year was the first year that we did that, and this was the second year, and they were so excited to get to go back. That is one of their favorite things is the pool party out at Burdette. So, I know that they would love to take some ownership with trying to take care of it.

President Musgrave: Okay, well, consider it done then. We’ll get in touch with you. Are there any other questions? Okay, thank you very much.

Laura Ferguson: Thank you.

President Musgrave: We now have on the agenda, the Commissioners permission to award request for proposal for cash management/arbitrage rebate services for Vanderburgh County bonds. We received a number of bids which the attorney read out last week. Mr. Ziemer, do you want to report on that? Do you have anything to say?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, I don’t think I have anything beyond what I reported last week as what the quotes were for the various services.

President Musgrave: Okay, I met with the attorney and it appears that the low bid, even though this item does not need to be awarded to a low bidder, that the low bid was Integra. I would like to award it to Integra. I did check with the Treasurer, and she feels comfortable working with them. Do you have any thoughts on this, Commissioner?

Commissioner Shetler: Let me just review that real quickly. Was it point eight, was their bid on it? Their fee structure, if I remember, was that a one time shot, and some of them were doing annual?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, no. There were two things the quotes were issued on. One was for cash advisory services, and the other was for arbitrage rebate services. All quoters bid those in two separate increments. One so many basis points annually, and then the other so many dollars per calculation. Integra’s response was eight basis points of the value annually for both services.

Commissioner Shetler: As opposed to, if I recall a couple of the other ones were doing it like on a flat amount of $3,000, or an annual thing of a thousand dollars a year on the arbitrage?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Arbitrage, that’s correct.

Commissioner Shetler: Then, we calculated that out and that, going with that eight basis points, in both of those instances, actually ends up being less expensive then?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It does. The next closest quote for the cash advisory services was also eight basis points, but in that quote they indicated that for the arbitrage rebate services they would charge between $3,500 and $5,500 per calculation, which would take place annually. That calculation is included in the eight basis points quoted by Integra.

Commissioner Shetler: Okay. Alright, and I like the fact that Integra is a local company, and keeping it here at home. I think this was originally looking at perhaps Indianapolis or someplace, I appreciate the fact that we’re keeping it here with local taxpayers being rewarded with their job. So, I’ll make the motion to approve that.

President Musgrave: For Integra?

Commissioner Shetler: For Integra, yes.

President Musgrave: And I’ll second that. Is there any discussion? All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

President Musgrave: We now move to permission to award VC06-07-01, intersection improvements for Green River Road at Lynch. Pat Seib is here for our vacationing John Stoll.

Patrick Seib: Good afternoon, Patrick Seib, the Assistant County Engineer. I would like to request approval to award contract VC06-07-01 to JBI Construction in the amount of $472,632.28. This project will improve the intersection of Green River Road and Lynch Road by adding right turn lanes to the east, west and south legs of the intersection, adding a concrete median on the south leg, and relocating the traffic signal poles.

President Musgrave: When will this work take place?

Patrick Seib: It will begin after we issue them a notice to proceed, after they get their certificate of insurance and all their bonds to us, and it has a completion date of October 27^th of this year.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Shetler: The road’s not going to be closed or anything like that? It’s going to remain open?

Patrick Seib: It will remain open to traffic. There’s going to be some lane restrictions around where they’re working. I think the lane immediately adjacent to where they work, they will have funneled over, but it will be open to through traffic.

Commissioner Shetler: Alright, and this will prevent any left turns coming out of that area, or into the area after that’s all reconfigured and stuff there.

Patrick Seib: The median on Green River Road will keep left turns into and out of the Davis Lant Drive there, which is located just south of Lynch Road. The other turn lanes are going to be for the increased traffic flow at the intersection to get the right turn traffic so they’re not impeding the through lane traffic flow at the intersection.

President Musgrave: So, there are some orange bars down the center line now--

Patrick Seib: Yes.

President Musgrave: –on Green River Road, and those orange bars will be replaced with a concrete barrier, right?

Patrick Seib: Right.

President Musgrave: Okay, and there will be added turn lanes?

Patrick Seib: Yes.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Shetler: Alright. I’ll move approval.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

Patrick Seib: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you, Mr. Seib.

President Musgrave: We have concr...I almost said concrete. Contracts, leases and agreements now. Superior Court will be deferred until next week, there’s some language revision going on in that contract. But, we have Superior Court, Robert Canada, which, Mr. Ziemer, do you have anything to say about this?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No, it’s satisfactory for execution.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

President Musgrave: Mr. Seib, you might as well have just stayed at the microphone. You have your department head report.

Patrick Seib: Hello again. I would like to request an approval to shift an additional $7,000 from the general TIF account into account number 4313, and that’s to cover reimburseable expenses for Beam Longest and Neff.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

Patrick Seib: My next item is to request approval of an agreement with ESRI for maintenance of our GIS software. The County Attorney has reviewed the agreement and was satisfied from a legal perspective that it was okay. The cost of the agreement is $700.

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: Second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye.

Patrick Seib: My last item is to request approval to receive quotes next week for contract VC06-08-01, and that is Stringtown Road Bridge debris removal.

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. The motion carries.

Patrick Seib: That’s all I have, unless you have any questions.

President Musgrave: Alright.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I just wanted to ask, on the Clark Dietz contract, you’ve contacted them about our discussion there, I guess?

Patrick Seib: I got in contact with Jason Heile, and he picked up the–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Insurance?

Patrick Seib: –insurance requirements.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Good.

Patrick Seib: He said that he would get that through the pipeline.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Good. Thanks.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

Patrick Seib: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Next on our agenda is new business. I have a couple of items of new business. First is some very good news. You checked with them and we’re allowed to release this?

Marissa Nichoalds: Yes.

President Musgrave: Well, wonderful. We, along with Warrick County, applied for an award called the 2006 Local Government Cooperation Award to the Association of Indiana Counties. We received a letter from the Association of Indiana Counties congratulating us on being one of the recipients of this award. This is for the cooperation that it took to build the Lynch Road extension. As you know that cooperation extended over several administrations for a long period of time. So, they are asking for dates and times, when to come down to do the filming for that so that the award can be presented, I think at the fall meeting. The September 20^th banquet at the AIC. So, Warrick County and Vanderburgh County won an award for the cooperation that it took to build the Lynch Road extension. Very pleased to announce that. Next, we, I don’t think you can call this an award, but we received a letter saying that the Indiana Substance Abuse Council’s, our comprehensive community plan has been reviewed and it has been approved by the Governor’s Commission for Drug Free Indiana. I believe that that application was made by the Sheriff’s Department?

Marissa Nichoalds: Yes.

President Musgrave: Yes. So, their application was also approved. I have now that Dave Rector would like to make, there you are, Mr. Rector, to talk to us about electrical boxes at the Centre.

Dave Rector: Yes. Dave Rector, Building Authority. I had sent each of you an e-mail regarding this subject, and need to come to you officially to request funds from F&B to repair. I have some photographs to kind of show you what’s going on over there, and what the repairs may or may not be. I propose we do it on a time and material basis, because not all of the four boxes are in as bad a condition as some others. Some may need so much work and others more or less. An estimate is, time and material, that we’re thinking it may possibly cost up to about $20,000. But, I’ll get daily time tickets from the contractor so that we can track costs and request permission to spend F&B funds to do that work.

President Musgrave: Did we already request funds to do the wiring for the new signs that are–

Dave Rector: That’s out to bid right now.

President Musgrave: Is it?

Dave Rector: We’ve already, yes, we’ve already requested the funds, you’ve approved it. The channel lettering that we talked about a couple of meetings ago, that’s out to bid, and also the interior meeting notice signage.

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

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye.

Dave Rector: Thank you, Commissioners.

Commissioner Shetler: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you. And, Mr. Fluty, I do have one question. I e-mailed you an e-mail that we had received from the Governor’s office about their MVH funds, and how they were going to be distributing, I guess, $3.4 million, but I couldn’t determine whether that was around the state, or just to Vanderburgh County. That the Governor has changed a policy that makes more local road and street money available to us. What was Vanderburgh County’s share of this wonderful rebate on the part of the State of Indiana?

Bill Fluty: I’ve made some inquiries. I’ve talked to John Stoll and he couldn’t give it to us, but we’ve checked up with the state and I’ve asked what part of that, what we’re hearing is that it won’t be that much, because you’re talking $3.4 million back to 92 counties. But, I don’t have that figure for you, but I’ll continue to try to get that information.

President Musgrave: Well, I’ll look forward to hearing about it, because if there’s more road and street money, we have more road and street obligations and plans and things that we could spend it on. So, you’ll let me know as soon as you find out?

Bill Fluty: Yes, I will.

President Musgrave: Alright, thank you. I’ll pause to change the tape.

(Tape change)

President Musgrave: Commissioner Shetler, do you have any new business?

Commissioner Shetler: Yeah, earlier in the department head meeting, we talked about the vandalism and things that have been occurring out at Burdette Park, it was suggested that, and perhaps next year look at adding some temporary labor, and I’m wondering if we couldn’t do that for the remainder of the year? We’re talking about a couple of months, not talking about a whole lot of money. Something that wouldn’t be beyond a couple thousand dollars at most, and perhaps even look and see if there’s money available that could get some of the other new, modern things that you had discussed too. That would be the lights and stuff, that would be a motion detectors and a few other things that might be up-to-date to catch people, and also catch them off guard. We might look at shifting some schedules around, the night watchman seems to be a fairly consistent timing, and that we might change some things there to catch people off guard a little bit, rather than being so consistent on our timing. But, I think if we can have someone else in there as soon as possible that would go in from midnight till 8:00 in the morning, that would help tremendously. We had an incident the other day where about almost $3,000 worth of damage was incurred. So, we can afford to do, you know, the part time help for a couple thousand dollars compared to losing that kind of expense on things getting torn up. So, it’s unfortunate, but that’s part of today’s world.

President Musgrave: I understand some arrests have been made, but we’re not sure that the arrests are for the total amount of the vandalism that has occurred out there. So, I agree, I think we need to have maybe some more technology put into place in order to watch the park and alert. So, are you wanting to make a motion that we ask for more money?

Commissioner Shetler: I am. That we ask for Council to appropriate some more money in the Temporary Labor account, so that we can put on a seasonal, part time night watchman to, you know, guard the gates from 12:00 to 8:00 in the morning then.

President Musgrave: Well, do you want to put a figure to it that can be revised later?

Commissioner Shetler: I would say, oh, $2,500 would probably be appropriate there. More than cover it.

President Musgrave: Okay. Alright, I’ll second that motion. Is there any other discussion? All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. Work with Marissa to get that filed.

President Musgrave: Old business, the weed reorganization update. Last week I presented to you a flowchart that showed how we were working on weed complaints and who took the complaint and when the County Highway Department was sent out to do the work. We had a meeting last week where we sat down with the Building Commissioner, the County Highway Department, Mr. Fluty, the Auditor, was also present, as was Marissa and myself, and we went through the ordinance itself and the various steps that need to take place. After that meeting I took a stab at revising the ordinance and I’ve sent it over to our attorney, and he tells me that he can probably review and get that back to us in the form of an ordinance for first reading by next week. So, as soon as you get that to me, I will make sure, and if you could send it to the Highway Department and to Mr. Fluty, as well, so that we can all make sure that the language does reflect what we were talking about. But, basically, this takes and puts all the responsibility for following a weed complaint from the beginning of the complaint through the end of the mowing and billing process in one office’s hands. That will be the County Highway Department. Instead of having it spread across a number of different offices. I think we had three offices that were involved, including the Commission office. We would get calls and we would not know where the complaint was, if it had been turned over, whether it had been mowed. So, this consolidates that, and we hope that it streamlines it and makes it faster. So, I just wanted to give you that update that we have had that meeting.

Commissioner Shetler: One question, will that tax the Highway Department? I mean, do they have the manpower to do that at the present time? Or will they need another person, and should we look at the budget for at least a seasonal, because that’s a seasonal thing, obviously?

President Musgrave: The Highway Department was already asking us, and I believe that we put it in the budget for an additional person for next year for their regular mowing duties. But, their mowing duties are not changed by this at all. They always had the obligation to mow the property. It’s the office work that changes. Their office staff will be sending out some letters and doing some more tracking, and I was given every indication that they thought they could absorb the office work, without any additional staff. But, they already feel a little squeezed on the mowing personnel, and they were looking for more help in that department.

Commissioner Shetler: Alright, thank you.

President Musgrave: Is there any other old business?

President Musgrave: Is there any public comment?

President Musgrave: We have consent items. I have a note here that the Auditor’s report should be for July and not June as listed on our report. So, I need to amend it. And, we also need to amend it to apply for funds for the Juvenile Court for a grant, and we are adding a letter to Connie Fowler at the IEDC regarding the Brake Supply easement transfer to the county. Is that ready? I believe we wrote a letter at Connie’s request to send the documents that you had sent over for the easement, to send that to her.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I did speak to the attorney for the Vanderburgh Industrial Park, and he was going to try to get me that today, but he did not.

President Musgrave: We received a fax.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I didn’t.

President Musgrave: Oh, okay. Well, we got it.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Then you have it.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion to amend the consent agenda?

Commissioner Shetler: Approve as amended.

President Musgrave: I will second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye. Is there a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Shetler: So moved.

President Musgrave: I’ll second. All those in favor?

Commissioner Shetler: Aye.

President Musgrave: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:20 p.m.)

CONSENT ITEMS:

Employment Changes:

County Highway (1)                  Burdette Park (2)                      County Clerk (2)

Center Assessor (1)                 The Centre (1)                          Public Defender (1)

Superior Court (1)                     Circuit Court (1)

Travel Requests: Auditor (1)

Commissioners:

Taxpayer comments on smoking ordinance.

Evansville ARC: June report of activities.

Semi-Annual Grant Report for Knight Township Fire Dept. CDBG Grant.

Waiver of Fees for the Centre: Human Relations & City of Evansville

Department Head Meeting Notes: July 18, 2006.

Indiana Economic Development Corp. Letter: Brake Supply: Drainage Easement

Treasurer:

Monthly report: June 2006.

Year-to-date investments.

County Clerk: Monthly report: June 2006.

Auditor:

Financial Statement: July 2006.

Submission of Statement of Salaries & Wages (Form 144's).

Legal Aid: Monthly report: June 2006.

Superior Court: ICJI Juvenile Accountability Block Grant Application

Department Head Reports:

Burdette Park                           County Engineer                       County Highway

Ozone Officer                           Supt. Of Bldgs.                         Veterans Service

CIO

Those in Attendance:

Cheryl Musgrave                      Tom Shetler, Jr.                        Bill Fluty

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Marissa Nichoalds                    Madelyn Grayson

Ron Jochum                             Ann Burnworth                          Krista Decker

Laura Ferguson                        Pat Seib                                    Others Unidentified

Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, President

Tom Shetler, Jr., Member

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.