VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

MAY 3, 2005

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

President Crouch: Good afternoon. Welcome to the Vanderburgh County Commission meeting, May 3, 2005. We will start with introductions to my far right.

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

Commissioner Musgrave: Commissioner, Cheryl Musgrave.

Commissioner Nix: Commissioner, Bill Nix.

President Crouch: Commissioner, Suzanne Crouch.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Bill Fluty: Auditor, Bill Fluty.

Jennifer Wigginton: Superintendent of County Buildings, Jennifer Wigginton.

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

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Crouch: First item on our agenda, this is an opportunity where boards and commissions that the Vanderburgh County Commissioners make appointments to have an opportunity to come before the board and tell us a little bit about what it is that they do, and educate the public about other aspects of county government. Do you want a few minutes to try to resolve your technical difficulties?

Sherman Greer: Well, you know, I’ve had this thing set up for 40 minutes, and I went to move it awhile ago and now I have a red light.

President Crouch: Would you like us to....we’ll move on with the agenda.

Sherman Greer: (Inaudible).

President Crouch: No, that’s for the internet streaming, but perhaps Ms. Wigginton could go to call Computer Services.

Sherman Greer: (Inaudible).

President Crouch: We will start with the approval of the minutes.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

President Crouch: Contracts, agreements and leases, Burdette Park, Xerox maintenance agreement.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I have reviewed that agreement and advise the Commissioners that, in my opinion, it’s 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.

President Crouch: County Commissioners, change order number three, $7,611.

Commissioner Nix: Yeah, this is change order number three for the Vanderburgh County community corrections complex. This is to ARC Construction, there’s just some miscellaneous items. Chief Deputy Williams and myself have reviewed this. So, I see no problem. I would recommend approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

President Crouch: Board appointments, at this time we need to rescind Roberta Dunlap, and we need to appoint Cedric Hustace to the Human Relations Board.

Commissioner Musgrave: I would like to move that we appoint Cedric Hustace to Human Relations and rescind Roberta Dunlap who sent a nice letter explaining the personal deaths in her family which prevented her from playing a role.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Department heads, Purchasing?

Commissioner Musgrave: We also need to rescind Rob Kerney from the Polling Place Advisory Board. So, I make that motion.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Next, department heads, is Purchasing here?

Commissioner Musgrave: Let’s come back to them.

President Crouch: The EVSC waiver of rental fees and overtime for the Centre.

Commissioner Musgrave: I am still awaiting some information from the Centre. So, I would like to table that until next week. That’s my motion.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Krista Lockyear? Not here? Let’s go into our department heads. Burdette has nothing. County Engineer?

John Stoll: I’ve got a few things here this afternoon. First, in the signature file I’ve got a copy of the agreement with Bernardin Lochmueller for the USI-Burdette bike path. It’s for $14,000. This is for feasibility and location study for the path. I would request that that be approved. I had Ted review it earlier today, and he said that everything was okay from a legal standpoint.

Commissioner Musgrave: I took a look at that. I’ll move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next, I would like to request approval to get a purchase order for some archeological work for the Green River Road-Millersburg Road intersection project. Because we are adding some additional traffic, maintenance traffic items in that contract, we have to get some additional temporary right-of-way,and that was not previously studied with the archeological work that had been done in the past. Since it’s a federal aid project we do have to do that. So, I would like to request approval to get that done. It’s for $2,600 and it will be with IU’s Glenn Black School of Archeology.

Commissioner Nix: Can you explain just in 30 seconds or so the procedure? I read this and it kind of intrigued me a little bit.

John Stoll: Part of the federal requirements that we have to do are archeological studies that the state’s Historic Preservation office says there is a need for archeological studies. Part of the criteria that they use is that if there are other sites of any significance in the vicinity, and they determined that there were sites in the vicinity of that project. So, therefore, we’re having to get this done for this project.

Commissioner Nix: It’s my understanding that they basically go through and take a grid, if you will, and dig down by hand and see if there’s anything there. Is that correct?

John Stoll: Right. They will do some random shovel samples to see if there’s any signs of anything of any significance.

Commissioner Musgrave: What happens if they find something that is of significance?

John Stoll: Our project will get delayed. And probably costly delays. They did not find anything on the previous study. So, hopefully, since we’re expanding the limits a little bit it won’t, they won’t find anything that will affect the project.

Commissioner Nix: I move approval.

Commissioner Musgrave: I’ll second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: Next, I’ve got the time extension request for Klenck Companies, Incorporated on the Schaeffer Road bridge. This is the time extension that was discussed a couple of weeks ago. I’ve since e-mailed each of you about this. And, because of weather again last week, they are asking for two additional days, to make the grand total ten. I would recommend approval of the time extension.

Commissioner Nix: And that would put the completion day when then?

John Stoll: That puts the road closure through May 9^th. I don’t know if we’ll need to extend the completion date. They’ve just been asking for an extension of the road closure time.

Commissioner Nix: I move that we approve that.

Commissioner Musgrave: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

John Stoll: The last thing, I just wanted to give you a brief update on the Mt. Pleasant Road project. The first phase runs between Copperfield Subdivision and Highway 41. In talking to the inspector out on the project he thinks that work should be open to traffic by mid to late June. Then they could do the phase between Copperfield Subdivision and Big Hill Drive. Then the third phase will be from Big Hill Drive to Old State Road. But, so far things have been going relatively smoothly. There haven’t been any major problems with utility conflicts like we had figured. So, so far so good.

President Crouch: And the completion date on the total project?

John Stoll: October 31^st.

President Crouch: Questions? Thank you, Mr. Stoll.

John Stoll: Thanks.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you.

President Crouch: We will finish our department heads and then we will go back to Emergency Management. Next is County Highway.

Mike Duckworth: Good afternoon, Commissioner Crouch, members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen. Mike Duckworth, County Highway Department. Just a few brief notices. First of all, we began our paving projects today with work beginning on Harmony Way, from Cave to Old 460. We’ll continue to work through those that were approved last week. Two other additional items, in regards to property that will be up for tax sale, there’s a list of those that we were trying to sort through, because, of course, the county’s responsible for cutting and maintaining those properties. I would ask if we could get the County Attorney to work with the County Building Superintendent to establish a more firm list, so that we know exactly what there is there that we need to cut.

President Crouch: Then, I guess, we also need to set a date for that particular sale, and I don’t know if we’re any closer to that?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Sale of surplus properties? No, I have to get with Madelyn and we’ve got to figure out room availability. We haven’t done that yet.

Commissioner Musgrave: We’ve had a number of telephone and in person inquiries in the Commission office about this sale, and the potential properties that are on it, and I’ve promised them that when we get our list that we will post that on our website. So, as soon as you get the list and the date I would like to know and get that up there. I’m also trying to work with the County Assessor’s office to put that in a GIS layer so that people can see where the property is and what it is near and that sort of thing. So, we will get that out to everyone as soon as possible. We just don’t have it yet.

Mike Duckworth: As soon as we can get that list then we can start cutting those properties that we’re supposed to cut, but, at this point in time, between last year and this year, I don’t know what’s been sold and what we still have, and so on and so forth. So, if you could get that list to me I would appreciate it.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Well, the list is available. What we’re talking about is setting the sale date. The list is available right now.

Commissioner Musgrave: Could you get that to me, because I would like to proof it.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I don’t think I have it.

Madelyn Grayson: I’ve got it from last week’s meeting. I can get it to Mike.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay, and would you e-mail it to me.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Also to Cheryl.

Commissioner Musgrave: Thanks.

Mike Duckworth: In addition to that, Mr. Ziemer, at your convenience, and I know that you’ve had other things on the burner, but, at your convenience I would like to revisit the snow route ordinance. Because–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: What I would like you to do is to call my office and make an appointment to come in and see me. I’ve got the documents that you had at the meeting. We’ll go through it entirely, and then we’ll do the ordinance.

Mike Duckworth: Okay, once I get that completed then I’m going to move forward with the signage and that kind of thing so that we can be ready for next, next winter season. Hopefully, the frost and the snow is gone.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It’s just that right now I have the documents that you left at the meeting, but I really don’t know enough to draft the ordinance without further input from you.

Mike Duckworth: Okay. That would be fine.

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

President Crouch: Superintendent of County Buildings.

Jennifer Wigginton: Thank you. I have one item, a request from the Health Department on a list of surplus items.

President Crouch: Can we accept that?

Commissioner Musgrave: I move acceptance of the surplus items from the Health Department.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you, Ms. Wigginton.

Jennifer Wigginton: Thank you.

President Crouch: And County Attorney.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Okay, thank you. I just have two or three items. We received from the State Department of Health a proposed amendment number three to the grant agreement for the HIV Substance Abuse program. The addendum would increase the amount of the grant by $45,000, and extend the grant agreement termination date to June 30, 2006. I’ve reviewed that and it is satisfactory for execution.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Speaking of grants, we have an engagement letter here from Barnes and Thornburg to assist us in obtaining federal grant monies. I’ve reviewed that and find that acceptable for execution.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’ve been asked to comment on the status of the Vanderburgh County enacted ephedrine ordinance. As others may know from reading it in the newspaper, the state near the end of it’s session did enact a, I understand, I have not seen the statute, but a fairly sweeping bill, which will govern the dispensing of ephedrine and ephedrine products and notices and so forth. The newspaper article that I read about that indicated that the bill would override all ephedrine, county ephedrine ordinances in the state, except for the Vigo County ephedrine ordinance. I don’t know why that is, and I wouldn’t know until I get a chance to read the state statute. However, our ordinance was to be become effective this coming Friday, May the 6^th, which would have been the date that we would have done second publication. I’ve recommended to the Commissioners that we dispense with, that we not do second publication on Friday, which would stop the ordinance from taking effect at this time. We’ll wait until we receive a copy of the state statute, review that, and then I’ll give you some advice on how I think we might proceed from that point on.

Commissioner Musgrave: Does the Sheriff’s Deputy have any comments on that?

Any advice? No? Okay. I make a motion then to not advertise on Friday.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That’s all I have.

President Crouch: Purchasing.

Phil Lawrence: Thank you. I’m sorry I’m late. I had my eyes dilated, that’s why these--

Commissioner Nix: You’re sporting a new look there.

Phil Lawrence: Yeah, you know, Hollywood. Did you guys get the bid tabulation?

President Crouch: Yes, thank you.

Phil Lawrence: Okay. If you’ll notice on the last page, our recommendation is to award all the areas shaded. I would say that 90% of it goes to CRS, and Weber and Fisher with smaller portions, but they, in that case, would be the lower bidder.

Commissioner Musgrave: Our documents don’t have any shading on them. Can I see yours please?

Phil Lawrence: Sure. I wondered about that, if that shading stayed in there.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you. There we go.

President Crouch: This is a shady bid.

Phil Lawrence: I heard that. I heard that shady bid comment. You all ready?

President Crouch: And this has been reviewed by Mr. Craig?

Phil Lawrence: Yes.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval of the bids in the shaded area, and I will make sure that the secretary gets a copy of this as supplied by Purchasing.

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: And now, without further ado, we will welcome the presentation by Emergency Management Agency, a very important and critical agency to the health and welfare of all the citizens and residents of Vanderburgh County. Mr. Greer?

Sherman Greer: Well, thank you. Sherman Greer, the Emergency Management Director for Evansville-Vanderburgh County. I had this thing set up for forty minutes before you got here, and moved it, and it went out on me. I want to give you a little bit of information about the Emergency Management Agency and what our job is at the local level, but at a state level and federal level also. As you know, we are by city-county ordinance, and by state code, Emergency Management is responsible to the County Commissioners and to the Mayor of Evansville for Vanderburgh County. That’s why the ordinance that we have here within Vanderburgh County. We have four phases of emergency management that we operate off of; it’s mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. In the mitigation phase we cannot stop the disasters or emergencies that’s going to happen within our community, but what we do is we look at each one of these emergencies or disaster situations that we’ve have had within our community and try to figure out how we can lessen the impact on it when it happens again, because they do have cycles. It’s going to flood one year, it may not flood the next year, but the next year it may flood. Or we may have a tornado, or a June 8^th storm like 1982, a June 8^th storm of 1995, and I predict the June 8^th storm of 2008, about every 13 years apart we’ll have these things. So, we do look at ways we can lessen the impact of these different types of emergencies and disasters that we can have. Preparedness goes on everyday. Preparedness goes on with the Evansville Police Department, the Fire Department, the emergency medical services and the hospitals. There again, that’s just something that we do on a day-to-day basis, but in the process of doing that we’re preparing ourselves for the big event that’s going to happen sometime within the Evansville-Vanderburgh County area. Response is going on everyday. The Police Department is responding, I think the Police Department was very busy this afternoon responding. The Fire Department is responding all the time. The emergency medical services, the hospitals are gearing up for any type of emergencies or disasters that we may have. You know, the Sheriff’s Department, they are all working on a response on a day-to-day basis. And recovery, recovery is a long term, a short term and a long term. The short term is immediately right after a disaster or emergency situation. We try to get things back together as soon as possible on a short term type thing. On a long term type situation, it can take years. You think about Hurricane Andrew how many years it took, and they are still maybe in the recovery stage in some of these different situations that we may have. So, there again it’s just one of those things that we prepare ourselves for for all four phases of emergency management. Our primary duty is to save lives, to protect property, to preserve the environment, and economic base of our community. It is a proven fact, that with people not working, after a disaster situation, those EMS runs, those law enforcement runs, all those things go up, because people are not generating a paycheck, and they are not able to pay those bills. Because no matter if you’ve had a disaster situation or whatever within your community, come the end of the month or the first of the month, someone expects to get paid for whatever it is that you have, your home, your car, or whatever. So, there again, we are in the process, we’re always in the process of trying to get economics back as soon as possible within our community. Our responsibilities are planning, training, exercise. Planning is 90% of our job, and that’s coordinating with all the different emergency responders within our community and surrounding communities on how we’re going to be able to plan to take care of ourselves. If it’s a tornado type situation, if it’s a flooding type situation, hazardous materials type situation, whatever. We have to have some type of plan. We just can’t go out there and say, well, when it happens we’ll respond. That was the old way that we used to do things. You know, we’ve got to have a plan. By federal law, for us to be able to receive the funding that we do receive from FEMA, from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, we have to present them with a plan. Training goes on constantly. We’re planning training and exercise, we’re planning a full scale exercise in September, September the 24^th out at the Roberts Stadium. It’s going to be, I have no idea what the scenario is going to be. There’s only two people that know what that scenario is going to be. We’re just going to be ready to respond to it, and do the best job that we can. We’ve had other exercises here in Evansville, that’s been notable throughout the whole state of Indiana. In 1993, for ‘93 we had, out at the 4-H fairgrounds we brought in teams from Ft. Wayne, we brought in teams from Indianapolis, and we brought in the FEMA task force team to come down here to help us in a simulated earthquake type situation. We’ve also had the Task Force One team here in Evansville two or three different times just for that practice so that they know how long it’s going to be before they will be able to respond here. Which it’s going to be about five hours before we get any response from any of these teams. Hazards analysis, continually to do hazards analysis within our community. Things change on a day-to-day basis as it is. You know, we have a lot of things that’s happening that goes on throughout our community that makes us go back and look at our hazards analysis to say whether or not we want to keep this here, or do we have to increase it. We do coordination between the locals, the state and the feds. Whenever we have a disaster situation, we have to get a state of emergency here first, and then we have to get it to the state, and then the governor has to get the state declaration, and then it goes to the President for a Presidential declaration. Siren system, we are responsible for the maintenance and the placing of the sirens. We’ve got three sirens that we’re wanting to place this year. Well, four of them. In fact, we want to take the one from Oak Hill and move it out to where Evansville Day School is, so that we can cover that elderly area that’s back over near the residents and everything back over in that area there. We want to put one out at Kansas and 57. There’s a lot of homes and everything out in that area. Jagoe’s built a lot of homes and everything out in that area, which would cover about 4,000 people. Then again, we’re looking at a couple different areas, one at the soccer field on Green River Road, which will help cover a lot of the area over in Keystone, the Keystone area to be able to cover up a lot of area there. I work with Area Planning whenever I place these sirens. I go to them, they give me the demographics of the area in how many homes we’re covering, how many personnel that live there, how many like long care facilities, and different things like that that we have there that we’ll be able to get the best bang for our buck. The siren that we’re going to take from Oak Hill and Lynch, we’re going to put one that will cover more of an area there, so that we’ll be able to cover out to and including, you should be able to hear it at the jail, you should be able to hear it at the new school that they’re building there. So, all those different areas and everything. We look at those to be able to get the best bang for our buck on that. Search and rescue, we have a search and rescue organization that we have some people, we have about 25 volunteers on that that helps us out, and K-9 search and rescue if we’ve got a lost person like an Alzheimer’s patient or a child or something like that we’re ready to go. If the law enforcement agencies or the Fire Department calls us for that assistance. Communications, communications is very vitally important in any emergency or disaster situation, because that’s usually the first thing that you have a big hiccup in. You’ve got to be able to get the communications up and running as soon as possible. We also assist in declarations in the state of emergency, as I said, the emergency operations center...if you haven’t had a chance to come out to our emergency operations center, I really invite you to come out to see it. We’ve probably got one of the most state of the art emergency operations center within the southern part of Indiana. I would put it up against anyone within the state of Indiana as far as our emergency operations center. We’re in the process of getting some new software to be able to relay our information seamlessly to Indianapolis and surrounding counties. Our mutual aid agreements, we look at mutual aid agreements with all of the surrounding areas. There again, because if we have something happen within the Evansville area; IE: the C-130 crash, we have other agencies that come in here, and we want to make sure that we have a mutual aid agreement with them. The state of Indiana now has a state wide mutual aid agreement, so that covers us more or less. But, still we would like for the Fire Department to get a mutual aid agreement with fire departments, the Police Department with police departments and EMS services and everything, so that everything is covered as much as possible. Public information is very important. We need to get out to the public. The more we educate the public, the better educated public that we have, the better off it’s going to be in a disaster and emergency situation for them to be able to help us out. We have 171,000 people within this community, we need them to be educated as much as possible. Community involvement and things that we do, we do awareness training. I do a lot of those, I go to schools....I do in-services, I go to schools , I go to businesses, I do walk throughs, I help them, give them recommendations on where maybe they want to put people in a severe weather type situation. My latest one was just over at the new library, to go through there to show them where I would recommend that they would put people if we had a situation to where they needed to get all of the people out of harms way. We’re involved with First Night, Habitat Blitz, we’ve been doing that for a few years, safety fairs and the Freedom Festival. We run all of the communications down at the Freedom Festival with our mobile communications vehicle that we have, and that takes away some of the burden off of Central Dispatch when we’re doing that down there. Volunteers, I can’t operate without volunteers. I have a lot of good volunteers that makes this organization work . There’s only, as you can see, there’s EMA staff, there’s only three of us. Even with fuzzy math, with 171,000 people we can’t figure out how we can take care of everyone. So, we have a lot of volunteers out there to be able to help us out in these types of situations. Amateur radio people, we have a lot of amateur radio people. That number is probably a little bit low right now, but we have a lot of amateur radio people that will get out there and do the weather spotting whenever we have these situations that come up. You know, you can depend upon the Doppler radar systems, of which we have great Doppler radar systems in Channel 25, Channel 7, 14, they have some great systems that tell you what the wind speed is on your block, but nothing beats the human eye when you’ve got someone out there that’s watching this. I don’t condone these tornado chasers, or these people that get out there and do that. I really don’t like to hear that, but if they’re out there, and they give us that information, then we can give that information to Paducah and to the other weather services so that they can get that information out to people. The Emergency Operation Center, as I said, has a vital, is the core of the community whenever we’re in a disaster situation, because everything is happening there. A lot of the decision making besides the (Inaudible) commander out there, which would be the Fire Department or the law enforcement agencies that are out there right on the scene, once they are given this information back in to us then we start coordinating these things and the resources for them and start doing some of the things that they don’t have to worry about out there at the time to be able to respond. The MEOC is the Mobile Emergency Operations Center, just about a month ago we went to Camp Atterberry, and we were involved in an exercise up there with the National Guard, the State Emergency Management Agency, and the State Police was supposed to be there. Marion County was supposed to be there also. We ran a three day scenario there. Marion County decided that they didn’t want to play in our scenario and everything that we had up there, so, we took the place of Marion County and we had an incident that happened at the RCA Dome, and we worked that for three days, along with the National Guard. A lot of good, vital information that came out of that. Things that we know that we have to do to improve our response and things of that sort. They have a new simulation center up there now that the military has put a lot of money into, to where we can go up there and run scenarios and things like that to make it real time. With the simulation systems that they’ve got, you order a fire truck, you have to map the route out on it and you watch it on the screen where that fire truck takes that route to get to the place and it gives you real time in those type situations. So, it’s very good. The CERT is the Community Emergency Response Team. This is an initiative that the President started right after 9/11. What we’re doing is that we’re training people to be able to take care of their own neighborhoods in a disaster situation. We have trained these people in first aid, we train these people in communications, we train these people in light rescue, we train these people in how to use a fire extinguisher and different things of that sort. This is an initiative that the Evansville Fire Department started some time ago by training people here in our neighborhood organizations. We have about 62 neighborhood organizations that we have to reach out to and be able to train these people to help us out in a disaster or emergency situations that we have. We’ve got three instructors now with the Emergency Management Agency, along with the instructors that they have at the Evansville Fire Department where we are able to get out and train as many people as possible, as many organizations as possible. We target mostly neighborhood watch groups that are already organized, and we get ten or 15 people out of those neighborhood watch groups that want to take this course. It’s about a 20 hour course. Once we train them, then we set up a scenario at the end of it and run them through that. This way, when we do have that major disaster or emergency situation, these people know how to react and then help the Fire Department out, it helps the Emergency Management out, to be able to get as much information, as accurate information as possible, in a short period of time. Then we have our staff of three people, and that’s myself, my assistant director, and also the, our office manager, Mary. Grants, we’ve been receiving some Homeland Security grants over the last couple of years. The first year that we got grants it was 2002, was equipment. All we received was equipment for hazardous material type or bio-terrorism type incidents. One of the things that they found out once we got the equipment in is that we got the wrong type of masks. So, they had to....we got a bunch, we’ve got 660 masks over here that we’re going to give out to other organizations, and not the first responders, that they’ll be able to use, when we get the other masks in, as we hope to be getting those in pretty soon. In 2003 we got $568,000 that was given to Evansville-Vanderburgh County. Now, how do we derive as to how we’re going to spend that money? Well, we put together, when we...after 9/11 we put together a terrorism task force, and that terrorism task force wrote the elements for our terrorism plan for Evansville-Vanderburgh County. So, we just kept those guys together. I said, okay, how are we going to spend this money? There are representatives from the Sheriff’s Department, representatives from the Evansville Police Department, the Emergency Management Agency, the emergency medical services, the hospitals, the Health Department, all the players are in there. Everyone is there, sitting around the table and saying, okay, I think the first mistake that I made was everybody go back and make a wish list out and come back. We had $568,000, and we got a wish list of 1.8 million dollars. So, we had to prioritize at that time, and then be able to decide how we were going to spend that funding. We’re wrapping up the 2003 grant as we are right now, as we’re going through it right now to where that this equipment and training things goes to our first responders, like I said. The 2004 grant we got $834,000 on that. We’re in the process starting to spend that now. I think one of the first couple of things that we’re getting is a security system for the water filtration plant, cameras and things like that for that. That is one of the priorities that we put on that. There’s other things that we’re getting for, other security things to tighten up our security a little bit better. So, the money is being well spent, and, like I said, it’s not from Sherman Greer, it’s not from the Sheriff’s Department, it’s not from the Evansville Police Department, it’s a collaboration of this is what we need to make our community safer. We also received a law enforcement prevention grant that helped us purchase, I think you’ll be seeing in the next few days of a new bomb truck that we got, and help with the bomb squad and things like that, and a robot, and different things of that sort. So, we’ve got things here now that we’ve never had before, and would have to wait for hours to get from some place else for them to come in here, and the training goes along with that. Those are those new masks, those respirators that I was talking about, they got the wrong ones, so they had to give us $123,000 to get the newer ones. Then we have the citizens core council grant, the things that I gave you there that your, yes, the tubes, the safety tubes, you know, you’re supposed to have each one of those at your desk and everything in case we do have a disaster type situation. Then also the CD that you have there, those were things that we took the citizens core council monies and then we purchased these in collaboration with the Red Cross to be able to put on, we put on a seminar or a breakfast for the Chamber here last year, or, I’m sorry, this year, January the 11^th, to show them exactly what it is that we are doing with our citizen core council funding. Then we have the community emergency response team grants, as I’ve talked to you about. We have a state foundation grant from the license plates that they sell, there’s so much funding and everything that comes back to every county, and we utilized that this year to buy another computer, laptop computer, that we can use out in the field. Then the Homeland Security grant for 2005, we should have that mid May. When we get that, then we have to go through the process of getting that into an expenditure account and everything, and then we’ll start spending money on that. Those are the things that we do in Emergency Management, and, like I said, it’s an on-going thing, and the world’s changed so much that we have to be ready to respond to a lot of different things here within the Evansville area. We look upon it as what could happen here? There’s a lot of different things that could happen here. Here in the Evansville area alone you’ve got two or three corporate businesses that their headquarters is here. You’ve got Toyota in Gibson County. In Warrick County you’ve got Alcoa. In Spencer County you’ve got AK Steel, GE over here in Posey County, the largest coal burning plant, power plant and everything up here in Gibson County. So, you know, if I was a terrorist and everything, if I wanted to do, as they thought they were going to do at 9/11 by bringing down the towers and bringing the economics of the United States down and everything, we’ve got those things here, which would cause a lot of people not to have jobs. So, there again, do I have any questions of Emergency Management?

Commissioner Musgrave: What sort of coordination do you do with the surrounding counties? Do they have EMA directors as well?

Sherman Greer: Each county in the state of Indiana is required to have an EMA director. Now, most of the one’s that we have within the surrounding areas are part time directors. I really admire these people, because it’s a full time job for ourselves to keep our counties aware, and keep our counties trained and everything else. Now, there was some legislation, I don’t think it made it through this year and everything, but there’s some legislation to where they would like to have each county to have a full time director. Also, the State Emergency Management Agency is no more. SEMA is no more. It’s the Department of Homeland Security. That will happen here on a local basis when you, as County Commissioners, and the Mayor decides that’s what we want to go to, and then we’ll have to do an ordinance and everything to get our name changed. But, the state of Indiana has went to the Department of Homeland Security, and is no longer the State Emergency Management Agency.

Commissioner Musgrave: If somebody wanted to volunteer, how would they do that?

Sherman Greer: Well, they just contact our office. We have an application form that we give them. We run a limited background check on every volunteer that we have, that comes to us. A lot of people, we have a lot of people that volunteer, and they’re going to, alright, they have these, it’s not like that, you know, it’s a lot of planning, it’s a lot of people, a lot of the people that I’ve got with me now, some of them have stayed with me over, you know, ten years.

Commissioner Musgrave: What number would we call to do that?

Sherman Greer: It’s 435-6020. That’s the number that you call and we would be more than happy to take on as many volunteers as possible. There’s always something that we can do, and have a job for people in a disaster or emergency situation. But, our biggest focus is to do the planning, get all of these organizations together to where we sit around a table and give the “what ifs”, then we solve those problems, or try to solve those problems before we get out there in an actual incident. But, we always look at after action reports. I look at a lot of after action reports from other disasters that happen throughout the United States, or even throughout the world, and you look at those and you go, like, oh, wait a minute, we have this in our plan. If it didn’t work for them, it may not work for us. So, we have to get back together and say, oh, what are we going to do about this?

President Crouch: Thank you, Mr. Greer.

Sherman Greer: Thank you.

President Crouch: We’ll all sleep a little safer tonight.

Sherman Greer: Well, I hope so. I will too.

President Crouch: Thank you.

Sherman Greer: Thank you.

President Crouch: Krista Lockyear, extension on rezoning VC-3-2005.

Krista Lockyear: Good afternoon, members of the Commission. My name is Krista Lockyear, here on behalf of Pedcor Investments. If you’ll recall, two weeks ago we were in front of you on a rezoning request, and there were some issues and concerns that arose during the course of our presentation that we are in the process of obtaining information to help us better address those issues and concerns. We would like to request a further continuance to continue gathering some of that information and procedures for you. The exact date that we continue to I think is somewhat up to your discretion. I talked to your office and I understand that June 7^th may be an available meeting date, but we’re flexible as well, and anytime after that date we think we could have all the information available for you.

President Crouch: I believe our next meeting would be May 10^th , and then the 17^th of May, would either of those dates work?

Krista Lockyear: Actually, they would not.

President Crouch: The 24^th?

Krista Lockyear: The 24^th, yes, if you have a meeting that date, that would be fine.

President Crouch: That’s Drainage Board also.

Commissioner Musgrave: Well, do you want to go to the June 7^th?

President Crouch: Is that too much time?

Krista Lockyear: No, that’s okay with us. We understand that you’ve got other things going on as well.

President Crouch: Motion?

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to delay this rezoning until June 7^th.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: And that will be immediately following our Commission meeting?

Commissioner Musgrave: Yes.

Krista Lockyear: Alright, thank you very much.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you.

Krista Lockyear: Thank you.

President Crouch: New business? Is there any new business?

Commissioner Musgrave: Yes, in your packet I have put a couple of thank you letters to our state legislators. As you may have read, the final version of Senate Bill 574 was passed by the House and Senate and is now on the Governor’s desk. I don’t believe he’s signed it just yet, but I would like to extend our gratitude as a Commission to all the local legislators for their work extending the Innkeepers Tax support for the Centre. That is what Senate Bill 574 did in part. These two thank you letters are directed specifically toward Representative Vaneta Becker and Senator Server for their authorship of the language, which eventually resided in the Senate Bill. This bill represents the cooperation of the city and the county, along with the other stakeholders, the Convention and Visitors Bureau. All of us sought to reduce the property tax burden that the Centre creates, and I would like to thank the legislature for their assistance.

President Crouch: Motion to send the letters?

Commissioner Musgrave: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Crouch: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Crouch: So ordered. Any other new business?

Commissioner Musgrave: I’m awaiting information from Dave Rector regarding the desk that has been donated to the Commission office. I understand he has some more. So, next week I hope to have the letter accepting those donations.

President Crouch: Alright. Any other new business?

President Crouch: Old business?

Commissioner Musgrave: Just, today we have on our consent agenda the appraisal contract, the second appraisal contract, which is required by law for the Evansville Plating Works. There will be a meeting next week with the proposed realtors to go over all the legalities with the attorney to handle that. So, I just wanted to update you on that matter.

President Crouch: Thank you. Any other old business?

President Crouch: Public comment, this is the opportunity for the public to come to the Commission about Commission business. Is there anyone in the audience that cares to comment at this time? We do have a student from USI, Jayde Henry, with us, and we are hoping that she will be interning with us later this year. So, welcome.

Commissioner Musgrave: Welcome.

President Crouch: We try to keep it short.

President Crouch: Seeing no comment from the public, do we have a motion on the consent items?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

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 4:15 p.m.)

CONSENT ITEMS:

         Employment Changes:

         Burdette Park (1)            Health Department (1)

         Travel Requests:

         Commissioners (1)         County Clerk (2)             Health Department (1)

         SWCD (1)

         Department Head Reports:

         Burdette Park                 County Engineer             County Highway

         Ozone Officer                 Supt. Of Bldgs.               SWCD

         Veterans Service            CIO

         Commissioners:

         American Medical Response: First Quarter 2005 Report

         Jail Construction Payment Requisition No. 57: $888,986.11

         Community Corrections Payment No. 8: $344,876.70

         David Matthews: Appraisal Agreement for Plating Works Property

         Treasurer: Submit March 2005 YTD Investments Report.

         Health Department:

         Grant Amendment No. 3: HIV Substance Abuse Program

         Those in Attendance:

         Suzanne Crouch             Cheryl Musgrave            Bill Nix

         Bill Fluty                          Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Jennifer Wigginton

         Sherman Greer               Krista Lockyear               John Stoll

         Mike Duckworth              Phil Lawrence                 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.