JOINT WORKSHOP

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS-CITY COUNCIL

MAY 19, 2011

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners and Common Council of the City of Evansville met in a joint workshop format on this 19^th day of May, 2011 at 5:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex for the purpose of addressing potential modifications to the Evansville-Vanderburgh County Plan of Reorganization.

President Winnecke: Okay, I would like to call to, reconvene our workshop of the Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners and the Common Council of the City of Evansville. We tried working around the table twice, and we understand that we had audio issues, so we’ve moved back to our more typical positions. We have left the attorneys out there, so they may be difficult for us to hear, if we need their opinions, but they are away from us.

President Winnecke: It was pointed out by a couple of people that we have not started the last two meetings with the Pledge. So, why don’t we stand and take the Pledge of Allegiance.

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Winnecke: At the beginning of the last meeting we had some discussion about the effect on property taxes relating to this plan. I did have a discussion with the County Auditor, who made a, I think, probably a pretty prudent suggestion, and that is for us to go ahead and for our two bodies to make all of the changes we think we’re going to make, which I suspect will have an influence on which services might be assigned to which taxing districts, in which case....but in the meantime, and then he and the Auditor can get together after that and kind of give a better breakdown once we have a better idea of how this plan is going to be modified. In the meantime, he and the Auditor can do some pre-work, the Controller can do some pre-work on double checking assessed values, both in the city and the county, but once we have a modified plan they can get to work on the information that Dr. Adams requested.

Councilmember Adams: How will that information...it sounds logical to do exactly that, but how, would that be published in the newspaper?

President Winnecke: Well, I guess, we could probably just ask them to present it to this body at one of the workshops.

Councilmember Adams: Okay, great.

President Winnecke: That would be my suggestion.

Councilmember Adams: Okay.

President Winnecke: I think we left off at article eight last week. So, unless anyone has any objections, we’ll continue with article nine. My suspicion is that 9.1, 9.2 and 9.3 may not generate much question or concern. Any questions or comments on those three? That brings us to 9.4, law enforcement. Missy?

Councilmember Mosby: I’ve been going to my neighborhood meetings and talking to a lot of different people regarding this, and the consensus in my Ward, with who I’ve spoken with, is they really do not want this combined. They do not want the Sheriff’s Department and the Police Department combined. I actually did do ride alongs with the Sheriff’s Department and Police Department, and they both do wonderful jobs, and, you know, really people just don’t want this consolidated.

Councilmember Robinson: That’s also the consensus of the constituents that I represent. They do not want it combined.

Councilmember Friend: I have, likewise, my Ward, excuse me, likewise, my Ward, I’m getting the same responses.

President Winnecke: Anybody else?

Councilman John: In conversations earlier this evening with our Sheriff, he had a suggestion, or, at least, I know your stance is you would like to see them combined, and, but there’s alternatives that we discussed. Would you like to come forward and touch on that for us? Because it makes sense to me, and let me preface by saying that this is an issue that could either make or break the entire request to consolidate government. As long as it’s in here, I think that the plan could be in jeopardy. So, with that, I’ll turn it over to the Sheriff.

Eric Williams: Sure, is it on, Alberta?

Alberta Matlock: Yes.

Eric Williams: Okay, I think it’s important to preface this by saying that, you know, we can go through the history, we’ve read all of this. When the process began, Chief Hill and I both came in there and said, we have two wonderful law enforcement agencies, we both do a great job, we both serve our communities to the best of our ability. Things are pretty well, leave them alone. That was not the mission of the group. The group said, no, we want you to bring us a vision for consolidated government, and that includes consolidated law enforcement. Chief Hill and I both brought forth our respective plans. They differed substantially, obviously, but the plan that was chosen by the committee to endorse was the one that would consolidate all of law enforcement under the Sheriff’s Office. I don’t mean to speak for the committee, because they had their reasons for making that decision, but I can imagine a lot of them have to do with the fact that it’s an elected office, it’s not going to go away, and the opportunities for long term cost containment and savings were greatest under that version. All that said, we still to this day have two great law enforcement agencies with wonderful people doing a good service for this community. I personally think consolidated government is the direction that our community needs to move. I struggle with the logic of deciding that we were going to consolidate our executives, our fiscal body, all of our parks, our transportation, all of those people into one, but we’re going to leave out the two biggest components of both units of government. But, if that’s the will of the people, it’s the will of the people. I don’t want to see consolidation sidetracked solely for that one reason. If the people are satisfied with the services they are receiving, and that seems to be the message you are hearing, then we should come up with a plan to fix that, but not leave it so that we’re faced with the same emotional decision all the time. My suggestion to Councilman John was that we talk about leaving law enforcement out of this. I don’t want to see law enforcement left out, what I want to see is exactly what Chief Hill and I said from the very beginning, and that is leave us alone. Let us continue to do what we’re doing. So, my suggestion is that if we are going to pull the law enforcement component, as far as the consolidation, out of the plan, then it should be put into the referendum that the law enforcement agencies will continue to exist as they are today, and not subject to the wills of Councils down the road or Mayors or whoever, that the decision to consolidate them in the future, to make substantive changes to their jurisdictions, boundaries, and those kinds of things occur through referendum again in the future. It seems to me that that is the will of the people, that we really want to leave these alone and we don’t want to have the willy nilly changing, you know, I could use the Marion County situation. That’s exactly what’s happened up there. They’ve had strong Councils that have gone back and forth and changed it to the INPD, to the Sheriff’s Office, back to the, it’s gone back and forth. So, my suggestion would be, that if we’re going to seriously consider pulling that piece of the pie, or that piece of this Plan out of this and what would be the referendum, that we don’t leave it out, we specify that we’re going to leave it alone. I don’t even think, it’s not a totally bad idea, as we discussed, that you put a time line in the referendum, that this will be considered at a future referendum in “x” number of years, to force the continuing study of the idea and the concept.

President Winnecke: Sheriff, does it make sense, assuming we go down this path of leaving it alone, does it make sense to add language to the Plan that clarifies immediately any jurisdictional, are the jurisdictional lines exactly–

Eric Williams: Well–

President Winnecke: –the way you and the Chief might like them?

Eric Williams: No.

President Winnecke: Does that make sense?

Eric Williams: No, I think, Commissioner Abell, we’ve talked about this at length in the past, that if we are going to travel the leave it alone, and put that in there, that before we did that, now might be the time for us to shore up some boundary discrepancies and some issues that both the Police Department face because of some oddities out there and some unclear jurisdictions, and for my office to do some of that also. Because there are some islands out there that are difficult to police for an agency that’s not policing the surrounding areas. So, if we were going to do that, I would say that this would be a great time to shore up and straighten up those jurisdictions and set those jurisdictions between the two agencies until the next referendum, or this would come up again, but not to leave it subject to the equivalent of what’s today’s version of annexation.

Councilman John: I tend to agree with what he’s saying, that you leave it alone, but you come up with a deadline, there will be a referendum within “x” number of years after you’ve put together a comprehensive plan, rather than just say we’re going to combine them and here we go, and that we define what the Sheriff’s responsibilities are going to be until that referendum, and what the Police Department’s are going to be. I tend to support that idea.

President Winnecke: Dan?

Councilmember Adams: I guess, the only tweak, I guess, I would suggest, and I don’t even know if it’s any good, I would like to echo what all of you have said, from what I’m hearing. I wonder if the Urban Districts should not be policed by the Police and the Non-Urban Districts would be policed by the Sheriff. At least that would give us some flexibility over the next five years for the next referendum.

Councilman John: I think that makes a lot of sense if they’re contiguous, as opposed to the north end is going to be this and you’ve got someone on the southeast side, and that’s the way they are right now. So, yeah, if you, I think we could better define them, but, yeah, similar to what you are saying.

Councilmember Adams: Because there’s got to be some sort of progression, or perhaps not, but I think we ought to have that flexibility within that...and, I agree with you, in terms of that contiguousness would be more efficient in terms of that. Certainly, I would think that Chief Hill and our fine Sheriff should be able to give us some direction on that.

President Watts: Sheriff, how would you go about breaking it out? Is that something you and Chief Hill would sit down–

Eric Williams: You know, we have not sat down and discussed this at length. So, I can’t even begin to speak for Chief Hill and his beliefs on this concept. We’ve talked about it in the past through the course of other meetings. Basically, I would make what are geographically easy to follow lines between the two agencies and establish those lines regardless of what happens in the future. You know, we’ve talked about, you know, we’ve heard lots of people say we want to leave it alone and leave it alone, well, leave it alone means exactly that. We leave it alone and this will continue, which is what the Marion County Sheriff’s Office did a long time ago when they did their Unigov operation, that whatever the lines were that day, regardless of what happened elsewhere that was the Sheriff’s jurisdiction for patrol purposes, investigation and 911 response, and what was originally inside the city limits was that for the IPD. That takes away what I think causes a lot of this fear right now is never knowing what the future holds and it can be willy nilly, at the drop of a hat something changes. We do have two fine law enforcement agencies, we want to continue to have those. We would basically say that the Evansville Police Department will be responsible for policing what’s currently the core of our community, or the center city and what is known as Evansville today, and the Sheriff’s Office will continue to patrol everything else. The idea that urban services makes a big difference, I’m not sure in an overall unified government, because we’re all going to be unifying these tax services and doing some things like that, because there are lots of places in the county that resemble much more like the city did a few years ago, and we’ve very successfully policed those and provide services. I don’t see any reason to do anything other than establish what would make good geographical boundaries so that it’s easy for both of our agencies to provide the services, so that they make sense, as opposed to what we have today which just happens to be wherever the last annexation line got drawn.

Councilmember Adams: Well, I obviously disagree.

Eric Williams: That’s fine. We disagree a lot. So, that’s pretty normal.

Councilmember Adams: I respect your trying to come and simplify that, because I think we all feel that this particular issue could be a killer of the whole process. I still would like, and obviously we can vote on it, to tweak it so that the interim of time, if there is an Urban District that’s getting all of the services, and therefore is paying for them, should perhaps we should consider having the Police do that area. I agree, if it’s not contiguous and it’s out there it makes, it’s not efficient at all, but I would like to build in a little bit of flexibility, rather than this is the wall, this is the way we’re going to do it, because it may not come for ten years. We may not have a referendum until ten years.

Eric Williams: And that may not be a problem, and I think by saying what you’re saying, you’re giving some indication that because you’re in the Urban Services District that services provided by the Police Department are somehow better than what the Sheriff’s Office is providing.

Councilmember Adams: Yes.

Eric Williams: And, you’re saying that?

Councilmember Adams: No, but if you want me to say it I will.

Eric Williams: Alright.

Councilmember Adams: I’m just–

Eric Williams: Then, we absolutely disagree with one another.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah, I know that. I mean, if you want me to say it I’ll say it, but the bottom line is here, I don’t have, the bottom line is here, I want a little flexibility so, because I think you’re asking for something that is current for–

Eric Williams: Well–

Councilmember Adams: –let me finish, 2011 that is too rigid for perhaps 2016 or 2017.

Eric Williams: What I’m doing is coming up here, responding to what you have said and what the group has said they are hearing from their constituents, which I don’t hear that necessarily the same way. Now, maybe people tell me what I want to hear, I don’t know, but, you know, I hear a lot of people saying that we’re ready for the transition and we think putting it under the elected office of Sheriff as a whole is a great idea and let’s go ahead with it. If we’re going to consolidate the rest of government, let’s do it all. Let’s get it over with, and five years from now nobody will remember what we did today.

Councilmember Adams: Well, that’s not true in Indy, is it?

Eric Williams: No, because that’s different because they’ve constantly been going back and forth and tweaking it.

President Winnecke: I wonder–

Councilmember Adams: My only point, and I don’t want to waste a lot of time, my only point is that I think we need a little bit of flexibility in this Plan so that we’re not locked in to 2011 boundaries in terms of efficiencies.

President Winnecke: I just wonder if, Chief, did you have anything that you wanted to add on this specifically?

Brad Hill: Absolutely.

Councilman John: I was going to ask.

Brad Hill: Well, I think, as most of you know, I couldn’t be any more against the current Plan, in its current form. So, what, the Sheriff and I have talked, several months ago about this idea of not just leaving out law enforcement from the Plan, and then we revisit this every few years and the turmoil erupts again in both of our departments. I would like to have something in place to say that’s not going to happen, you know, for some time. That would be my preference. I think, if you look at Indianapolis, Eric said it’s gone back and forth, it’s actually, it started off with the Sheriff in charge and now the Chief is in charge there, they switched when the new Mayor came in, and it could change again. That’s the way it is now. I would prefer that as it’s been presented today, that we do leave it alone, but we do put some parameters in there that it will not be constantly revisited. I am not opposed to the idea of looking at the borders and see if there is some tweaking that we need to do on those borders, but, I think, currently the way it is, where the Police Department takes care of the jurisdiction of what is currently the city, I am perfectly happy to continue with that plan, but if there is some straightening out of some of the boundaries and the borders, I would be certainly willing to look at that. The Sheriff and I have not looked at the map and said, hey, let’s do this, let’s do that, but we can do that. We can sit down, and I think we can come to agreement on some things like that, some minor adjustments.

President Watts: Chief?

President Winnecke: Oh, go ahead. I apologize.

President Watts: Something like this, I mean, I think you’re hearing a consensus here that we don’t want to leave it out, we want to leave it alone, as you both said.

Brad Hill: Right.

President Watts: I don’t think that anyone up here is as qualified as the two of you to set those boundaries and set those time lines. How long, hypothetically, does something like this take? I mean–

Brad Hill: I would need somewhere around 20 years, I think, to get that done. For us to look at the boundaries, we can make that a priority.

President Watts: I mean, this is obviously something that is pretty important to this Plan. I don’t know, I know you are both busy, but if it’s something you can get together and visit–

Brad Hill: I’m sure we can look it over.

President Watts: –I think it would be very, very helpful to us.

Brad Hill: And, I don’t see large changes to the way it exists now, but, as Eric said, there’s certain things that are kind of islands that we go to patrol and it would make sense. There’s certain things that it would make sense to go ahead and make some changes to, and I would not be opposed to that.

President Watts: Thank you.

President Winnecke: So, I think the consensus....go ahead, Wendy.

Councilmember Bredhold: Yeah, I’m not sure you have a consensus. I mean, I agree that the political will probably isn’t here to tackle this in this election year, but, I think that this would be a good time to address it because we are doing it now. I would like to put something in there saying that it will be addressed in the near future, if it’s something that we can’t touch right now. But, I have a question for Councilman Adams, and that’s that if you’re not willing to draw any sort of parameters based on 2011 right now, how do we draw districts? We don’t know what the population is going to be in 2016 either?

Councilmember Adams: Well, I don’t–

Councilmember Bredhold: Or where they’re going to be?

Councilmember Adams: I don’t have a problem with drawing an agreed boundary that you and the Sheriff are going to make. I just, down the road, it may be five years, it may be ten years before there is a full service Urban District that comes into the city. It may or may not, all I want is the flexibility, and you may disagree with me, that if there is a contiguous area of the combined area that is going to become Urban District, full service, then I happen to think that the Police should serve that. I don’t know whether you and the Sheriff agree on that. I think, and it would be sort of an (Inaudible. Mic not on.) that would allow us, for people in the future, before they actually decide to do that, it may be one year it may be five years before they get a referendum, but the bottom line is that during that period of time you would have flexibility that if you have new areas that came into the Urban District, that would be covered by the Police. We can start with any boundary that we want today, but that boundary is not going to stay rigid.

Brad Hill: Well, and that would not be a problem for me. Again, not to speak for the Sheriff, I would think he would see that in a different light than I do, for us to expand our boundaries at some point, because of the changes in the demographics or whatever. I wouldn’t necessarily be against that. What I would want to do, to respectfully disagree with you, is I don’t want this issue to keep coming back up. Because you have no idea of the turmoil that just discussing it has caused for my department, and I’m sure in Eric’s department as well. We have a good relationship, but this is a contentious issue, and a very emotional issue. It means a whole lot to my officers and his deputies to think of a total overhaul of what we’ve known for all of my 30 year career, just because it seems to be a popular thing. In my opinion, this is a much better way to go, at this point, and I think it truly is the will of the majority of the people is to leave law enforcement alone. I think it is a killer for consolidation to leave it in, in its current form. So, I would agree with the Sheriff on the fact that we agree on some borders and we put some language in there to leave law enforcement alone for, in my opinion, a good length of time, even though I will be gone and Eric will no longer be Sheriff.

Councilmember Bredhold: I want to make sure I understand what we disagree about. You disagree with the idea of putting something in the Plan that says we revisit consolidated law enforcement–

Brad Hill: In a few years, is what you said.

Councilmember Bredhold: –in five years another referendum, or whatever the case may be?

Brad Hill: I would want to put it off further than that to be honest with you, because it is just re-stirring the pot, so to speak, and it’s been, as I said, it’s been a very contentious issue right now, and I don’t think law enforcement is the issue in consolidation. I don’t think that is the thing that needs to be fixed, in my opinion. I think it’s working very well. The reasons for consolidation seem to steer more towards getting businesses that come into your community, make that easier. Law enforcement is not your stumbling block on that.

Councilmember Adams: But, I would add, I think at our last session we talked about the fact that the Mayor and a super majority, we haven’t voted on it yet, would have to be in favor of having a new Urban District to come into the city. So, it’s not like this is something that’s going to happen like that, but if it does happen during two, five, ten, whenever we decide would be the referendum, I think we ought to be able to address it. That’s the only point I’m trying to make.

Brad Hill: I understand.

Councilmember Friend: Chief, I didn’t see any dollars and cents on, if we did combine them, what we would save. I haven’t seen any hard numbers.

Brad Hill: We did research with many different jurisdictions that went through consolidation of law enforcement. Generally, you’re going to see a lot more expense up front for combining the departments with the matching equipments and uniforms and cars and all of that. There are some up-front costs that are usually pretty expensive. You’re not seeing a lot of savings. The only time that you’re going to see savings, and it’s what my plan was, the only time you’re going to see savings generally is if you cut personnel. That’s where you see savings, but if you’re not going to cut personnel, from what our research, you don’t really see a lot of savings in combining law enforcement. But, you do see a lot of morale issues when you try to combine law enforcement, huge morale issues, which is a major subject that I deal with on a regular basis to try to make sure that morale is being addressed.

Councilmember Bredhold: If you don’t, I think one thing that it might address is confusion sometimes on the part of citizens about who to call in what situation. I personally have been in a situation, before I was ever involved in politics, where I called the Police Department and they referred me to the Sheriff’s Department, and they referred me back to the Police Department, which I think is part of the confusion that we see in our unconsolidated government presently. There’s ordinances for people who live in the county and who live in the city are separate, and, you know, just a sort of consistency that people can come to rely on knowing what’s what and who’s who.

Brad Hill: Well, I would say that, I’m sorry, I would say that there’s not confusion when you have an emergency, because you call 911, and wherever you are calling from they send the appropriate unit. We don’t step on each other’s toes on that, you know, we know our jurisdictional boundaries where we go. You know, it’s the same issue if you’re going to have the State Police address something. There are boundaries. There are boundaries everywhere you go. There’s jurisdictional boundaries, and we have them now, and we abide by those. However we do cross those boundaries to assist each other, when necessary, or when we’re close to a, if the City Police is close to a run that’s just outside the city limits in the county, we go. If it’s an emergency, we’re going to go, and it’s the same way with his people. We know that. We back each other up and we know we’re going to. That’s what makes us effective, but, as I said, I don’t think it is necessary to overhaul law enforcement to make us more effective. I think we’re very effective now.

Councilmember Bredhold: I think, at some point in the future, if consolidation is to pass and people stop thinking of themselves as living in the city or the county, and just think of themselves as citizens of the Evansville Metropolitan Area, they might see a little bit more wisdom in perhaps doing this. There might, they’ll be over initial issues with the consolidation plan, and I like that recommendation that it’s something we visit at this point, because it’s obviously not going anywhere now.

Brad Hill: Well, and I will say, as I’ve said before, on the overall majority of jurisdictions that have gone through consolidation of law enforcement, they still maintain two departments. They have a Sheriff’s Department and a Police Department. There are very few that combine under the Sheriff. Those that do combine, normally the Police Chief is over law enforcement, and the Sheriff keeps his traditional Constitutional duties, responsibilities, but they normally continue to have two, separate law enforcement agencies in that community.

President Winnecke: The two notes I made, sort of coming into this meeting, kind of thinking, assuming where the direction might go tonight, one, I think, and it probably makes sense to ask the Chief and the Sheriff to sit down and come back to this body with a recommendation on clarifying the jurisdictional islands and making sure everyone...cleaning that up.

Brad Hill: Sure.

President Winnecke: But, the other issue that I kind of saw, I mean, we’ve touched on it, and certainly I do not want to go where Marion County and Indianapolis has gone. I think that does spell trouble, but to Wendy’s point, I mean, I think there ought to be a mechanism by which, in the future, if future Councils, Administrations, just citizens want to re-examine the issue, there ought to be a mechanism by which they could do that, which could be spelled out in article 11, which we have obviously not gotten to, just general amendments to the Plan. So, you know, however that ends up could be the resolution on how, in the future, any potential consideration is given to merging those departments.

Brad Hill: I guess, one of my fears, and I’m sorry to keep talking up here, but, one of my fears, and I may be wrong on this, but it seems like Louisville, they voted on consolidation that did not include law enforcement, and then shortly after they consolidated, they consolidated law enforcement. So, that’s something that I would not want to see here is, we pull law enforcement out of the Plan today, and then right after we are consolidated, law enforcement is brought back into the issue and it’s consolidated immediately after the consolidation of the other governmental agencies.

President Winnecke: Well, in section 11 there’s, again, and it’s just in the Plan that’s presented, there are two mechanisms by which any amendment to the Plan, not just law enforcement, law enforcement is not spelled out in there, but there is a legislative manner and a citizen petition manner that drives it to a plan review. It’s a pretty lengthy process, I believe. So, you know, I agree, I wouldn’t want to get through it and all of a sudden we start a law enforcement issue.

Brad Hill: Right.

President Winnecke: I mean, I don’t think that makes much sense, personally, but, I do believe there ought to be some way, in the future, that could be addressed, if people wanted to.

Brad Hill: Right, I understand.

Commissioner Abell: Chief, how many patrol officers do you have 24/7 that actually are driving our streets?

Brad Hill: Well, we have a total of 288 sworn, authorized sworn officers for the Evansville Police Department.

Commissioner Abell: That’s administrative and patrol officers?

Brad Hill: That’s everybody. So, patrol we have, approximately 120 (Inaudible) patrol officers split up over the three shifts.

Commissioner Abell: About 120 of those, and how many total? I’m sorry, you said it, but I–

Brad Hill: 288 is our total authorized, sworn.

Commissioner Abell: 288? And, Sheriff Williams, the same for you?

Eric Williams: (Inaudible) are dramatically different.

Commissioner Abell: Oh, I’m sure your numbers are different. I’m saying the same question is for you.

Eric Williams: Oh, okay. We have 108 full force merit deputies. My total workforce is roughly 250, counting civilian jail employees. At any given time we’ve got about 60 personnel assigned to patrol services.

Commissioner Abell: Okay, and this is for either one of you to respond to. If this were to be, whether it’s consolidated or not, what is the implications on the retirement funding for your patrol officers? Is that a huge issue?

Eric Williams: I guess, I’m not clear on the question.

Commissioner Abell: If we were to consolidate the two departments, does that cause a problem with funding of your retirement?

Eric Williams: I think it is a perceived roadblock. I think that both of our agencies have multiple versions of our pensions in place right now, based on when you were hired and whatever. So, you know, it’s always been my vision that if we were to consolidate, the pension you were under at the time we were consolidated, is the pension you stay under, and new hires that come on would fall under whatever pension is in place for the agency that’s in charge of the consolidation. They’re both basically funded in the similar fashion. The Police Department currently is in a PERF pension, and the Sheriff’s Office is in a privately held pension, but their pension, and I just, I don’t think those were insurmountable issues.

Commissioner Abell: Okay, do you know, has anyone attempted to put any pencil to paper to figure out, if we were to consolidate? I mean, I have heard, everyone has said, or not everyone, but I have heard people say there would be no financial savings. I find that difficult to believe, because I know that anytime any offices within this building are put together there are needs for fewer receptionists, fewer secretaries, fewer computers, all those things, and, to me, those are as much a savings as the up-front cost of buying new uniforms, new cars and that type thing, I think. So, has anyone sat down and really tried to put this together?

Eric Williams: I am sure that both of us have put rough numbers together kind of looking at it conceptually. I would say that the things that you just mentioned were all attached to people. Computers, you need less people, less computers if you have less people that are working. So, you know, really, the savings, if there were going to be any, and my plan really never called for any up-front savings. What I looked for was long term cost containment and being able to stymy the growth of law enforcement, be able to address the needs of a growing community under consolidated government for a longer period of time without having to grow. My plan also called for the savings to occur because we were going to phase things in. A lot of the arguments that you’ve heard have to do, and they’re real, you know, a lot of agencies make the decision, the moment you consolidate you repaint all of the cars so that they all look alike, you buy new uniforms so they all look alike, you do things like that. I personally don’t believe that that is the hugest of issues, and I think you can do that over time. In many respects we’ve kind of started down that path. A small example, the most expensive piece of my uniform and his uniform is the leather. All this gear right here. That’s the most expensive piece of it. We always had brown, they had black. When I became Sheriff I switched ours to black. So, we’re already to go, you know, that was, it just made a lot more sense. I think you’re going to see a transition in my fleet over the next few years. There are a lot of financial savings to be made, and I’ve been making this argument with the State Sheriff’s Association for the last, since I’ve been Sheriff, that the brown and tan cars, while they’re cool and they’re historic, they’re more expensive to operate. A white car is cheaper. My fleet, starting next year is going to be white. You know, so, a lot of that stuff could already be in place between now and when we get there, some of those other costs. But, the plan that I’ve put forth, the savings was going to be from a reduction in the command staff. I mean, obviously, Chief Hill makes a good salary and I make a good salary, under a combined agency we don’t need two CEO’s. I didn’t displace personnel, what I wanted to do was lean up the TO’s, and we don’t have specific numbers, because, you know, my plan called for having the quality, smart people of the Police Department and the quality, smart people of the Sheriff’s Office, once the word go was given, that we sit down and we figure out how to make this thing work, and we do it as a team, and we come up with a plan that makes sense. But, ultimately, the plan would mean, you don’t need as many Chiefs and Sheriffs and Captains and Lieutenants, that you could lean that down, and you would lose the rank, the costs of those ranks, but it seemed, contrary to what I was hearing from the people is that we want people showing up when we dial 911. We want the people on the streets. So, we were going to deploy the personnel in lower numbers at the bottom of the totem pole and put them, the people that are actually out there doing the work make sure that those numbers stayed in full force. So, yes, I believe, beyond a shadow of a doubt there will be savings gained. I can’t give you an exact number right now, but they wouldn’t be great. I mean, they wouldn’t be substantial by any stretch of the imagination. I think there are other efficiencies that can be gained, because we both operate personnel units, we both operate training units, we both operate, you know, those kinds of units that we could put those together and do some things more efficiently. But, I do want to make sure that the public and the committee knows that the idea that we are duplicating each other’s services is not that accurate. There may be a little overlap here and there on a few things, but they do what they do very well in the areas they do it, and we do what we do very well in the areas we do it. We work with each other and we help one another when we want to do it, when we need to do it, but otherwise we stay out of each other’s business. Because of that attitude, it’s why I’ve always believed that the people of both agencies could accomplish this and build, take two great agencies and make the agency that the rest of this State was envious of. That folks is how you do law enforcement in a community. That was what my vision was.

Commissioner Abell: Well, I do agree, because I do think that two good agencies could form one really, super great agency that we could be able to fund better equipment and better services for. I do understand your position, Chief, on how disruptive it is to your staff, and I am very sympathetic to that, however, I have to say having been an officeholder myself, it happens every four years in the building here with everybody who works for somebody. You know, we went through it every time the Clerk changed for a whole year before that people are out looking for better jobs, trying to get into the judges offices, losing your good people, keeping people who were just worried that they weren’t going to keep their jobs. That’s just part of working in the political system, whether we like it or not, makes no difference, that’s the way it is. If your boss is going to change, there’s a good chance you are going to either have to quit or you’re going to get fired if you’re not the kind of employee that that person is going to want. So, if that turmoil is hard to deal with, and I understand that it is, we also have to realize that change is always hard to deal with, but we’re going to have to look at how this community can continue to operate with the kind of money that we have now that is dwindling as we sit here. If you watch the National news, you know that that isn’t just unique to Vanderburgh County. So, I’m looking at, if consolidation can’t have a price tag to it, then I’m almost what are we doing here? But, I think it has to have a price tag hooked to it, and I think this is a department that has a price tag hooked to it. Thank you.

Eric Williams: If I could just add one thing, because I concur with what you said, but just before somebody says it, officeholders, you know, we’re elected, it’s a political process, but the Police Department is just as political as the Sheriff’s Office, whether they want to admit it or not, they work for an appointed department head of a political entity and he changes every four years. We’re going to have a change here in a few months. So, that’s what happens. So, that is, works the same way in both agencies, and I just wanted to say that before somebody says that, well, see that’s why the Sheriff’s Office, they’re political and we’re not.

President Winnecke: Dan?

Councilmember Adams: Is it worth us considering a five year hiatus cooling off period of this subject?

Commissioner Abell: I think it’s great to have five years of working on what this could look like.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah.

Commissioner Abell: Instead of trying to put it together in two months.

Councilmember Adams: If voted in, what the consolidated government would look like too, without this monkey on their back. Just an idea.

Brad Hill: Could I say one more thing?

President Winnecke: Chief, did you want to put a period at the end of this sentence?

Brad Hill: I think if you look at the Evansville Police Department and my tenure as Chief, I am not afraid of change, and I welcome change. But, when I don’t see the benefit for the change, then I’m not just going to jump into it because it’s change. We’ve done a lot of research with the other agencies, and I don’t see the benefit. So, I don’t think it’s, don’t characterize me as not wanting change because of the turmoil it would cause. I’m used to turmoil in this position, and we’ve done a lot of things on the Police Department, and, I might add, some of Eric’s points about reducing rank, we’ve done that since I’ve been Chief on the Police Department. We’re 80 percent worker bees and 20 percent supervisors and above. So, the majority of our people are the people that are going to respond to runs. So, we’re trying to do the best we can, and I think when you talk about people being envious of agencies, I think there are a lot of people in this State that are envious of the Evansville Police Department and the job that we do here. I’m very proud of it, and don’t want to, I don’t want to overhaul it when things are working well. That’s my position.

President Winnecke: Why don’t we ask, if it’s alright, I think this is a consensus to ask that the Sheriff and the Chief get together, in short order, and bring back to this combined body recommendations on jurisdictional issues that we can include in a modified Plan. In terms of, you know, sort of the longer term picture of potential change, why don’t we address that in amendment 11. It’s possible we could add a special amendment just for, just a law enforcement component in the amendment section and get to that. Okay, any, I think our discussion makes 9.41 and 9.42 moot. That would be the statement about not reducing the force and the change in the merit, of the Merit Board. 9.5 on fire protection, the suburban fire is a function of township government, so, that’s not affected by that, by this. 9.6 designated the Burdette Park and the Mesker Park Zoo directors as department heads of the Combined Government and appointed by the Mayor. Any questions there?

Councilmember Bredhold: I have a quick one. That wouldn’t supercede any plans that the Zoo has in terms of a public-private partnership? Or even, who knows if their intention is to eventually take that private. Would it?

President Winnecke: I don’t know the answer to that.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: You could not, I mean, the Zoo can’t, on its own, or the Advisory Board to the Zoo can’t decide that it’s going to be private. It would have to be an action of government, since it belongs to the city. The city would have to, or the new Metro Government would have to concur in any such change. So, certainly, this would not preclude that, but it would not make it any easier either.

President Winnecke: Any other discussions on section, article nine?

Commissioner Melcher: I do.

President Winnecke: Steve?

Commissioner Melcher: I wanted to get through the law enforcement before I brought this up, back to 9.2, about the City Engineer and County Engineer. Are we looking at combining both into one?

President Winnecke: They would each, under the Plan they would become employees under the Department of Transportation Services.

Commissioner Melcher: Well, that was my question. I really, and I spoke in front of the committee back early on this, working with the City Engineer wearing one hat, and the County Engineer under another, I really think this department ought to be a separate department of its own, and it ought to answer to the Mayor. It just seems that it works better that way. You don’t have two people you have to talk to, there’s just one. That one can get more done, and that person should be answering to the Mayor, and it not be under the Department of Transportation.

President Winnecke: So, creating a Department of Engineering–

Commissioner Melcher: That’s right.

President Winnecke: –as a department?

Commissioner Melcher: Make that an engineer, they have to work with the MPO anyway, which works with the Federal government and everybody else in our community, and also with the Mayor. I think that works, and I think that would be the best thing we could do with that department.

President Winnecke: Okay. Any other discussion along that point?

President Winnecke: Okay, article ten has to do with the Transition Board. It outlines the general functions of the Transition Board, the composition, and, I think, a lot of people may have some heartburn with this section in general. I thought I would throw something out to maybe either alleviate the heartburn or make it worse, I don’t know. Clearly, there needs to be someone who oversees or an organization that oversees the transition from the separate governments to one. I think maybe it makes sense instead of having a Transition Board as outlined in here, the Transition Board be the Combined fiscal bodies of the two governments, the County Council and the City Council and those bodies make the decisions of transitioning from one government to another. There you really, I mean, the people who are elected are accountable. It’s not a group of appointees, which we’ve heard mentioned several times in the last several weeks. So, I throw that out there. Not everyone at once.

Commissioner Abell: It would be all of the City Council and all of the County Council?

President Winnecke: Because, in here they have functions, you know, some of these are pretty benign, you know, just describing the assets of the Combined Government, but when it comes to like employee classifications and what not, it is those two bodies that determine that. It’s those two bodies that, you know, in 10.2.1, in this Plan, talks about adopting tax levy’s, tax rates and budgets.

Councilman John: If you do that, you better provide for a tie breaker, because you’re talking 16 members.

President Winnecke: Good point.

Councilman John: Which, I assume Marsha would be in favor of the Mayor being that, from her previous comments.

Councilmember Adams: I think, one of the false impressions that, I like your idea, I think it makes sense, one of the false impressions that I’m hearing from people is that somehow the Transition Board could alter what people have voted on in (Inaudible), but I don’t, having read this, I don’t see that there.

President Winnecke: Right.

Councilmember Adams: So, I don’t know whether it’s necessary to add it, or just understand that once the referendum was voted on, that would be the structure of the merged government without change by the transition people.

President Winnecke: Yeah, I just see that as the housekeeping mechanism by which we transition from point A to point B.

Councilmember Adams: Yeah, from point A to point B.

Councilmember Bredhold: I’m interested if anyone who was part of the Reorganization Committee wants to, has an opinion about why they decided to include the Mayor. I assume you included the Sheriff and a member of the former Police Department because of the fact that you were consolidating government in this Plan, but is there something that we’re overlooking. I’m looking at you, Steve Schaefer.

Steve Schaefer: I wasn’t on the committee.

Councilmember Bredhold: Oh.

President Winnecke: John Bittner was.

Councilmember Bredhold: But, you were at all of the meetings.

John Bittner: I’m John Bittner, retired farmer, semi-retired, planting corn before I came in. If it rains tonight and I’m here at this meeting, I’m going to be unhappy. There wasn’t a whole lot discussed about the Transition Team. That was put together by the Chair and, I would think Steve was involved in that. Steve did a good job of representing, I think, the Chamber of Commerce’s point of view. I was, probably should explain why I voted against that Plan and what a concern I have. Only one Plan was considered, and that was no surprise to anyone. The 2005 plan that the fella from South Dakota, Dr. Phil Fisher wrote, called for a strong Mayor, Common Council, and I think that’s one of the things that concerned me that that’s the only thing, the only type of government we considered, of governance. I think this community, while I should thank all of you for the work your doing, that little bit of taste of how many meetings you come to and all the support and criticism you can get, it was kind of interesting, so, thank you for what you’re doing. Your also a very progressive community, we’re probably, with the joint agreements, we’re probably the most consolidated of any city in the State of Indiana. So, I don’t see a lot of opposition to combining government, very little opposition. I see some people saying they’re against consolidation, but if you ask them if you had the County Commissioners, and I don’t know if you would ever want to elect the President of the County Commissioners as the Mayor, but that could happen, wouldn’t that be an easy way to transition? Do you want to lose the checks and balances that are in county government? One of the examples of that, and I keep hearing about Indianapolis and their screw up with the Police Department, there was a Sheriff that was a little stinker. He took a lot of money for himself, and the State legislature decided, hey, we’re just going to take care of that, we’ll set his salary at less than the Prosecuting Attorney. Done. That’s a checks and balances, example of one that’s built in. There were questions that I’ve seen come up here about term limits, the power of the Mayor, you know, if you see what’s going on in the Middle East maybe we should run over there and tell them don’t get into this democracy thing, it’s too cumbersome. They’ve got central powers. Transparency, I think that was one of the things that really affected the, probably this last primary election, closed door meetings, that, the one especially that was going to deny us our homestead credit. Representation, we have at large mentioned in this Plan, the fella, Abramson, from Louisville, said they had strictly districts, that way everybody knew who their representative was, and by combining the city and county. That’s a pretty good deal. I think he had a good point there. In fact, I’ve got a CD, I spent $25 on that from Channel 9 just to review his talk for the second time. He’s very good at what he does. The cost of the transition, have any of you thought what it costs to do this change? Especially, you know, we’ve shot, I didn’t get a report of it, you did, I think, for the legal advice. I think we shot most of $100,000, and what really was aggravating to me is that Cynthia Maasberg and Bruce Blackburn who is President of Vanderburgh County Farm Bureau had somebody at almost all of these meetings, almost every sub-committee meeting, now we didn’t keep any minutes of those meetings, but they were there to listen, and I’m known out in that area and I told them listen to it and be positive and try to, you know, what can we work out on this? Normally, the area I come from is anti-consolidation, you know that. The County Attorney came out one time and met with the Farm Bureau and Andy Goebel from, we had another matter, but, anyway, he walks into Hornville Tavern and he said where’s that meeting on consolidation and something else, and they said that’s in the back room, and one of the guys on the bar said, you know, if you’re for consolidation you just keep your butt going out the back door. So, I’m from that kind of area. But, I think this is a windfall for the law firms. When you look at 880 pages, single typed of city ordinances, one of which is to exclude apiaries at a time when bees are dying from mites, it makes this community look stupid. But, would you, all these, will a transition team go through those laws? You know, we had inserted into one of our reports, it was a surprise to all of us, that in five years the city ordinances would flow over the county. Now, that makes no sense at all when you have to mow your crops to nine inches. You know, some of this is real silly. So, I voted against it mainly because I think we moved too fast. I know the enabling legislation that I remember being at a meeting with Representative Buck in Indianapolis and the Chamber was trying to put a different one where it was exclusive for, three cities, I think because of population, and this one was really designed that tax districts, school districts, counties, townships, combinations could have home rule. I just think it takes time to do that. I believe I could sell combining this government under the County Commission. In 1995 that is what that study found, and it disappeared real quick, because that wasn’t what that was supposed to find, but, I think if you had the President of the County Commission as Mayor, there would always be two other people there to review the direction they were going, or the deal that was going down and so forth. I think we should also look, by the way, you’ll save a couple hundred thousand in 1995 by not having a city election. That’s $200,000 right there, with that $200,000 you could probably put a full time County Commissioner, one, and you could also hire a City Manager. Now, you say, wait a minute, we’ve got a Mayor he should be the head, I’m saying why do you have a Superintendent of Schools? Couldn’t we just take a banker or a small business person or one of you elected officials and make you School Superintendent? Or do you think our present School Superintendent has a little better insight than the rest of you might have? Because of his training, you know? Even an old farm boy might be able to figure chemical rates a little better than some of you. So, I think you should take a look at that. That’s where I’m coming from, and since you asked me about that Transition Team, standing here feeling a little stupid, but you realize that there’s probably, that committee was set up, great people, no question about it, and they had the community’s interest at heart, but 75 percent of them, there was actually 13 members, including Jim Harris, that’s not mentioned in the report. That’s the guy from New Jersey that worked for the School Corporation and so forth. But, they all had the interest of the community at heart, but they also had the single Mayor, Common Council, that was a shoe in. There was no question about that. You might read in that Plan also, this is loosely construed. Well, what does that mean? Doc, if I tell you that I’m going to take you to dinner, are you thinking Haub’s Steak House, nice, leisurely meeting this evening?

Councilmember Adams: You’re paying, right?

John Bittner: See, yeah, well, but I was thinking maybe a fast food place. Loosely construed, and so many things can be changed after this, and you say, well, you’ve still got the County Treasurer, you’ve got the County Auditor, you’ve got the Sheriff, but the Mayor sets the budget, and if he has a strong Budget Director why would we need a Treasurer, why would we need an Auditor? And, couldn’t he just diminish the funding for those? When it comes to you, the Common Council, it will be your job to take away from say the Sheriff to give it to the Treasurer, the Treasurer to give it to the Auditor. It will be your job to do that. I think that will be very cumbersome. So, suddenly you’re, this becomes a little different, don’t you think? Don’t know. These are the questions I have. It was a pleasure to be on that committee. I really appreciate what you’re doing, because it’s not easy. Tonight you’re talking about the Sheriff and the Police, I would hope that deal is about like Mater Dei and Reitz. Mater Dei is the power house in wrestling, you know that. They have been from their feeder leagues and so forth, but Reitz High School is also coming on strong, and boy they’re fierce rivals. But, let one of them advance to the State, Reitz or Mater Dei, and they’ll be wrestling on the same mat rooting for each other. The same way with the football team. We’ve got a good community. You’re a progressive community, you’ve already combined more than any other city in the State. This is no big deal. What you need to do is talk to your people.

President Winnecke: Thanks, John.

Councilmember Robinson: John, let me ask you a question.

John Bittner: Yes?

Councilmember Robinson: Why didn’t the committee ask for more time?

John Bittner: I think we were on a schedule. We were on a schedule, that was part of the enabling that–

President Winnecke: The State statute dictated a year’s time to do it.

Councilmember Robinson: Oh, it just seems like the committee still needed more time to work through all of this.

John Bittner: Kokomo set up a committee to work through what we’re working through, and then they were going to take it one step further and do the petition drive. I think that made a lot more sense. Do you see a crisis in this county?

President Winnecke: Actually, this process was started by a petition drive.

John Bittner: Yeah, but you could have also done a study prior to that petition drive. That would have been a lot more meaningful, I believe. I, the first, I’m taking a lot of your time, aren’t I? The first, 1972, Vandigov, that was thought of as a power grab. Bill Jeffers mentioned about maybe looking at county government rather than city government as the model. I think, Steve Melcher there might have said something about that, but that wasn’t to be discussed. So, just one man’s point of view. Thank you for what you’re doing.

President Winnecke: Thanks, John. Any other discussion on article ten relating to the transition?

President Winnecke: Article eleven, the amendments. This is the means by which future changes could be made to the government. As I read it, essentially there are two ways, one by legislative action and one by citizen petition. I would point out that on the citizen petition, that might be something that we would consider changing. The Plan calls for at least 20 percent of the registered voters of the Combined Government who voted in the most recent Gubernatorial election. To start this process only five percent of those who participated in the previous Secretary of State’s race had to sign a petition to start the process. So, that might be something that, 20 percent seems pretty stout to me, as a way for a citizen group to get a change going.

President Watts: I would agree with that.

Commissioner Abell: You mean you want to lower the percentage?

President Winnecke: Right.

President Watts: What do you think, cut it in half?

President Winnecke: Or make it the same as, you know, the process–

President Watts: The original State statute, five percent?

President Winnecke: Yeah, it could be the same. This is the section that we could add a specific element to law enforcement if we so choose, about amending the Plan.

President Watts: Does 11.1.2, would that not address that?

President Winnecke: It could, that’s just one of the ways by which a Plan Review Commission could begin. I guess, theoretically, we could add a clause that says that’s the only way a review of law enforcement changes could be made, a citizen petition.

Councilmember Bredhold: Well, that–

Commissioner Abell: Well, I think if we’re going to do anything with law enforcement on an amended area here, if you just say we can do this in the future and you put no date on anything, you have an abstract out there that’s never going to have anybody work on it until the week before somebody says they want it. I think, if we’re going to say we want to revisit the possibility of consolidated law enforcement, we need to put a date on it. We want to revisit it by, whether you want to make it a year, or a certain number of years from enacting this, I mean, I don’t have anything, I haven’t thought about anything in particular, but I do think you have to put a time line on it. You can’t just have it floating around out there that it may happen sometime.

Councilmember Bredhold: Councilman Adams suggested five years.

President Winnecke: Sheriff, did you want to say something?

Eric Williams: I was just going to throw out the idea that you put the date of ten years out there, and there’s a lot of logic in my mind behind ten years. It’s not an eternity, obviously, theoretically, half of both of our agencies will have turned over in ten years out of a 20 year career, so half of the people that are there at that time will have been hired with the knowledge that in ten years this is going to move forward. Ten years is a lot of time for us to make sure that we’ve built all of the bridges that we need to do, and to prepare for that. However, we could find ourselves ten years from now that the revisit is that the will of the people likes how things are going, they want to leave it as is for another ten years. But, I think to do anything less than that you’re going to find yourself, because this has been going on now for a couple of years and it’s, if we’re going to set a time line I would suggest that it be ten years from now and put it in there that ten years from now it’s going to be revisited, that at least gives everybody a lot of time to prep up for it.

Councilmember Adams: Well, I guess, if you’re going to go ten years then my concept of Urban Districts coming over to the Police jurisdiction makes sense?

Eric Williams: Again, we just disagree with each other.

Councilmember Adams: I think ten years is way out there, but, at least if we want to stimulate in a low grade, non-confrontive way the possibility. Now, if we want to go ten, fine, I think five is more (Inaudible), in terms of making people look at each other and (Inaudible) something, yet not be under the gun that in one year you’ve got to (Inaudible).

Councilmember Mosby: I would like to add, you know, we’ve got Sheriff Williams who is our Sheriff, and we’ve got Chief Hill, who is the Chief of the Police Department, this is their expertise and they’re saying the longer the better. In ten years, I really think this is not my expertise, it’s theirs, and I would like to agree with what they’re saying.

Councilmember Adams: (Inaudible. Microphone not on.)

President Watts: Chief, would you concur with ten years?

Brad Hill: Yeah, I would be fine with ten years.

President Winnecke: That’s half of what he wanted.

President Watts: I know you asked for 20 earlier when I asked you, but–

Brad Hill: That’s a good compromise.

Commissioner Abell: For clarification, are you talking about ten years that the Plan will be revisited, or ten years it will be put to a ballot? What are you looking at?

President Winnecke: Good question.

Brad Hill: My idea is in ten years it can be looked at again, not necessarily put on a ballot. It would be something that would be re-examined. As Eric said, it may be a decision by the people that they’re not interested in it anyway, things are working fine.

Councilmember Bredhold: I have a question for the Sheriff about (tape flip). Sheriff, on the one hand you’re willing to attempt this now, and on the other you’re saying that you think we shouldn’t attempt it for ten more years if we don’t do it now because of turmoil?

Eric Williams: Yeah, give me the green light and we’ll do it now.

Councilmember Bredhold: Uh-huh.

Eric Williams: I have no fear or qualms that we couldn’t accomplish this and make it work, and make it work very well. We have that kind of personality and those kinds of people in both of these agencies. So, don’t for a minute think I don’t think we can’t do this now and make it work. That said, based on all the logic and the reasons that we’re talking about pulling it out, the morale issues, the turmoil, the problem, people like it the way it is, let’s give ourselves the amount of time that we need that we can turn over a substantial part of our workforce so that they have the knowledge that this is for, this is coming. To answer your question, I think that it would be ten years, and it’s on the ballot in ten years. But, the people at that time in ten years might decide that things are going so well we don’t want to rock the boat and let’s leave it alone another ten years, or make some other changes, but force it to be at the will of the people. Let the people vote on that and make that decision in ten years, but that gives us ten years to know that it’s coming, and a lot of good can happen in ten years working to get ready for that, if we think it’s inevitable. You know, will it continue to cause turmoil? Probably, but, you know, I like to think that everybody that works at the Sheriff’s Office and everybody that works at the Police Department took those jobs because they wanted to serve the people, and that they will continue to do that and we’ll work through those dynamics as it comes along.

Councilman John: I have a question for the attorneys. If they put it on the ballot in ten years as a referendum, can it be a three prong referendum? We want to keep it as it is, we want it combined under the Sheriff, we want it combined under the Chief of Police? Can they have that option? Or is it one option, yes or no?

John Hamilton: I’ve never seen it other than one option yes or no. You submit a question on the ballot. That’s a question of first impression. The way this is written it reads that the Metro Council, by a super majority, can at any time adopt a resolution to change it. I’m not sure, for clarification, are you considering saying that we don’t want the Metro Council to have the power to change this area for at least ten years?

Councilman John: I think that’s the consensus of everybody.

President Watts: I think that’s what–

Councilman John: Yeah, that this will remain in effect for a minimum of ten years. It’s at the end of that ten years, do you have a referendum? If you do, what can the referendum specify?

John Hamilton: Well, as it’s written, I’m not sure it puts everything to a referendum.

Councilman John: No, that’s what we would include. That’s what our amendment to, the way to amend things–

John Hamilton: Following this statute–

Councilman John: – we’ve got to go.

John Hamilton: – I think the form of the question would be a question. You know, yes or no, in one question.

President Watts: So, John, do you think you have to amend 11.1.1 as well–

John Hamilton: Yes.

President Watts: –when we amend this one.

John Hamilton: Yes.

President Watts: Okay.

Commissioner Abell: Well, how about, this is as a date. 2012 this is going to be voted on as a consolidation effort, eight years later would be 2020, which would be another election time, that’s ten years from now, but it’s only eight years from the time that you vote on it, but it puts it in a regular election cycle that everyone would be expecting. I meant, 2020, obviously, 2012 is next year. 2012, the first amendment goes on, then 2020 could be the referendum regarding law enforcement.

President Watts: I like it.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: You’ll need, of course, and we can provide that for you, substantial revision of this with respect to law enforcement, because it won’t just be a matter of providing for having it on the ballot. How will you arrive at, for example, the question to put on the ballot? Who’s going to study that? When shall they begin studying it? Is there some kind of time limit you want to establish there? So, it can be done, we just need to figure out what you want and we’ll say that.

Councilman John: That was the purpose of my question, because is the referendum going to say shall it be combined under the Sheriff? Or, is it going to say shall it be combined under the Chief of Police? That’s, we’re going to have to decide who’s going to make that decision on the question.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Councilman John, I think, more likely the Metro Council would have a Plan for Reorganization that they would propose, and the question would be, shall that Plan go into effect, yes or no? I think that’s–

President Winnecke: So, John and Ted can work on cleaning up that language of section 11, article 11 for us then. Other questions on article 11?

Councilmember Bredhold: Are we talking about eliminating 11.1.1 altogether, or just in the case of this particular–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Our understanding is, so far, that just with regard to law enforcement.

Councilmember Bredhold: Okay.

President Winnecke: Any other discussion items on article 11?

President Winnecke: Hearing none, we’ve plowed through all 11 articles. Article 12 has non-binding recommendations. What I thought we would do at this point is conclude. I’m trying to get out by 7:00 every evening, I know there may be someone in the audience who might want to offer comment. I’m thinking next week at this workshop, we go back to the beginning and start to insert some of the changes that we discussed over the last three weeks, and we’ll see how far it gets, how far we get in that evening.

Councilmember Adams: We’re going to vote next week on insertions?

President Winnecke: No, I don’t know if we need to....he asked if we would be voting. I don’t know if we need to, because each body has to vote–

President Watts: We’ll vote separately.

President Winnecke: –separately on an identical Plan. So, I guess, I don’t know technically what we need to do.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I think, you’re all here, and if you each have a quorum on any particular issue that you discuss, you can discuss it, and, hopefully, reach consensus, and then vote, take a vote of the City Council and vote of the County Commissioners, and if that passes, that’s a change to be made. If it doesn’t pass, then you have more discussion to do, because if you don’t agree on identical propositions, nothing’s going to happen.

President Winnecke: Then, the idea is, on June 30^th, when we reconvene the public hearing, we would present the changes that we’ve made. So, that what we’d be voting on would not necessarily be binding, because we’re not, we’re in a workshop, we’re not...am I right?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, you are, but it would probably, I mean, what would happen, I mean, throughout this process you’re hearing comments from the public, as you go along, you may hear other comments after you finally agree on what the provisions should finally be in the Plan, but whether you would be inclined to change again, I think it’s unlikely. I think what you vote on, not that it can’t happen, but, I would think it would be unlikely, but you can.

Councilmember Adams: You mean, when we vote it’s a simple majority as to whether we’re in favor of that (Inaudible)--

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It is, just your regular voting procedure.

Councilmember Adams: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, yes.

Councilman John: I would request that you guys check and make sure that proper legal notification on all of this has been provided so that if we do take a vote, they’re valid votes and they can’t be contested.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yeah, we are satisfied. What you’re doing here, as Commissioners Winnecke correctly says, is this is a workshop, and you are going to be, I mean, sometime you have to decide what the City Council wants and what the County Commissioners want and whether or not you’re in agreement. If you’re not in agreement, then you’ve got to discuss that further until you can get in agreement, hopefully. The continued public hearing will, in fact, be the final vote by each body on this Plan. That was advertised, as required by law, and at the meeting it was continued until June, I believe–

President Winnecke: 30^th.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: – June the 30^th. So, on June 30^th, if you’re finished, you would have the continued public hearing that was properly advertised, and you would take a final vote on the Plan.

John Hamilton: Well, they can–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: They can.

John Hamilton: They actually have 30 days after the conclusion of the public hearing–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Right.

John Hamilton: –to each take your action on the Plan. So, you could make amendments back and forth between then, you could go back and revisit the language, but you are required to take action within 30 days after the conclusion of that public hearing.

President Winnecke: The reality is, one of the elements that I think most of us want in the final Plan is an updated map of districts. We’ve, that will take some time, so, if we, theoretically, if we decide at one of the next meetings that we want 15 Councilmembers instead of 11, we would then have to direct the County Surveyor to draw the maps, and we would have to approve those in a separate meeting.

President Watts: But, John, it’s 30 days from when we conclude the public hearing–

John Hamilton: Right.

President Watts: So, we wouldn’t have to conclude that hearing on June 30^th, necessarily, would we?

John Hamilton: Correct.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Mr. Hamilton is absolutely correct about that. It’s just that that becomes, once you adjourn the public hearing, you have 30 days, and if you haven’t come to agreement yet, during that 30 day period the City Council comes up with a revised Plan, the County Commissioners come up with a revised Plan, they change them with each other. It will get very cumbersome, I think, which is why you are having the workshops. So, but you have, you can change it at any time you want to, but presumably you’re going to come to a consensus on the changes in the course of these workshops and your votes at these workshops.

Councilman John: Now, our official votes won’t come at these workshops, they will come at our regularly scheduled meetings?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That’s correct, but, and this is just my perception of this. You’re going to discuss, for example, how many members should be on the Metro Council. If it’s felt that it should be 15 and the City Council votes and a majority of you think 15, and the County Commissioners vote and a majority of them think 15, then you’ve come to agreement on that point, and you can move on to the next thing. That’s unlikely, I think, to change again. You’re in agreement on that aspect of it. You may change it, but I think it’s unlikely. Otherwise, these proceedings are not accomplishing a whole lot.

Commissioner Abell: I have a couple questions of the...have you had an opportunity to look to see which one of the boards are State mandated and which are by local ordinance?

John Hamilton: We began that process, we haven’t completed it.

Commissioner Abell: Okay.

John Hamilton: I would say, the majority are local ordinance, but there’s still a significant number that are State mandated.

Commissioner Abell: Okay, and my other question is, and I don’t see that addressed in here, who’s going to write how this is going to appear on the ballot and what is it going to say on the ballot? Is it just going to say, yes or no do you want consolidated government? Or, I mean, it obviously can’t, you can’t put this on a ballot, so, is it going to hit the highlights?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It will be the proposal as finally approved by the City Council and the County Commissioners in identical form, and that will be defined. Is that proposal agreed to by both, yes or no. That’s what would be on the ballot, as I understand it.

John Hamilton: Actually, the statute says shall and you name Evansville and Vanderburgh County reorganize as a single political subdivision? I believe that’s the form of the question, but then the Plan is published and adopted, and it’s up to the voter to–

Commissioner Abell: To educate themselves.

John Hamilton: –read it.

Commissioner Abell: Okay, that’s what I wanted to know. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Any other discussion before we open it up to any public comment?

President Winnecke: Anyone from the public that would like to offer comment before we adjourn for the evening? Just state your name and address for the record please.

Donald Day: My name is Donald Day at 2601 Skyline Drive. I would like a little history. I tried to listen to last week’s meeting and couldn’t hear it on t.v., but I try to stay on top, but I would like to go back a little bit with the history of this. Back in 2008 or so, the Courier and Press did the editorial on consolidating the government or combining the government to save money. I have not heard anything in any of these meetings that is going to save money. Everything is going to be more expensive, and you’re not saving any money. That’s the idea of combining the government was to cut costs. You’re not going to cut costs anywhere. You’re replacing the whole wheel, and we don’t have a broken wheel. We’ve got some loose spokes. We just have to have more people oversight. Washington D.C.’s oversight, we need more oversight. Back with our annexation, there’s an expense from the Port Authority for $50,000 to discuss and study the Port on Dixie Flyer Drive to make it into a Port. $50,000 for a study. I could have gave you five dollars, you could have went down there in your car, just this last week and see that there’s no way you can put a Port Authority, or a Port in that area down there that floods at 33 feet. We went to 46.9 this last time. Anybody with common sense would know that. Whoever, I don’t know who’s jurisdiction the Port Authority is under, City Council or the County, I don’t know, but they did that study. So, why, there’s $50,000 you could have saved right there. What about the $14,000 Christmas party. Whatever department that was under, I don’t know, but if you get the magnifying glass out and look into your government, you’ll save your money someplace like that. This consolidation of combined government is nothing but a backdoor annexation is all it is. It’s just simpler for the Mayor to sign off, I’m going to take this district and add it to the city. Your taxes are going to go up, you’re paying a service charge for more of the same that you’ve got right now. That’s all this is. With the history of the League of Women’s Voters that brought this up, they had to present 2,800 signatures? I guarantee you, if it was in the law where we could have went out and got signatures against this, I could have doubled it or tripled it against annexation or combining the government. Nobody has ever come to us and asked us what was our numbers on our last annexation on the west side. We had 1,100 parcels that were being annexed into the city. The city mailed out 800, a little over 800 certified letters, at five dollars a piece, at $4,000 twice. So, they spent $8,000 in just mail alone to annex us, or try to annex us. We had 75 percent of the people against the annexation, is what we had when the Mayor stopped it. We had two percent refusal out of those 1,100 parcels, primarily because of the fact that the people either worked or relatives to a politician. Two percent out of the seven, 70 percent, what we had. We were still going after more. I guarantee you I could have got the same signatures on a petition against this combining government, because you’re not doing what is supposed to be done. You’re supposed to save money. The wheel’s not broken. You’ve heard that from other people, that it’s not broken. So, why are we here? We already know, I appreciate the Sheriff’s Department, I like to call the Sheriff and have them come out to my house and take a report. When I lived in the city, I had to go down to a sub-station and give it to the sub-station people, they wouldn’t come to my house. I want the Sheriff to come out to my house. That’s all I’ve got to say about law enforcement. You can do the same thing, but my question is, also, you’re talking about law enforcement being combined, what are you going to do with the City-County Garage? What’s going to happen there? Am I going to lose my snow removal? You’ve heard this story before. I get pre-treated streets. I live on a hill, without the county coming out and pre-treating the hill, during the ice storm we would never have gotten off the hill. If I become a service district inside the city limits, I shouldn’t say that, in whatever your area you call it, urban renewal or whatever, I’m not up on this, but anyway, am I going to be on a snow route to get my street salted and snow removed. Law enforcement is just one step. The City-County Garage, the Fire Department, you already said everything is going to stay, because that’s under the Trustee. Well, you get into the government of one Mayor and how many people, 15, 13, 11?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: We don’t know yet.

Donald Day: We don’t know yet, well, whoever the Council is, they’re going to change it with a signing off. That’s all they’re going to do. The other thing is, and I haven’t followed that much on Jeffries, Jeffers, I’m sorry. Sorry, Bill. My district, the way it’s written right now goes from the bottom of Dam 48 in the tip of Union Township all the way up to Armstrong. That’s one district. Well, you’ve got a pretty good size area there that, you know, you don’t even know how many people live there. I do have to give you all credit for doing this during an election year. I mean, that’s really remarkable. Any other politician would never attempt this during an election year. But, that’s where, that’s some of the questions I’ve got. But, like I said, the idea of the paper coming out and trying to brainwash the people into convincing them that we need to combine government to save money. You’re not going to do it. You look at Indianapolis, Lexington, Nashville, Pittsburgh, some of the other towns they’ve got, did they save any money? No. They just turned the whole government upside down and went into another thing. Now, our present Mayor has said, well, if consolidation don’t go through, we’re going to have to annex. Come on, we’re waiting for you. If you want to annex us, come on give us your best shot, because I’ve got a better legal shot of fighting annexation under the present law than I do under consolidated government. The only thing the Mayor and the Council has to do is say, okay, this area is now in the city, and the people don’t have any voice in the matter at all. So, I thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Donald.

Bruce Blackford: Hi, my name is Bruce Blackford. I live in Vanderburgh County in the rural area. You know, when you guys started out, the people that I’ve talked to want the Sheriff and city separate. Same over here, you know, I didn’t see a single person say, well, I’ve talked to the people in the county and asked them what they want. You know, I talked up here a month ago, and said that the county’s being left out. We have the City Council and the County Commissioners making the decisions for everybody in the county and nobody is representing the people in the county. You can say, but the County Commissioners represent everybody in the county. The County Council’s not here, so, you know, nobody is still asking what the city, or what the people in the county want. We talk about cost savings and we don’t, you’re not producing any numbers yet for us to say this is a good idea. I mean, people in the county will vote for a consolidated government if they feel like they’re being represented, and there’s going to be money saved. I mean, I read this week in The City-County Observer that Evansville is one of the more expensive cities on the money that they spend per capita in the State of Indiana compared to other cities. Maybe we need to look at cutting the amount of money you guys are spending. That would solve a lot of the financial problems you guys are wanting to put on to the county people. I heard the Sheriff and Police Departments talk about the morale of the officers and being in a merger and stuff. I mean, I’ve been in several mergers, I’ve changed three companies and stayed in the same chair. They didn’t give me ten years to decide if I wanted to stay there or not, you know. Private business goes through it, you hear about layoffs all of the time, there is no discussion of, well, you’ve got ten years to decide if you want to stay there. So, giving a ten year grace period on a Police Department merger seems ridiculous, when we’re doing it, and like you said, the political will, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it now. Let’s merge the Sheriff and the Police on the manner that you and the public sees fit in doing. You know, the Sheriff said he has 60 officers on the streets, and the Mayor, and the city has 120. So, by my math that was, the Sheriff is over 50 percent of his officers are on the street, versus the city which looks more like 40 percent of their officers are actually patrolling on the street. The other thing I have, if you do ten years, if you go with a strong Mayor and Common Council, you guys will be determining the Sheriff’s budget. I mean, in ten years you can make his budget to almost non-existent where a vote in ten years they will say, well, why would I want the Sheriff he has three officers and himself, he can’t patrol or manage the entire county. So, you know, we look at the merger, we see you guys talking about it. I know, Mr. Melcher came out and said he will not vote for a merger unless it’s two separate elections. I know that you said that you believe in one election, and I believe you’ve came out the same way. The city people, it doesn’t really matter, you guys are all going to vote for the merger because you think that’s the best way to increase your tax capital for the county. You know, like the gentleman before me said, the wheel is not broken, maybe we just need to look at getting some restraint on our spending and on where we are spending our money. I mean, we are running through a $14 trillion deficit in the government of the country, and we cannot afford this kind of spending anymore, and merging to get higher tax rates and better bond issues, that’s not where we need to be going. We need to be looking at reducing the cost of government and shrinking the size of government. If you can’t consolidate to reduce costs and reduce personnel to make the government more efficient, then why are we looking at just reorganizing the government. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bruce. Anyone else?

Bruce Ungenthiem: Bruce Ungenthiem, 2037 Fleener Road. I was interested to listen to what both the Sheriff and the Chief had to say this evening, and wrote down a couple of notes. Part of what they both said was why don’t we just leave it alone? It’s working. Why don’t we just leave the law enforcement as it is, include it into the consolidation, but leave it as it? I would take that a step further. Why don’t we just leave the government alone? We’re spending a lot of time, a lot of effort, a lot of your folks time and effort and we’re not going to solve any problems. We’re not going to save any money. If you take the Police and Sheriff’s Department out of the equation, what is it we’re consolidating? You know, Chief Hill said that the only way you’re going to save any money is to cut personnel, but I see nothing in this Plan to cut any personnel. So, we’re not going to save any money, we’re not going to cut any personnel, why are we doing this? I think that’s something that each of you needs to ask yourself. Why am I spending all of this time doing this, if this has no benefit whatsoever? You talked about putting in an amendment into the Plan that says, okay, we’ll take a look at law enforcement ten years down the road, or eight years down the road, or whatever that number of years is. But, the way I read this Plan, if we are unlucky enough to go through with this, as soon as the Police, as soon as the new Mayor is set in place and the new Council is set in place, if they both happen to think that we should put law enforcement under the Chief of Police, they simply have to run that amendment through, get a 2/3 majority of the Council to approve it and it’s done. It’s done. They don’t have to wait. You can’t dictate a future government’s actions by putting an amendment in. They’ll simply just change it when they want to. So, I don’t think you can do that. Chief Hill actually said he does not see the benefit in merging the governments. I would, or merging the two law enforcement agencies, I would go one step further, I don’t see any benefit in merging the governments whatsoever. One comment on article 11, in there it indicates that in order to change legislative action, in order for the legislature to change this form of government once it is enacted, it requires eight out of the 11 Councilmembers, or a 2/3 majority, a super majority, to make a change to a government that it only took 51 percent of the people who voted for the Governor in the last election to establish. Does that seem strange? It would seem strange that a simple majority could set up a government, but it takes 2/3 majority to change it once it’s there. When the Constitution of the United States was put in place, all 13 states had to ratify the Constitution of the United States before it went into place. We’re doing this with 51 percent of the people who are going to vote in 2012. Just out of curiosity, how many people voted in the last primary? Less than ten percent. Okay, so, you get an election where less than ten percent of the people show up, and you get a 51 percent majority of less than ten percent of the people who showed up, you’re going to change the government of Vanderburgh County with five percent of the people who vote. Does that make sense? I don’t think so. So, think about what you’re doing here, because I think what you’re trying to do is to become more efficient, but this is not more efficient. No matter which way you define efficiency, and you can choose which way you want to define efficiency, this does none of that. One comment to Congressman Bredhold, you made a comment, and this will be my last comment, you made a comment about we’re all one, big happy community, and we all need to do.....well, I tell you what, I’m a fifth generation Vanderburgh County rural resident. I am that by choice. I could have moved into the city. I chose not to. There are a lot of people who live in the rural community who do not see themselves as residents of the City of Evansville and don’t want to be. So, think about that as you’re going through this. We’re not all one, big happy community, we’re actually two diverse communities sitting next to one another, with different needs and different wants and different requirements. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bruce. Anyone else?

Bret Fitzsimmons: My name is Bret Fitzsimmons. I’m an Evansville Police Officer. I wanted to take exception to one of the things that Sheriff Williams said regarding the political nature of the Police Department and the Sheriff’s Department. In the Police Department there are two political appointments, that’s the Chief and the Assistant Chief. Of course, those are made by the Mayor. That’s out of 288 officers according to Chief Hill. In the Sheriff’s Department out of about 108 sworn officers, the Sheriff can appoint four political positions, and the Sheriff, of course, is a political electee who doesn’t have to have any kind of law enforcement experience to be elected Sheriff. So, I think when you’re talking about law enforcement, I don’t think it’s fair or accurate to say that the Evansville Police Department is just as political as the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s Department. I would hope that you would take that into consideration when you are talking about law enforcement and how to go in a consolidated government. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bret.

Mike Mahan: My name is Mike Mahan. I live at 1140 East Gum Street, Evansville, Indiana. I have a follow up question from one of the last meetings that I attended. Did you find out what the results of the two meetings that the committee held, the one at USI and the one at University of Evansville from the public input? Dr. Adams made a comment when I was here at the meeting on that and several of you hadn’t seen the results of that. Have you now received the results of the public comments? If not, why not? Three thousand dollars of taxpayer money went into that. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Mike.

Mike Mahan: Do you have a question?

President Winnecke: I said, thank you, Mike.

Councilmember Adams: I would suggest to you though, the USI meeting, sir, two thirds of the, were kids there from USI Poli Sci–

Mike Mahan: If you remember we disagreed about that last time.

Councilmember Adams: Only, I thought it was a skewed result.

President Winnecke: Any other comments or questions from the public? Okay, hearing none, thank you for your time. We’ll convene here next week at the same time.

(The meeting ended at 7:15 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Lloyd Winnekce                        Marsha Abell                            Stephen Melcher

B.J. Watts                                 John Friend                              Curt John

Connie Robinson                      Missy Mosby                             Wendy Bredhold

H. Dan Adams                          Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.                    John Hamilton

Donald Day                               Bruce Blackford                        Bruce Ungenthiem

Bret Fitzsimmons                      Mike Mahan                              Alberta Matlock

Steve Schaefer                         Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Lloyd Winnecke, President

Marsha Abell, Vice President

Stephen Melcher, Member

(Recorded by Alberta Matlock. Transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)