VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

MAY 22, 2007

The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners met in session this 22^nd day of May, 2007 at 3:30 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Cheryl Musgrave presiding.

President Musgrave: Good afternoon. I would like to call to order the May 22, 2007 meeting of the Board of Commissioners of Vanderburgh County. It is approximately 3:30 in the afternoon on Tuesday. We will start with introductions.

Marissa Nichoalds: Marissa Nichoalds, Superintendent of County Buildings.

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

Commissioner Nix: Bill Nix, County Commissioner.

President Musgrave: Cheryl Musgrave, Commissioner.

Commissioner Tornatta: Troy Tornatta, County Commissioner.

Madelyn Grayson: Madelyn Grayson, Recording Secretary.

Joe Gries: Joe Gries, Chief Deputy Auditor.

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

(The Pledge of Allegiance was given.)

President Musgrave: The first item that we have on today’s agenda is the recognition of Gary Hohman, who is the retiring Assistant Manager at Burdette Park. Gary, if you could come forward and tell us a little bit about how long you’ve been at the park, and what you plan to do in your retirement.

Gary Hohman: You may not really want to know. I’ve been at Burdette nine years. I’ve enjoyed every minute of it. There are a tremendous number of people that I need to thank. This existing Commission for the support that they have given over the years, and the previous Commissioners that I have worked under. I would like for you to know that there is a tremendous staff and management at Burdette. I haven’t worked in 40 some odd years in recreation with a group that is as sincere as they are.

President Musgrave: I know that they are going to miss you so very much. I think that you’ve made the park a wonderful place, and, like you said, you have a great team to work with. But, it is beautiful and so relaxing to go there, and I think a lot of that is due to the care and effort that you’ve put into it.

Gary Hohman: I would definitely like to challenge not only this Commission, but any future Commission to continue their support. You have a tremendous asset. I hope it continues.

President Musgrave: We’re going to miss you, Gary.

Commissioner Nix: Congratulations, Gary.

(Applause)

President Musgrave: At this time I would like to welcome Mr. Greg Wathen from the Economic Development Coalition of Southwestern Indiana. Mr. Wathen is relatively newly hired. You are here to tell us, as part of our continuing effort to bring forward the boards to which the Commission appoints members and tell us a little bit about the board, what your plans are for the coming year, what your recent successes may be.

Greg Wathen: May be. Thank you, Madam President. I’m really happy to be here, and especially working for the coalition within the four counties. I’m not quite sure what specific questions you want me to answer, and what information you may know or not know about the coalition. But, I thought I would just spend a few moments to tell you a little bit about the coalition and where we’re going to be within the next 12 to 18 months. The coalition, as you know, was formed in 2006. We have 63 board members from the four counties. We have 13 executive committee members. What’s unique about our organization versus some of the other organizations that you probably hear about, such as the Indy Partnership or the Northeastern Indiana Alliance, is that there’s equal representation from each of the counties, regardless of their contribution or their population. That’s done, really, in respect to fairness, and to ensure that the organization will continue over time. Our estimated budget, right now on paper, is $1.2 million a year. We are in the midst of a fund raising campaign, a capital campaign, with one third of that projected to come from the public sector, and the remaining two thirds from the private sector. Currently, we have four staff members. We’re probably going to bring on another staff member, but we also have brought in under our umbrella the regional planning organization. You may remember the quad county development corporation, and that is now underneath our organization. Debbie Bennett-Stearsman heads up that side of the business, and, actually is doing quite well. It’s really a more self-funding side of the business. We need to bring someone on to our staff to support her efforts. In particular someone who is either certified to manage both state and federal grants, or has the capability to be certified in fairly short order. The differences probably between the coalition and maybe what you might have been asking yourself between GAGE, which is the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville, I think it is, is that we’re really more the umbrella organization, whereas each of the respective counties will have their own separate economic development entity. Vanderburgh County has created GAGE, Gibson County has their economic development organization, Posey County is in the midst of determining exactly what that’s going to look like, and Warrick County economic development is handled there as an agency of county government. They’re the only one’s that I am aware of in the State of Indiana that handles that function in that manner. We’re going to be focusing on creating a comprehensive strategic regional approach, and we’re going to be implementing the regional brand, more so than each of the individual organizations. One of our primary functions is to manage and distribute information and be as a support mechanism to each and every one of those regional organizations. More importantly, we’re going to speak as one regional voice, and help leverage the assets. What we’re finding, states, it’s certainly been recognized by the Bureau of Economic Analysis that are not single economic units. In fact, they consider us as an area of economic influence, and our area of economic influence outside of the metropolitan area is actually 24 counties in three states, with a population of nearly 750,000. So, at some point in time, we will probably be a larger organization, at the very least as a marketing organization than just the four counties. In many ways the talents and ideas of those individuals who are located within our four counties are going to be the drivers of our economic success. So many other states and regions are already ahead of us. North Carolina, for example, has a new regional approach that is based on the organization of every county into one of seven regional partnerships. That’s how they fund economic development in North Carolina. They are focused on regional opportunities and advantages. Regional partnerships provide a single point of contact for businesses, and they connect the businesses in the community base with community-based officials, private sector allies, and state government. Sometimes what complicates the situation is our political subdivisions. In Indiana, unfortunately, the property tax system, which is where you derive the primary source of your revenue, promotes more competition than cooperation. I think, with the basis of the Economic Development Coalition, and how it’s set up, will promote more competition rather than the latter. The Indiana Economic Development Corporation has initiated a new grant program, and it is specifically designed for counties who work in multiples of more than one. So, you must work in at least two counties in order to be the beneficiary of such a grant. Where do we see ourselves in the next 12, and 24, and 36 months? Well, we know that global concerns are, for example, there have been some unsolicited bids for Alcoa in the past. We just heard this morning, as of yesterday, that GE Plastics has been sold. The white goods industry, and companies such as Whirlpool are looking to gain greater profitability and reduce excess manufacturing capacity, impacting potentially local employment. Now, what we know begs the question what we don’t know? We can’t necessarily design and craft a strategy simply based upon reacting to what’s taking place in the market. By coming together as a region we’ve made a very difficult decision already, to come together and work. That’s the really tough part. It’s going to be up to all of us to embrace this regional philosophy and do our part. The coalition is actually a pretty good example of how we’re going to set aside our social, geographic and political differences to work as one economic development community. Because our success is really less dependent upon what’s happening within the global marketplace than what happens in this room, what happens within Vanderburgh County, what happens within the four counties that we call Southwest Indiana. So, the immediate things we’re working on, to let you know, hopefully, by the first of June we’ll have an RFP out on the street to create a new electronic presence for the coalition, a new web presence. We’re going to solicit local vendors, as well as other vendors who specialize in this type of delivery, to look at helping us design a web portal that talks to the markets that we’re trying to reach. In most cases, by the time someone has contacted us, they’ve probably already done their due diligence. They’ve eliminated many other communities. So, it’s important for us that we create this web portal out there that puts the best face forward for our Southwest Indiana community. Part of that is tying into the four different, but distinct, GIS systems that each of the four counties have and possess. We think we might have found a software solution. So, we’re going to put that in place by the first of June. By the end of June, hopefully, we will have picked a vendor, and then by sometime in the middle to latter part of September we’ll have that presence on the World Wide Web. In addition, we’re going to be creating a significant marketing presence for the coalition. Right now, other than business cards and some stationery, we have little. I think there’s this perception because we’re in the same offices of Vision E or Vision 2000, we have some of the same staff that moved over, that we are much farther along the road of creating this organization than what we are at this point in time. We have a ways to go. Our work plan is fairly significant for this year, doing the basic kinds of things of putting in place policy that is critical for us to operate as an entity, to being much more far reaching in our marketing strategies. One of the things that we will be doing is that, besides adding just a couple of staff members, we’re going to be working with, I would call them executives in residence, or contract specialists, in helping us craft strategies in specific target market areas. For example, bio and life sciences is a critical part of our region, in particular in Vanderburgh County, but it makes little sense to create a strategy to attract and support the bio and life science industry, unless we embrace those individuals in helping us craft that strategy. So, there are probably some individuals out there who are either retired, thinking about retiring from that business, or making a transition from one company to another that we can tap into to provide some expertise, as well as those companies who are currently providing those services, asking them to participate in helping us craft that strategy. So, that’s probably where we’re going to be in the next 12 to 18 months. There’s a lot on our plate. Besides the day in and day out kinds of things we’re working on, we are currently though working on projects, economic development projects, in each of the four counties. Some of them are much farther along down the road than others, some are just in their infancy stage. In particular for Gibson County, we’re going to be actually helping them develop their strategic plan for their community. So, that’s a service we’re going to provide them as well. I don’t know if there’s anything specifically else I could address, or if you have any specific questions that I might be able to address.

Commissioner Nix: You touched on quite a few of them, and I’m very impressed with what I’ve seen the first, I guess, three or four months this has been in existence. What do you think is the biggest hurdle that you’ve got to clear to, and I’m not going to say for this thing to grow legs, because it already has, but to take it from where it is right now to the next 12-18 months, and to keep it sustainable?

Greg Wathen: I think the biggest issue, and certainly as I’m talking to the private sector individuals, is funding. The public sector has come to the table. Trust me, they’ve really come to the table. The private sector is slowly coming to the table. I think part of that is just a function of what’s occurred. When the coalition was created about a year ago, there was really a lot of momentum at that point in time, and they were waiting for someone to come into this position. So, there was a period of time, there was a gap–

Commissioner Nix: And, little did we know you were only two counties away.

Greg Wathen: I know two counties away, I know. Well, it was, so there was a gap, and I think because we were slow to the up tick with funding. We have a pretty expansive work plan for this year, and it is all, much of it though is contingent upon funding. So, that’s probably, in terms of long term sustain ability. I think part of it too is just having individuals in each of the respective counties begin to develop a level of trust among one another. That certainly is occurring among our executive committee, which is comprised again of equal representation from each of the four counties. There’s always this feeling that the big brother, the largest community within the region will sort of, how do I want to put this, would sort of swoop down and sort of, I guess, shepherd the remaining counties in line. That’s not really going to take place here. It’s a collaborative effort. A big chunk of it, I also believe, is that people need to have faith in the process, that it can actually work. So far it’s working. We’ve been able to work on the AT&T project, that’s the first project that we worked on. There’s some projects that we know are targeted specifically for Vanderburgh County, for Gibson County, for Warrick County and Posey County. All of varying levels of investment. I think, once a couple of those hit, if you will, then people will see that this actually can work in a collaborative manner. Then it will be much easier for future success.

Commissioner Tornatta: Greg, one of the things you talked about was you were in the same office as Vision E.

Greg Wathen: Yes.

Commissioner Tornatta: Can you tell us kind of how you’re working together with Vision E to get some of the opportunities to come to this area? Then, the second question, I’ll just load you up here, you also talked about how you’re potentially going to work with in a tri-state area, and then talk about some of the hurdles that you’ll have dealing with tri-state, different states with different economic development plans?

Greg Wathen: Well, first, Vision E no longer exists. That morphed into GAGE. So, it’s the Vanderburgh County organization is GAGE. The only reason I brought up Vision is that we’re physically located in the old Vision offices. So, I think there’s this perception that we’re sort of Vision because we’re, our address didn’t change. Working with the individual county organization though, such as GAGE, which is Vanderburgh County’s organization, I haven’t had an opportunity to work with GAGE as much, I can say right now, mostly I’ve been working in some of the outlying counties. I can give you an example of how we’re working with Gibson County. Right now we’re working on a project specifically with Gibson County where we are working in concert with one another as partners. They are the lead on the project, but because we’re working with a site selection firm, the site selection firm we’re working specifically with them to support those areas that Gibson County does not have the capacity to bring to the table. The three members of our, we divided our organization up into the economic development or project management side, and community development side. Just the three members that we have now on the economic development side, project management, we have over 50 years collective experience in economic development. So, we can bring quite a bit of experience to the table. We see it as a collaborative effort because it’s part of marketing. If we would just say, okay, here’s the prospect, we’re going to hand it off to GAGE, we’re going to hand it off to Gibson County or Warrick County and we stopped right there, then we really wouldn’t fulfill our marketing obligation, because we don’t know what the relationship is between GAGE, and what do they need to fill in the gaps in order to deliver the services that that prospect would need. Whether it’s an existing business or a new business. With regard to the tri-state, we currently market, our region has been marketing for quite some time as what they call the Southwest Indiana Development Council. Originally it had gotten up to 16 counties, that each of the counties respectively through their economic development organizations placed money in a marketing pool that we marketed to the world, Southwest Indiana region. We have now, as a region, dropped that down to nine counties, that mirrors the new workforce region that the Indiana Department of Workforce Development has put together. At some point in time, because we comprise four of the nine of those counties, the other five counties are struggling with what should we do, I would say we’ll probably have some type of marketing relationship there to market the broader Southwest Indiana region. That being said, with regard to the tri-state, Henderson County is part of our metropolitan area. You can’t necessarily, the greatest example I can give you, when a worker is driving up to Gibson County to Toyota, or they’re coming to Whirlpool or driving there to Alcoa in Warrick County, I don’t think they just sort of stop and say, gosh, I’ve driven into this other county, maybe there’s some other rules or regulations I need to abide. No one really thinks in those terms. The dollar really doesn’t recognize geographic boundaries or has no sense of velocity. So, for us, I think at some point in time we’re going to have to embrace it. We just came back from, I was privileged to be on the inter-city visit the Chamber had sponsored to Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, and what was really, really interesting about it what not so much what was happening in Cincinnati, but was the activity that was going on in Northern Kentucky. The really vibrant side of Cincinnati really is Northern Kentucky at this point. So, how do we make that work for both of us? We share a work force, we share, in many cases common businesses where they have a facility on one side of the river versus the other side of the river. I think we can get through it. I don’t think, Commissioner, the real challenge will be so much locally as it will be our states.

Commissioner Tornatta: That kind of brings up the different state initiatives that are out there to bringing business–

Greg Wathen: Yes.

Commissioner Tornatta: –and then how do you work through those initiatives to be fairer to one than the other? I mean, is that a hurdle?

Greg Wathen: Of multi-states? Or, do you mean in terms of multi-counties?

Commissioner Tornatta: I’m probably talking multi-state. Henderson would be–

Greg Wathen: Kentucky’s programs are significantly different than Indiana’s. I want everybody to know, we’re not working over there as of yet. At some point in time we’ll probably have some type of relationship.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Greg Wathen: We would rely upon, if we did develop a relationship, we would certainly rely upon the economic development professionals in those counties to help us through that. Prior to my time in Perry County I spent six years working in economic development in the State of Kentucky, in particular in the City of Louisville. I just happen to be from Southwest Indiana, and Tell City and Perry County are my home. So, it made the transition over here pretty easy. So, I’m very, for the most part I have a pretty good feel for the Kentucky programs. They are different. They are very competitive compared to the Indiana programs, but we can be competitive. You don’t always have to shrink the entire gap, you just have to make movement in many cases. The AT&T project was a classic example. When, my third day on the job I flew down to Dallas, Texas and met with the site selector for the AT&T project. After shaking hands and him introducing himself, he pretty much told us what the financial gap was, which was a pretty substantial gap. It was a two million dollar gap that they wanted us as a community to shrink. We didn’t shrink that gap, but we certainly made some significant inroads to making it, our package much more competitive. We were competing against Las Cruces, New Mexico for that project, and we won out. They had a much better economic development package on the table than us, but we were, I think, a little more creative.

President Musgrave: Well, thank you, Mr. Wathen, for that update. I would also like to thank you for what a pleasure it is to work with you. I’m helping you with one of those projects, or you’re helping me with one of those projects. I can say that as a part time elected official trying to work the way through the process of luring a company to a site, there is so much that we can do, but then we do rely upon the assistance of your staff, you and your staff and also GAGE. I think that without you, it would perhaps not work nearly as well. So, these organizations are tremendously important to local economic development, and I look forward to working with you in the future as well.

Greg Wathen: Thank you very much.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Another board to which the Commissioners appoint is the Library Board, and I would like to welcome Mr. Mike Russ to give us an update on the Library Board’s activities. Welcome.

Mike Russ: Thank you, Madam President. I’m happy to be here on behalf of the Public Library Board of Trustees, and to thank you for this opportunity to update you on the progress, plans and programs of the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library system. With me today in the back of the room is Marcia Au, who is Director of the library, and Associate Director, Evelyn Walker. In your packet, among the many items, I’ll refer to a few of these, is a list of the Library Board of Trustees, and you’ll note that there are seven of us, two Commission appointees, Josh Claybourn and Rolland Eckels. There are two appointed by the County Council, Ted DeVries and William Miller, and then three appointed by the School Board would include Becky Conner, Brenda Scheidler and myself. First, I would like to give you just a quick overview of what our library system really is by pointing out a few things. First of all, we have eight locations county-wide, throughout Vanderburgh County, we have seven day a week service at Central Library. We are open 446 hours to serve the community from all eight locations. We have WiFi and public access computers at all locations in the county. Our facilities are not only award winning, but they are also people and environmentally friendly. The Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library ranks in the top ten percent of libraries nationally serving populations between 100,000 and 249,999. That is out of the 332 libraries, we rank 25^th in that category throughout the country. We have, at the library, the Shoah EPL, it’s the second largest collection of survivors of the Shoah visual history testimonies in the United States, and the seventh largest collection in the world. These are just a few of the things to take note of when you look at what comprises our public library system. As you all are aware, we have completed a much needed facilities upgrade, including the building of the new Central Library, the new Oaklyn branch, the new North Park branch, and the remodeling and refreshing of all of our other locations. During this long process we were continually amazed and appreciative of the support from our local community. Hundreds of our citizens were involved in this process, and the results that we see today reflect many of their ideas. We’ve summarized some of the results on materials that you will see in the packets that we’ve provided for you today. There are many ways that you can look at the benefits of having a modern library system. You have several sheets of statistics that help bear some of these things out. I’ll just briefly refer to these. For the accountants among you, or bean counters as sometimes they’re called, you can see that there is a return on investment, each dollar in taxes has a return, by the calculations that we use, of $6.07 in 2006. From a usage standpoint, the EVPL statistical summary from 2003 through 2006 shows an increase in total holdings of almost 950,000, and total circulation of over two and a half million. Along with these statistics are the programs the library sponsors, all the meetings that take place in the library facilities, the number of meeting rooms that we have, and how many attend those meetings. All these statistics show you that the library is not only very much used, but is also very much appreciated. We also have in your packet announcements of many of the programs that are being held, have been held and will be held in 2007. You’ll see that we have a rich variety of programs that appeal to a cross section of our community. One note, all of the design of the brochures, and I hope you take a look at some of those brochures and various pieces of artwork, all of those are done internally by EVPL staff. I would put those up against a lot of the marketing/public relations firms in the area. This just shows you one example of the professionalism and talent of the staff that you’ll find throughout our library system. Before I mention some of the new and on-going initiatives of the EVPL, I would like to call your attention to the document in your package that outlines the revenue and expenditures. I’m sure this is something that you folks will hear about from time to time throughout the year. If you’ll take a look at this, it shows the expenditures and revenue from 2003 through 2006. I won’t go through this or make any comments at this point, but it does show you that we wanted to show you how the library system impacts the taxpayers of Vanderburgh County, and we think, and most taxpayers agree, it’s quite a bargain that they get for their money. Finally, I would like to call your attention to some of the new and on-going initiatives of the EVPL. First of all, we’re a member of the Early Childhood Development Coalition maintaining a continuing program commitment to early childhood and family literacy. We are a cooperating collection of the foundation center. There’s a flyer in your packet with information about what this entails. We’re a U.S. Federal document depository. We have expanded our book mobile outreach to neighborhood schools and parks, and you’ll see the book mobile at a lot of these locations this summer. There’s also a flyer in your packet concerning this. We are establishing a goal center at Central Library as a commitment to area economic development. You were just talking about that with the gentleman who preceded me. The economic development committee of the Indiana library federation is to create, we’re working with them to establish the goal center, and their purpose is to create branding to help libraries market their business, entrepreneurial and career development resources. EVPL is planning a goal center for the second floor Central Library. The goal center will be marketed through the Metropolitan Evansville Chamber of Commerce, which is also providing assistance in determining print and electronic resources to be added to the collection. We also have at the Central Library a tech center for public internet access and training. There are 28 computers available for training and use by the public. We will soon have a mobile computer lab at Central Library for training and programming. So, it will make us much more flexible in our usage at that facility. We also are continuing our collaborative effort, we work with a lot of different organizations and groups throughout the community. A few of these are the One Community One Book, the Lottes lecture series, and we just brought Stephen Kiernan in just a couple of weeks ago in cooperation with the Vista Care Foundation. We have the ARP tax help which we work with cooperatively, and the Vanderburgh County Board of Elections Advanced Voting Initiative in the fall of 2007, we work with them also. This is just a brief overview of what we offer the community. I think, as you can see, the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library system is truly an asset to this community. To paraphrase Cicero, since I’m an old history teacher, to add a library to a community is to give that community a soul. All of the staff and board of trustees of the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the citizens of Vanderburgh County for their continued support of one of the greatest assets that we can offer our citizens.

President Musgrave: Commissioners, are there any questions? I want to thank you all for the update. Also, I met with GAGE and they told me about the economic development partnership that you’ll be working with us on, so that you will help us do research, basic research and maybe even specific research when it comes to the specific economic development question that we have relating to a business or a group of businesses here in town. So, I’m really looking forward to that extra dimension to our efforts to grow and develop businesses and attract them here. But, I just want to thank the library just from a personal standpoint for all the great service that you’ve had over the years, and all the phone calls from me, you know, demanding this, that and the other, and how quickly you get the recordings and documents and everything that I ever need. So, thank you very much. It is a tremendous resource.

Mike Russ: Thank you.

President Musgrave: Thank you.

Madelyn Grayson: Mr. Russ, do you happen to have an extra packet for the record, by any chance?

President Musgrave: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: The Commissioners are going to give me one of theirs. That’s fine.

President Musgrave: We move now on our agenda to award bids. We have a double set, if it’s alright with the Commissioners, oh, I’m sorry, we’re going to take them separately. VC-53-2007, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum roof repair. Ms. Spalding is here to address that.

Debbie Spalding: Good afternoon. We would like to recommend the award of the Coliseum roof replacement be made to Industrial Contractors. They were the low bidder of the three bidders. They did provide all of the information that was required in the bid.

Commissioner Tornatta: On recommendation, I make a motion to approve ICI.

President Musgrave: And I will second, and note for the record that the County Council appropriated, I think it was $250,000. The low bid is greater than that, and we will make up the difference in our Riverboat Infrastructure account, so that we can award this bid and get the bid moving. All those in favor? Aye.

Commissioner Tornatta: Aye.

President Musgrave: Abstain?

Commissioner Nix: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Thank you.

President Musgrave: We move now to VC07-05-02, concrete repair of various roads. Engineer John Stoll is here to address us.

John Stoll: I would like to request that you award this to JBI Construction. It’s for the amount of $421,325. They were the low bidder on the project.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Thank you.

President Musgrave: Next on the agenda is Windemere Farms Homeowners Association, the request to close the road for neighborhood picnic. Louis Green is here to tell us a little bit about this. Go ahead and state your address for the record.

Mark Perfitt: My name is Mark Perfitt. Louis wasn’t able to make it. I’m the president of the homeowners association. I live at 2702 Waterstone Drive in Windemere Farms. We have approximately 108 homes in the subdivision, 102 are occupied at this time. We were going to set up a picnic for the neighborhood and requesting to have a small section, approximately 150 yards of Windemere Drive closed off. There’s a main entrance coming in from Kansas Road and a secondary entrance coming in off of 57. So, there is both access for the neighborhood picnic. We’ve requested that the street be closed from noon on Friday for a tent set up that is being put together by True Event Rental. It’s a 30 foot by 60 foot tent. Then, that would be removed on Sunday.

President Musgrave: Commissioners, are there any questions?

Commissioner Nix: Just from the standpoint of safety, this tent is in the middle somewhere where an emergency vehicle could get from either side?

Mark Perfitt: Yes.

Commissioner Nix: It’s accessible if there’s a fire, or if the police need to?

Mark Perfitt: Yes.

Commissioner Nix: Okay, and you’re just asking that barricades be put up within 150 yards of either side of this, or 75 yards?

Mark Perfitt: Yes.

Commissioner Nix: Okay.

President Musgrave: And, you won’t be damaging the roadway with the tent in anyway?

Mark Perfitt: No, they are actually using 55 gallon drums of water that the tent will attach to to hold it in place, versus stakes.

President Musgrave: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you.

Mark Perfitt: Thank you very much.

President Musgrave: Have a nice picnic.

President Musgrave: Contracts, agreements and leases, drug court contract between Vanderburgh County and the Southwestern Indiana Mental Health center. This is identical to last year’s in every respect except it changes the date.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: We will now have a public hearing on the preliminary assessment roll for Aabel’s Park Subdivision Barrett Law project. Mr. Ziemer, do you have any comments?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes. We have, for the record, a report from John Stoll indicating what the cost of this project will be. The total cost being $303,985.48. You also have in the record a preliminary assessment roll. There are 41 lots which benefit from the sanitary sewer improvements made through this Barrett Law project, and based on the total cost of $303,985.48, each lot owner would be assessed for $7,414.28. So, you’re asked to approve the preliminary assessment roll. Then, if you will, to authorize notice to be given of a public hearing on the preliminary assessment roll, with that hearing to be held at 3:30 p.m. on June 7, 2007. Or, is it June the, what is the date?

Madelyn Grayson: June the 5^th.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: June the 5^th, I’m sorry.

President Musgrave: It’s June the 5^th, this meeting here, for the public hearing?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That is correct.

President Musgrave: Now, we do not need to take any sort of vote on today’s announcement of that public hearing, do we?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: We need to vote to authorize the publication of the notice of the hearing, but you do need to vote to approve the preliminary assessment.

President Musgrave: Does that require a roll call?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: No.

President Musgrave: Alright, is there a motion?

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve the assessment.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries. Is that sufficient then, Mr. Ziemer, for all of our legal requirements?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: That does it.

President Musgrave: Thank you. We move now to department head reports, Mr. Ziemer, you’re first on the agenda for the–

Commissioner Nix: Excuse me just a second.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’m sorry, I guess, we didn’t take a vote on approving the advertising of the notice.

Commissioner Tornatta: Approve the advertising of the notice for the June 5, 2007 meeting.

Commissioner Nix: That’s in the form of a motion?

Commissioner Tornatta: In the form of a motion.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: Mr. Ziemer, the lobbyist activity report?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, we have received and reviewed the lobbying activity report of Barnes and Thornburg. I’ve reviewed that and I find it satisfactory for execution from a legal perspective in all respects.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

President Musgrave: County Engineer, John Stoll, there’s several items on your list today.

John Stoll: I have two additional items. The first is the annual operational report for the local road and street fund. That has been prepared by my office and the County Highway Department. It needs your signatures, and then we can forward it on to the state. It’s due by June of every year.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

John Stoll: That report just outlines the expenditures and revenues as far as road and bridge projects go. The other item that I have is a request to make a change on the Bohannon Estates Barrett Law project. The contractor, which is J.H. Rudolph, has proposed an alternate to the repair method for the streets out there. Basically, instead of using the method that was designed by Andy Easley Engineering, which was excavate out all the bad areas and then recompact rock back in those bad areas, they are proposing to use a company called Base Technologies to pulverize the existing pavement and recompact, blend it all together, the existing asphalt and the existing rock, recompact that and use that as the base for the new road. It will result in no net change to the project cost. It would delete three items; milling, stone patching and geotextiles, and would replace those three items with rehab of the road bed item. The total of the three items would be replaced would be $46,228, but in the end there’s no net change to the contract value. It will, by going this route, it will prevent us from having any increased quantities of patching due to additional failures once they start doing the repair work out there. So, I would like your approval to have J.H. Rudolph proceed with this method. We have checked references on this company, and they were recommended by County Engineers offices that Pat Seib and my office had made contact with.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: The motion carries.

Commissioner Nix: I was just telling Mr. Stoll, I think this is something that we need to look at. If, we feel pretty comfortable that this is going to work, we might on some roads that are deteriorating really bad we could look at for future roadway projects. It’s fairly new technology that’s out there. So, I think we need to follow up with that. We’ll keep a close eye on it.

President Musgrave: When they come to do that, will you let us know?

John Stoll: Sure.

President Musgrave: So, that we can take a look at it. Alright, great. I’m going to pause right now to change the tape.

(Tape Change)

President Musgrave: Mr. Ziemer?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, I have one more item. We’ve been presented today with a proposed grant agreement to be entered into between the County and the Indiana Department of Corrections for a $1,110,188 grant from the Department of Corrections to the County to be administered by the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s office. The purpose of the grant is for implementing and continuing the Community Corrections program. There are numerous grantee requirements contained in the grant, all of which will be met by the office of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff, as they have been met in the past under a prior grant. We find the grant agreement satisfactory for execution from a legal perspective.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Mr. Ziemer, if you’ll turn off your microphone.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’ll be happy to turn off my light off.

President Musgrave: Alright.

President Musgrave: We move now to new business. I would like to ask Sheriff Williams to come forward and perhaps discuss a potential solution, or at least a partial remedy to a problem that we’ve been having on Burkhardt Road with our new landscaping that was installed, with the help of Burdette Park, in the, we call them the Burkhardt islands. We understand that this has posed quite a challenge to the Knight Township Fire Department.

Eric Williams: It’s been our understanding that Knight Township has spent an inordinate amount of time out there putting out small fires in the medians, from people disposing of lit, burning cigarettes. You know, our solution is that we’re going to step up our enforcement out there and stop some people out there. The penalty associated with throwing a lit or burning object from your vehicle is a little stiffer than normal littering. We just checked the IC code and it’s between $250 and $1,000 on the first offense, at the discretion of the judge. So, that’s a pretty stiff penalty. So, we’re going to make our presence known out there and try and discourage that kind of activity. But, I basically just implore in general, the general public to use trash receptacles and ash trays and things as they were designed to do and not our roads and medians for trash centers.

President Musgrave: Thank you for your efforts on that. We’re also looking into the possibility of pulling back the wood chips up further on the slope and putting grassy plants there. The Fire Chief out there, Dale Naylor, has let our staff at Burdette know that he’s been in the firefighting business since the early 1980's, I think it was 1981 was it?

Unidentified: ‘88.

President Musgrave: That’s the late ‘80's, but this problem of mulch catching on fire from people throwing lit cigarettes out their car windows is new to all of us. None of us expected this problem. No one anticipated it in the landscape business. Everyone is quite surprised that this has occurred, and would not have predicted it. So, we are looking into some solutions. Mr. Craig from Burdette will be contacting various vendors to see what the cost of pulling the mulch back and putting in these grassy plants will be. So, we are working toward a solution, but, of course, the real solution is no cigarette butts being thrown flaming out of car windows on the street or anywhere else. Mr. Ziemer, I see you there.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: The Public Defender (Inaudible).

President Musgrave: One thing that apparently we left off our agenda, so, I would like to welcome the Public Defender board. I see Mr. Jeff Devine. Are you the president, sir? Please come forward and report on your board’s activities. I know that some of the boards had to rearrange their schedules and weren’t able to come on our first day, but, apparently, this is the day we actually invited you.

Jeff Devine: That’s right.

President Musgrave: And then we didn’t put you on the agenda.

Jeff Devine: And we’re here.

President Musgrave: I do apologize.

Jeff Devine: No problem. No problem. We have Steve Owens and David Bunner with me as well. They run our department. As you know, the Public Defender agency represents the indigent persons in Vanderburgh County before the courts. We’re here to report some of our achievements over the last year or so, and some of our goals. So, I would like to read through those with you today. The agency has improved the quality of representation afforded to indigent persons in Vanderburgh County through increased professionalism, attorney support staff, and other resources. We’ve also maintained compliance with the felony case load standards of the Indiana Public Defender Commission, despite a 34 percent increase in cases assigned between 2001 and ‘06, without significant increases in salaried personnel. We’ve implemented an in-house CLE program for attorneys at no cost to the county to comply with the Indiana Supreme Court requirements concerning continuing legal education. We’ve increased deposits to the supplemental Public Defender Fund to help offset the cost of indigent defense due to rising case loads and decreased General Fund budgets. We have participated in the establishment of the Drug Forensic Diversion Court , through the planning phase as well as the provision of the participant advocates for persons admitted to the programs. We have also implemented a three year juvenile court phase in program to bring juvenile court public defenders into compliance with the Indiana Public Defender Commission standards. We’ve obtained a reimbursement in excess of $2.7 million, which has been deposited in the Vanderburgh County General Fund. Our goals going forward is to provide an increasingly greater quality of legal representation to indigent persons in an effect, efficient manner. To increase the professionalism and respect for the public defenders and staff, their clients, and the judicial process. To continue to participate in programs that seek alternative means to incarceration, and to secure necessary services for individual clients in an effort to reduce the client base. To implement an objective attorney evaluation program with input from judges, prosecutors, clients, staff and supervisory personnel. To bring misdemeanor public defenders into compliance with the Indiana Public Defender case load standards, and to continue to seek additional funding for the state Public Defense Fund, so that Vanderburgh County receives it’s full reimbursement share. Those are our goals going forward. Again, the two gentlemen with me, if you have any questions, we would be more than glad to entertain those. Mr., Commissioner Nix also serves on the board with us, we’re pleased to have him with us as well.

President Musgrave: Well, thank you for the update. I’m sorry that you had to wait to give it.

Jeff Devine: No problem. Thank you.

President Musgrave: Is there any old business?

President Musgrave: Is there any public comment?

President Musgrave: We have a consent agenda, to which I need to ask that it be amended to include the letter that I received from SMG’s president regarding their recent acquisition.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval of the consent agenda.

President Musgrave: With the–

Commissioner Nix: Or consent items, excuse me.

President Musgrave: –recommended–

Commissioner Nix: With the amended SMG letter.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: All those in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Musgrave: Is there a motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Musgrave: We are adjourned.

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

CONSENT ITEMS:

Commissioners:

Approval of the May 15, 2007 Commissioner meeting minutes.

Evansville ARC April 2007 meeting minutes.

Letter regarding Animal Control ordinance.

Surplus Request: Legal Aid: computer monitor.

IBAP Gatekeeper Monthly Report: April 2007.

SMG Letter of Acquisition by American Capital.

Department Head meeting notes: May 15, 2007.

Employment Changes:

Burdette Park (18)                    Co-Op Ext. (1)               County Highway (1)

Center Assessor (1)                 Superior Court (2)           Scott Assessor (2)

VCCC (1)                                  Pigeon Assessor (1)       Prosecutor (2)

Center Assessor (1)

Travel Requests: Health Department (3)

County Engineer: Pay Request No. 26: Burkhardt-Green River TIF Projects.

Public Defender: State Public Defender Request for Reimbursement 1/1-3/1/07.

Purchasing: Monthly Report: March 2007.

Auditor: Barrett Law Lien Releases: Westwood Hills (29) & Oak Hill (1).

Department Head Reports:

Burdette Park                           County Engineer                       County Highway

Ozone Officer                           Veterans Service

Those in Attendance:

Cheryl Musgrave                      Bill Nix                                      Troy Tornatta

Joe Gries                                  Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Marissa Nichoalds

Madelyn Grayson                     Gary Hohman                           Greg Wathen

Mike Russ                                 Debbie Spalding                       John Stoll

Mark Perfitt                               Jeff Devine                               Others Unidentified

Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS

Cheryl A. W. Musgrave, President

Bill Nix, Vice President

Troy Tornatta, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)