The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 4^th day of August, 2010 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:32 a.m. by County Council President Russell Lloyd, Jr.

President Lloyd: I’d like to call to order the meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council August 4^th, 2010. Could we have the attendance roll call please?

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Terry		X
Councilmember Bassemier	X
Councilmember Shetler		X
Councilmember Goebel	X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Kiefer	X
President Lloyd	X

President Lloyd: I’d like to ask Councilman Goebel to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

President Lloyd: Okay, I’d like to point out, we didn’t have a transformation, this is Ryan Schultz as our Council attorney today, not Jeff Ahlers, so we’re going to work on getting him a name tag. Item number four, approval of minutes from June 30, 2010 Special Meeting, July 7, 2010 regular meeting. Is there a motion to approve those minutes? Has everybody looked at those?

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ll move on to item number five, Appropriation Ordinance, Local Roads & Streets. In the absence of Mr. Shetler, I’d like Mr. Raben, former Finance Chair, to take the appropriation ordinance.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Mr. President. Good morning. First on the agenda, well, the only one on the request for appropriations, Local Roads & Streets for the county garage under Tires & Tubes in the amount of $15,000. I’ll move approval.

President Lloyd: Right, well, he called me, too, said he would be here. So he must have an emergency. Any discussion or, Jim, did you have a chance to go out there? Okay, any comments from Council on the tires and tubes? Okay, roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes. In my brief conversation with Mr. Walsh, he indicated that I think it was the paver tires that were worn out and this would take him into next year, so I vote yes. That motion passes five to zero.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, these are corrections from what was stated and approved in the budget. I’ll move approval of the Sheriff transfer as listed.

President Lloyd: Motion Mr. Raben, second Mr. Kiefer. Any discussion on the transfers? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: I’ll call Mr. Walsh forward. We already voted on your – do you want to have an explanation on the tires and tubes?

Chris Walsh: Chris Walsh, Vanderburgh County Highway department. As it’s kind of come to my attention, I guess in 2008, the budget was cut and the number that they had put in, in 2008 was a pretty close number to what these tires would run in a year’s period of time, and that’s about what we’re doing again this year so, you know, its been a very, very hot summer, it was a pretty terribly cold winter, we’re doing the best that we can.

President Lloyd: So because the hot weather came in earlier, that wears the tires out faster?

Chris Walsh: Yeah, I could take you out and show you. Every truck that I have that comes up to the paver, it’s like 260 degrees temperature, just the material coming in. Every one of those tires wear down very quickly and those are commercial grade tires so they’re quite expensive. We have like 110 pieces of tired equipment.

Chris Walsh: Yeah, it’s the paver, the grader, we’re doing a couple of things to try and slow this up. One thing we’ve done in the 2011 budget, we kept the same overall budget but I’ve appropriated monies a little differently to make the one account a little bit larger, so that should keep me from having to come before you.

Councilmember Kiefer: Chris, what exactly does 15,000 buy you? I mean, is this like, how many new tires or...

Chris Walsh: What we’re looking at now is getting our tires refitted for the winter. We’ve pretty well, it looks like we’ve done what we’ve done with the heat related, now I’ve got to get these tires, get through the rest of this season and the paving season, then get these tires ready, studded and that, for the winter which I’ll start doing in October.

Councilmember Kiefer: So, like how many vehicles, how many vehicles does that take care of?

Chris Walsh: But we’ve had issues with the grader tires. Some of the equipment, we’re pretty good at making the equipment last longer, but the wheels on some of these older pieces of big equipment, they get condensation inside the wheel, I have a lot of tire repairs coming out because they pitted real bad and I’m trying to put a couple things in place to slow that down and get that cost trimmed down. But short of buying new wheels.

Councilmember Kiefer: But for the public to understand, I mean, these aren’t just cars and trucks, these are –

Councilmember Bassemier: Chris, how is your equipment holding up? I think you’re still short a mechanic, aren’t you?

Chris Walsh: Yes, and we’ve put in for, which I’ll be back in a few weeks for next year’s budget to fill that line item. Just off the top of my head, in one account, if I could get that position filled, I could do more things. I had a gradall go down. The local supplier wanted around $5,000 to repair it. We repaired it in-house for, I think, less than $2,000. Those are the kind of things, if I could get that other mechanic to help, you know, like I’ve said, we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 pieces of equipment that I’m trying to constantly keep up, upgrade and keep going, so I’m pretty desperately needing that mechanic spot.

Councilmember Bassemier: So in other words, you’re saying you’ll save money if we get you a mechanic instead of –

Chris Walsh: – show you time and time again, other than that instance where I can do that, yes.

Councilmember Raben: Just a brief comment. For those that are listening or those in the audience, I voted for this appropriation, my firm does not have this contract. But I, Chris, I do have one suggestion on the condensation within the wheels and what have you. You might look into, if you don’t already have, driers on your airlines and stuff.

Chris Walsh: Yeah, we’ll look into it because that is starting to become an issue with the age of the wheels and that on these.

President Lloyd: Item number seven, repeals, we have none. Item number eight, old business, we have none. Item number nine, new business, we’re going to take item B, Superior Court request to fill vacancy so we can move Judge Pigman along. So nine B.

Robert Pigman: Thank you. This is chapter two of the request I made a month ago, I was here requesting replacement of employees that were leaving from our misdemeanor division and our small claims. At that time, small claims was the most pressing need and you approved that. You indicated that day you wanted to defer the vote on the misdemeanor employee until later, and I guess today is later. So I’m here requesting that. To refresh your memory, our misdemeanor court handles approximately 35,000 cases a year. The docket has gotten to the point where we have almost two full misdemeanor sessions. We have our regular misdemeanor court sessions that run Monday through Friday at 8:15 in the morning and 1:30 in the afternoon. Our Monday night traffic court session, which recently we’ve had to add an extra session there, and then we have every month nine or ten additional sessions of misdemeanor court that are heard by either senior judges, magistrates or the regular judges just to keep up with the docket that we currently have. So misdemeanor probation, it does much of the administrative work for those who are not sent to jail, but given probationary sentences. Most of these are drunk drivers and unfortunately, that caseload has not gone down any. So we need to fill this position.

President Lloyd: Right, and I think that’s what you indicated last month, that the caseload is not going down. There’s, you can’t really make do without a full-time position here.

President Lloyd: Okay, and unfortunately, in our community, more traffic accidents and drunk driving. Any questions from Councilmembers? Okay, roll call vote please. Oh, we need a motion and a second.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ll move back to nine A, Health department, request to fill three vacancies. And we have Dr. Nicholson here.

Ray Nicholson: Dr. Ray Nicholson, the health officer for Vanderburgh County. I’m here mainly to hopefully fill the full-time Deputy Registrar position for our vital records. This is a very, very important position and we’re really hurting in the office for not having it filled. It is not feasible to bring another employee into that office because, as I understand it, the job really doesn’t exist until you all say so. The position requires special training and certification for this and it’s kind of like a well installer who has to take special lessons and then be certified as a well installer. The new rules from the health department from the state require vital records to certify all custody for paternity cases. The clerks interview each person individually, the parents have to bring in DNA evidence and these cases are very complicated and require about an hour of their time to do one case. The second major thing that’s occurring is on January 2^nd of 2011, all death certificates have to be filed electronically. This sounds like it would be an easy thing to do, but the funeral directors and the physicians have to apply for pass codes. It took me over three weeks to get my pass code with the help of our registrar. And finally, when we did get it, we tried to file one death certificate electronically, and essentially, because our registrar, Erica Mitchell, and I presented our program at the state, so we were about as knowledgeable as anyone in the room, this was with the other health officers throughout the state and also some people from vital records from the state office. And we gave this lecture, we came back to file this thing electronically, it took us an hour and fifteen minutes and six calls to the state before we finally got it done and then it turned out that it was turned down anyway. We didn’t do it the way they said. So the point I want to make is that our office is going to have to train about two to three hundred funeral directors in this and about a thousand physicians in this area on how to do this. This will be a monumental job. The office is also responsible for collecting all fees for vital records and also for the rest of the department. It think it’s very essential that we fill this and the office staff right now has been doing a monumental job. They’ve had to work some overtime in order to get the job done. I’ll be glad to answer any questions and I do have Erica Mitchell with me in case you have any specific questions of her.

President Lloyd: Okay, the Health department has three requests. One is a full-time Deputy Registrar, the other one is WIC grant full-time Secretary/Bookkeeper on a grant, and then a part-time Bookkeeper on a grant. But we’re dealing with the Deputy Registrar. And this position has been vacant, it was one that helped to fund Mr. Elder’s retirement, is that correct?

President Lloyd: The new starting salary for that, $19,360, and it is a COMOT II, and I guess my other question would be if the job has changed somewhat, maybe it needs to be re-rated, you know, COMOT II is the starting level of a clerical position, so that’s something to think about. Any questions from Council on this? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Are we moving on just the replacement at this point, on the one position?

President Lloyd: Well, the other two are on grants, probably not going to be as –

President Lloyd: Yeah, let’s segregate them. Maybe put the two grants as one and this one as one. Any questions from Council?

Councilmember Raben: Just as a matter of correction. The starting salary would be $18,491.

President Lloyd: Okay, that’s what’s in the salary ordinance, so that’s the step increase. Is there a motion to approve? Anybody want to make a motion?

President Lloyd: Motion Mr. Raben, second Mr. Bassemier. Any discussion? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Obviously, the two grants, you know, that won’t affect our bottom line here. You’ve been operating without this position for how long?

Ray Nicholson: Since last May, I believe. Its been very difficult. You want to remember there are two new requirements that are coming up. This requirement for paternity begins July the 1^st of this year and the requirement for the electronic death certificates is coming on in January of 2011. So those are going to be two additional duties.

Councilmember Goebel: And this person will handle exclusively those types of issues?

Councilmember Goebel: I think it’s a tough one here. I know we’ve got new changes in law but I still think perhaps we can try to see how it goes, and I’m voting no on this one.

Councilmember Raben: I think I’ll follow that lead, let’s play it out a little longer and see how the changes in July, give that a little more time and make adjustments in January if need be. So I vote no.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’ll concur with Councilmen Raben and Goebel, I’ll vote no.

President Lloyd: Let’s go to WIC grant Secretary/Bookkeeper and part-time Bookkeeper on grant.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Raben, second Mr. Goebel. Any discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: We’ll move on to item C, County Clerk, request to fill two vacancies. Madam Clerk.

Susan Kirk: Good morning. Well, being that Judge Pigman was already here, he pretty well explained as I’ve explained, is that our caseload is not going down. I e-mailed each one of you and let you know that Tim VanCleave had run another report and we’re actually up from what we were even last year, which was a record breaking year. So I have two positions. One position is the certified clerk and what she does is, she sends out all certified mail plus she has to re-enter when they come back a part of that. Now she’s already sent out over 20,000 this year plus has entered the returns for circuit-superior probably another 8 or 9,000, so it’s a very, very busy job and I’m requesting that one plus we have misdemeanor traffic, we have one of our employees that’s found a better job and she’s moving on. These are two good employees that we’re losing, by the way. And I’m going to have Mary Ann, she’s from misdemeanor traffic and I just want her to briefly explain almost the same thing that Judge Pigman did, but needless to say, this is our office. And, Mary Ann, would you do that? And while she’s doing that, I’m going to hand out a paper showing that I have, actually, three are going to be on medical leave, FMLA.

President Lloyd: Okay, 1460 is a Certified Mail Clerk and 1540 Misdemeanor Traffic Ticket Clerk.

Susan Kirk: So Mary Ann Weightman is just going to give you an idea of what they’re going through.

Mary Ann Weightman: Good morning. Our office has twelve people right now, (inaudible) trying to cover everything with twelve people, and losing one to the probation office, she’s actually a court clerk. She is responsible for going into each court session. They also put on every bench warrant that has to be put on. I also have another one that will be leave for at least two months as well, that will leave me down to one court clerk. I often have two courts going on at the same time. Our case is like Judge Pigman said, are at 35,000 for last year, we’re already up to 20,000 for this year. They’re not going down. For July 26, we had 1,279 cases scheduled for night court, so there were two sessions. That’s happening about every other month now. If I take another employee from another position and have them cover the court, then their work is going to get behind. Everything we do is time specific because of court proceedings, jail matters and BMV requirements. So I really need to fill this vacancy.

Susan Kirk: Everything has gone up. With the 64,000 that we, well it was over 64,000 last year. Everything is up. Nothing is going down, so it’s just one of those bad things. Like I said, when we’re busy, that’s not good news. And what I would also like, and I emailed all of you, too, looking back, when I didn’t have to come before Council to get a replacement, I hardly ever had any replacements. And it seems like once you made that rule, I don’t know if you’ve jinxed us or what, but it seems like I’m here every month. Anyway, I am requesting that if you will please, because of the time that it takes to come before Council, I’m doing without an employee. Especially beings that I’m going to have, I’ve already got one on FMLA, I’m going to have two more coming up with FMLA. If there would be any way that you would let us at least finish the year and hopefully next year, at least maybe until June of next year until we run, we’ll run another report at the end of the year as far as our caseload, then Tim does it around in June, and believe me, if things go down, I will come back and let you know, like I said, we will let the part-time position go, but I’m just asking the Council to please let us go at least until June of next year to where when I have to make a replacement, I can do it pretty quick because Sandie has been extremely helpful as far as letting us know, you know, when we can pay out so that we can fill that position quicker. So anyway, I’m asking you if you will please consider that today, also. So it’s two employees and if you’ll let us at least go to next June before I have to start requesting coming before Council again.

President Lloyd: Okay, the letter you received was for Certified Mail Clerk replacement and then the email is Misdemeanor Traffic Court Clerk. I’ll leave it up to Councilmembers if you want to have a motion for both of them at the same time or do them one at a time. Is there any questions for the Clerk? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: How do you handle the medical leave as far as picking up the workload, just for everyone’s benefit?

Susan Kirk: Well, you know, we may have people scheduled for vacation time because we just can’t, we just have to get the work done, so it does, you know, kind of messes up schedules once in a while. It’s just not easy to do and especially when you get down to where you’re going to have three off and that doesn’t include those who, you know, get sick with something else or take a vacation or a personal day, they’ve earned their time, they should be able to take it. But it causes an extremely bad hardship on some of the other employees having to give us maybe something that they had scheduled and because of what I just gave you, obviously, if I were an employee and I had a vacation scheduled, but my co-employee has something like this that they have to deal with, with a child, yeah, I’ll give up my vacation to help that person. So that’s what we’re looking at.

Susan Kirk: Not unless you want to give me another part-time person on top of what I have.

Councilmember Goebel: And the other question I have, which of the two positions you’re requesting today would you think is the most important?

Susan Kirk: Mike, this is the problem, you know, as far as importance goes, every one in my office is important, okay? They all have their jobs to do. One might be a little bit more difficult than the other, but they are all important.

Susan Kirk: Well, I’m not going to say one is more important than the other. All of this work has to be done and whether or not you deem it important, it has to be done. If the person that you deem isn’t as important as the other one doesn’t do that job, then the important one can’t get their job done because now they’ve got to pick up the one that you felt was not important.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I’ll rephrase that, obviously, they are important to you and I used maybe the wrong term, but which would your department have the most trouble doing without?

Susan Kirk: Both of them. It’s just, no matter what the job is, it takes time. Like I said, the certified clerk, she’s done already over 20,000, that’s just sending them out. It isn’t a matter of, oh gee, hit the button and everything just goes. All of this takes work. You have to sit down and enter each one and then when it comes back you have to process it that it was returned whether, you know, it was or was not returned. So I can’t, right now, as far as the difficulty of the job, it’s the time, we just don’t have the time to do this. And, I mean, Judge Pigman, I think, explained it very well. We’re just overloaded. I wish we weren’t, believe me, I wish we weren’t, but we are. And we can do it by cut (inaudible) having another part-time employee, I really don’t think we want to go there as far as a part-time employee not getting benefits. I don’t really think you want to go there. But if you want to, I’m ready for you.

Councilmember Goebel: Okay, and you’ve answered these questions very well (inaudible).

Councilmember Bassemier: Ms. Kirk, don’t you have to meet some kind of a state deadline on your work that’s...

Susan Kirk: Yes, Councilman Bassemier. Everything we do is time sensitive. Everything. When a case is filed, during the case, you know, just because we have 64,000 new cases, that doesn’t count how many times my staff has to go back and get in cases that date back ten years. And everything we do according to statute is time sensitive. I can’t think of anything other than ordering supplies that is not time sensitive.

Councilmember Goebel: So, basically, you are doing, you’re going to be minus five employees, is that correct, with the medical leave?

Susan Kirk: The two and now this one, that makes three that’s going – I’ve already got one off, --

Councilmember Goebel: You’ll have three on medical leave and you’re requesting to fill other spots. Is that correct? Five total?

Susan Kirk: I’m going to have three staff members, two are on their way on Family Medical Leave, as far as them replacing, it’s just the other people in the office, obviously, have to try to pick up those duties. You know, if nobody ever took a vacation or a sick day or a personal day or had any problems like this poor lady, we’d be good. But it doesn’t work that way. Like I said, they’ve earned that time and I cannot deny them – I mean, they’re good about making some switches. But to say well, I’m sorry, we’ve just got too much work, you can’t go. You can’t do it. You can’t do it.

Councilmember Raben: Really what we’re looking at is two, possibly three, soon on FMLA, and two employees that you’re already short, so we’re really talking five. If we didn’t approve any of these you’re going to be short five people in the coming months.

President Lloyd: Other questions? Do we want to take them both together or separate? Is there a motion to approve?

Councilmember Kiefer: Let’s move that we take them both together, and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Lloyd: Second Mr. Bassemier, motion Mr. Kiefer. Any other questions? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Goebel: You know, when the medical leave people come back then perhaps we can do without, but I’ll vote yes for the two to fill today.

Councilmember Kiefer: Because there’s going to be five people total and you have some missing, I can see where that’s a hardship, so I’m going to vote yes on these two. Thank you.

President Lloyd: I’ll vote yes, and that’s approved five to zero for both positions. Thank you.

Susan Kirk: Thank you. So I’ve got to come back when I replace somebody again, is that what you’re saying?

President Lloyd: Item number D, Sheriff request to fill five vacancies, and you have a letter from the Sheriff.

President Lloyd: Morning, Sheriff. I had sent you an email, just a question on how the annexation, I guess, to some extent, would reduce some of the over the road deputy duties and if you had factored that in or if you were looking at that, and that’s just within the big scheme of trying to hold our numbers level on employees.

Eric Williams: Yeah, absolutely, and I think it’s a very fair question. It’s something that was discussed during the annexation issues and with us on a regular basis. And to answer your question about how we monitor our patrol jurisdictions and how we divide people up, we monitor that all the time. I will tell you, though that the most recent annexation, really had a very small impact on the actual activities that we do in the calls for service. If you remember, the section that was annexed was primarily business, and so what it eliminated from us was some accident runs and some shoplifting runs. There were very few, if any, residents in that area. I thought I’d share a couple of numbers with you just looking back at calls for service, at the year ending 2008 between 2000, the Sheriff’s office had a 47% increase in dispatch activities over that period of time, ten years or so. In that same period of time, or eight years, in that same eight year period of time, we didn’t increase our staff load out on patrol or put new people out there. So I would tell you that we’re already under staffed out there and the annexation probably helped us to redeploy some people into the residential areas of the county that were probably seeing a little bit of a lack of service from us. I could tell you, the other dilemma that that annexation created for us was that it created, and I don’t know if peninsula is the right word, but it created a city peninsula out in that section of the county for us. The annexation goes to the county line from, basically, Lloyd to Morgan Avenue. Well, that still leaves that whole southeastern corner of the county that’s full of residents, Angel Mounds boat ramp area and the area that was hit by the tornado, that area, that we still have to provide patrol to, which was part of that patrol jurisdiction. So we’re still spending a lot of time traveling through that peninsula, for lack of a better word, to provide services to those people. Like I said, it had very little impact on us and I think the city would tell you that it increased their runs some, but they’ve been able to manage that with the addition of maybe one person to cover all three shifts. I don’t even know what they added, but I think their plan was to be able to handle that within, because it was all business community. I don’t know if that answers your questions about that.

President Lloyd: Well, and that’s true that the south Knight Township is what you’re talking about. It’s still county, I guess, south of Pollack Avenue, roughly. Mr. Goebel, question?

Councilmember Goebel: Sheriff, is there probably, it probably cannot be done with jurisdiction restrictions, but is there any way that the two law enforcement agencies can work out a deal so we don’t have to cross?

Eric Williams: I think anything is possible. You know, obviously, the city is in the county, so the Sheriff’s office has jurisdiction county-wide. And we have talked even during the consolidation meetings about some, if the option were approved through consolidation that both agencies are going to remain intact, that we at that point sit down and do some mutual aid agreements to shore up some of those lines to make our patrol jurisdictions much more contiguous with one another. Some examples of that that are already in place though, the Sheriff’s office, through mutual aid agreements with the Evansville Police department, we provide police services at Goebel Soccer Complex, Moutoux Park, Dogtown, Angel Mounds, which are actually city owned facilities, but because they are so far outside the city limits and we’re already patrolling those, it didn’t make sense for the city to have to dispatch cars those distances. So we’re already doing that in cooperation with the city. So, yeah, I would say that anything is possible and I don’t know that that’s a bad idea when this all kind of shakes itself out and we find out where all the lines are going to end up being.

Councilmember Goebel: I think that would be worth your while, too, and I know you’re way ahead of the game on this one anyway.

Eric Williams: Chief Hill and I have talked about it. Former Councilmembers have talked about it with us and we don’t disagree, it’s just very difficult to do at this time with all the transition that’s in the works and all the discussions that’s in the works, but we’re prepared to sit down and talk about that if it makes more sense.

Councilmember Raben: A few general comments. I’ve stated before that, you know, consolidation, what it does offer, and I think the Sheriff even mentioned this, that there’s a lot of areas outside the county that never saw a patrol car. And as he stated, a lot of subdivisions, I can think of one subdivision out in McCutchanville that’s got approximately 6 or 700 building site lots, I don’t know how many homes are in it today, but, you know, those are 15 - 20 mile per hour streets. It takes a while to cruise those streets. So I think there are some areas that people are finally seeing a presence that they didn’t normally get to see. So a little bit more of it probably still wouldn’t hurt. One important fact that you left out was the new high school on Highway 41, that, I’m sure, is going to stretch him a little further. But if you think of how big this county is, and it’s not the biggest by any stretch of the imagination, but, you know, if he has to pull somebody from I64 in the 41 area to the far southwest corner of the county, you know, even with all the bells and whistles and lights and buzzers, it still is probably 15 minutes travel time, bare minimum. So, and then we’ve got a lot of rail crossings within the county that even offer bigger dilemmas so I don’t, again, I don’t see that that consolidation or that annexation has any impact on his force. I mean, I think it just makes them a better force.

Eric Williams: And I think that’s resummerizing kind of what I said, and that it did have an impact on our actual calls for dispatch runs for services but it was fairly minute and they pretty much amounted to shoplifting runs and crashes on Burkhardt Road there. So we did see a reduction there, but what it has been able to do, it allows me to redeploy some resources and spend more time in the Keystones, the Cambridges, those new subdivisions out by the university. I think you also have to remember that University of Southern Indiana continues to grow and that’s in our patrol jurisdiction. We spend an increasingly larger amount of time in that area with the increase of students that are there. And as Councilman Raben mentioned, one of the biggest issues my office is getting ready to face is the new North High School located at Baseline and 41, which will be almost 2,000 students out in the county daily driving to and from (inaudible) that we didn’t have before out in the county, and that’s going to be a major change in how we operate in that area. So it did have an impact but I think it’s allowed us to serve the residents out in the county better.

Councilmember Kiefer: The County Clerk was in here, she was talking about her increase and her workload increase, the judge was in before her, he’s talking about his, I mean, per capita, how do we sit? I mean, are we in one of the worst crime capitals or, I mean, explain to me what’s going on?

Eric Williams: I can’t give you any empirical data to address that, but I will tell you that comparatively, we’re probably no worse off than other similar situated communities that are experiencing the same issues that everybody is seeing. I just spent two weekends ago with all the sheriffs from across the state and they’re all talking about the same issues, the lack of funds, the increase of work, but if I could provide just a little commentary, based on sitting here this morning listening to the judge, listening to the County Clerk and now listening to me and the increases we all are seeing, that is all part of the criminal justice system. And I think that further accentuates the idea that the criminal justice planning commission that we have here, that hasn’t been meeting regularly because we haven’t felt like there’s been much of a need, there really is a need because there is truly a domino effect. The busier my people are, the busier the city police become, the busier the Clerk becomes. The busier the Clerk becomes, the busier the judge becomes. The more active the judge becomes, the fuller the jail becomes. It’s a cycle and they all are so heavily dependent on one another that any decision that I make can affect all those. Any decision one of those people make can affect me and other entities. And that’s why it’s important all of us continue to communicate and let each other know what our offices are doing and how we’re impacting one another. The criminal justice planning commission does serve a purpose and there is a need to talk. I would tell you, there is a couple of things I wanted to add today while I had an opportunity on the floor, number one, just to let you know, we may be coming to you for some medical expense money. We’ve got an inmate right now that is probably going to be incredibly expensive to us, more so than we’ve dealt with recently. There’s not much I’m going to be able to do about it. We’re doing everything we can to curb those costs and hold them in line, but I have to provide those services. I will tell you that the jail right now is at, is as high as it’s been in a while. Last night at midnight we were at 567. This morning it was at 545 and that was primarily due to a large trip to prison we made during the night to move some people out to prison. Five of my eight housing units are now over capacity, so that includes the female unit and four of the male units are over capacity and the facility has been over capacity steadily for the last 45 days. It’s nothing new, but it’s not going down, so it’s something we’re going to have to continue to monitor and doing everything we can to keep in check. I don’t think it’s a huge problem for my staff to continue to survive, but those numbers are higher. One of the things that we’re seeing is that there is an increase in the number of short term people being sentenced to the facility from the local courts. They’re being sentenced to do time there and I can’t say that I blame the courts for doing what they’re doing because they’re seeing a frustration of people not appearing in court, not doing what they’re supposed to do and sometimes the only way to get their attention is to spend some time in the jail, but that causes an increase for us and we’re seeing that increase and the numbers are reflective of that.

President Lloyd: What is the rough averages of male and female population in the jail?

Eric Williams: I could tell you that, just to give you an idea of the, here’s the report from last night: there were 567 total prisoners, 69 of those were housed in the female unit, and there were 16 additional held in the housing or the booking and the medical unit. So 69, 70, 85 our of 567 for quick math.

Eric Williams: Those numbers are available on line. I post them on a fairly regular basis, you can get to those and hopefully, in the very near future, that will be a live report so you can click on it at any time and see those numbers on the fly, who is in jail, what they’re there for and numbers and how they’re breaking down to give everybody a little bit more access to those so they can make better decisions on who is staying and who is going.

Eric Williams: Well, I would say that we were at capacity basically the day the new jail opened up because at that point in time, we had almost double the number of inmates in house, out of house. We were paying over a million dollars a year those last couple of years to other facilities to house Vanderburgh County inmates. But, you know, this is not an opportunity to say I told you so, or this is what we said, but everybody that did an analysis of our facility said you need to be building about 700 beds when we built this one. We didn’t, and we’re doing a great job getting by with it. It’s meeting our needs today, it’s designed for future expansion should that ever come to us, but I don’t think this was any unexpected occurrence.

Councilmember Kiefer: Sheriff, I know those numbers are posted you just mentioned on the website, but, I mean, is a lot of this activity, is it sex crime related, drug related, both, I mean, violent crimes, I mean, what kind of criminal activity are we talking about here?

Eric Williams: We run the gamut. As a county jail, we get it all and that’s one of the difficulties of running a county level jail. We see everybody from the public intoxication arrestee to the homicide murderer, we’ve got them all. I could tell you, though, that generally, we see about 85% of our population is there for some addiction related reason. It doesn’t mean they’re there for a drug charge, but the charge they’re there for had some affiliation or has some reason for being there because of some kind of addiction, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, whatever. One of the most common crimes and it’s not really a crime in itself, but we have a lot of people that churn through our facility because they’re there for failure to appear. They have thumbed their nose at the court system and said, you know, they didn’t show up when the judge ordered them to be there, the judge issues a warrant for their arrest, so their new charge is failure to appear while their original charge may have been misdemeanor theft or conversion or PI, disorderly, you know, a minor offense, but they’re churning through the system and they’re coming back through, and really, the most costly event that occurs in the jail is booking a new prisoner. That’s the most labor intensive, it’s the most costly event that occurs. So as our bookings continue to rise, our costs continue to rise, and right now, we’re on track to break all our records for number of bookings this year.

Councilmember Goebel: I think that’s an interesting point, 85% due to some type of addiction and –

Councilmember Goebel: And you work mainly on housing and not on working on curing addictions, right?

Eric Williams: Yeah, we have no facilities, no capabilities, no staff on hand at the jail to deal with those kinds of issues. I think it’s important to remember as we churn those numbers through the jail, the average length of stay in our facility still hovers just a little over 24 hours. Of the 12,000 we anticipate booking this year, give or take a few, that average length of stay will be just a hair over 25 hours, so they churn through the system so there’s not a lot of time there. Now we have a significant portion that stays longer periods of times and if financial times were different and I felt comfortable asking you for it, I’d be up here asking for a detention center case manager. And their role would be something to the effect of to start working with these people. And we’re not going to make a huge change while they’re there, but to get them on track with the local providers to get a plan in place and to get the attention of the other resources that are out there to get them on track for recovery. You know, we’re able to do a lot more of that in the community corrections complex because we have them there for extended periods of time and through the DOC grant, we have those kinds of people that can make those connections.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I don’t think we want to go there today, but your gut feeling, will this particular number of units that we have in the jail suffice for down the road a pretty good distance or are we going to have to out source again if we don’t do something else?

Eric Williams: You know, we were very, very fortunate in the design of this facility to give the Sheriff’s office a lot of latitude in how it was put together, and we kept a lot of that in mind. We’re going to be capable of housing space-wise people, staff might be able to keep up, but the space, we should be able to keep up with these numbers and a few more yet. Now it all depends on, you know, if the Civil Liberties Union intervenes, if we get sued again, but right now I think that any basis they would have for a lawsuit don’t exist because we are providing for them, they’re safe, they’re secure, they’re getting food, you know, we’re taking care of their needs, we just don’t have a regular bed for them to sleep in sometimes and we have to put them on what we call a sled bed, which looks like a flat bottom canoe turned upside down on the floor. So, you know, I couldn’t tell you that. I will tell you that I personally wish I had another few housing units out there so that I have a lot more flexibility in being able to house inmates safely, being able to do some classifications better and keeping certain inmates away from other ones. It’s a pretty well known statistic that if you put a couple decent, and I know that this is a stretch, but inmates in there that are not very problematic with one problem person, that problem person will impact the others and their behavior and their future dramatically. And that’s why classification is so important inside a facility like ours. And we’ve really got our hands tied right now, because we’ve got no open space. The other opportunity that’s out there for us if we had the space, is I could be housing federal inmates and state inmates, particularly female inmates for the state and other jurisdictions, paying the bills for ourselves and as we needed the space, I’d kick them out and move on. But we’re not there yet. The facility is designed for expansion should that ever come. Right now, I’m not advocating that but I think we’re eventually going to have to talk about it unless there’s a dramatic change of direction in the criminal justice system as a whole here.

Councilmember Bassemier: Sheriff, change the subject a little bit, talk about the old jail (inaudible – microphone not turned on) I was talking to Dave Rector and he’s trying to set us up a meeting here in the near future and I was kind of kicking an idea around with him. I know there’s a lot of money sent out of town for juveniles, and I was just wondering, (inaudible) this a regional juvenile detention center, is that a possibility in your mind?

Eric Williams: Well, I think anything is possible and I know when we were talking about moving to the facility out on Harlan Avenue, one of the concepts was to turn the existing jail into juvenile detention, move juvenile courts into the ground floor and put basically a juvenile center over there. I know the need exists, whether it’s possible or not, I think anything is possible, we’d need to get a lot of players to the table to discuss that. But it seems like it would be viable space. You know, one of our concerns and I thought maybe you were headed down the path of reusing it as a jail, you know, one of the concerns we have for that would be that you’d have so much duplication of efforts: you have two kitchens now, two kitchen staffs, you have supervisor staffs in two locations, you have medical staffs in two locations, so to use that as an ongoing jail facility, I don’t know. Now the original campus plan for the current jail had space set aside for a juvenile facility. Now, with that money, if we constructed a juvenile facility we would be able to share resources from the jail like we do community corrections as far as kitchen services, (inaudible) and those things, so you weren’t duplicating a lot of those things. But to answer your question, yes, I think it’s possible and it is feasible.

Councilmember Bassemier: And the reason why I said that, we’re getting – we’re paying over half a million dollars right now on an empty building, and I think they’re trying to get some people in there but with no luck, --

Eric Williams: Juveniles are much more expensive to house than adults because of the state’s requirements for different kinds of programming that’s required for juveniles as opposed to adults.

Councilmember Bassemier: (Inaudible) – we’re paying way up there right now to send juveniles out of town.

Eric Williams: I’m not interested in getting in the juvenile housing business, but if you’d like my attendance, I’d be happy to be there.

Councilmember Raben: That has changed, though, Ed, we’re not spending the money we used to. The state is picking the tab up on that now. We’ll probably spend 250,000 this year where we used to spend a million and a half or two million dollars.

President Lloyd: Well, and when you look at the increases, and since 2000, the county population, we’ve maybe increased 3 or 4,000 people and I don’t think that’s all criminals that came here, but we’ve got more laws, the legislature passes more laws, I don’t know that they sunset very many, so that’s something, I guess, Mr. Goebel can look into if he’s successful in his venture.

Councilmember Bassemier: That’s one reason why I brought it up, I know we’re not paying as much as we did in the past, and (inaudible) tri-state or whatever, regional, rather, we can bring money in and help offset other costs.

President Lloyd: We’ve had a wide-ranging discussion, I guess we’ll move back to this letter. The process servers, those are positions that constantly turn over on part-time?

Eric Williams: Basically, we used to have ten line items for part-time process servers and what we did was, a few budgets ago, converted that to one line item that I paid all those people out of so there was no need to have a set number. We kind of always hovered around ten, right now I believe we’ve got six that are serving all the papers out in the county. We’ve let some of them go through attrition, trying to see where we were, what we could get by with, what we could have the deputies do, we’re having some of the deputies deliver the papers in their districts as opposed to them while they’re out driving around anyways, why not deliver a paper, so we’re doing some of that, but what we’re finding is that we peaked out on the number of hours that we’re giving those part-timers, because most of them are retirees and they’re not capable of working (inaudible) and I’m not asking for new funds, I’m just asking for the latitude to put a few more people in there to divide the hours up. And much as Clerk Kirk said and Judge Pigman said, as their workload goes up, all those people are getting papers on the street, you know, we’re serving papers to those people.

President Lloyd: Okay. Any questions from Council or does anybody want to make a motion to approve either all at the same time or do you want to break it up?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Kiefer, second Mr. Goebel. Any other questions? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes. Motion passes five to zero. Thank you, Sheriff. Very informative.

Eric Williams: Thank you, I appreciate it. And the other thing I was going to comment, and I know most of you, several of you were there periodically, but the county fair was last week, was very successful, we had very little incidents out there. We had a good representation of the office there and received several comments. I’m just glad it was last week, and I wouldn’t have said that last week until this week got here, but I’m glad it was last week and not this week.

President Lloyd: Okay, we’ll move on to travel requests, item E, I’ll turn that over to Mr. Raben as finance stand in.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, it looks like we have the Treasurer, let me find my list here. I wasn’t ready for handling all these. Okay, the Health department has three travel requests, the County Assessor has one, the County Clerk has two and the Treasurer has one, along with Legal Aid. I don’t have any questions with – it looks like the ones – there’s three of them that are state called. I really have no questions with the state called meetings, I don’t know if anybody has any questions on the non-state called meetings.

Councilmember Goebel: Can a couple of these travel together instead of paying mileage?

President Lloyd: Right. I guess the County Assessor, we’ve got mileage for two individuals: 600 miles to Kokomo.

President Lloyd: Okay, so we could knock the mileage off one of those. I mean, it’s a state called meeting in Kokomo, 500 miles.

Councilmember Goebel: Is that not the same situation with the County Clerk...I have two different forms.

President Lloyd: Mrs. Deig indicated they did travel together. So one of those mileages need to be cut in half or knocked off. Okay, the two that went to the Child Support Conference traveled together, oh, and there is a difference in cost on that.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, they’re both giving mileage. If they traveled together – am I reading this incorrectly? This second page?

President Lloyd: It looks like they both received $120 for mileage, so one of those needs to be knocked off. Excuse us while we get this organized.

Councilmember Goebel: We’ve got two different forms. As long as they both don’t get the mileage, we can work that out, I guess. And I think Sarah said that’s the way it happened.

President Lloyd: I mean, we could take a motion for all of these, delete the one duplicate travel request or is the –

Councilmember Goebel: I think Sarah says there is not a duplicate on the mileage.

Councilmember Raben: There’s an old form. The request is for the two people to ride together.

Councilmember Raben: So with that I’ll move that those changes be made to the record, I’ll move that we approve all travel requests, and after I get a second, I would like to make one more statement.

President Lloyd: Okay, Mr. Raben, approve all except for the County Assessor, County Clerk, that they would combine those trips and go together. Is there a second?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Raben, second Mr. Goebel. Any discussion? Jim?

Councilmember Raben: I hate to keep harping on Health department requests for travel, but I think that has a little bit to do with their need for keeping a full staff and, you know, looking here, they’ve got five people now that’s requested travel for – there is only a fee for one of them, but none of them are actual state-called meetings, so you know, this is every month you have a great number of employees out of that department off for training. And I think –

Councilmember Raben: Yes. So, you know, I think that’s a lot of their staffing issues, you know, if you’ve got five or six people out at a time, you know, every couple of weeks, yeah, they’re going to be short on staff. So I think they need to send as few a people as possible and hopefully these people, when they come back, can instruct or brief others within the department. But it does seem like a lot.

Councilmember Bassemier: Jim, aren’t some of these trips, they’re mandatory, they have to have this training? I mean, they’re required to have it, in service training, they’re required to?

Councilmember Raben: If they’re state called meetings, yes, but I think if they’re not state called, it’s at the discretion of the health officer whether or not the employees go. So, you know, again, training is great. I mean, it makes us all better at what we do, but I think, you know, they may need to be a little more careful about sending out two and three people to the same conference. You know, I think one person can take good notes and come back and tell others, you know, within their department or within that office, you know, what it was all about. So that’s just my comments.

Councilmember Goebel: I still don’t – I can’t make sense out of the County Clerk’s. One individual is driving and getting the mileage, $141, this is a very minor amount, but the other individual is not driving, same conference, $135. Am I reading that correctly? I take it back. She is picking up the parking and the hotel room, and the other person is picking up the mileage. Now I see, thank you. I’m sorry.

President Lloyd: Okay, I believe that’s what the motion was for. Any other questions?

Councilmember Kiefer: If people are going to these conferences and say the activities don’t start until 10:30, I guess, you know, that would be 9:30 Evansville time, if they were going up to Indy, so it would probably be too much to ask them to try to drive up that same day? You know, because you’ve got lodging costs for each individual. Is there a possibility that we could eliminate the lodging and have them drive up the same morning if activities don’t start until 10:30? Just a question.

President Lloyd: Well, they’d have to leave at 6:00 or 5:30 a.m., so I guess that’s a call for that office or that officeholder. But, you’re welcome to question any of that.

Councilmember Goebel: The Clerk’s people are staying in the same room, are they not, so that’s a pretty good deal.

President Lloyd: Okay, any other questions? All those in favor signify by saying aye.

President Lloyd: Nine D, Rick Davis, we had that report last week, very thorough report on cost savings related to the printing. So we’ll go to item ten, amendments to salary ordinance. Mr. Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, first I move we amend salary line 1050-1531 Civilian Shift Differential as previously adopted, it’s an additional $2,200. Salary line 1050-0021 Sergeant setting the annual salary in at $54,597. This correction is due to incorrect date in the salary ordinance. Salary line 1050-0029 Sergeant setting in the annual salary at $53,063. 1050-0035 Deputy Sheriff setting the annual salary at $44,016. 1050-0057 Deputy Sheriff setting the annual salary at $44,499. 1050-0066 Deputy Sheriff setting the annual salary at $44,258. 1050-0099 Deputy Sheriff at $43,989. 1050-0236 setting the annual salary at $34,159. I also move we amend salary ordinance to approve replacing four part-time Process Servers at the rate of $9.5730 per hour as per the 2010 salary ordinance. I also move that we amend salary ordinance to approve hiring of one new Deputy Sheriff at $43,222. Health Department, we have two line items, 2134-1170 to approve replacing the Secretary/Bookkeeper. This is a COMOT V position with a starting salary of $22,964. After six months that would go to $24,057. Salary line 2137-1990, approve replacing the part-time extra help to perform duties as a LHMF Bookkeeper/Assistant to the Finance Officer. The part-time rate will be set at $11.9759 per hour. And then County Clerk, amend salary ordinance to approve line item 1010-1460. This is replacing the Circuit/Superior Certified Mail Clerk. This is a COMOT IV position with a starting salary of $21,120. After six months that would go to $22,119. The current employee is retiring in September. And then salary line 1010-1540 replacing the Misdemeanor Traffic Ticket Clerk. This is a COMOT IV position with a starting salary of $21,120. After six months, that would go to $22,119. This employee is transferring to another position within the court system. Superior Court, 1370-1780 approve replacing the Misdemeanor Probation Department Secretary. This is a COMOT IV position. The employee being considered to fill this position is a COMOT IV, Step 3, with an annual salary of $30,338, and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Lloyd: Motion Mr. Raben on the salary ordinance amendments. Second Mr. Goebel. Any discussion? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Move on to item number eleven, public comment. The public may address the Council. We’ve got Mr. Bill McKeon, I believe.

Bill McKeon: 2611 Deerfield Drive, Evansville. I don’t know if you’re cognizant of it or if this is within your jurisdiction, but it’s my understanding that there is no county ordinance governing the decibel readings within the confines of this county. And we have a new airport extension going on. I’ve already spoke to the County Commissioners, I’ve spoke to the mayor and I seem to be getting nowhere. The only person that’s been very effective in helping is Lloyd Winnecke of the County Commissioners office. And I just wanted to know if you people, if it’s within your jurisdiction to establish an ordinance indicating what the decibel reading should be. Right now, according to the EPA, the United States government, it’s a local community responsibility. And as far as, I did have the local EPA gentleman out, and he got readings of 75 and 72 for two particular air flights coming in to this airport. And I don’t know, I’m frustrated and I need your help and I need someone’s help, not only myself, but the community out there in the Malibu Park. And I was wondering if this is the right approach coming to you people or should I seek, or is this the right (inaudible) or where should I go?

President Lloyd: Let me just give you a couple of observations. For a county ordinance, the Commissioners would have to write that and pass that on the noise. Now, the city does have a noise ordinance. Would – you’re saying no?

Bill McKeon: They have one for automobiles, but they have none for air pollution for aircraft. They do have, like I said, I’ve researched that. In fact, before I came to the meeting, thanks to this young lady over here, which I’m very grateful, she sent me down to the office and I did get the ordinance, it refers to vehicles.

President Lloyd: Okay, and then you said there was like a decibel reading, 75 and 72, how is that related to health? I mean, are those very high or –

Bill McKeon: Well, 70 is supposed to be, I believe, the correct one, and within the EPA it mentions 55 outdoors and 45 indoors. It does affect your health and just for clarification, there has been, and California and the Pittsburgh airports have been fined because they violated it, and then the people responsible, which would be here, in this case, the Evansville board, or the airport – I’m sorry –

Bill McKeon: Airport Authority, they would be responsible for any lawsuits that are instituted, and we’re not going that far, and just, like I said, we’re just ordinary citizens living in the county. We don’t complain, we’re satisfied with what we’ve got. We get good service and the Sheriff is here, and we have the Sheriff coming through once in a while, and we’re just a happy community out there. And yet, all of the sudden this airport comes in and they claim one minute it’s the FAA ruling, and then they change and then, if you listen to those people, their stories change every week. And you get no satisfaction. I’ve met with the Airport Authority twice, I met with the county, like I say, twice. I met with the mayor and it’s just frustrating.

President Lloyd: You know, well, on the airport, it is in the city, the city annexed the airport, so they would fall under the current noise ordinance, but I guess you have airplanes coming in, they’re flying through the county to get to the city, so they’re making, I guess, if they’re overly loud, that’s a violation in the county. So, but I guess City Council would be another place, and I don’t know if you’ve talked to them, where they would try to modify a current noise ordinance.

Bill McKeon: I intend to, Mr. Lloyd. I intend to go to theirs as well. I’m going to use every means possible to see where I can get satisfaction.

President Lloyd: Right, I mean, I’m sympathetic to that because I know they’re changing their flight patterns due to the expansion.

Bill McKeon: Yeah, what I don’t understand, to be honest with you, is they’re taking 2,400 and some feet from the northeast and moving it – or from the south – and moving it to the northeast. Originally, we were told that what they were doing was they were extending it because they needed a buffer zone because of some aircraft exceeded the runway at Chicago Midway Airport, that they needed a thousand foot extension so that if the plane overshot the runway, it would more or less go into a beach type sand, which would slow it down and it wouldn’t say, run into Oak Hill Road. But then later, it comes out that they are just moving 2,400 feet from one end of the runway to the other, which doesn’t make any sense. And that particular case moves it right into our backyards. And I know the County Surveyor has been before the Commissioners as well as I and, of course, he’s more effective than I because he’s liable to be the luggage man after a while. The planes are going to be right next to his door, so he could take the luggage out of the planes.

President Lloyd: We do have an airport expert here, Mr. Bassemier. I don’t know if there’s anything you wanted to add, Ed?

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, I just, Sir, I assume you’ve been to those meetings they’ve had in the past on the expansion. Why don’t you contact Bob Hanneken, he’s with R.W. Armstrong, you probably talked with him. You’re kind of laughing, he’s the expert in that field, so –

Councilmember Bassemier: – and I know he knows all the regulations, the FAA, city ordinances, county ordinances, and I understand that we’re, or they’re not breaking any regulations, so I’d contact him.

Bill McKeon: Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Bassemier. I mean, we’ve met with him and, of course, you know, when you ask him a question, he’s from – representing an Indianapolis firm and most of the people they’ve sent down is from Indianapolis. And when you ask him a question, they have no relevance of what the heck is going on in this community. And he’s one of the ones that changes from day to day. And when you question him, what they present is a proposal, and you’ll say this is that. And he’ll say, well, it’s only a proposal. This is not concrete. And you get no satisfaction from that gentleman. So I’d be wasting my time. I’ve already met with him, and let me put it this way, he’s oil and I’m water, and we don’t mix.

Councilmember Bassemier: And the reason why they use that firm is because of the expert in the field. They did have a local firm but they’ve used them in the past and he’s made sure we’ve passed all the regulations with the FAA and I have a lot of confidence in him, so I’m sorry you couldn’t get anywhere with him, but –

Bill McKeon: Well, again, if we got honest answers, I might have faith in him. But again, you know, when you’re told – to give you an example, I had a fight with the Indiana DOT about a road, 57, and this extension is going to interfere with that. And when you ask him, he’ll say, well, that’s not my problem. That’s the DOT. Well, the DOT is not extending the airport, it’s his project. At least he could tell us what they’re going to do, but he’ll say I don’t know. And one minute they’re going to put a berm up with trees. Well, now they’re not. And one minute they’re going to do this, and now they’re not, so how do you get satisfaction from a gentleman that changes his stories in midstream?

Bill McKeon: Well, then, that’s why I say, I don’t have faith in that gentleman.

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, you’ll have to talk to them. I’m just in charge of security, and so –

Bill McKeon: Right. I’ve talked to them, okay, and I’ve talked to Mr. Working on several occasions and he’s resigning.

President Lloyd: But I don’t think there’s any connection between you talking to him and him resigning. I think he’s just resigning.

Councilmember Bassemier: It don’t sound like it helped you at all, but maybe it’s –

President Lloyd: You know, anyway if you could get the noise ordinance, the current noise ordinance from the city, then maybe you can ask the City Council to make modifications or you can take that to the Commissioners.

Bill McKeon: I will, and I appreciate you listening and all of you and, at least I’ve gotten some information that I should go to the city and I’ll do so. I thank you very kindly for your time and for your input.

President Lloyd: Any other questions from Council? Any other member of the public want to address the Council? Mr. Williams, the Sheriff.

Eric Williams: I’ve been emailing back and forth with my bookkeeper hoping to be able to tell you this when I presented the first time, but just to let you know to end on a positive note, because of the hiring freeze and the slow down in doing this and some changes in our hiring practices, so far this year, we’ve got about $240,000 in our personnel line items surplus that will come back at the end of the year provided nothing changes. So just the slow down has created an impact. So on a positive note, there will be that kind of savings.

Eric Williams: But I might need to spend that on some kind of device to write tickets to the airplanes. I may need a jet or something.

President Lloyd: Okay, great, that’s good news. Thank you, Sheriff. Any other comments, public, any other comments from Council? Motion to adjourn?

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 9:50 a.m.)