The Vanderburgh County Council held a special meeting on the 6th day of February, 2009 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex to consider and take action upon a resolution concerning House Bill 1588. The meeting was called to order at 3:35 p.m. by County Council President Tom Shetler, Jr.

President Shetler: Good afternoon, and welcome to the Vanderburgh County Council special meeting. If we could call the roll please.

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

President Shetler: There being five members present we have a quorum and we’ll begin the meeting. At this time I’d like to ask Councilman Bassemier if you would lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please.

President Shetler: Okay, thank you. First of all let me just lay out just a little bit of ground rules here because it is a special meeting that is dedicated only to the resolution for the County Council concerning the Indiana General Assembly House Bill 1588 and the Vanderburgh County Innkeepers Tax and Vanderburgh County Food & Beverage Tax. In other words, basically, what I’m saying is, this body does not make the decision on the merits of the stadium one way or the other. That is not the job of the County Council in any way, shape or form. That is up to the mayor and the City Council. So I do want to make that clear and so any kind of, I guess, debate or points that you would like to make, we’d like to keep them strictly to what we are discussing today, which is this resolution endorsing the Innkeepers Tax and the Food & Beverage Tax, as it currently is. I do want to also try to restrict if we can, everybody’s comments to just two minutes so that we don’t get into a lengthy debate on that. And please, not to be repetitive, if someone has already made the comments, ditto is fine. That will work sufficiently for us, I think, today. Again, I want to stress that our job is to protect the treasury of Vanderburgh County. I think we had a couple of Councilmen that have worked overtime on this. In fact, most of this whole body has, but I know particularly finance chairman, Jim Raben and Russ Lloyd have put a lot of time in doing their due diligence and to make sure that the county’s treasury is protected and I would also like to give a big pat on the back to our counselor, Jeff Ahlers, for all the work he’s put into it. So at this time, it’s usually customary to get things rolling, if somebody has a motion for approval, the chair would accept that.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Mr. President, I’ll move approval for the resolution of the Vanderburgh County Council concerning the Indiana General Assembly House Bill 1588 and the Vanderburgh County Innkeepers Tax and the Vanderburgh County Food & Beverage Tax resolution.

President Shetler: I have a motion and a second. Do we have any questions about the resolution among ourselves first? We’ve had different copies and different variations that we’ve look at over the last couple of days, I know, and you’ve just gotten the latest version very recently. Mine was hot. So if anybody has any questions about it. If not, --

Councilmember Kiefer: Maybe we can note that Councilman Russ Lloyd, Jr. just entered the chambers.

President Shetler: Does anybody have any comments? I guess first, anybody that is here to speak in favor of the resolution? Yes, Mayor?

Jonathan Weinzapfel: Mr. Chairman, members of the County Council, I don’t make it a habit of coming to County Council meetings. Frankly, this is the first time I’ve been invited, so I appreciate the opportunity to speak in favor of this resolution. I want to applaud the work of Councilman Raben. We have had numerous conversations over the last two weeks about this issue. Both of us are interested in making sure that the city was protected and that the county was protected, and that we approve and support a bill that’s in the best interests of our community. And through his hard work and a lot of elbow grease, maybe, I think we’ve got an agreement that makes sense for everybody. So I just wanted to thank Councilman Raben for all of his work and urge your adoption of the resolution. And I’d be happy to answer any questions about this.

President Shetler: Okay, does anybody else have any comments for the resolution? Yes.

Bruce Griffin: Just fifty words but it’s almost in response to the media reports I’ve been seeing the last couple of days. I felt like I had to and it’s going to sound kind of negative.

President Shetler: Excuse me, Mr. Griffin, I need you, for the record, to put your name and address into the –

Bruce Griffin: Bruce Griffin at 4100 Court Street here in the city. It’s going to start out negative, but it’s pretty positive overall. I’m in support of this resolution. In response to those media reports I’m just going to ask that you please disregard the senseless ramblings of the chronic malcontents whose brains and mouths are hopelessly stuck on autopilot in the No position. Those people that say no to everything and anything that comes along. That’s what I’m responding to there. Secondly, adopt this resolution in support of the Food & Beverage Tax amendment and let’s move forward, move the process forward toward the groundbreaking of our new downtown Evansville arena. Thank you.

President Shetler: Thank you, Mr. Griffin. Alright, anybody else in support of that who wishes to speak? If not, we’ll take remonstrators. Remonstrators? Again, if we could keep it to two minutes or less, we would greatly appreciate it. And also, keeping your remarks basically strictly to the resolution as it is stated.

Rodney Witherspoon: I’m Rodney Witherspoon. I live in the county at 8990 Will Place. First of all I’d like to say that I will not disparage the people who are in favor of this amendment as the one gentleman has seen favor to disparage the people who may not be in favor of it, but I think it is absolutely a travesty the way this is being handled as far as the lack of public input. I believe your attorney just handed out the resolution, the final copy of the resolution. The public has not had a chance to see this or discuss it. I don’t believe that the figures that the Mayor was given as far as the amount of revenue that will be available through the Food & Beverage Tax is going to be there. I think you all know it’s not going to be there. Jim, you have a business, you know what’s happened to your business. Everyone of you who has opened up your statements of your financial investments, you know what those look like. And yet, you’re all willing to put your brain on hold and just – I don’t know what you’re doing, hoping against hope that this money will be there in the future. That is not the way to run government. So we’re not getting any (inaudible) had to sit back and watch as the County Commissioners basically approved a resolution where the public had no input there. Now we’re in Council and you people are doing the same thing. You’re poised to approve this resolution with no public input here. I don’t know if you people really believe in representative government in this county, and I’m ashamed of all of you.

President Shetler: I do want to point out that one of the things that we looked at very closely is how much money that we have retained in the Food & Beverage, our balance in that account today is approximately three million dollars. We also have a depreciation allowance that is approximately around three million dollars. We’ve asked Mr. Rector if he would please put together for us the cost that we might look at over the next 11 to 12 years. He’s actually run that all the way up to the year 2020 with a professional firm that came in and did this. I think it was within the last six months, and the figure for that is around four million dollars. So when you are looking at expenses that may amount to four million dollars with a balance of about six million dollars to work with on that, I think the Council, that’s what I was saying early on, that we’ve been very prudent on making sure that the County treasury has been protected here and that we have not – we’re not dipping in and getting into our resources in any way. So I do want to point that out. Other remonstrators? Yes, Ma’am?

Councilmember Lloyd: While we’re waiting, I don’t know if anybody had mentioned Councilmember Goebel, he did return my call and left me a message. He’s in Indianapolis and he couldn’t make it back but the resolution copy that he was able to see, he said he was in support of. But anyway, he won’t be here today.

Councilmember Kiefer: Just so the public understands, a resolution is not a binding document that the County Council – you know, it’s a recommendation to the state legislature. The state legislature are the ones that have the authority to pass this House Bill 1588 and so, you know, we could recommend all sorts of things and they could still do what they want to do. So don’t feel like that you’re unrepresented because there’s multiple layers of people that are involved in this project and this proposal here.

President Shetler: Alright, thank you. I do want to point out that we’re trying to keep our points to two minutes. This body does not decide the merits of the stadium. We only decide on this resolution which is geared towards the Innkeepers Tax and the Food & Beverage Tax.

Frankie Niedhammer: I’m Frankie Niedhammer and I live on Route 17, Evansville, Indiana. I’m president of the Vanderburgh County Taxpayers Association. I do appreciate that you are having this hearing and that you, in my organization’s consideration, feel that this is the way it should be done where you hear people and explain things to them. My concern is that this gives the impression that we’re willing to turn over to the city, county monies. And in a way, it sort of leads to consolidation of government. And the county, which is another question, giving the inference that that is agreeable to the county, concerns me. I don’t think we should be giving money to the city for a project that is solely the dream of the Mayor. This is the County Council and represents the county, the same way the County Commissioners should represent the county, and at least give the people in the county an opportunity to make their thoughts on the subject heard. Whether we have a stadium or not is another issue. The county, with the problems we are going to be having and are beginning to see because of the economic situation, will probably need every penny they can get. And if there should by accident be something left over from the Centre out of the Food & Beverage Tax, it would be nice if it came back to the county so we would have some kind of additional funding to support the changes that are going on, like our roads because of the increased population in the county, they’re beating up the roads around my place. The increases in welfare costs, there are a lot of things that have changed out in the county because of the housing that has popped up. And that money would help if there were any left over. But my main concern is the inference that the county would say, oh, whatever the city wants is fine. And if you want to consolidate us and reduce, streamline all of the offices, great, we’ll just all be a city and that’s not the way it should be. And I would just as soon this wasn’t approved so that image wasn’t given. If there are that many layers, then they’ll manage to do it without this support for the Mayor. Thank you.

President Shetler: Your points are well taken and I do want to point out, though, to you that the statute that’s already in place, there’s nothing that’s going to be added to it, there’s no new taxes being added to it. It’s the difference between what is paid out and the money can only be used for the Centre at the present time. It can’t be used for roads and streets, for example.

Frankie Niedhammer: The way I understood, it could be used for the Centre, and if there were monies in addition to what the Centre needed, it reverted to the county. That’s my understanding.

President Shetler: No, I think that goes into basically either, like a repair fund if you will, but it stays within that fund. And I pointed out, I think, right before you had walked in, that fund currently has between, well, there is a depreciation allowance right now that has about three million dollars in it and there is a Food & Beverage balance that has about three million surplus in it, I’m rounding numbers off here, and we’ve projected the cost out for the next eleven – twelve years of repairs and maintenance that would be necessary on the building to be about four million dollars.

President Shetler: So that leaves us a balance of about two million dollars, and that’s the point that I was making, that I think we are being good stewards of the county’s treasury in that we are ensuring that there’s going to be surplus and not a deficit even after twelve years. The other point is that there will be no new taxes, that the city will basically be gaining off of it the amount of money right now, I think we have a debt service of about two and a half million dollars, 2.6 and this is bringing in about three and a half a year?

President Shetler: So it’s about a million dollars the first year or two that the city would get the difference of. After that, it’s going to keep going downward. The next year about eight because our debt service increases up until the year 2016?

President Shetler: So anyway, and by that time, that three point six debt service will be about equal to the amount of money that we’re receiving in. So there aren’t any new taxes and we’re well aware exactly what you’re saying, trying to make sure that we don’t use up the county’s treasury.

Frankie Niedhammer: Well, the other thing is, the idea of money going to the arena because the arena is a city project and – if it happens. And I’m not real in favor of it myself, part of it is the location, but we won’t get into that because that’s not today.

President Shetler: Any other remonstrators, any other – seeing none, any other comments from Council? Questions?

Councilman Sutton: I was just going to note that even depending on what our action is today, the House Bill that’s introduced by Representative Dennis Avery will be heard next Tuesday for those who want to continue to follow the progression of this particular measure.

Councilmember Lloyd: I’d just like to briefly point out that we were also – I mean, I think as County Councilmembers, we were – it’s our charge to look out for the best interests of the county and I feel that in these negotiations with the city, that we tried to do that and I feel that we came out with an excellent compromise. And what the Commissioners passed, this is radically different if anybody looked at the Commissioners’ resolution. And then, I guess, President Shetler, you had discussed the mechanics of this, if it passes or fails going forward, but I vote yes.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’d like to echo Councilman Lloyd’s comments because I think this really protects us on the debt service plus on the capital reserve in case there’s problems that we’d need to have money set aside, and I think it does a good job at protecting us in that area, so I vote yes.

President Shetler: I vote yes. There being six ayes and no nays, the motion carries.

President Shetler: I would like to express my gratitude for everybody showing up today and expressing your opinions. And again, as Councilman Sutton pointed out, the hearing at the State Legislature will be next Tuesday. Is that in the morning or afternoon? Royce, do you know?

Councilman Sutton: I don’t have a time, but I know it’s in room 156B, it’s the meeting of local government –

President Shetler: 9:30 in the morning, and that will be Indianapolis time. They’re one hour ahead of us, so keep that in mind. Alright, there being no other business, a motion for adjournment would be in order.

Councilmember Lloyd: Real quick, then we would give, pass this along to the Commissioners and the City Council whether they would be willing to adopt in the same form or their prescribed form, maybe Mr. Ahlers can alert us on that.

Jeff Ahlers: I assume what we’ll do, I don’t know whether Council President wants to coordinate with the presidents of the other bodies whether all the resolutions will be sent up together or whether each body will send them and I’d suggest, I think Ms. Deig may have a list. I don’t know if we want to send it to multiple – I’d say to all of the State Representatives from our area, but whether or not we send it to the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President and such, I –

Marilee Fowler: I was in contact with Representative Avery and he wanted – I’m Marilee Fowler with the Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau, and our board, too, has a resolution. It’s just primarily for the Innkeepers Tax for the Centre continuation, so I have that resolution. I do have a copy of the County Commissioner’s. Either the Mayor or I can take yours as well, and we needed twelve copies to pass out to everybody on the committee on Tuesday morning.

Jeff Ahlers: I will tell you that I think you might look, but if it’s the resolution that you passed, I think I’ve got as an exhibit to this, but you may want to have yours separate as well so that it stands out.

Marilee Fowler: Well, that way we’ll have something else to show full support, but that’s fine, however you’d like to do it.

Councilman Sutton: Just do want to – since the resolutions that the respective bodies have passed are somewhat different but they all speak to the same spirit of what they’re willing to do, I think ours is probably a little bit more detailed, a little bit more thorough, just trying to make sure that as that information is presented before that House committee, how they can consider that. Is there going to be someone here locally that’s going to speak to maybe the differences between the three but recognizing that the three are in support of the recommendation?

President Shetler: I think that we have spoken to Ms. Suzanne Crouch and also to Venetta Becker on that issue and I think they recognize the fact that we have our own parochial interest involved here and that our responsibility and duty is merely fiscal and watching over the treasury. And they understand that, and that’s why ours is really, I think, geared towards that as opposed to the others who are looking after other interests that they had in mind. So I think that’s clear in the work that Councilman Lloyd and Councilman Raben put into this, that we were looking after the interests of the county. And I think they’ll take that into perspective as it is.

Councilman Sutton: I mean, that’s exactly what I want to make sure that it’s very clear, we don’t want to send a mixed signal or message up there because obviously they can’t clearly understand what we’re trying to communicate and our interests are different but I think ultimately what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to accomplish the same thing. So in terms of speaking on this, I’m supposing that Representative Avery will present which version or all three? Marilee, are you –

Jonathan Weinzapfel: Thank you. If I could, real quick, I will ask the City Council to consider and hopefully approve an identical resolution as this. I think what’s important to present to the General Assembly at the committee hearing on Tuesday morning is that there is consensus, bipartisan consensus within local government about how we would like to see these funds used and primarily, that’s what our local legislative delegation is interested in seeing. And I think they will fully endorse and support what we have outlined here. And I think they wanted the detail because I think they probably wanted to prepare an amendment to effectuate these changes to House Bill 1588. But I will be up there and will share with them, obviously, this resolution and hopefully, if I have a copy of the city’s by then, they will consider it Monday night, I will also present that.

Councilman Sutton: That’s what I was looking for because I know we can’t have all three or four different versions, so that would be good.

Councilmember Lloyd: Spoken by a former legislator, that’s good. The legislation of 1588 did refer to the Vanderburgh County Council, so I’m pleased that we were able to pass this and I think that certainly holds weight there with Representative Avery.

President Shetler: Alright. Thank you. Anything else? A motion would be in order for –

President Shetler: Try this again. Third time is a charm. I have a motion for adjournment. Thank you all very much. I appreciate it.

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 3:58 p.m.)