President Abell: I’d like to call to order the February 7th meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council. Could we have the roll call please?

President Abell: Would you stand and, Councilman Goebel, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

(Pledge of Allegiance was given)

President Abell: Move for approval of the minutes of the January 3rd meeting.

Councilmember Leader: So moved.

Councilmember Raben: I’ll second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: Before we get started, I’d like to call attention to the Councilmen, the agenda looks a little different today and we’re going to try this for a little while and see how this goes. We’re trying to separate the business from the two meetings. It’s a little confusing to some of the people that attend our meetings as to what we’re doing, so there’s a code at the bottom that tells you the blue denotes the County Council meeting and the red denotes the Personnel & Finance meeting. And now for the appropriation ordinance, I’ll turn the meeting over to Councilman Raben.

TREASURER

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Madam President. First on the agenda today is the County Treasurer, there’s quite a few requests, the total is $33,771, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Any discussion? Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

TREASURER                                                         REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

SHERIFF

JAIL

COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS (TWO REQUESTS)

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, under Sheriff, we have a request for College Incentive and FICA along with Sheriff’s Retirement for a total of $2,867. Along with that I’ll also take the Jail, the first line should read 1051-1130-1980 and should read Other Pay, all other lines as they are listed and I’ll move approval on that as well for a total of $1,309.

Councilmember Leader: Second.

Councilmember Goebel: Could you repeat that?

Councilmember Raben: I certainly can: 1051-1130-1980, that should read Other Pay. Madam President, along with that motion let’s go ahead and take Community Corrections since that’s within their budget as well, and turn to page three, Community Corrections in the amount of 14,385. And the next Community Corrections line we have a similar situation, the correct account should be 1361-1980 Other Pay, and that request is $440. Again, that line is 1361-1980 Other Pay.

President Abell: Councilman Leader, will you change that second?

Councilmember Leader: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote please.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

SHERIFF                                                                REQUESTED       APPROVED

JAIL                                                                       REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Table continued next page)

COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS                              REQUESTED       APPROVED

COMMUNITY CORRECTIONS                              REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

SURVEYOR

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, County Surveyor in the amount of 4,425, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

SURVEYOR                                                           REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

PUBLIC DEFENDER (FOUR REQUESTS)

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next under Public Defender, the first item, which is 1303-1810-1303, Juvenile Court Public Defender, I’m going to move that this request be deferred. The next request 1303-1820-1303 Administrative Assistant also be deferred. I’ll move that we approve 1303-1801-1303 Public Defender in the amount of $15,788. And last, 1303-3053 Juvenile Contractual Services, I’ll move that that be deferred and we’ll circle the wagons and come back to this our first meeting in March.

Councilmember Winnecke: I’ll make a second to get it on the floor.

President Abell: Discussion?

Councilmember Winnecke: What’s the plan and the purpose behind tabling or deferring?

Councilmember Raben: I could turn this to the President, but its my understanding that our Juvenile Court Judge would like to set up a meeting with myself, our President, and Steve Owen and David Bunner to discuss this request and how it may or may not affect the court system.

Councilmember Winnecke: Steve or David? Just to make sure I understand, the reason why we’re here, not the reason we’re here today, but the reason this issue is before us today is really one of compliance. What does the delay of a month do to our being in compliance or non-compliance with the state?

Steve Owens: We are directed to respond to their letter by March the 12th, so I think probably given, if this is deferred until the March Council meeting, I’ll contact the Commission, tell them that we have a plan in motion that we are going to hopefully vote on the funding for that plan in March. It will have no immediate effect on our eligibility for reimbursement, it just has a delaying effect on what we can tell them we’re going to do. It shortens the time that we have to put it together. I mean, that was the idea of bringing it in, in February. So the target goal was April 1st, so we would be running, I don’t know exactly when the Council’s meeting in March is, but it would give us roughly three weeks to assemble it and get it ready to go.

Councilmember Winnecke: I believe, in one of the many discussions, I thought you said this last week, that you’ve met with the Judge on this issue before, correct?

Steve Owens: We met with the Judge early on and I’ve had some email contact with him as well as telephone conversations. I just spoke to him again this morning. My understanding of his concerns is regarding the, I guess the precedent, if you will, of reducing somewhat the salaries of some of the existing people and the contract positions not having benefits. He is concerned and has expressed that concern before about the ability to find qualified people to work that court, so its not simply just bringing recent law school graduates in. I don’t know that that particular concern is well founded because the people we have in there are the same people he’s been using. But he has some questions about this idea about the benefits and the contracts and that’s, frankly, the first time I’d heard about it was this morning.

Councilmember Winnecke: But your opinion, I mean, based on the fact that you do this, this is what you do every day, you feel like this is a viable plan, not only for fair and equitable representation of those in need of the services, but also to get us in compliance with the state?

Steve Owens: This is the first step to the plan to bring us into compliance. And its not the best of all worlds, obviously. I mean, part-timers would love to have the benefits, but given the cost of the benefits, it was one of the proposals we came up with where we could start bringing us into compliance in Juvenile Court without greatly increasing the cost to the county.

President Abell: Thank you, Mr. Owens. Anyone else have any questions about this?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes. Just real quickly, and you are comfortable with the proposal that it will be a working situation for your office as far as giving proper defense?

Steve Owens: Yes.

Councilmember Goebel: And you think that this will also be accepted by the Public Defender’s Commission?

Steve Owens: I’ve already met with the Public Defender Commission and ran this plan by them and they’ve already given us tentative acceptance. Obviously, I couldn’t commit to whether we were going to do it or not until I knew whether the funding is in place. They’re agreeable with the proposal that we have presented.

Councilmember Goebel: Thank you.

President Abell: If you’ll stay, Mr. Owen, maybe I could expound a little bit. I did actually speak to Judge Niemeier and the issue that he’s concerned about is that if the people that work Juvenile do not have benefits, but yet the other part-time Public Defenders do have benefits, that as soon as there is an opening for a part-time Public Defender in Superior or Circuit Court, the Juveniles would want to move up there to be able to pick up the health insurance. And consequently, he thinks he would be left with people just continually using his office to step up to something else. And that’s his major concern, which I didn’t get to talk to him until this week, which is why we are so late getting this done. He actually went in, talked to Mrs. Deig, and I returned his call. Thank you, Mr. Owen....I’m sorry, that’s all, Mr. Raben. Transfers?

Councilmember Raben: We need to call for the –

President Abell: I’m sorry, we have to vote on that. We got waylaid. Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

CIRCUIT COURT

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, under Circuit Court, Administrative Assistant, FICA and PERF in the amount of 5,629, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

CIRCUIT COURT                                                   REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

PUBLIC DEFENDER

Councilmember Raben: Okay, we do have a Repeal, that has been withdrawn. We’ll come back to that next month.

PUBLIC DEFENDER                                             REQUESTED       APPROVED

CLERK

CENTER TOWNSHIP ASSESSOR

SUPERIOR COURT (LATE)

SHERIFF MISDEMEANOR HOUSING (LATE)

Councilmember Raben: Under Transfers, Madam President, I’ll move that all transfers be approved as listed.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

CLERK                                                                   REQUESTED       APPROVED

CENTER TOWNSHIP ASSESSOR                       REQUESTED       APPROVED

SUPERIOR COURT                                               REQUESTED       APPROVED

SHERIFF MISDEMEANOR HOUSING                  REQUESTED       APPROVED

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

Councilmember Raben: I’ll allow for her to pass out our salary amendments. Its four pages, I’m not going to read them this morning, but simply ask that they be entered in to be made part of the minutes. I make that in the form of a motion.

Councilmember Leader: I’ll second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: There is no old business. Under New Business, we have some appointments, I’ll read those. To the Job Study, the COMOT position is Elizabeth Wilson, who is an employee in the Clerk’s Office. The appointment for Area Plan from the Council is Councilman Tom Shetler. The appointment to the M/WBE board is Stephanie Roland, and the appointment to the PTABOA is Dirck Stahl. And we’re now ready for the agreement from the Vanderburgh County Commissioners, the Vanderburgh County Council, Eric Williams, the Sheriff of Vanderburgh County. Does everyone have a copy of that?

Sandie Deig: (Inaudible–microphone not turned on)

President Abell: Would you like to pass it out? You don’t have it? Sarah is going to give it to them? Okay, Sarah will give those to you at the end of this...

President Abell: Is Ms. Musgrave here? Did you want to address the Council regarding the Ordinance Approving the Acquisition of Real Estate From the State of Indiana?

Cheryl Musgrave: Good morning. Thank you for allowing the Commissioners to bring this to the Council’s agenda. This is a request to purchase some wooded acreage that the state presently owns and has owned for some time. The state has offered many parcels that they own around the state for sale and they contacted me last July to let me know that these two parcels would be part of their divestiture of state owned property. We looked into the matter and think that we could use this property for some purposes but we haven’t made any decisions. We have considered letting it be a nature area or perhaps part of a trail system, but no decisions have been made on that pending, you know, perhaps setting up a committee, bringing in people from all of our recreational facilities to give voice as to what they might want to do with this piece of property. The state had an appraisal done on this property. There are two parcels and their appraisal came back with a value of $50,000. That was far more than the Commissioners wanted to pay and, in fact, we asked the state to give us this property at no charge. They came back with another offer of $15,000. We again expressed our desire to have this property simply turned over to the county for these recreational uses, which I have just discussed with you, that would benefit the entire public, and they have come back with what they’re terming a final offer at $10,000. That cost for the, I think its 73 acres, I’ve given you documents that outline the total acreage, is very low and I think it is reasonable. You should note that these two parcels are wooded, that they flood regularly, they are on the east side of Highway 41, just north of Waterworks Road. So you could call them almost the last parcels in Vanderburgh County and in the state of Indiana before you would hit Kentucky. No one does anything there now. You could never build on these parcels, their deeds are restricted, so there is nothing that we could do to, you know, we couldn’t put a salt barn there, for example, for the County Highway garage if somebody had an idea to do that. I believe that they will have to be left in a natural state. Now I understand that discussions among Councilmembers would like for this matter to be delayed for a month while we explore a phase one environmental to be certain that there are no issues that we would be dealing with there, and I’m fully supportive of getting a phase one. I had originally thought that this was a resolution and I had originally asked some of you if you would just go ahead and pass the resolution and we would come back with this phase one report, but your attorney informs me that its an ordinance, which would mean changes to the language that’s in front of you so I wanted to say that we’re more than happy to delay this while we get a phase one, but I can’t guarantee that we could get that done inside a month. We would probably need a little bit more time. So I understand that there’s a possibility, no one has been able to reach the state, that they could indemnify us from any environmental, but I gather that its your desire that you have us perform the phase one so that we know for sure that we’re not taking on something that we don’t want to deal with later. So this is the request from the Commissioners. We have money in our budget to cover this but should you wish that we come before you with an appropriation, we would be more than happy to do that as well. The purchase price, again, is $10,000 for just under 73 acres of wooded land, which would be, the exploration would be, how can we use this to benefit our recreational options here in the county.

Councilmember Goebel: Commissioner Musgrave, for how long is this offer to us from the State of Indiana? Is there a deadline?

Cheryl Musgrave: My understanding is that no deadline has been expressed to us. I do know that the state wants to proceed on getting all of this land that they can no longer use off their books. But no one has expressed a deadline about this particular piece of property.

Councilmember Goebel: There probably aren’t any other buyers in the market for this property either, are there?

Cheryl Musgrave: I would hope not and I tried to imagine what other kind of buyer would want a piece of land that you can’t develop and the thoughts that I had were that its wooded, and you could certainly go in and clear, cut the land and sell the trees, something which I think would be a shame and that’s one of the reasons why I’d like to have the county have ownership of this property because it is in a, I think, in an environmental area, there close to the river where its more beneficial to have it wooded than not.

Councilmember Goebel: Is there a chance we can wait the state out and maybe they will just deed it to us at no cost?

Cheryl Musgrave: I’d love to do that but, and I welcome your participation, I can give you the names and numbers of all the folks. I even had our county lobbyist work on this for us. I guess the last step would be to directly approach the governor, but lobbyists are telling me, wait until you have a matter that’s worth more than $10,000 before you approach the governor. So on that advice, I did not do that. But if you would like me to, I can certainly go ahead and do that.

President Abell: Councilman Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Commissioner Musgrave, you and I had a chance to talk about this. And in all likelihood, to get the proper environmental study done on this property, its probably going to take longer than a month to get that done. I think it is a prudent step to make sure that that particular parcel is clear and free of any potential liability issues that we could have come back on us.

Cheryl Musgrave: Certainly.

Councilmember Sutton: Now you had mentioned in our discussions that you wanted to form a committee that would look at some possible uses. I would encourage you to go ahead and bring that committee together in case the environmental comes out clean, then you’ve already got at least a plan of action of how you would like to use that property because from our standpoint, you know, getting a really good course of direction or some idea of how it would be used after the environmental, if it does come up clean, would be very helpful for us as well. So proceed forward with that. The parcel, I guess, sits a little lower than, well, not a little, quite a bit lower than US 41, so its down there pretty good and the access is pretty limited, so I’m not sure all of what may, what possible uses you may have for it, but at least the committee could give us some idea of how it could be used.

Cheryl Musgrave: Okay, I was thinking of asking some folks from Wesselman Woods, from Burdette, even Audubon in Kentucky, since this piece of land is very close to the woods that they have over there, so they’re familiar with that ecosystem, and I know I had some other notes of folks that might be beneficial on this and I’d certainly welcome your input for candidates for this committee.

President Abell: Commissioner Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: I guess the thought that I had is that, since we have a city/county park commission or board, have we run this by them to see if it fits into their master plan or ideas of what they’re looking for the community in the way of recreational activities?

Cheryl Musgrave: No, I hadn’t done that because I hadn’t taken the step that Councilman Sutton has just suggested, which is to bring the committee in, but having representation from the parks board would certainly be wise.

Councilmember Shetler: And I thought maybe that might be an appropriate place for them to even purchase out of that department rather than coming out of the Commissioners. You know, I don’t know how you’re planning on paying for it at this point in time, but it did seem like a –

Cheryl Musgrave: I can suggest that but, you know, I understand that they’re dealing with swimming pools and so forth, and that $10,000 might be a hurdle that they don’t want to cross. But I can certainly ask that question.

President Abell: Anyone else? Commissioner, we’ll defer this and I’ll look to your direction when you want to put this back in front of this body based on your investigation, I guess, if that works out okay.

Cheryl Musgrave: Alright. And I’ll keep in touch with you in case any other kind of option like the indemnification is workable as well. Okay? Thank you.

President Abell: I’m going to skip back to the agreement. I’m concerned, Councilman Leader, have you seen this agreement? It’s the agreement for the Sheriff’s Department? It was in the January packet, but I’m not sure that – I’m not sure that she got a January packet because – okay.

Councilmember Leader: Would you like to refresh my memory? I’m sure I read it, I read everything.

President Abell: Let’s pass this copy over to her and then we’ll skip on and we’ll come back to it. Thank you.

President Abell: We’ll go down to the County Council Attorney contract. I know all of you got a copy of that. This is just bringing our counsel, Mr. Ahlers, in line with the Commissioner’s counsel and also the city counsel, on their hourly fee. And Mr. Ahlers does very few things outside of his standard contract fee, but we wanted to make them all consistent and if you’ve read that, I would entertain a motion to accept that contract.

Councilmember Winnecke: So moved.

President Abell: Do I have a second?

Councilmember Raben: Second.

President Abell: Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: Mr. Sutton, possibly while Ms. Leader is looking at that, you might like to go ahead and talk about the prescription drug program.

Councilmember Sutton: Sure. A couple of months ago, a few of us began some discussions about a program that was brought to our attention by our County Treasurer, Z Tuley. And myself, Commissioner Tornatta, Councilman Goebel, Z Tuley and Gary Heck met and talked about this program called, its an Rx program through an organization called Caremark, or its actually administered through NACo, National Association of Counties. This program is offered in nine other counties and essentially what it is, it’s a prescription drug discount program and the discounts can be as much as 20% on prescription drugs that are not covered by insurance. In kind of meeting and discussing that, organize it, put it together, brought it before the Commissioners and they approved the contract for that the latter part of last month. And we are anticipating that this program will be up and rolling in April here in Vanderburgh County. This program itself is aimed at senior citizens and for those that are uninsured, but anyone in the county, Vanderburgh County, can use this program. All they will need to get is the prescription discount card. The name of the program is Vanderburgh County Rx. Now this prescription drug discount program, its not insurance, and it’s available to all. But it will allow individuals to also use this discount card for pet prescriptions as well and in addition, if they have a mail order system tied with this and you’re able to get even greater than 20% savings on prescription drugs through this program. Now we’ve identified several distribution points where these cards are going to be available. The primary distribution point will be through our Health Department, but the cards will also be available in the Trustees offices, the various Township Trustees offices, the County Treasurer’s offices, we’ve got one financial institution that’s going to distribute the cards. We’ve got the Community Action Program of Evansville and several other distribution points that will make these cards available to residents throughout the county. Now this card will allow people to use it at any of the chain pharmacies and then some of our independent pharmacies that we’ve got out there and anyone in the family can use it. You can have just one card for the family or you can have several cards depending on what your use is or what your need might be. I’ll come back, I guess, here in April when everything is up and rolling. There will be a big announcement, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew about this program because I think its pretty exciting to allow this type of thing to happen here in Vanderburgh County and get, especially as the cost of medication and health care has risen, this is something that we can do in response, that Vanderburgh County can do to help offset some of those expenses. Now the other probably key thing with this, you were probably thinking as a body, from the Vanderburgh County standpoint, there is no cost to the county to provide this program. All we will need to do is organize the program which is what we’re doing and deliver the program to county residents. So I wanted to bring that to your attention, exciting program, Vanderburgh County Rx. Information about this program is on the county’s website, so if you go into Vanderburgh County’s website, you can plug in, there’s a Power Point presentation there, it gives you a step-by-step, how the program works.

President Abell: Thank you, Mr. Sutton, that’s very encouraging. We’ll revisit that then in April.

President Abell: I would like to go back now to the agreement between the Sheriff’s department and the county or the Sheriff and the county regarding the management. I think all of you got in your packets two different agreements and we’ll vote on them separately. Mr. Ahlers and I discussed this. First we’ll vote on the one that is titled the Compensation Agreement In Lieu of Statutory Fees Between Eric Williams, As Sheriff of Vanderburgh County, and the County of Vanderburgh. And I’ll ask for a motion to accept that and a second, and then we’ll put it on the floor.

Councilmember Winnecke: So moved.

Councilmember Sutton: Second.

President Abell: Discussion? Anyone have any questions or comments? Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: The next one is entitled an agreement and I’d like a motion to accept that and a second, and then we’ll vote on it.

Councilmember Raben: So moved.

Councilmember Winnecke: Second.

President Abell: Any discussion? Questions? Roll call vote.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Sutton?

Councilmember Sutton: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Leader?

Councilmember Leader: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Raben?

Councilmember Raben: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: Councilmember Winnecke?

Councilmember Winnecke: Yes.

Teri Lukeman: President Abell?

President Abell: Yes.

(Motion unanimously approved 7-0)

President Abell: And the final thing on our agenda under new business, Mr. Sutton, would you like to take over for the Vectren?

Councilmember Sutton: I think Jeff Whiteside is here from Vectren, outstanding programs that they’ve got coming up and in line with just our relationship with public and private sectors, thought it would be a great idea to bring Jeff up to talk about some of their exciting things that they are doing, especially in light of the increases in energy costs, they had a way in which they are trying to address that issue, and I’ll turn it over to Jeff to talk about their programs.

Jeff Whiteside: Madam President and Councilmembers, good morning. Its really a new day for us at Vectren, given some regulatory changes that happened near the end of last year and I think you, hopefully, have begun to see some changes in how we relate to the public and the education programs that we’re providing to them. What I want to do here this morning is just take four or five minutes, give you sort of a high level overview and I’d be happy to answer any questions that you might have. But actually, I am here as a result of sending out about 1,500 letters throughout the state of Indiana to organizations such as this, rotaries, chambers, etcetera, in an effort to get this out on a face-to-face basis. Regulation that governs our business was created when the cost of the commodity was just pennies. And as you all know very well, back in the Katrina Hurricane season, the cost of that commodity now peaked out at about $15 per unit. Historically, prior to 2000, that cost was about $2.50. And so what its done, because of simple supply and demand issues, is it shifted a fairly unreasonable burden to our customers. We purchased the commodity on behalf of the customer and passed that commodity through on a dollar for dollar basis. We do not make any profit on the commodity itself. And so what we’ve done is worked with regulators to sort of decouple our opportunity for a profit and to recover our cost from volume. And so we call that the Conservation Connection. And I won’t dwell on the regulatory side of things. What I want to spend my time on today is indicating what it really means to our customers and the programs that we have in place. It really brings our business objectives in line with the customers objectives and that is to drive down their bill as low as we can get it. Seventy-five to eighty percent of the customer’s bill goes to pay for that commodity and that’s the part of the bill that we want to enable the customer to be able to manage more effectively than what they have historically. That pretty much highlights the first slide. If you’ll go to the slide entitled Indiana Program Portfolio, we have about four key elements that we’re embarking upon. We’ll have aggressive rebate programs that you hopefully have received some bill inserts on and have seen some television commercials about. We have online tools for those that have Internet access. We have a call center now dedicated to this function and we have begun to mobilize about 1,800 employees to change the way they think and the way they behave when they interact with our customers. On the next and final slide, we have begun that public education process. A week from this Thursday you should see a free-standing insert in your newspaper and it really is your ten tips to energy conservation and additional details about rebate programs. That will go to about 400,000 subscribers across the state of Indiana. That is supplemented by the television, as I mentioned, radio, media and our bill inserts, as well as a speakers bureau. Those rebates became effective December the first and can either be obtained through our call center or online. The audit tool that I mentioned enables our customers to go online, tie directly to their account information and plug in data like, if I bought a high-efficiency furnace, how much would it save me? If I replaced windows, how much would it save me? How much would it save me if I installed a high efficiency hot water heater? And we have rebate programs on many of those items that you’ve probably seen. The primary focus is a set-back thermostat, it’s a $20 rebate. If you walk into a big box hardware store, they run about $20 when they’re on sale. So we’ve tried to enable customers at all levels to take advantage of a way to drive their energy bill lower. Finally, in addition to the Conservation Connection call center, we’ve met with about 1,200 of our 1,800 employees to say it’s a new day in how we relate with the customer. Our service men are equipped with little truck pads so when they go into a house and they see a round thermostat, they peel off a truck pad and say here’s a way that you can drive your energy cost lower. We made about 500,000 service calls in the state of Indiana last year. We received about three million telephone calls here in Evansville from our customers, the majority of which are in Indiana, and now we have a way to tell them how they can lower their bill more effectively and aggressively manage their bills. So that’s just a very quick snap-shot on the program that we’ve launched, how we hope to enable the customer to drive down their overall bill and really impact that 75 to 80 percent of the commodity cost, and how our interests are in line with our customers. Madam President, if there’s time allowing, I’d be happy to field any questions.

President Abell: Anyone have any questions?

Councilmember Sutton: You mentioned that you have rebates that are available, can you talk about how much those rebates are worth and what they’re for?

Jeff Whiteside: Sure, to move from a regular furnace to a high-efficiency furnace, the incremental cost to do that is about $500. Our rebate to help encourage a customer to do that, to cover that incremental cost is $250. The Department of Energy indicates that one out of every four furnaces is over 20 years old and for us in the State of Indiana, that means about 570,000 furnaces, just to give you a sense of what the potential change out could be. Its not enough to incent someone to change their furnace, but if they were going to make that change, it enables them to get to that next level. I talked a little bit about the thermostat rebate, there’s a hot water rebate for a high efficiency hot water heater of $50 and a high efficiency washer and dryer of $150. There are also programs for commercial buildings, not-for-profits, and government entities as well.

Councilmember Sutton: Thank you.

President Abell: Anyone else have any questions? I have a question.

Jeff Whiteside: Yes, ma’am?

President Abell: What if you’ve already done it? What if you’ve already gone to an energy efficient washer and dryer, for instance?

Jeff Whiteside: Yeah, in terms of what it means for you because of the rebate program? Yeah, the rebate programs were effective December the 1st, and so if that purchase took place prior to, it doesn’t qualify, unfortunately.

President Abell: But if you bought one last week, you can apply?

Jeff Whiteside: Absolutely.

President Abell: Okay.

Councilmember Winnecke: Madam President, I would just applaud you for trying to hit so many touch points. It’s a tough task and a great message to communicate and I applaud you for trying to hit on all those touch points.

Jeff Whiteside: Thank you.

President Abell: Any other questions? Mr. Ahlers just pointed out something, he just put a hot water heater in, didn’t know if it was high efficiency. Would it say on the appliance if its high efficiency?

Jeff Whiteside: It should and if you have a question, call our call center and they can answer that for you. Its in your handout.

Councilmember Winnecke: A couple of us have an idea of what Mr. Ahlers might have bought.

Councilmember Sutton: Just on that conservation side, just real interesting, I had gone into one of the, as you guys referred to, one of the big box hardware stores, bought a, rather than, I went to the flourescent lights, screw in, and they use, I guess, a whole lot less energy than regular light bulbs. If you bought a pack of these, essentially, the rebate was the same as the cost of the bulbs, so basically, they were giving away these bulbs for free.

Jeff Whiteside: This is a natural gas program. I would tell you that we are in the very early stages of thinking about electric conservation as well. Thank you for your time this morning.

President Abell: Thank you. Does anyone else have any business they’d like to bring before the Council?

Councilmember Winnecke: Madam President? Just a quick comment and I apologize, seeing the folks from the Health Department. I read a quick draft of a letter that Gary is going to prepare to send out, just a little update of the dental clinic. After its first six months of operation from, it opened if you’ll remember, the 26th of June. But through the end of the year, they treated 832 patients and provided over 1,400 services in that time. Ninety-one percent of those folks had no dental insurance and none of them had medical insurance, so its really touching a portion of the community that we wanted it to do, so congratulations to Gary and Sam for overseeing that. And you’ll be hearing more about that as they prepare their report.

President Abell: Thank you, Councilman. Anyone else? I’ll accept a motion to adjourn.

Councilmember Sutton: Second.

Councilmember Raben: So moved.

Councilmember Sutton: So moved and I guess we had the seconder look in our eyes.

President Abell: We’re adjourned.

(There being no further business to come before the board, the meeting was adjourned at 9:18 a.m.)

VANDERBURGH COUNTY COUNCIL

        President Marsha Abell               Vice President Lloyd Winnecke

       Councilmember Jim Raben           Councilmember Mike Goebel

        Councilmember Tom Shetler         Councilmember Royce Sutton

        Councilmember Donna Leader

Recorded and transcribed by Teri Lukeman