The Vanderburgh County Council met in session this 2^nd day of June, 2010 in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex. The meeting was called to order at 8:34 a.m. by County Council President Russell Lloyd, Jr.

President Lloyd: Call to order the Vanderburgh County Council June 2^nd, 2010, and we’ll open the meeting. 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’ll ask Councilman Raben to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand.

President Lloyd: Thank you. I hope you’ve had the opportunity to review the minutes from May 5^th. Did anybody see any changes? If not, I’ll entertain a motion to approve.

President Lloyd: We’ll move on to Appropriation Ordinance and I’ll turn that over to our finance chair, Councilman Shetler.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, I’d like to make a motion for approval on the Public Defender’s office in the amount of $250,000. This was outlined last week by Steve Owens. This has to do with the death penalty case that is coming up in the next twelve months. And this would be basically our obligation for that. It’s going to be a 50% reimbursement from the state, but these typically have been running about 7 to $800,000, so there may be a little bit more to come later in the year or next year.

Councilmember Goebel: Real quickly, Mr. Owens, has the state honored the reimbursement fully as to their amount typically?

Councilmember Goebel: Okay, so we’re pretty much guaranteed that amount in this particular case?

Steve Owens: Capital cases always take precedence. They always reimburse them at fifty percent.

President Lloyd: Other questions? Mr. Raben? Okay, there is a motion to approve, Mr. Shetler. Is there a second?

President Lloyd: Okay, second Mr. Goebel. And I think one thing that was brought out last week, Councilman Bassemier had asked about a monthly report. If we could just get a copy of what you guys send to Judge Heldt. Is that quite a bit of information or –

Steve Owens: We submit a detailed report to Judge Heldt under seal. And then what is sent to the Auditor’s office is a summary of that report. I just spoke to Councilman Goebel, asked him if that was acceptable since he’s our liaison. So I think what we would like to do is send you the summary of the report as opposed to the very specific detailed report.

President Lloyd: Okay, I mean, I think that would be a good solution to that problem.

President Lloyd: Okay, if we could just get a copy of that, that you send to the Auditor, that would be great.

Councilmember Shetler: Next, make a motion for approval of the Highway fund appropriation of $402. This is to basically get a couple of positions back in line with longevity, I think, was missed out in the calculations for the budget year of 2010, the beginning of the year and it just gets us on par, makes that equal. So $402, and I make a motion for approval.

President Lloyd: Okay, I think Mr. Bassemier won the race. Any other discussion or questions? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Shetler: This is an annual request that comes out of basically United Way, who funds a portion of the Legal Aid, and this is to begin to withdraw some of those funds that have been put in there by United Way. It’s a request for $8,786 for the Legal Aid, which is what that money is designated for. I put that in the form of a motion.

President Lloyd: We’ll go to item 6, transfers, a late request, Assessor/Reassessment. Mr. Shetler?

Councilmember Shetler: Yes, the Assessor is here, Mr. Weaver. I’m not sure if we heard from him last week on that, but for Office Supplies and Dues & Subscriptions or from the Office Supplies to Dues & Subscriptions, a $500 request. It’s a transfer within the Reassessment and not for the General fund, so I put that in the form of a motion to approve.

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

President Lloyd: We’ll move on to item number eight, old business. City-County government reorganization committee progress report, and I believe we have the chair of that committee here, Rebecca Kasha, to give us that report.

Rebecca Kasha: Good morning, welcome. I am the chair of the government reorganization committee and I was asked by Russell Lloyd to come and give you a brief update on the status, progress of our committee. I trust that all of you know the basics of what the committee has been charged with. We have been asked to come up with a plan to consolidate city and county government. That’s the essence of our task. As a committee of twelve, we broke into six subcommittees, with three or four persons on each subcommittee. And I can give you a brief rundown on the status of each of the committees. I will do that in a second. What I have provided to you is the basic format that the governance committee has recommended to the full committee and has been adopted insofar as the organization chart and the voting districts that are listed on the sheets that I have given to you. There is a map of the districts and those were drawn to closely align with current districts in the city and then to encompass two districts in the county sort of in a horseshoe shape, for a total of eight districts. The common council would be voted from those districts for eight, and then we will also have an additional three at-large commissioners for a total of eleven – I misspoke, commissioners – for a total of eleven people on the common council. The common council will replace, if you will, the current structures of County Council and City Council. The County Commissioners will be, I always have to think of a delicate word for these things, expunged, dissolved, whatever, and the mayoral structure is what is being recommended, so the new government structure of the combined government would have a mayor and an eleven member common council. There is three organization charts that were provided to you. The first one is our depiction of what the current government structure is, which I know you’re all familiar with. You will see on the next page is the proposal for what will happen to the elected offices involved in the process. None of the, what we’re calling constitutional offices, but it also would include the Assessor, which actually isn’t a constitutional office, but all of the elected county-wide offices will stay in place as is with a few exceptions insofar as some offices will take on some additional duties. I can go into detail on that if you are curious about that, but nobody, none of the offices are really taking on any major new duties, nothing certainly that would be outside of their typical areas of expertise and things they already do now. The Sheriff/Police debate, I suspect you all followed rather closely, we had extensive media coverage. The public safety subcommittee has voted to recommend to the full committee that all law enforcement duties come under the jurisdiction of the county Sheriff and that would take place over time as outlined in proposal that the Sheriff submitted to the subcommittee. That’s a little too detailed to discuss in the format for this morning, but I’d be certainly happy to entertain any questions you would have about that at a later time. So the Sheriff’s office will see a substantial expansion unlike any of the other county offices. We have on the next page of your handout, then it shows what’s happening to the boards and commissions, pretty much as I think you would expect. Boards and commissions would be appointed jointly by the common council and the mayor. In most circumstances we would take what the existing composition of the board is and mirror that to the new council. If it’s a county board and the Commissioners had X number of appointments and the County Council had X number of appointments, those would go to the mayor and the common council respectively in the consolidated government. So that is sort of a shorthand explanation of the three handouts that you have. And then the map, I think, is self-explanatory. For a quick rundown on what’s happening with the subcommittees – well, before I do that let me just say we believe that we will be having a conference call with some of the officials from Lexington next Wednesday. We believe, we are waiting for confirmation on that. We will certainly send out media notices of that if that is confirmed for that date. Now, on to the subcommittees, tax and finance is working on predominantly two issues: one is the taxing districts, the concept, which I believe will be proposed to the full committee, is that we would have separate taxing districts to ensure that residents of the county and city don’t pay for services they don’t receive. So for example, you might have a situation – I’m not sure what’s going to be recommended, obviously, but I believe the talk is something along the lines of a general services taxing district, which would cover the entire county and so any services that are provided to county residents, county-wide, that would be included in your property tax. City residents that receive a higher level of services, that would be reflected in their tax rate as well. That’s the basics of that because we know people are concerned about paying for services they don’t receive and we believe that this a plan that will ensure that that does not happen. Budgeting systems for the new common council and mayor will be the other main task of this subcommittee and that has been debated extensively in the tax and finance subcommittee and in the governance subcommittee to make a recommendation as to how that process would be undertaken. Parks and Recreation, that subcommittee’s report is almost finished. We’re waiting for final touches from the individuals involved on the city and the county side, but there is already a very high level of consolidation in that area as you well know, and so there will be very little new and different coming out of that subcommittee because of the high level of consolidation. Planning and Zoning is working out a right to farm provision so that the farmers in our county have a level of comfort that, as this new government takes place, that zoning laws in the city won’t unduly disturb their farming operations. And there will be recommendations about what zoning codes will apply as this consolidated government takes place. It will probably be city would stay in as it is, county would stay as it is for X number of years and then the transition would occur over time. If a new building project in the county, for example, wanted to work under a new code that is adopted, they could do that for a certain period of time or they could stay with the old one until a date certain. Infrastructure subcommittee, the report has already been done and submitted to the committee as a whole. The primary finding in that was, again, nothing really rocket science, combining the garages and traffic and engineering. Public safety, I think I’ve already touched on that with the Sheriff and the Police situation. We also had a proposal from the township fire chiefs and the chief of the city fire department, their recommendation to the subcommittee was that a study be undertaken by people knowledgeable of situations like this. They suggested the, I believe it’s the Association of Fire Chiefs, to undertake a study of what’s the best way to combine the township fire departments and the city fire department. That would be undertaken over a couple of years. That is a very thorny and complicated issue because of the volunteer and paid people and staffing and equipment and that sort of thing. The government subcommittee, I’ve already said, mayor, common council of eleven, the idea at the moment is four year terms with no term limits. Whether or not the terms would be staggered, some of them being elected in one cycle, and some being in another has not been decided on. I think it was reported today in the paper that there is a recommendation for a deputy mayor, and that is true. I don’t know what the name will actually be, I don’t think that’s anything of major significance, if it’s deputy mayor, chief of staff, or whatever. And the time line for the transition still is up in the air, when the referendum would take place, and when the new government would transition, that’s something that is going to depend on when this plan gets completed, whether, I guess it would be a joint decision of what election cycle that needs to take place in and things of that nature. So I’d be happy to entertain any questions.

Councilmember Raben: Good morning, and thank you. Well, actually, I’ve got several questions and mine may be quite unique from the other questions or requests, but one of the immediate problems that I see and I think I hear – and, you know, I’m somewhat different than a lot of the other Councilmembers, where most of the area I represent today is outside the city limits. But under the current form of government there is seven members that represent the county, nine that represent the city.

Councilmember Raben: If we accept this as proposed today, the county has two representatives, the city still has their nine. So the thought of zoning issues in the county having the protection that, you know, we’re mentioning here this morning going forward, I don’t really see that they’ve got that security because that’s quite an imbalance: two versus nine.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I think you could look at it from the perspective that you actually have five, two that are elected from your districts and three at-large. I don’t think that’s an unfair way to look at it.

Councilmember Raben: It appears as you look at a map and I would certainly hope that this map isn’t cut in stone, but it – I guess my first question is, when we draw or draft maps for districts, why are they so cobbled out that it’s confusing as to which representative you have? Why don’t we make them more balanced, more squared off where it’s not so confusing?

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I think that that is in part due to a couple of things. One is, they have to be contiguous, everybody in a district has to be contiguous, we have to have balanced populations. So there are pockets of populations in various places that, you know, necessitates when you’re trying to get a balance, and this is almost completely balanced at about 21,000 people per district, that you do, you know, if you have too many in, you have to pop out around an apartment complex or something like that. I mean, obviously, our Surveyor could give you a better idea of how he’s come up with that but there is a – my understanding, there is a computer program that does that. You give them what kind of information, you know, how many people you want in a district, how many districts and that’s, we also ask that they stay closely aligned to the city districts.

Councilmember Raben: Again, I don’t really understand that because just looking at it, I mean, it seems like you could square it off and I think I could probably do it and end up with close to the same numbers and at the same time provide more than two district representatives for our county.

Rebecca Kasha: We – okay, you want more county representatives? So you would say that an equal number of people represented should have more representatives, so 21,000 people in the city get one representative, but 21,000 people in the county get two?

Councilmember Raben: No, I’m saying that same representative could represent both what we know today is city residents in county. As an example, and for my purposes, I ought to fall in love with this map because these are precincts that are friendly to me, but again, I’m not looking out for myself, I’m looking out for county residents. Why couldn’t we take some of the sixth ward into Perry Township where those are county residents into Union Township, why can’t we take some of the Center Township within the city, let those representatives also represent more of German, maybe parts of Armstrong, again, it just seems like there’s a huge inequity in county residents. And county residents are the ones that are really opposed to consolidation. And I think when they’re clearer that their representation has gone way down, they’re definitely not going to be happy with the situation.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I guess I just don’t see it that way. Certainly if you would like to draw another map to consider, we’re always happy to consider those things.

Councilmember Raben: I would just like to see a blend, you know, if we’re going to make change and –

Rebecca Kasha: Well, our concern was that people in the county would not be happy about sharing a representative who also would be perceived as representing city interests, that’s why we tried to draw the map so that the person who came from a county district have predominately, if not – I think it’s predominately county residents in their district. Now if I understand what you’re saying, you want them to have city residents, traditional located city residents and county residents in their district?

Councilmember Raben: As much as anything, I want to make sure that the county residents are represented fairly. And with two districts for all county residents, to go from seven representatives to two is an imbalance. The city didn’t change any. They still have nine representatives.

Rebecca Kasha: But that’s based on population. I guess I just don’t see – I’m not seeing your concern in –

Rebecca Kasha: And, you know, like I said, I don’t mean to belabor the issue, but I would be very pleased to have someone come and talk to me, anybody on the committee, about this, you know, sit down and talk with me and show me the map and whatnot. It’s kind of hard for me as I’m sitting here to imagine Perry and these different districts drawn to include the things you mentioned.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, when we discuss this, there are no guarantees with anything.

Councilmember Raben: Again, in theory it sounds good, but you know, let’s look at it in ten years and let’s see if the county residents still have the same representation that they’ve had with this seven member panel and three County Commissioners.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I mean, there is no question that there is going to be a change.

Rebecca Kasha: No, I mean, I don’t think there will be equal representation, there’s simply not the same number of people.

Councilmember Raben: Will county residents have the same securities five years from now that they do today?

Rebecca Kasha: I think there’s every reason to believe that they would. I mean, I would like to think that everybody who is elected to this common council has the best interest of the entire community at hand, and I don’t think it’s fair to assume that just because someone does not live in the county or is elected from a county district, that they are out to do harm to the county, you know, what used to be the county.

Councilmember Raben: Lose three Commissioners and five Councilmembers, I disagree. Thank you.

President Lloyd: I’m going to jump in here for a second because I had talked to Becky Kasha and also Ed Hafer, one of the things, to me, it hamstrings you a little bit on these Council districts, you have to use the 2000 census data. And I think most of us would agree that we’ve had population move out to the north side and there has been growth on the west side in Councilman Raben’s district, so I had contended that this map was probably obsolete the day it was drawn, but you have to use the official numbers which is what the Surveyor did. So, I mean, that was one point. The second point, the practical point, this has to pass the City Council and the County Commissioners, so a political reality is you wanted to keep those city districts close to what they were currently to enable it to pass the City Council. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, but that’s way it was drawn up, and so you have these huge county districts that I think if you did a census today, the population would be imbalanced in these districts.

Rebecca Kasha: And they will be redrawn in 2012 when we get the new census districts, is my understanding.

President Lloyd: And I’m going to stop, I’ve got some other questions, but I’m going to go to the Councilmembers, I think Mr. Shetler and then Mr. Goebel.

Councilmember Shetler: Yeah, just in, not to belabor the point, I think where Councilman Raben might be coming from is areas that are in the city that have a lot of rural type of ties to it like I do with no sidewalks and no curbs and very little city services, and we’re included pretty much in the urban area, and that might be an area there where it could be expanded into the county, where you might have similar type of living conditions, I guess, if you will, and similar type of issues that it could be blended with the county, and that in itself may help balance out by redistricting those slightly. My question or my point, Senator Luger, who was mayor in 1969 when Marion and Indianapolis combined, I think would be a valuable resource. And I don’t know if anybody has formally contacted him and I know individuals have spoken with him from time to time, but I think in a formal sense either him coming down here or that committee going up there to Indianapolis or DC or wherever he might wish to entertain them for some questions, would be a valuable resource. There is no form of government that is absolutely perfect and a person that sat in that chair during that transition and then was also mayor throughout a good period of time thereafter to at least ‘74, could probably tell you the snake pits there and the problems that perhaps that if you had it to do over again, I would change this, I would change that, that I think would be very helpful to both city and county residents. And so I don’t know if that’s been done yet or –

Councilmember Shetler: I’m really speaking to address questions and to be helpful to the committee in some resource way. Not necessarily coming out to the public to endorse or not to endorse or specific, but really to address the nitty gritty type of questions on transition and practical matters. You know, you have a fire or an open burning ban in the city where you can’t have a simple campfire, you can’t burn, I live in a very wooded area and I can’t, literally, because I live in the city, cut down trees and I’m not allowed to have a fire to burn up that brush, but you can in the county. And how do you blend that when you become a city – they’re important questions that need to be addressed.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, we’ve been working with the Farm Bureau and the people at the state agriculture department on those kinds of issues because this has been an issue in other cities.

Councilmember Shetler: And did it make sense to have the city police over or in charge of this or does it make sense to leave it separate? Whatever those issues are that I’m sure that there’s things that are on his mind, if he had an opportunity to do it over again, he would change this or that, so we don’t fall into the same traps, and we could really make the better mousetrap here as we go about doing it.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I would do what I could to try to get those people to come. We don’t have a budget as of yet, our committee. We are trying to do things via Skype and via teleconference and that sort of thing. So to the extent that I can work within those confines and arrange that kind of thing, I’m happy to try to do that, but I will assure you that numerous subcommittee people have made those calls and contacts, not only now but in the prior three studies that have taken place. So, you know, it’s certainly of no harm whatsoever to do it again, but those kinds of calls have taken place and they are encompassed within the subcommittee reports frequently.

Councilmember Shetler: My other concern is, is watching the township assessors dissolve and become a part of the County Assessor and seeing really that being done in a couple of months period of time was very straining on the county officials and everybody involved, of trying to implement that in a good flow to try to, you’ve got contracts that are out there on lease agreements in townships, all that stuff had to be somehow resolved and then folded into the space allotment within this building. Fortunately we had purchased the new jail, had some extra space here, but other counties around the state didn’t have that luxury and they’re still going through a real mess just on a simple thing like space limitations. Consolidating some of these departments could create that same chaos and what I would like to see for my own point of view here is that a transition period of time would allow for, have a good smooth transition and that we don’t see, you know, it passed on a referendum and then two months later we have a new government and we’re trying to find places to put people behind desks because there are none. It sounds easy but when you get into the practical side of it, I think you start running up against some real problems.

Rebecca Kasha: No, I am well aware of that concern and that issue, things that people in other communities that have undertaken these efforts have indicated to us that, I mean, it’s obviously something that’s a, you know, a transition that involved moving people and things and organizations and different cultures and it’s not something that we would plan to have occur overnight. I mean, that’s certainly an issue that’s well taken.

Councilmember Goebel: I may come back, but I’ll let the other Council people speak.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, that is one of those issues that we haven’t ironed out yet. The governance subcommittee is looking at that. That’s one of the remaining thorny issues that we still have. We are told that we should not extend terms, like to have someone who is now having a four year term serve a five year term to even things out. So based on that and given the notion that we would like to have city elections take place in a non-presidential year so that it gets the, you know, we have our, I should say, municipal, whatever we’re going to be calling ourselves now, consolidated government elections in a non-presidential year. We would like to have that. So with those kind of elements in mind, we’re trying to craft a plan, so I can’t really answer your questions at this stage. I mean, obviously, with the staggered terms, there are going to be people who may run sooner than they thought, again, if they choose to run for the common council.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, I’ll come back to it, as far as the districts proposed, this is pretty much, Becky, the way the organizational committee wants to go as of now? Is that – has this been approved or still up for discussion?

Rebecca Kasha: The committee has adopted that but all of the – I think until we issue a final report, that everything is potentially still on the table. This map has been out and discussed probably a month, it’s been out. And we’ve been taking comments from various people about it. So if you have comments please feel free to enter, you know, we would entertain them. There’s a governance subcommittee meeting this Thursday, I believe, at 9:00 at Central Library. They meet almost every week. Some elected officials have been there every meeting, some have not, but you’re always welcome to come and anytime you want to give us input we’d be happy to have it.

Councilmember Goebel: It’s good that it’s televised so we can kind of follow as well.

Rebecca Kasha: Yes, that’s true. We try to have them in this room so they’re televised.

Councilmember Goebel: But this will be probably changed with the new census report so this probably is going to be obsolete right away, do you think?

Rebecca Kasha: Well, I think as Russ Lloyd said, when we get the new census numbers, to the extent that the districts have to be essentially the same population and contiguous, any population shift of any magnitude is going to force a redrawing of that district, how I can’t say, but yes, they’ll have to be reconsidered. And that would happen regardless of whether this goes on or not.

Councilmember Goebel: And I know this is probably paramount with your group, people living outside the city in Vanderburgh County, the real fear that they obviously have is they’re going to be paying more in taxes and not gaining anything more in services and I know that’s something you’re trying to address aggressively. And hopefully that will be, I guess, stated at the beginning of every meeting so people can sleep at night at least because, as Mr. Raben said, as an at-large, I represent both city and county, but people I’ve spoken to in the county are very much concerned about that particular issue.

Rebecca Kasha: Yes,. And we hear that at virtually every meeting, too. People come and express that concern and we have our financial consultants working on those issues. As I said, the plan at the moment or the concept at the moment is to have different taxing districts that will reflect the services that you receive based on where you live.

Rebecca Kasha: No, that’s fine. It is an important point and that’s something that bears repeating.

Councilmember Goebel: Okay, thank you. Obviously, public safety is the number one concern and the law enforcement is being addressed pretty much openly in the media. The concern most of us have also would be fire protection and that’s going to be addressed after?

Rebecca Kasha: What has been recommended to the subcommittee, the public safety subcommittee by a joint panel, if you will, of all of the township chiefs and the city chief, is that a study be undertaken. They recommended the Association of Fire Chiefs to come up with a new plan for how fire protection would be provided and that made sense to us. It’s not, given the uncertainly, I guess, for lack of a better word of township government as a whole, given that most of the townships are staffed with volunteers, given the great growth in some parts of the county where there are only volunteer fire – something is going to change, probably, regardless of what we do and it’s a much too thorny issue probably for anybody to get into without a plan in place. That’s what they asked us to do and that made sense to the people on the subcommittee.

Councilmember Goebel: Well, that’s got to be really difficult because you’re dealing with two basic different entities. Is the organization committee favoring, do you think, keeping the system the way it is, with the volunteers in the outlying areas and separate from the EFD?

Rebecca Kasha: Um, I don’t, I think that that is where the subcommittee is, that’s what the subcommittee is investigating now but, of course, that is a concern. The volunteer nature of the fire departments, while they’re extraordinarily well trained and dedicated, they are volunteers and they have other jobs and the township fire chiefs told the subcommittee that that is a concern they already have. They know that change in on the horizon for them. And to make everyone paid as opposed to a volunteer, I don’t think that that’s something that the budget is going to stand. So it’s – you know, combining three levels of government, paid and unpaid, you know, that is a very thorny issue.

Councilmember Goebel: That’s the point I was hoping you would go to, and thank you. That’s a very difficult situation.

President Lloyd: Yeah, I was going to say, we can’t afford to have city fire in the county, so whether there’s some contractual arrangement with the volunteers, makes the most sense to me. I think Mr. Kiefer was next.

Councilmember Kiefer: Becky, first off, I’d like to say thank you because I know that you and the twelve members are volunteers and I know it takes a tremendous amount of time. I’ve been following it in the paper and you can see that it looks like there’s meetings on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times during the day and I appreciate that. Just one comment, you know, I’m comfortable with, you know, the eleven elected officials you’re proposing, but I do think Councilman Raben makes a good point. One of the reasons why, you know, I thought, looking at the merger plan would be good for the citizens is to eliminate some of the confusion, and you can see by the drawn districts that there is obviously some confusion on who represents who, and what district they’re in. You know, for example, I know Councilwoman Terry, you know, most of her district is in the city so it would have been nice to see, like you did in some of these other plans, an overlay showing the current county districts, current city districts, and see how they shift or change, it might make it a little bit easier to understand.

Councilmember Kiefer: But, again, like Councilman Raben said, if there is a way to not make it look so gerrymandered, you know, so that way people –

Councilmember Kiefer: People would understand what district they actually vote in and –

Rebecca Kasha: I mean, St. Joe is one of the major lines, US Highway 41 is one of the major lines, Lloyd Expressway is one, Morgan Avenue is one, Diamond Avenue is one.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah. But anyway, I, you know, again, you know, I understand that this is a very complicated –

Councilmember Kiefer: – very complicated thing and if there is a way you could overlay them showing current districts versus the new districts it might clear up some confusion.

Rebecca Kasha: Okay. I misspoke, I was looking at the lines instead of colors. Sorry, I’ve seen several versions of this map. Um, I would be happy to do that and I don’t, I think the term gerrymander has a negative implication. We’re, obviously, not trying to accomplish anything –

Rebecca Kasha: I know, but again, to make things contiguous and get the populations to balance, that’s why they are funny shaped. You know, there was no attempt to preserve a republican district or a democrat district or anything like that. So that’s, you know, we came to this pure of heart.

President Lloyd: And I would also like to thank you for this. This map is very handy, I mean, it’s a nice summary. And also, remind the Councilmembers, we had received a copy of all the committee members so you should have that. If you don’t we can get you another one, a list of all the committee members, because I’ve had calls from some of them and with questions or ideas. So they are reaching out to some of the elected officials.

Rebecca Kasha: And we thought that the most effective way to elicit response was to have something to work from. So to the extent, we went ahead and created a map so that you would have something to see and work from. So that was part of our modus operandi.

Councilmember Raben: Just a few general comments. You know, Councilman Goebel had some great questions, and Rebecca, and I guess I’m speaking to the entire committee, --

Councilmember Raben: – you have to understand how frightening this is for county residents that live outside the city. The city residents pretty much understand what they’ve got is what they’re going to continue to get. But every time we make reference to what changes for the county, it’s well, that has to be determined yet. We’ll have to wait and see. I mean, there are no definites. I’m not hearing anything definite as to what are the real changes for those residents. So that’s why they’re frightened. That’s what I’m hearing. Why can’t we reach some of those definites in the next thirty days? Why can’t we get there in sixty days? But I think they need a clear understanding of all the, you know, how are they going to be represented for fire? Are they going to receive sewers? You know, that’s what they want to know.

Rebecca Kasha: I would agree with you and to the extent that I can get the myriad of people involved in this process, giving us feedback early in the process would have helped tremendously. I mean, we’ve had dozens of public meetings and there are a number of people that do come and express their concerns to us. The Farm Bureau came with a very helpful list of things that they had issues about and none of them really gave pause to us at all about it. But they gave us a list of things to work on. That was very helpful and to the extent, and I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to everybody out there, to the extent that you have concerns, please, that’s why we have public meetings. All of the subcommittee meetings are open, all of our public meetings are open. We have public comment, we take written comments, we have a website. So to the extent that you have concerns that you don’t feel are addressed, you have to bring them to our attention. And we can’t address the concern until we know what it is. Fire, for example, I can’t say, that’s not an issue that’s going to be resolved now. Will their current fire protection change at all in the foreseeable future? I would say not. Nothing that we’re going to do as a committee or recommend is going to change the fire protection in the county. And the issues that face those fire chiefs that they brought to our attention are issues that are there regardless of consolidation.

Councilmember Raben: I want to know that my residence is protected and should I need the fire department, how are they going to respond? And when are they going to respond? And who is it going to be? You know, as important of an issue as that is, I would like to believe that we’ve already worked that out.

Rebecca Kasha: We have. Things will stay the status quo until we undertake this study by, as recommended, the Association of Fire Chiefs. And until then, nothing is going to change that isn’t a product of some change that comes from the will of the fire chiefs in the townships or the city fire department. So things will stay as is, as far as things stand right now, and as far as fire department protection goes, in the city and the county. Does that answer your question?

Councilmember Raben: It stays now, I mean, you’re saying until it’s later determined that it needs to be –

Rebecca Kasha: It’s going to have, I think it’s an issue that’s going to have to be addressed. The fire chiefs would tell you that themselves. The nature of the volunteers is changing, the population in the county is changing. They know, they appreciate, and we took great delight in the fact that they came to us after having met already and brought us their recommendation. And I think that that would be taking place regardless of consolidation. I think they’re that forward thinking and they are embracing these issues and initiating these changes because they appreciate that they are going to have to start doing operations a little differently to continue to provide the level of protection they provided in the past.

Councilmember Raben: Will they know what that change or that end result may be before this is put on a referendum?

Rebecca Kasha: Okay, I mean, I appreciate where you’re trying to get me to go, they’re voting for something they don’t know about on fire protection. But what I can tell you is that nothing is going to change until that study takes place. They will have input into that study just like any other time that government has undertaken a study of some sort to determine the best way to go.

Councilmember Goebel: I think the level of service we get township-wise and the cost factor, obviously, if we can keep it somewhat the way it is now, that would probably best serve all Vanderburgh County residents.

Councilmember Goebel: I don’t want to go any farther. I just want to thank you and your group for all you’ve done. I think you’ve done this on a non-partisan basis, I think you’ve tried to incorporate and listen to all county residents and I thank you for bringing this out into the open and making everything public.

Rebecca Kasha: Well, you’re welcome and I apologize that this, you know, we were asked to come bring a report to you and (inaudible) before we had all the answers. So to the extent that I leave you with a feeling of uncertainly, then that’s just because those things are still under study.

Councilmember Shetler: Again, I want to thank you all as well because I know you’ve put in tons of time. Like the Councilmen, I have had tons of calls from different ones, have asked different questions. Going back to the fire department just briefly because I know your background as an attorney and others, I’m sure someone has investigated the current contract that they have with the fire department, the city firemen, the union contract, does that preclude in any way having a different set of semi-employees associated –

Rebecca Kasha: I think that is one of the issues that has to be worked out, yes.

Councilmember Shetler: And you also then have different age groups and different, all kinds of regulations that are in the city fire department as it exists today, that may not be the same criteria you have for an employee or semi-employee, whatever they’re called, or volunteer, so all of that has to be kind of reconciled in the midst of this.

Rebecca Kasha: Right. It’s a melding of rules and cultures and just like when we merged county corrections – community corrections, sorry, you know, those were people that had to come together and over time, and they will tell you now that it works extremely well.

Councilmember Kiefer: Yeah, Becky, there was a, I guess, a question about the sewer department and the water and sewer is, obviously, the Evansville Water and Sewer department and they do serve county and I think they may even serve parts of other counties as well, so any time a sewer is extended, it usually comes through their rate base and not through taxation. I believe, right now, that there’s a split rate base. If somebody is on water and sewer outside the city limits, I believe they pay a higher rate than somebody within the city. Has there been any discussion about leveling, that if this is merged that then there would be only one –

Rebecca Kasha: Ed Hafer is the head of that committee and I have not – we have not gotten back the final report –

Councilmember Kiefer: That might an olive branch to folks outside the city limits, to say hey, look, we’ll reduce the rate because I think in order to extend services out to the county, they do charge a higher rate which many people believe is unfair.

Rebecca Kasha: Uh-huh, yes, I know that has been, that is an issue that has surfaced.

President Lloyd: On a legal point, the water and sewer is a separate legal entity, but as of right now the mayor has the control of that by the utility board. So whether the proposal would change, that is open to question. Mr. Bassemier?

Councilmember Bassemier: I’ve heard a lot of, we’ve got to work this out –

Councilmember Bassemier: – on some major issues. When is your deadline to get all of this worked out, these major issues before you get it on the November ballot?

Rebecca Kasha: I am telling people that have asked of late that I think that, well, our deadline to get it on the ballot would be August 2, that basically backs everything up a month. And I think we will know by the 10^th, our next meeting the 10^th, whether we can proceed with, on a time line that will get it on the ballot this fall or not. And if people on the committee are not ready and not comfortable to proceed, then we won’t. But unfortunately, just a lot of these things are still in subcommittee and they’re in flux, or they’re with the attorneys, or they’re with the financial people, and they’re just not something that have come my way yet to give to you all. You know, I’m trying to respect the subcommittee process and let them do their work.

President Lloyd: I have a couple of final questions. This is a little technical, the appointed department heads, does the common council have to approve those or does the executive just appoint them, or do you know?

Rebecca Kasha: I believe that the current thinking is that the mayor would have appointment, would make their department – appoint their department heads without common council approval. But there are joint appointments to boards and commissions.

President Lloyd: Okay, and I also hear the concern about taxes for county residents and so that’s, I want to re-emphasize that.

President Lloyd: The legislative bodies that would have to approve the final plan would be the County Commissioners and the City Council. Have you heard any feedback from them? Are they pleased with the process, not pleased or...

Rebecca Kasha: As a body, they have not given us a thumbs up or thumbs down as a body. We have been responding to questions from individuals as they come up and take those concerns into consideration. I think overall most people that we’ve spoken to are pleased with the general framework but everybody has a particular issue here or there that is of particular concern to them and we certainly respect those issues and differences and do the best we can to do the right thing for the greatest number of people and for the community as a whole. And as you know, there’s just not always a perfect answer.

President Lloyd: I think, I know all the Councilmembers, I don’t know about Councilwoman Terry, but they’ve all received the Sheriff’s plan and I think that’s a good plan. I’ve not read the whole thing, I’ve looked at it, but I would encourage you to look at that plan. Regarding the timetable, as Mr. Bassemier had indicated, if it could be completed in July, does that allow for public relations or education of the public that this is a good plan and should be passed or is that part of your plan?

Rebecca Kasha: Well, you know, there’s some question about what the role of this subcommittee is. Did I take this on to become the public cheerleader for it? I would do that because I believe in what we’ve done. I don’t really know who is going to pick up the ball and be for it or against it. I would assume that there will be neutral bodies having public meetings like the League of Women Voters and the neighborhood associations will be having meetings on that and I think there will be public hearings before you all vote on – you all meaning government – votes on the plan. There will have to be a public hearing and two meetings, they can be joint meetings, of the Commissioners and the Council to consider those things and a vote can be even taken that night should they feel comfortable proceeding, and that would contract the time line somewhat. But I think that it doesn’t, in some sense it doesn’t make – it doesn’t seem right to me to be educating the public about a plan that maybe isn’t the plan that’s going forward, so I’ve got a little problem about going out and making a big public relations campaign with this and then a month later go, oh, well, you know, those districts, those weren’t really – they’ve changed. So I really am torn between how, what the best way is to go about that. But there will be public hearings before this is voted upon by the government officials. And if it proceeds, then I am ready and willing to be the public relations person to the extent my job and family allow.

Councilmember Raben: What is the reasoning why the County Council doesn’t have a vote in –

Rebecca Kasha: I don’t know. That was state legislation. We’re operating pursuant to a state statute. But I would think that to the extent that you have appointed people to the committee, that certainly is your avenue for input and I’m a city appointment, a City Council appointment, but, you know, I certainly –

Councilmember Raben: But it has to be voted by the City Council and County Commissioners –

President Lloyd: And then, I guess, on the time table, if it does qualify for the ballot this year, this is an off-year election, you know, typically we have 35% voting, we may get it a little bit higher this year, but it’s going, I mean, in my mind it’s going to take quite a bit of education for the public.

Rebecca Kasha: No question, I think regardless of when this is, and the trouble then is, when you’re not in an off year and you’re competing with all the other messages that are out there, so there’s pros and cons to any transition time line we put together.

President Lloyd: But by law, your committee could run for a year so you could run to the end of January of ‘11.

Rebecca Kasha: Right, and I would think, in theory, we could be reappointed for more time if that was the pleasure of the appointees.

Councilmember Kiefer: Becky, you know, one thing just kind of struck me, I think Councilman Raben was asking about fire protection, because I think county fire protection is administered by the townships, is there any plan to give this new merged government, the common council, oversight over township government budgets, because that’s one of the things we struggle with here now is that they let us look at their budgets, but we don’t have any control over their budgets and I didn’t know if – because this plan doesn’t eliminate any township –

Rebecca Kasha: No, in the ordinance, it established the committee and the responsibilities for this committee, the consolidation subcommittee, we were not directed and we’re not permitted to do anything with township government.

Rebecca Kasha: And I would think that what you’re asking would be an intrusion into township government that we’re not allowed to make.

Councilmember Kiefer: But one of the things I think would be beneficial is if this new Council or if this County Council had some kind of approval rights over the township budgets. That’s just a comment I’d like to make. Thank you.

President Lloyd: Anything else? Thank you so much for coming, it’s very helpful.

Rebecca Kasha: You’re welcome. Thank you all for listening. I appreciate your comments and concerns, and welcome more of them.

President Lloyd: Right. And send any information to Mrs. Kasha or attend one of the committees, I’d encourage you to do that. Thank you, Becky. Okay. A lot of questions there.

President Lloyd: We’ll move on to item C, Veterans Service travel request. Is there someone here from Veterans Service? Yes.

President Lloyd: The reason we put this on here, in your request from last month both of you had separate mileage, were you going to travel in different vehicles or were you traveling together?

Jay Ball: Yes, we’re traveling in separate vehicles. It was Tami’s hope to go up Monday to the VA regional office to get herself acquainted with some of the people that we deal with on a daily basis.

President Lloyd: Okay, and I guess if you’re both gone, is that office just closed?

President Lloyd: So you just put a sign on the door saying we’ll be back Thursday or whatever?

Jay Ball: Well, it’s sort of like when we go on two-day holidays, we put a sign up and put a message on the machine, we’ll be at the state training, we’ll be out for two days and we’ll return on Thursday morning.

President Lloyd: I know Councilmembers at the last meeting were concerned, they said well, why wouldn’t they travel up there together, but now what you’re saying is Tami Cassidy-Fehn needs to go a day early?

Jay Ball: Well, it’s not necessary that she goes a day earlier, that was just sort of an option. But I think as you look from the past, our training has been cut down from three nights and four days to one night, so there’s a substantial savings already from year to year.

President Lloyd: Okay, any other Councilmember questions? We would need someone to make a motion to add back that mileage if that’s the pleasure of the Council. That’s $152.80.

Jay Ball: I think it would be, I think, you know, Tami is a very good county employee and I think it would well be worth the while.

President Lloyd: This is IDVA: Indiana Department of Veterans, is that what that is?

Councilmember Kiefer: Are there any county vehicles, pool vehicles that you could use that, I mean, do you have to take personal vehicles? Is there a county vehicle available that you can –

Councilmember Bassemier: Well, I’ll just make a motion to get it on the floor.

President Lloyd: Okay, so you want to make a motion to add $152.80 to the travel request from the Veterans Service?

President Lloyd: Okay, no second. Motion is not approved. So anyway, any other comments or questions? Okay, appreciate you coming in.

President Lloyd: Number nine, new business, Preliminary Resolution of the Vanderburgh County Council declaring an economic revitalization area for tax phase-in for redevelopment and/or rehabilitation of real property and for acquisition of manufacturing equipment located at airport industrial park subdivision, lot six, part of lot five, Enviroplas, Inc. and Terra Firma Properties, LLC. We have Ms. Martin here from GAGE, is there any questions for her? Or do you have anything to add?

Pam Martin: Pam Martin with the Growth Alliance for Greater Evansville. At the last meeting, the Council heard a description of the project and as President Lloyd explained, the resolution, preliminary resolution involves a request from Enviroplas, they seek to undertake a project totaling $940,000, which will create 13 jobs over the next five years. The company representatives are here today if you have any other questions. Issues before Council today in the form of this resolution are the determinations of the two phase-in periods for both real and personal property and the length of time for the ERA designation. And as you recall, the ERA is the time period or the window of opportunity during which the company has the opportunity to make the installation of the equipment. My recommendation on the scoring guidelines, as I explained at the last meeting, resulted in a phase-in period of eight years for real property and seven years for personal property. Certainly those two determinations are at the discretion of Council.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Mr. President, I move approval of the resolution for Enviroplas, Inc. and Terra Firma Properties, LLC for real property for the period of eight years and personal property for seven.

President Lloyd: Okay, our attorney just informed us that we need to do this in two separate motions.

Jeff Ahlers: That’s up to you. You can do it in one motion or you can do it separate. What did you just, I’m sorry, I was looking for the paper and you moved for what, Mr. Raben, in terms of years?

Jeff Ahlers: Okay. Well, the motion can be made however you want. You can either first move to make it a revitalization area and then have a second motion to put the years in or you can make the motion just like you made it. So that’s fine however you want to do it.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Raben, eight years real property abatement, seven years personal property abatement has been recommended for Enviroplas and Terra Firma Properties, LLC. Any other questions? Roll call vote please.

Councilmember Kiefer: I’d just like to make a comment. I’d like to thank them for remaining in Evansville when they had an opportunity to open up and operate out of Texas, and so I think this is good for our community, and with that, vote yes.

President Lloyd: I’m going to vote yes and I congratulate the gentleman and appreciate the faith you’re showing in Evansville and Vanderburgh County and look forward to working with you.

Jeff Ahlers: In section four you’ve got a blank in there saying the designation of Economic Revitalization Area shall be in effect up to and including, blank.

Pam Martin: Yes, and the Council needs to determine the length of time for the ERA designation. As you recall, it is not concurrent with the deduction period. This is a separate time with a deadline during which the company can install the equipment. Traditionally, in reviewing past actions on phase-in, the company has been given up to two years, up to March 1^st, two years out because that is the end of the reassessment period. This is what has been done in previous resolutions. I would recommend two years, that Council make the ERA designation to 2012.

Jeff Ahlers: Okay, and I’d have to look at past resolutions. I don’t recall that being something we’ve had to make a determination on.

Pam Martin: That’s fine. And perhaps Council deferred that determination to staff.

President Lloyd: To be safe, we probably want to do a motion for that, for two years. So if you look at your resolution, section four, designation of this economic revitalization area shall be in effect up to and including two years from March 1^st?

Jeff Ahlers: That doesn’t need to be in effect the entire length of time for the deduction?

Pam Martin: It does not. As the DLGF has explained to me, this is a separate time period and it represents the window in which the company installs the personal property and the phase-in period that you establish by this resolution will begin with the completion of installation.

Jeff Ahlers: And also talk with the Terra Firma folks and make sure that they’re okay with that, so that we know?

Pam Martin: Correct, we had that discussion this morning. I’ll certainly circle back and have that discussion prior to the final action.

President Lloyd: So regarding this resolution, we need a motion from Council on section four for the designation of the economic revitalization area. Is there any Councilmember that would like to do that?

Jeff Ahlers: Why don’t you go ahead so we have it on the floor, insert that, you can amend it if you decide that it’s something different at the –

President Lloyd: Because we still have to take a final vote on this. This is vote number one.

President Lloyd: So why don’t we do that and then if we have to change it, we can change it. But I think we ought to move this all forward today.

Jeff Ahlers: Make a motion that in section four, the designation of this economic revitalization area shall be in effect up to and including, I believe you said March 1, 2012, correct?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I make a motion to set in section four, the designation of this economic revitalization area, shall be in effect up to and including March 1, 2012.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Raben, second Mr Shetler. Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Yes, the motion passes 6-0, and you will follow up on that for us? Just double check that.

President Lloyd: Okay, any other questions on this? Alright, thank you very much.

President Lloyd: Item number 8B, 2010 tax phase-in compliance. Did you have anything with that?

Pam Martin: I just wanted to bring to Council the first report on compliance for the year. You will get additional reports and then I will give you a comprehensive report that will give you an overall picture of property tax phase-in compliance for 2010. I want to pay a special note of thanks to the Auditor and the Assessor’s office for helping me get the total accurate list of active phase-ins. And in the county we have a total of 27, so on my final comprehensive report, you will get an understanding of how every company out there is moving towards compliance as the details of their phase-in have outlined. I’m not sure, Mr. Ahlers, I defer to you, whether they need to take action on this report or if just bringing it forward at a public meeting on the agenda is sufficient?

Jeff Ahlers: I think as long as they discuss it, that’s fine. If there is anybody, the way we’ve done it in the past, and I think you and I had talked, Ms. Martin, was that if there was someone that they felt needed to be called in, and periodically there is someone that there’s questions about, that under the statute there’s, I guess I would call it a show cause hearing, which they then question the company concerning why they may or may not have made some of their targets. So it would be up to Council if there is anybody that they would like to have come before Council at the next meeting, then Ms. Martin can send the appropriate notice to notify them of the meeting and to have a company representative here for you to have a show cause hearing. If you believe that they’re all in compliance, then you can either vote and so note, or take no action, I believe.

President Lloyd: Typically, we get a report and anybody that’s not in compliance they would attach a letter, and then if Council wants further information on that, then we would ask them to come to the Council meeting. But, I mean, normally you would present it.

Pam Martin: Correct, and I will. For those companies that are found to be in non-compliance, I do ask for a letter of explanation, which is attached to the report and then Council takes action on the basis of that. As you can see from this first report, though, there are no compliance issues here.

President Lloyd: Move on to item number C, Central Dispatch, request to use 911 funds, and we have Jo Anne Smith here from Central Dispatch.

Jo Anne Smith: The monies that are being requested are in our 911 account. It’s just a matter of permission to use those funds for our needs. On the request is replacement of five Zetron paging encoders. These are the encoders that are used to page the respective fire departments when they are toned out for a run. Parts for a technician, that has been an ongoing, that is an ongoing expense that I had to request funds for last year and he has just about used that amount of money for parts and repairs at Dispatch. Upgrade of the dispatch admin phones to Voice Over IP, I have spoken with Matt Arvay and the MRC personnel to see if we can have our phones replaced. There is no longer anyone who sells our admin phones. There is no one who repairs our admin phones and we are in desperate need of replacing those. My phone in particular, I had an issue with for almost a year and magically it fixed itself. I could receive no incoming calls into my office. And there is no one to repair them anymore. So in speaking with them, $7,000 will more than cover the needs that we will have to replace those phones, but we may use that figure because of the unknowns as far as lines and it would be a savings to us as well on our telephone budget because we pay for several telephone lines that would no longer be necessary. This does not affect 911 lines at all, it’s strictly admin lines. And the final one is a high efficiency heat pump for the operations room. Our operations room has shared heating and air with the computer room and the radio equipment room. As we have grown we have added more equipment which creates more heat. We have constant air in our operations room due to the fact that they’re sharing that with a computer room and the radio equipment room, which is generating heat. Our dispatcher generates some heat but not nearly as much as that equipment. So we are wanting to put them on having their own heating and air system. The air is already there, it would be a matter of adding the heat pump for the heating system. Any questions?

President Lloyd: Second Mr. Raben. Point of information, then, since this is a joint department, the City Council would have to approve it as well?

President Lloyd: Okay. Great. So it’s just up to County Council. Any questions? Ms. Terry? No questions? Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Item number D, County Clerk request to fill vacancy. Any questions on that? Is there a motion to approve?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Bassemier, second Mr. Raben. Let’s see here, there should be a letter in your materials from the County Clerk. She’s in the back with a little child, so, I mean, if anybody has a question that she needs to come up and answer, we can do that. This has kind of been before us several times and she’s got some difficult issues in her office. I don’t know if you saw the email that was sent out. We’ve eliminated two positions in the County Clerk, so she’s asking that we fill one of those back. We had asked if she would try that for several months, which she has, and she, I guess the caseload is such, she would ask that we would fill that position. So I’m speaking on your behalf, Susie. Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Just in general, there are some other circumstances with illness and things like that, that almost makes this more immediate or more necessary at this point in time? Is that correct?

President Lloyd: Yes. She’s had – one with a long-term illness that we can’t really mention the employee. Go ahead.

Councilmember Goebel: But these people, I mean, the other illnesses that you have, these people are not working right now or they are going to be working, are they hit and miss?

Susan Kirk: Hit and miss. One of the main problems and the position that I’m asking back for, actually, they wouldn’t even do that anymore. Circuit/Superior, my staff now are in the courtroom so much longer than what they were before. Normally, you go to court, come back, get your work done and then, you know, you’re okay. But they’re spending so much time in court that that’s becoming increasingly more difficult to get the paperwork done because you’re in court all the time. Secondly, because of the email I sent you, yes, I do have several with different things where they’re off quite a bit. Off, like come in maybe, and an hour later, gotta go because of one of their illnesses. Something like that. And I don’t even, we can’t even cross train anymore because we don’t have any time – nobody has got any time to cross train to help, you know, get the job done. It’s just, you know, we took in over 26 million dollars last year. Now, you remember, that comes in and then we process and it goes back out again. Everything is just increasing too quick and that’s unfortunate. That’s not good that our office is busier, so it’s just not doable right now, it’s not working very well, so I’m just asking if you will please give us our one employee back, we keep the part-timer, and believe me, I would be the first one to come up here if, hopefully, our office does slack off and we get back to where it’s a little bit more normal, I’ll be the first one to come up here and say first, the part-timer can go, and we won’t use it. I would, believe me, I want to save money as much or more than you guys do.

Susan Kirk: It does. We just, you know, small claims is already a couple thousand ahead and it’s June. There’s just, you know, with the foreclosures and the economy, the way things are, there’s more crime, it’s just, you know, it’s just worse right now. But like I said, believe me, if, as long as I’m in office, if I see a decline, any way that we can do without one, I will come back here and, like I said, certainly with the part-timer, I would say, alright, let’s begin there. But right now we’re just having difficulty to where, as I’ve stated before, everything we do is time sensitive. We have to get it out. Case comes in, it’s got to be processed and moved out, certified mail, all kinds of stuff. And we’re down to where we’re hitting last days, day after, and I don’t particularly want to get sued because we are, you know, if we can’t get it done. So I’m asking you to please, and if need be, I’ll bring my granddaughter up and she can give you some little sad face, anything to help, that you will please let me have this employee.

Councilmember Goebel: Is your granddaughter the proposed person you’re going to bring in?

Susan Kirk: Well, if, like I said, if you think that it will help to have a beautiful little granddaughter. Come here, come help Gram. So if you turn me down, you’re turning this kid down.

President Lloyd: Any other questions from Council? We have a motion and a second, so roll call vote please.

Councilmember Shetler: Well, you’ve certainly given a compelling argument here, that’s for sure. I mean, I know the challenges of managing employees is difficult these days and it’s always trying. It’s just that I, to be consistent, you know, in looking where we are in our general fund today and our balances I just really feel as if we need to try to find other ways to bring along employees and stuff, so I’m going to have to vote no.

Councilmember Goebel: If you hold true to your, holding down the request, now if another opening comes into your office, then we’ll probably feel a little bit differently if one of your workers has to leave and cannot come back to work.

Councilmember Goebel: No, I don’t – I mean, that you don’t come back if we grant you this position today. So my vote will be yes with that thinking in mind.

President Lloyd: Item E, Treasurer, request to fill vacancy. And, I guess, for those that need to know, if the Council votes no, a majority no, then that vacancy would stay open. Okay, state your name please.

Zachary Heronemus: Good morning, my name is Zachary Heronemus, I’m the Chief Deputy in the County Treasurer’s office here on behalf of Rick Davis, County Treasurer. It’s kind of hard to follow that one, I don’t have a child, let alone a grandchild to do this, so I’m hoping that this brief presentation I’ve got will be sufficient enough. Essentially, we’re here asking permission to fill a position that we feel is very important to our office, it has clerk’s duties, involve liquor permits, surplus refunds and Sheriff’s sale. It’s a COMOT IV position, previous salary was $27,648. Let’s see, Rick likes to call this position our office detective. They do investigative work, and I say this because every liquor permit that is renewed, transferred, or newly applied for in the county goes through this clerk. It’s their duty to ensure that property taxes on that establishment or any adjacent parcels under that business name are paid, therefore, they go before the Alcohol Beverage Commission, appear on our behalf, and approve or deny the permit applications. Investigative work is also required for Sheriff’s sales duties. As you know, foreclosures have been on the rise in Indiana. Vanderburgh County is not immune to that, as well. Anywhere from 50 to 150 foreclosures a month occur in Vanderburgh County in order for these homes to be auctioned at the monthly Sheriff’s sales auctions, property taxes on the parcels must be paid in full. Again, the investigative work that they do is pretty important here. If a home erroneously goes on that auction, is auctioned off during the Sheriff’s sale, it is a liability to the county. Let’s see, another piece of detective work this position performs on a daily basis has to do with surplus refunds as well. Surplus means you’ve overpaid on your property. You’d think it would be a pretty easy process, anybody who over pays gets that money back, it’s not that cut and dried, per se, somebody could come in and pay on a person’s property, a mortgage company could accidently pay on a person’s property. We get mortgage companies, for instance, First American Real Estate Tax Services, they manage roughly 13,000 properties annually. We get digital files, some of them, they don’t have the correct numbers on, so we have to go through and make sure that each payment is accounted for that they have receipts or legal documents showing that those are appropriately put on their property and they’re rightfully the recipient of the refund. Also, with the transfer of properties, you get a lot of that issue as well, too, you have to iron out those details. Let’s see, our office handles about 2,000 surplus letters a year, they remain on file for three years, so anybody who gets a refund this year, three years later can come and pick that up if they want to –

Councilmember Bassemier: Your boss said you might be a little bit nervous, but I think you did a good job.

Zachary Heronemus: Okay, good deal. Well, if that’s all you’d like to hear, if you have any questions, I’ll be more than happy to –

President Lloyd: That’s kind of where I wanted to go. Any questions from Councilmembers? This was a position, I believe Mr. Davis indicated this was a college student that was going back to college.

Zachary Heronemus: That’s right, she was working on her MBA as well, too, so –

Zachary Heronemus: Yeah, definitely, it’s the first person that you see in the office, you know, we like to think that the Treasurer’s office is one of the offices that the majority of county residents have interaction with on some level, so we like to have a person, energetic, up and ready to go, be a front line for people coming in, handle questions, know the ins and outs of the office and potentially the other offices as well, too, in due time.

President Lloyd: I mean, I think this person was a good representative for the county and we have eliminated some positions in the Treasurer’s office. So I think that’s something that we should consider. But, I mean, it just sounds to me like it probably would be something that we would want to replace.

Councilmember Shetler: I’ll make a motion for approval, and let me just explain real quickly the difference. This I find to be a pretty technical position as opposed to a general clerical and would support this as I have in the past with other offices.

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

President Lloyd: Item F, Prosecutor, request to hire part-time employee. Anybody here from the Prosecutor’s office?

Regene Newman: Hi, Regene Newman. We’d just like to hire a part-time data entry person, $8.50 an hour, 20 to 30 hours a week. We pay it out of our infraction funds, it wouldn’t cost the general fund anything.

President Lloyd: Okay, tie between Mr. Goebel and Mr. Kiefer. Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Item G, Burdette Park, part-time salaries, do you want to address that, Mrs. Deig?

Sandie Deig: What we did was copied from the original salary ordinance and made all the salaries consistent with one another.

President Lloyd: So we assigned some of those rates because they were inconsistent?

Sandie Deig: Yes, because we had like, for instance, we had several employees, they started the same day, do the same job, we pay different rates. We made them all the same rate.

President Lloyd: Are we going to address that in the salary ordinance amendments or not?

President Lloyd: Item H, Health department, request permission to remove 2130-1240 Public Health Nurse, approve vacant position Public Health Nurse 2132-1180. Is there a motion to approve for Health department?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Ms. Terry. Any discussion? Any questions? Mr. Heck is here if we have one. If not, I’ll entertain a roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Item I, travel requests, Health department. Oh, I’m sorry, I missed item I, Public Defender. I’m looking at the wrong agenda. Public Defender, request to fill vacancy. Any questions? Mr. Owens is here, recent vacancy. If no questions, is there a motion to approve? Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: I just have one question. Steve, this is a replacement of a part-time?

Councilmember Goebel: With that in mind, if you have another step down or resignation, part-time, that might become rolled over into a full-time or is that not a possibility?

Steve Owens: I think that may be a possibility perhaps later this year. We have a part-timer who is running for Prosecutor in an adjoining county. If he were to be elected, then I probably will come back in asking to combine this position with that one as a full-time position.

Steve Owens: Yes, it is a part-time attorney replacing a part-time attorney who resigned.

President Lloyd: And you guys, I mean, your caseload is up. And then you also, you’ve got the death penalty case which is taking up some time.

Steve Owens: If we don’t replace the part-time attorney, we are out of compliance. We’re running at the minimum number of attorneys we need to stay in compliance so what we would have is, that would throw all of our lawyers out of compliance.

President Lloyd: You’re talking about state law guidelines for public defenders.

Steve Owens: The Public Defender Commission guidelines which allows us to get that forty percent reimbursement for non-capital cases.

President Lloyd: Okay, I know that’s very important to the county. Mr. Goebel?

Councilmember Goebel: Well, the only reason I asked the question as far as roll into a full-time is because when you merge two part-timers to a full-time, that is at a cost savings to the county, is that correct?

Steve Owens: Yes, we’ve been doing that, I think, for the last couple of times we’ve had that available to us and we’ve rolled part-time to full-time, we’re bringing in entry level lawyers to take those full-time positions.

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second, was that Mr. Raben? Mr. Goebel, I’m sorry. Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Item J, travel request Health department, eleven requests here. If anybody has any questions? If not, we could just have a motion for all of them unless there’s a question.

Councilmember Shetler: Move to – have you received the one on the Health department? Have they received that?

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, so I would make a motion that we approve the salary ordinance as amended. Salary ordinance amendments as amended.

Councilmember Shetler: Okay, my fault. Just trying to move you along a little faster here.

Councilmember Raben: I just have one question. Gary? Looking at this travel because it’s mind boggling how much this department travels, but there were two requests for the same two individuals for what appears to be the same emergency preparedness and response nursing issues, but we’re going to two different destinations, one to a meeting in Gibson County and one in Martin County.

Gary Heck: They’re on different dates. These are quarterly meetings and I believe that one of them is going to be coming up – the Gibson County one. If they are showing on the same date, then that’s wrong. It’s actually, if you look at –

Councilmember Raben: It’s showing them on different dates, but it’s the same meeting.

Gary Heck: No, they’re quarterly – it’s the same group that meets on a quarterly basis in different spots around the state, all within the twelve counties within the district ten area. So there is one in Gibson County during whatever the month was, if it’s in June or July and then there’s one again later this year in a different part, so I’d have to look to –

Gary Heck: Right, and on the second page on all those shows that they’re actually, there’s going to be one in Vanderburgh County on the 20^th, the Gibson County one is in June, the Martin County one is in October, and the Dubois County one will be in December. And these are – excuse me, I said quarterly – I meant to say bi-monthly. They’re every other month, they’re in district ten and it’s part of the emergency preparedness of the public health nurses group that meets, it’s a state called meeting.

Councilmember Kiefer: These meetings, how long are they? Are they all day long, eight hours, two hours?

Gary Heck: It varies. These might be two hour meetings or three hour meetings. It just depends on what’s on the agenda, what’s going on at that time of year.

Councilmember Kiefer: Is it possible that we could start doing some of these meetings, you know, remotely where we do it over –

Gary Heck: We’ve expressed that interest with the state. We just received a quote. It will cost the Health department somewhere in the neighborhood of about $4,500 to have the equipment installed that would allow us to do that where we could, in essence, save money for all future meetings by having the equivalent of the distance learning class like you might take at one of the state universities or Ivy Tech, where you’re face to face with whoever is meeting there.

Councilmember Kiefer: I think that would be probably worth it because when you think about the travel time to get there and the time they’re away from the office, the gas, mileage –

Gary Heck: We certainly don’t disagree with you, sir. We certainly agree, it’s just a matter of us making sure we have some grant money that will allow us to purchase that equipment and we will certainly explore that, and we think we’ve identified some, so we were really looking forward to going that route because the time change difference makes all the difference sometimes in the world.

Councilmember Kiefer: Well, I just think, ultimately, we’d get a return on that investment many times over.

Councilmember Shetler: And following up on that, you know, I notice that there’s probably ten, fifteen requests every month from the Health department about – when you get down to it, that means, and you figure that over a year, I bet we’re losing two employees to meetings.

Gary Heck: I understand, and when you look at it, a lot of times it’s to meet a grant requirement, sometimes they’re not, they’re state called meetings, but we don’t disagree with you. There are a lot of requests and demands on, to make sure that our staff is current and up to date on all of the requirements for things we have to enforce and to protect the public.

Councilmember Shetler: – that I know you need them, but going back on what Councilman Kiefer said, is that if we can set these things up on webinars and the like, I think we could save a ton of money and make a more productive employee.

Gary Heck: I can send you the quote we just got from the state that was passed on to computer services and it’s right at $4,200, I believe, for the equipment and for a – there needs to be like a wide screen monitor to allow or you have to project it on a screen image. Everything has gone to high definition, though, so they recommend the monitor. And I will forward that to you so we can see. Because if we have it and it could save other county departments money where they could use equipment at our facility, we’d offer that to any other county departments as well. President Lloyd: I think Council would be interested in seeing that, so that’s a great idea.

President Lloyd: I guess, Mr. Shetler, you were talking about this, we never had a motion.

President Lloyd: Okay, there’s a motion to approve as submitted, is there a second?

President Lloyd: Motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Goebel, Health department travel request. Roll call vote please.

President Lloyd: Item K, proposed wages 2011, we don’t have a determination there. At this point, we’re going to leave it in at zero, we hope to have an increase for employees but we don’t know at this point. We’d like to see a couple more months of history.

President Lloyd: Before we get to amendments to the salary ordinance, we are looking at the Homestead Credit. We were looking at the draft that we had from last year. That would be the local Homestead Credit. I would like to see the Council pass that and move that forward, and I’m hoping the City Council will do the same. We want to see property tax relief for taxpayers. The local credit has been approximately eight percent, give or take a little bit. So, I mean, it’s my intent, I’d like to see the Council move with that and I’d hoped the City Council would come along. Any Councilmembers have any questions on that?

Jeff Ahlers: It needs to be passed by August 1^st so at the July meeting, we can have it advertised because it has to be done in a public hearing. If it passes unanimously there, that should take care of it. If it does not, then we might need to, at the Personnel & Finance committee meeting at the end of July, call a five minute special meeting just to vote on that.

President Lloyd: I mean, this Council has always been supportive of that, I guess, other than maybe there was one year where there was a snag, but, I mean, as president, I’m committed to that and I want to see us do it, and we’ll move that –

President Lloyd: Item ten, amendments to salary ordinance, I’ll turn that over to the Finance Chair, Mr. Shetler.

Councilmember Shetler: Yes, I think everybody has gotten a copy of the salary ordinance amendments including County Highway, County Clerk, County Treasurer, Prosecutor’s office, Burdette Park, Public Defender and Health department. I move that we would make this a part of the record rather than going through the details of each and every one of those lines.

President Lloyd: Okay, so you’re asking for a motion as submitted for the salary ordinance. Is there a second?

President Lloyd: Okay, motion Mr. Shetler, second Mr. Raben. We need a roll call vote on this please.

President Lloyd: Item eleven, public comment. Is there anybody from the public that wants to address County Council? Seeing none, item twelve, adjournment, is there a motion to adjourn?

Councilmember Goebel: I just wanted to say welcome to Stephanie Terry. She certainly is, I know, qualified for the position, she did a great job today, and welcome. You’ve got some big shoes to fill in Royce Sutton, but obviously, you’re going to do that job, so welcome aboard.

President Lloyd: I think all Councilmembers welcome you on board and look forward to working with you. Okay, someone made a motion to adjourn, is there a second?

(There being no further business to come before the Council, the meeting was adjourned at 10:16 a.m.)

1303-3948	Death Penalty	250,000.00	250,000.00
Total		250,000.00	250,000.00

2010-1028	Truck Driver	171.00	171.00
2010-1060	Mechanic	167.00	167.00
2010-1900	FICA	27.00	27.00
2010-1910	PERF	37.00	37.00
Total		402.00	402.00

4290-3280	Exam. Records/Audit	1,957.00	1,957.00
4290-3130	Travel/Mileage	1,500.00	1,500.00
4290-3700	Dues & Subscriptions	1,000.00	1,000.00
4290-3730	Continuing Education	1,000.00	1,000.00
4290-3990	Miscellaneous	2,120.00	2,120.00
4290-3410	Printing	1,209.00	1,209.00
Total		8,786.00	8,786.00