President Abell: Call to order the June 6, 2007 meeting of the Vanderburgh County Council. Attendance roll call please.

COUNCILMEMBER	PRESENT	ABSENT
Councilmember Sutton	X
Councilmember Leader	X
Councilmember Shetler	X
Councilmember Goebel		X
Councilmember Raben	X
Councilmember Winnecke	X
President Abell	X

President Abell: Councilwoman Leader, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

President Abell: I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes of the May 2nd meeting.

President Abell: And for the appropriation ordinance, we’ll turn the meeting over to our Finance Chairman, Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, thank you, Madam President. First on the agenda today, under Sheriff’s Department, 1050-3600 Rent. Everyone is aware of what this request is, in the amount of 51,458, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Next, Armstrong Township Assessor, 1100-1120-1100 and account 1100-1900, for a total of 1,829, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Union Township Assessor, 1170-1120-1170 Chief Deputy and 1170-1900 FICA, for a total of 4,587, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: County Council, 1480-3460 Consultant in the amount of 5,000, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, I’m going to make a motion to bring this one to the floor. I think we do have the County Assessor here. I think he was going to report back with some information. 2490-1090-3370 in the amount of 64,496, I make that in the form of a motion.

President Abell: Mr. Weaver, would you like to come to the microphone and we’ll have discussion now?

Jonathan Weaver: Good morning, Council. Jonathan Weaver, Vanderburgh County Assessor. As we reported last week, our computers are six years old. Basically, they lasted six years because they were top of the line when we purchased them back in 2001. They’re well out of warranty, the operating system is at the end of its useful life by the end of this year. There’s no upgrade path to handle more software. We’d be spending bad money if we were to upgrade the memory. We were number one in calls down to the help desk before our last upgrade in 2001 and now we’re approaching number one again in terms of calling down there and asking for help. And that cuts back on our productivity and it wastes a lot of time. We feel we’ve been pretty frugal over the last couple of years in terms of upgrading and making repairs and we’ve stretched it out as long as we possibly could. We are aware that the courts had four year old machines and those were replaced recently. We need the 19 inch monitors because we do a lot of mapping and data manipulation. I have a 19 inch monitor right now and sometimes its tough to read, I’ll just be honest with you. We were quoted for a price of 75 computers with other offices in there and we’re getting a great rate. And if we were to divide it up we would be, we’re saving right now about $450 a machine by buying in bulk. There could be some security problems being that its approaching, the operating system is approaching the end of its useful life. There’s no more security patches for the operating system and what we’re looking at is upper middle class computers. So they’re not top of the line but they do have a five year life span with a five year warranty and Dell is at the end of its revenue quarter, so they’re trying to get rid of them. Any questions?

Councilmember Raben: Sure, I’ll start. When you said that they are being packaged with other offices, what is the breaking point, I mean, to get the discount? Is it 40 computers, its it 50, is it 75?

Jonathan Weaver: I guess from the vendor, from what Computer Services was telling me, that this price of – I forgot what it is – per computer was based on buying 75 computers. And that’s, I don’t know what other offices are involved in terms of who is getting, who wants more or what. So...

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I’d like to make one quick comment to the Council. The recommendation that I was going to make on this was to phase these in, do half of them this year, half of them next year. So I’ll do that depending on the conversations or comments made here.

Councilmember Sutton: Well, I know we had some discussions last week about just trying to get an idea on priorities with these units. Were you able to get with maybe Computer Services or the other Assessors to give us a breakdown or something? I mean, we’ve got quite a few papers here – is there something that you may have prepared for us?

Jonathan Weaver: You know, in 2001, from what I understood, those were all replaced across the board and why not do it again? It just creates an accounting nightmare with Computer Services trying to figure out, okay, looking at serial numbers to see which one – when you mix them up its just hard to do. So if we just do it across the board in terms of them keeping up with licensing, software and all that sort of thing, it just makes it easier for them.

Councilmember Shetler: Do we have, is there software that’s necessitating this change in the computers? Are we upgrading the software, and the machines that we presently have can’t handle it?

Jonathan Weaver: Our ProVal system, from what I understand, might be going for some sort of upgrades. I don’t know if that’s with Windows Vista. Do you know anything about that or ...

Judy Stricker: Judy Stricker, Pigeon Township Assessor’s Office, Chief Deputy. Our are crashing. I mean, they’re crashing every day and we’re losing – if we work in them, we might have two hours work that we’ve lost and we have to go back and put it back in. We really, I’ve asked for them since last year. We really need computers. We’re down two computers now. And we’ve got lots of work to do.

Councilmember Shetler: My biggest problem that I have, and I said this last week, is that, you know, a private business can’t afford to simply write a check and go out and replace a whole department or whole areas and they don’t usually do that unless there is, you know, major software changes that necessitate that. They basically will budget a certain percentage of their machines to be replaced every year because they’re wearing out, because they’re crashing after a period of time, and etcetera. They don’t just wholesale go out and buy out for the whole company or for the whole department. That’s very, very rare. And I don’t, I think in government, we need to be a little bit more disciplined, to understand that we don’t just have a blank check here, that the taxpayers are paying for these and we ought not just write a check for whatever amount just because we would like to have a nineteen inch monitor. I’m not so sure that the demands in Union Township or Armstrong or in Scott are the same as they might be in Pigeon or in Knight. And there’s always a deal on computers. I mean, the one thing I’ve learned is that, you know, as soon as you buy a computer, you open up the paper the next Sunday and there’s a hundred dollars off that one you just bought, and you thought you had the best deal you could get, or Dell has a fire sale going on a month later that is $200 off the unit you bought a month or two previously. So there’s always a deal out there. I’m just not so sure that we should run into this thing and just buy a bunch of computers and have them available if its not really necessary.

Jonathan Weaver: Well, you know, they’re approaching six years old and some of them are just dying by the month and these were top of the line back then. And this is why they’ve lasted six years and now we’re out of warranty and we’re looking at middle class, upper middle class computers with a five year warranty. So we’re not buying the top of the line. Again, we’re having that issue with the operating system and then you have the security issues. So its not just a software issue, we’re talking about, you know, we have a lot of work to do, as you hear in the news a lot. You know, we have a lot of pressure with the appeals and we’ve got to get this done and we need the right equipment to get it done correctly, and expedited.

Councilmember Shetler: I agree in certain areas that you do, and you could put that in priority order there, some, but I don’t think that you’ve got the same, you know, like I said, in some of the smaller townships, quite the demand that you have in some of the larger townships. And I’m just not so sure that, you know, we have computers at our place that are more than six years old and are used extensively. So I’m not, that’s not really a compelling argument to me, right now, to say that they’re six years old.

Councilmember Leader: Mr. Weaver, my concern is not with the Assessor’s Office, my concern is with the fact that we do not have an IT plan at all, and that in the middle of the year, someone comes and asks us for $65,000 that wasn’t planned. Its certainly not with your office, and I know what pressure you’re under and the questions you’re receiving, we see it in the media every day, of course. But I’m concerned that we have a computer services department that is reactive and not a planning group. And I think that one of the things I’d like to suggest to the Council is that we recommend to Matt that he create an IT plan that takes us through this year and the next five years out so that we don’t face this situation again. I know budget time is coming and how many of these computers are actually for your department?

Jonathan Weaver: Right, and last week – I have the notes here, you asked about German, someone asked about German, there’s two. They were right in front of me, just wasn’t neatly in the column.

Councilmember Raben: Jonathan, has Computer Services given you any estimate on time? If we replace all 58, how long it will take to get them in place? By the time they’re set up and installed?

President Abell: Mr. Raben, could I – Mr. Davis, I think you can answer some of these questions. Mr. Davis is with Computer Services.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, the question was asked, how long, if we decide to go with all 58 computers, how long will it take to have them in place, up and working?

Scott Davis: Once we receive all the computers, our estimate would be four to five weeks to have them configured, all the software installed, and ready to deploy out to the various offsite locations and the onsite locations, approximately four to five weeks.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I know there’s probably a period for which you have to order these, so as an example, if you were given the go ahead today, when would all 58 computers be up and running?

Scott Davis: Well, the only thing I could estimate would be from the time that they actually arrived onsite and we should be able to have all of them in place, all of the data transferred over in four to five weeks. But, I mean, as far as how long it would take to get the P. O., get the order, get all 58 built by Dell, and then shipped, estimate maybe an additional three to four weeks on top of that.

Councilmember Raben: So, okay, and the reason I asked that question, you know, we do have a new budget session that will begin in August, the first of August, so I would like to go back with my original plan, which was to fund 50% of them today, we’ll budget or make every effort to budget the other 50% in August, and phase them in that way, because it sounds like it might be late summer or early fall before these that we’re talking about today will be in place anyway. Is that okay with everyone?

Councilmember Sutton: Well, Jim, the only thought with that is, kind of along the line with Councilwoman Leader’s concern she expressed about some type of plan, these units that we see requested here may not be the only units that may be requested in 2008. So though you’re saying do 50%, it may be more than 50% when we’re talking about for next year. So maybe if I could hear from Scott, I mean, what other areas as you have looked at your repairs and the degree of obsolescence across the different offices, are you seeing where there might be a need to come before us, say at budget time, with a request for a number of units?

Scott Davis: Practically every department has computers that are anywhere from five to seven years old. What we were asked to do with putting these together was to take a look at the extended refresh cycle that we have here in the county enterprise. Generally, Gartner, one of the biggest study groups, they recommend three to four year maximum on a business-class computer. The state had the same issues when I worked there. Generally, in the past, it was brought up, computer replacements have been a reactive process as opposed to a proactive process, a planned refresh. When one died, then an office would have built into their budget to replace one or two at a time. We’ve been asked to put together information on a machine that as best as anybody could project would have a five year useful life cycle, as a minimum, with some confidence. That’s why this particular configuration was chosen. Yes, you can get computers that are cheaper, but generally they have a much shorter useful life. Yes, a five year warranty, they’ll be covered parts and labor with the warranty, but that does not mean that they couldn’t be in service for a much longer period. We probably, in the enterprise, have machines as old as nine or ten years, but for the very limited scope of what they do, that has been adequate. But as far as not knowing the specific business need for each particular position in a particular office, I couldn’t project as to what the officeholders or department heads would feel that they need to do. I mean, we are trying to split the difference in between coming up with a plan for a standardized refresh similar to what the courts has done traditionally in the past. They’re in the middle of refreshing all of theirs after a four year cycle.

Councilmember Sutton: How long will it take for you to put something like that together for our county offices so that we can see the whole picture rather than just piecemealing this along the way as this office comes and they need something and this group needs something, and then we’re not really getting a true sense, and this whole thing of do we want to be sensitive to there are needs out there, that there are offices that are readily having repair issues, you guys would know those offices, what they are, and what amount of time you guys have spent in those offices trying to get them back on line. That’s what I’d like to do. I think that’s what I’m hearing, the sense here is, we want to get a sense of if we’re buying 58 computers, okay, what impact are we having on the larger scale of what the true need is out there? How long would it take for you to prepare something like that where we can see over a period of time what units are needing to be replaced here?

Scott Davis: We’ve done it for a number of offices, compiled the information specific as to the age of machines, and what their specific current capabilities are. We haven’t done it for all of them yet. I would guess we could probably have that in three to four weeks, have a complete breakdown of each office, each department, what they have now and what we would recommend as potentially being eligible for a refresh.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I think – did you want to make a comment before I – okay.

Councilmember Winnecke: Can we get back to the monitor sizes? Whoever can answer, I don’t care. So the 64,4 is for 75 computers with 19 inch monitors, is that right?

Jonathan Weaver: 64,4 or whatever, 19 inch monitors, yes. We have 19 inch monitors right now. We do a lot of that mapping, we’re –

Jonathan Weaver: Well, all of us. I mean, I have a 19 inch right now, across my desk, and its – I couldn’t believe it was a 19 inch monitor, to tell you the truth, but it is.

Scott Davis: I’m sorry, the number that you have, the dollar amount is for the 58 computers that the County Assessor and the Township Assessors are looking at refreshing.

Councilmember Winnecke: Okay, and so all 58 of those folks need 19 inch monitors? Do they all have 19 inch monitors now?

Jonathan Weaver: We’re getting requests especially from Knight Township where they want the 21 plus inch monitors. They’re upset with this 19 inch choice.

Councilmember Raben: Okay. Madam President, I’m going to withdraw my original motion. I’d like to ask Jonathan Weaver to file a new request for July pending a needs assessment from computer services for all county-wide computers. I think that’s what we’re asking for, is that not correct?

Councilmember Sutton: So we’re not trying to slow down the process, we’re just trying to get a handle on what’s being asked of us and there’s several entities involved and I know you guys are wanting to get these units dealt with, replaced, but I think we’ll do a better job for taxpayers if we get a truer sense of what’s going on.

Jonathan Weaver: I guess my only concern is after last week, I had a call from Perry where two are on the fritz. There’s one in Center right now, and I don’t know how many Judy has and then maybe Joyce back there in Armstrong. So it almost looks like we’re approaching dire needs in some places.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, what we do need to remember, within the computer services budget there is one large line. If you recall, for years it was two lines and now its consolidated to one large line. Part of that is a contract with a private vendor that hosts and maintains our network. The other is for equipment that is for our basic needs throughout the county, so if we have any crashes or any dire needs, Matt Arvay should be able to fund those and take care of those needs, you know, those emergency needs. So if we’re upside down because of a couple two or three or four or five computers, there’s funds in place through our IT department today to fund those. So you might get with him. Its my understanding he’s on vacation, but when he gets back, get with him if we need something to buy us time for the next 30 days.

Jonathan Weaver: And again, I just wanted to bring to your attention if you’re thinking about splitting it up, I mean, there’s a potential there where it could cost $450 per computer more if you break it down and not buy it in bulk.

Councilmember Leader: I don’t necessarily think we’re talking about splitting it up, I think we’re just talking about understanding now and looking a little bit into the future so that would be four weeks from now, right, when you place the order? But, I mean, we do have the emergency fund and if you need two and whatever, I would suggest you try to get those ordered today.

President Abell: Mr. Davis, if there is an additional possibly $450 per computer, where is the split? That’s what we keep wanting, that’s what we keep asking. If we buy ten computers do we get them at this price or if we buy eleven computers do we get them at this price? Where does that price stop because I don’t want to pay $450 more per computer because we buy 20 when we could have bought them at a lesser price for buying 25.

Scott Davis: The 400 – the potential up to $450, that’s a worst case scenario, that’s the baseline price from the state QPA. For Dell computers, we’re able to ride on the state QPA annual bid. The 450 is if machines were purchased as they had been traditionally one at a time. Dell has, and I’m sure it’s a proprietary information issue, generally, the discounts in the past have been, the pricing is the same from zero to twenty, twenty to fifty, fifty to seventy-five on up. But then again, as with any private business, depending upon when you might hit Dell during their revenue cycle, or HP during their revenue cycle, and what their current performance has been, they may be more flexible in their pricing. And so the 450 per unit is a worst case scenario.

President Abell: That was the number I was looking for, the zero to twenty, the twenty to fifty, was what I was looking for. And one other comment, and I am sure I am tagging on to Mr. Winnecke here, is that I don’t think we’ve made any more stronger argument for anything than we have at Data Board in here, is that monitors are like backyard grills. Everybody wants the biggest one, and the best one on the block. I am not in favor of big or bigger – next thing I’ll know, they’re going to be having 50 inch plasma screen T.V.’s down there. Seventeen inch, and I’ve worked in this building. I spent eight years in the courts, and we spent a lot of time looking at a monitor over there, and we can look at seventeen inch, and we do everything from order books to numbers and everything else. They can be used. The only people I really think, you’re looking at the Surveyor’s Office that’s actually drawing maps. Just to look at a map, I think a seventeen inch monitor is plenty, and a nineteen inch monitor is over the top, and twenty-one inches is completely, I would never vote for a twenty-one inch. So just keep that in mind as you’re pricing them or you’re talking to these officeholders. They’d have to make a really good argument for a bigger monitor.

Scott Davis: Yes Ma’am, we understand that, and that’s why when we were asked to put the information together for this request, we put together information with both configurations and that was the only difference in between the two was the size of the monitor.

Councilmember Shetler: One further question, let me ask you on the monitors, do they have the same life span as the computer itself?

Councilmember Shetler: No, I mean, do they generally, in general, do the monitors last as long as the computers or last longer?

Scott Davis: In general, we’ve seen that they last at least as long as. Depending upon the manufacturer and the particular series, a lot of times, they do last longer.

Councilmember Shetler: So we wouldn’t necessarily have to replace, if we had seventy-five new computers, then, seventy-five monitors to go along with it. There’s a chance that a lot of those monitors are in pretty good shape and they could be utilized on a new system?

Councilmember Raben: Okay, the motion, I’ve amended my motion to set this in at zero and ask that it be put back on the agenda for next month.

Jonathan Weaver: I just want to say, the difference in price between a seventeen inch and a nineteen inch is thirty-one dollars per computer, and, you know, if most of us have nineteen inches now, and we downgrade to seventeen inch, it just creates that much of a –

Councilmember Winnecke: Let me just say, you know, with all due respect, you know, its – $2,000 is $2,000.

Councilmember Winnecke: At Fifth/Third Bank, and this is just one example, we use fifteen inch monitors and we have people in branches and in all facets of the bank that look at computer screens all day long also. And, you know, I have a great amount of respect for the people who work in this building, but $2,000 is a lot of money when you talk about taxpayers’ money.

President Abell: And, Mr. Weaver, there is a stopping point and I think that’s one of things that, and I don’t mean to say you don’t understand, because I always hate it when people tell me I don’t understand something, but you’re one office. You get it, then the next office wants it, and then another one wants it and before long, we’ve got every office in here saying well, they got nineteen inch, so we want nineteen inch. And then when you get twenty-one inch, then that’s when we end up with a fifty inch plasma screen T.V.

Jonathan Weaver: It will just be interesting when they do their audit to see what everybody has in the building, to see if everybody has nineteen inch right now or whatever they have, and bring that to your attention. But thanks.

Councilmember Raben: Okay next, Legal Aid/United Way. Madam President, I’m going to split this up into two separate motions. 4290-1960 Special Stipend in the amount of $5,000. I’ve had or been contacted by one Commissioner and a City Councilmember all asking that this first go to the City Council, and that is consistent with what action we took the last meeting with the Building Commission, by sending them first to the City Council. So I’d like to make that motion that that be set in at zero and first go before the City Council.

Councilmember Raben: Yes, let me amend that motion, 4290-1960 Special Stipend in the amount of 5,000, 4290-1900 FICA and 4290-1910 PERF all be set in at zero.

Councilmember Winnecke: Thank you. I really don’t understand this move. We have debated this topic on and off for three or four years. Last year I believe the latest directive of this body was that United Way be requested to increase its funding to Legal Aid to account for this stipend. In fact, United Way has stepped to the plate and increased its funding to this agency by the requisite amount. Now we’re saying, well now you have to go to the City Council. These folks have done everything we have asked and this has been going on for years. I don’t think its fair. We can vote on it and the City Council can vote on it. If the City Council doesn’t approve it, that’s fine, that’s their business. But this body has asked them to take these steps and they’ve done it.

President Abell: Any other comments? Roll call. Maybe you could restate what we’re voting on.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, I can certainly do that. We’re voting on 4290-1960, 4290-1900 and 4290-1910 all be set in at zero pending first City Council’s approval.

Councilmember Sutton: When we come back here next month, I fully anticipate that the Assessor and the computer guys will have gotten together, put their proposal together just as we’ve asked, and I’ll be prepared to vote for that. This request here on United Way, they’ve done what we’ve asked for them to do. I voted no in the past because some of the things were not in place as we had asked them to do. Steps were not necessarily in the spirit of what we felt like we’re comfortable with, what I thought was in the best interest of the county. Now I think it is and I’m ready to vote on this, and so this request here to put this in at zero, I vote no.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, next 4290-3371 Computer Hardware in the amount of $4,403, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: To approve the Computer Hardware request in the amount of 4,403.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, that’s it for appropriations, now we’ll move into transfers. Superior Court, we have a transfer in the amount of $1,500, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: County Council, transfer in the amount of $261, I’ll move approval.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, on the next one, County Highway, there is a transfer in the amount of $15,000 from Sand & Gravel to Computers. The request was made last week for more of a better understanding for what this $15,000 request is. We were all given a letter and a breakdown of this request this morning. Is there any questions before I make a motion on this one? Do we want to ask the Highway Department to come forward?

Councilmember Leader: Good morning. My concern is only that sometime later before the year is over you will need $15,000 for Sand & Gravel.

Mike Duckworth: Actually in assessing that over the last two years, a lot of that money at the end of the year has been transferred into the end of the year appropriation account, or cash account. I don’t anticipate that being the case. As we said in the letter, this is us trying to get updated to where we can be more efficient and track our usage of our materials and those kind of things. So I really do not anticipate that at all.

Councilmember Winnecke: I’m kind of perusing this real quickly so, Mike, can you just give us like – what are we buying for our 15,000?

Mike Duckworth: Initially what had happened is in our budget we had a $5,000 line item. And as you can see, there has been an increase in the need for – we went through our initial purchases with updating some of our printers and some of our computers. In looking at the cost coding and tracking of the materials that we use, we needed to install and update our software. And to do that, basically, what we’ve had to do is to not only upgrade our software, but to buy new licensing for those pieces of equipment. As we’ve done this, we have worked with Matt Arvay on every step of the way and as some of you may or may not know, when I first started in this position, there was the – there was a position called an Assistant Superintendent. And in understanding where we needed to go, showed more of a need for a Network Specialist, so we diverted that position into the Network Specialist so that we could accomplish some of these things. I have Jamie Rutherford with me today. If you’ll look under the basic total of what we’ve spent under description and the validation of those uses of those software and motor data equipment and the licensing, it pretty well spells it out for you there: $5,900 for upgrades, 3,200 for repairs on some of the equipment that we do have, and then the layers to track our use and our software to help us track that use and be more efficient, is the explanation we have for that. This would leave a little bit of a balance in that account. As we’re working through these, we don’t anticipate any further problems, but we don’t want to have to come back. So we’re building a little bit of a – I think a 3 or $4,000 buffer there to get us through the rest of the year.

Mike Duckworth: We’ve replaced only one computer and that was for the payroll.

Jamie Rutherford: The quotes we got, it was a $20 difference, so we thought $20, --

Councilmember Winnecke: Well, I – thank you. I mean, that was really the point of my question. At budget time this year, and we’ve got to chat about this. And twenty bucks, thirty bucks, whatever the difference is, it’s the wrong message, I think, and all due to respect to everyone who has been before us today, --

Mike Duckworth: I think you’re going to find throughout the departments, that there is going to be – when they upgrade, they upgraded to the higher monitors.

Councilmember Winnecke: I am sure, but I concur with Mrs. Abell, everyone doesn’t need the biggest barbecue in the backyard or whatever. Thank you.

President Abell: Oh, I’m sorry, I was told you didn’t make that in the form of a motion, Mr. Raben.

Councilmember Raben: No, I have not. So, Madam President, I’ll move that we approve a transfer in the amount of $15,000 for the County Garage.

President Abell: Mr. Duckworth, if you have money left over at the end of the year, I hope you plan to give us back to us.

Mike Duckworth: It goes back to the County Highway Fund, and Mr. Fluty will take care of that.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, Madam President, I believe that concludes most of the transfers that there will be discussion or dialogue on. If its okay with this body, I’ll move that all remaining transfers be approved as listed.

President Abell: Would there be anyone that has a comment about the late transfer? If not, I’ll say that would be fine. Okay. Roll call vote.

Councilmember Raben: Okay, are we ready? Next we’ll move to the Salary Ordinance amendments, first is Armstrong Assessor, amend salary line 1100-1120 Chief Deputy as previously adopted. The salary is set at 10.50 per hour not to exceed 25 hours per week. This salary will be in effect – in fact, all salary amendments today will be effective June 11th, 2007. Union Assessor, amend salary line 1170-1120 Chief Deputy as previously adopted. Again, this salary is set at 10.50 per hour, not to exceed 20 hours per week. County Highway, amend salary line 2010-1001 Superintendent as previously adopted with an annual salary of 52,677 and that will have to be prorated from the effective date of June 11th. Health Department/Community Dental Clinic, amend salary line 2158-1600 Dentist with an annual salary of 86,520. That, too, to be prorated from June 11th. This is a three percent increase. Salary line 2158-1610 Dental Hygienist, with an annual salary of 39,328. Again, this one will be prorated from June 11th. This, too, is a three percent increase. Line 2158-1620 Dental Assistant, with an annual salary of 24,720. This will be prorated from June 11th. This, too, is an annual salary increase of three percent. Prosecutor IV-D, I move approval to pay Prosecutor IV-D staff overtime for the month of June only. Employees to work four hours each Saturday to complete a series of reports to improve performance numbers as requested by the Indiana Department of Child Services. The overtime funds to be paid out of account 2670-1980 in the amount of $15,000. I might note this will be of no cost to our general fund. Madam President, that concludes the amendments, and I make that in the form of a motion.

President Abell: Thank you, Mr. Raben. Old Business, for the purpose of bringing this to the floor for discussion, we voted on it in first reading. I’ll entertain a motion to pass the Pigeon Creek Greenway ordinance on second reading.

Councilmember Shetler: I guess my major question is on it, and I’m just trying to figure out what benefits the county is going to receive from it. As I understand, the plan is to keep the existing map on there which is primarily in the city, and I’m not sure what our investment is going to gain for the people in the county. So, I guess, I don’t know who can answer the question for me, but that’s the question I have.

President Abell: I don’t see anyone in the audience qualified to answer that and I can tell you that I haven’t gotten an answer for that, either. I did have some questions and I will pose mine here. After I voiced objection to this at the first reading, Mr. Ziemer, the Commissioner’s attorney called and said that there would be no personal meeting, but that I was requested to put into writing some of my concerns, which I did, and sent them to Mr. Ziemer. He forwarded them to the city administration. As of ten minutes before I left my house this morning, there was no response to my comments. My comments were these: I wanted a guarantee that none of this money would be used on private property, with the exception of a possible small amount used to gain any easements that we need. I have no guarantee of that, they didn’t respond to that. I wanted a small board of elected officials to oversee the spending of this money, not just an appointed board, which was the parks board. There was no response to that. My other comment and concern is that if they put this, if this becomes a part of the Parks Department, the Parks Department is a county-wide taxed entity. And our county employees would be taxed for this. But yet, when I look at this board, it is solely controlled by the city, and I do not feel that we should tax the county citizenry for a board that’s controlled by a group of appointed people, appointed by a group of elected people that they didn’t have the opportunity to vote for. And I think that’s considered taxation with representation, and I can tell you that I intend to vote no on this Greenway Passage ordinance. However, with all that said, I also want note to be made that I am not against the Greenway Passage. In fact, I sat on the Parks Foundation Board for many years, raised money and spent a lot of time working on this Greenway, and I am in favor of it. I am just not in favor of it being handled the way it is. It seems to me, its owned by the citizens, it should be run by the citizens, and any time government gets their fingers in it, it always seems to end up in a bad way and I don’t want to see this become a political football. It could be a jewel for the city and county and should remain that. And with that said, I’ll turn the microphone over to anyone else that has any comments.

Councilmember Raben: I have just a brief comment, and I had stated this in our prior vote. Personally, I’m comfortable with the fact that the city would have more vote or more say in the makeup of this board because, in fact, you know, the funds that they appropriate versus what we appropriate really and truthfully dwarfs what the county’s contribution is. But I am very uncomfortable with the fact that you have raised questions that have not been answered and I think your concerns with using funds other than right-of-ways is a very legitimate question and, at this point, you know, I would have to vote no pending answers to those questions.

President Abell: New Business, Convention & Visitors Bureau, I assume that Marilee wants to say a few words to us and Mr. Vezzoso.

Joe Vezzoso: Joe Vezzoso, President of Evansville Convention & Visitors Bureau and –

Marilee Fowler: Marilee Fowler, Executive Director, at the Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Joe Vezzoso: Its always a pleasure to come before you all and especially today. Back in March we came before you and asked that you support a law that we were trying to get passed at the state level and both the county, the County Commissioners, and the City all sent up letters of recommendation in support of that law. Unfortunately, at that time, we felt that because of some of our northern Indiana elected officials, that we had lost that opportunity. But late in the session, they attached our amendment to another bill, 1478, and on page 78 of that new law, which is 102 pages long, there is two paragraphs in there that give the county the authority to increase our Innkeeper’s Tax. We have met with most of you individually and discussed our ideas for the use of these additional funds. Its for youth sports complexes within the city and within the county, and we just feel that the economic development that this would bring to our community over justifies the request for the Innkeepers Tax increase. We are requesting that you increase it from six to eight percent. There is a draft ordinance at each one of your places. If you’d like a copy of the bill, we’ll get you a copy of the bill that we have so that you can see the actual verbiage. The additional funds would go into tourism capital development, which we have to come back before you all, bring you the project, and get your approval before any of those funds could be spent. We would request that in the passage of the increase, that that become effective August 1st, so that we can begin collecting those tax monies, so that we can move forward with any potential projects. So if you have any questions, either Marilee or I will be glad to answer them.

Councilmember Sutton: More of a comment. You guys undertook a pretty comprehensive community-wide study. Can you talk about that study and why you’ve come to the conclusions that you have related to the youth sports area that you want to focus these dollars for?

Marilee Fowler: We had a consultant, his name is Don Schumacher in town last fall. He was actually here in the summer, did an assessment of all the sports facilities that we have. With the building of the Goebel Soccer Complex we came to realize the value of youth sports and what these tournaments can bring to our community. So he came to Evansville, did an assessment of all the facilities, and he said the weak links at this point in time, are softball and baseball. We don’t have these multi-field complexes that will invite tournaments. We have beautiful fields throughout the community, but they’re not clustered in one area. And when they look at putting on a tournament, it makes it easier to do if they’re all together. That’s why Goebel is so successful. So we want to take that same concept and do it with baseball and softball. There’s other things that we want to do down the road with those resources, but that would be the first priority is baseball and softball.

Councilmember Winnecke: Just a quick question, I totally support this. What, assuming it passes and takes effect August 1, what kind of time frame does the Convention & Visitors Bureau have in terms of seeing some of these projects take place?

Joe Vezzoso: We would hope that if you all pass the legislation next month, that we want to move forward very quickly because as time passes, we miss that opportunity to bid on tournaments. There is a ASA Convention in Louisville in October of this year and we were hoping to have preliminary plans and site development to take to that convention to bid on tournaments for 2009, because they always bid two years out. So there are some tournaments that are available for us in 2008 if we were to have a complex completed in that time frame. But to really go out and look for new tournaments to bring to our community, they would be in 2009, so we would hope to move fairly quickly. We’re ready to move forward. All we need is some funding to pay for the project. I would tell you that I think most of you have young adults that have been in youth sports in the past and a number of you, I know, when we spoke to you, travel with your children or your nieces and nephews or whatever, and you understand the economic impact that it creates for a community. When you move a team, and you have to take a soccer team or a baseball team or a softball team to another community, and you play in tournaments, and it does bring a tremendous amount in economic impact, not only to the hotel industry, but to the hospitality industry as a whole in the community, with restaurants, gas stations, and shopping and attractions, and all other types of things. So we are very excited about it. We think that it would be a great thing for this community to have and we are ready to move forward. We just need your help in passing the tax. I would tell you that I’m also the vice president of the hotel association, and the hotel association fully supports the increase in the Innkeepers Tax. So it puts us, you know, we’ll be at eight percent, Indianapolis is at nine percent, plus Indianapolis has got another add-on tax in addition to the nine percent. Most communities our size are at least a minimum of eight percent. And I know if you travel outside our state, you’ll find that a number of communities are even higher than eight percent. So it will not affect hotel occupancy at all. It’s a pass-along tax and we’re just asking to tax our industry so that we can bring more people to our community.

Councilmember Shetler: Are there any restrictions on this money or can it just be used for capital or operational, or both?

Joe Vezzoso: The way the law reads, it goes into what’s called the Tourism Capital Development Fund, and those monies can only be used for brick and mortar. It cannot be used for the operational side. We have to run that through the two and a half cents that Marilee currently gets. So from an operation standpoint, it will not increase her operational budgets at all. This is strictly Tourism Capital Development. It’s the same fund that the money comes out of that we contribute to The Centre, the LST, the Reitz Home and other things like that.

Councilmember Shetler: So I guess the point that I’m at, the operation wasn’t the operation of the – but the operation actually of the facility, so that, for example, we build a softball park, that in the future, if some of that money could be contributed to help maintain it, as well.

Joe Vezzoso: We’d have to come back probably to the state and ask that some of those funds or that law be amended and a certain portion of that go back into an operating account. We have some reserve accounts that we feel that we can come back to you and ask for some funding as we move forward with this. This is also a profitable operation. We would look for a private operator to actually run the facility. They go out and they bid on the tournaments and then each team pays X number of dollars to come in and play in the tournament. So its really, hopefully, what it would become is that it would become a profit center. And not a lot of money, but it would at least bring some revenue in to cover the cost of the operations at the center.

Councilmember Shetler: Right. I think you all are to be applauded, too, of the hotel/motel folks because its not often than an industry is willing to accept a tax that’s going to increase their costs to their patrons and stuff, and then you guys have jumped into this because you recognize the good that its going to do for our community as a whole. So I applaud you all for that. Thank you.

President Abell: Any other comments? Thank you for coming. I think you get the feel that we’re all very excited about this.

Joe Vezzoso: Thank you for your time. And we don’t need any new computers, by the way.

1050-3600	Rent	51,458.00	51,458.00
Total		51,458.00	51,458.00

1100-1120-1100	Chief Deputy	1,699.00	1,699.00
1100-1900	FICA	130.00	130.00
Total		1,829.00	1,829.00

1170-1120-1170	Chief Deputy	4,261.00	4,261.00
1170-1900	FICA	326.00	326.00
Total		4,587.00	4,587.00

1480-3460	Consultant	5,000.00	5,000.00
Total		5,000.00	5,000.00

2010-1001	Superintendent	3,357.00	3,357.00
2010-1900	FICA	257.00	257.00
2010-1910	PERF	227.00	227.00
2010-2530	Bituminous Materials	275,000.00	275,000.00
Total		278,841.00	278,841.00

2490-1090-3370	Computer (Data Mgmt)	64,496.00	0.00
Total		64,496.00	0.00

4290-1960	Special Stipend	5,000.00	0.00
4290-3371	Computer Hardware	4,403.00	4,403.00
4290-1900	FICA	383.00	0.00
4290-1910	PERF	0.00	0.00
Total		9,786.00	4,403.00

From: 2490-1150-2820	Red & Blue Books	270.00	270.00
2490-1150-3520	Equipment Repair	796.00	796.00
2490-1150-3410	Printing	300.00	300.00
To: 2490-1150-2600	Office Supplies	1,366.00	1,366.00