VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

DECEMBER 15, 2009

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 15^th day of December, 2009 at 5:52 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Lloyd Winnecke presiding.

President Winnecke: Okay, let’s call to order the December 15, 2009 Vanderburgh County Drainage Board. Attendance roll call.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: President Winnecke?

President Winnecke: Here.

President Winnecke: At this time I would consider a motion to approve the minutes from our previous meeting.

Commissioner Melcher: So moved.

Commissioner Tornatta: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, the minutes are approved.

President Winnecke: Good evening, Mr. Jeffers.

Bill Jeffers: Good evening. Our first item is the revised drainage plan for lot seven and lot eight, Arrowood Subdivision. You may have seen an e-mail, a series of e-mails shot back and forth between my office, Ted’s office and the design engineer and John Stoll. This afternoon the design engineer, Justin Shofstall, who’s here in the audience if you, along with the developer, Randall Johnston, has brought me a set of plans that do address all of the items that were of concern. In addition, I believe there is an encroachment agreement that was prepared in accordance with direction from your County Engineer, excuse me, County Attorney, and I believe Madelyn Grayson has that in front of her ready to be signed by everyone who needs to sign it. If the County Attorney agrees with the wording of that encroachment agreement, the County Surveyor has reviewed the plan and recommends approval.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I agree.

Commissioner Tornatta: On the recommendation of the Surveyor, I will approve.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Are there questions or is there discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, the plan is approved. Thank you.

Bill Jeffers: And, I thank the people who came here to attend tonight for coming, because they need to sign that document and everything. It wasn’t a last minute rush item, it had been discussed over a period of time. It just happened to all come together here at about 2:00.

President Winnecke: Great. Thank you.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, my next item on the agenda is the request last week from Wayne Fehd to restore a ditch grade on Kansas Road at Henry Ditch. On your screen you will see, in a red circle, is the area where the field tile comes out of this acreage that’s outlined in green. The field tile then discharges into Henry Ditch, where it comes out....you can see it crossing the field here, and then it turns south along the property line and discharges into Kansas Road side ditch. But, then Henry Ditch, which is a regulated drain that we are in control of, then flows eastward along the north edge of Kansas Road until it gets to Bluegrass Creek. So, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Drainage Board rather than the Highway Department, and in particular some of the work that has to be done lies outside the right-of-way for Kansas Road. I met out there with the County Highway Superintendent yesterday, and we agreed that the work needs to be done by a contractor for the Drainage Board rather than by the County Highway Department simply because much of the work to clear the tile needs to be done off right-of-way. In addition, I am proposing to clear out Henry Ditch for a couple of, maybe 200 feet west, or, excuse me, east of this point to remove some sediment. That’s what’s caused the blockage is a build-up of sediment, some of which may have come from a development of this subdivision over here over the past three or four years, a minor build-up. Some of which may have come from the farm field itself, which I believe needs to be tended in a more conservation sensitive manner, with more intensive conservation tillage, particularly within this yellow rectangle that has been put on the map, or the overhead projector here. I would like to see a grass waterway down through here to keep sediment in the future from coming out of this farm field and collecting at that point and then causing us to have to repeat this repair. So, I’m going to contact the owner of the property who appears to be David and Sally Jorgensen, and ask Mr. Fehd to work with me to encourage them to enter into a conservation program for a grassy waterway along their property line here. I will seek, with your permission, I will seek three quotes from our regular vendors, and because we’re not meeting December 29^th, and we won’t see you again until, I believe, January 5^th or so, I would like to move ahead with this. I don’t believe it will be more than $1,500 to $2,000. I don’t consider it a dire (tape flip), because the farm isn’t currently in tillage, or in cultivation, but I would like to get it done in a timely fashion so that when it does come time to turn that ground, the repairs have been made and the farmer can proceed with his crop. So, if I could have your permission to seek those bids and let them to the lowest bidder, with a limit of, let’s say, $2,000, I believe I can get that done.

President Winnecke: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, you may proceed.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, thank you.

Bill Jeffers: Our next item is an alleged obstruction of Rexing Creek, which is also known as Rusher Creek, at a number of rail line crossings in Scott Township. This was brought to our attention by some farmers in the area who maintain our drains in Pond Flat. The President of Big Creek Drainage Association, Eldon Maasberg, is in the audience in case there are any questions. Essentially, what has happened is the rail line, this is the one that passes under your newly opened overpass at Baseline Road, the same rail line, it goes over a series of our regulated drains, Pond Flat Main, Pond Flat Lateral E, and Rusher Creek, or Rexing Creek, and at each of those locations they have applied new ballast rock. During the application it spilled through the ties, or overside of the embankment and has lodged in the waterway opening for three separate bridges, all of which carry our regulated drains under the rail line. These, each one of these openings is undersized currently and experiences backed up water. So, even though it may appear that the amount of rock that has spilled, in some cases may appear slight, any obstruction whatsoever in one of those waterway openings can become critical in the spring. So, what I would like to do is, with your permission, notify the railway company that they have created an obstruction, in my opinion, that it should be removed in ten days. If it’s not we will hire a contractor to remove it and send them the bill. That’s essentially the best I can do.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, you may proceed.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, thank you.

Bill Jeffers: Tonight, or this afternoon we have with us Mr. Heath Rupp, the owner of Royal Car Wash, which is located on Pearl Drive in the Eagle Plaza Shopping Center, between Red Bank Road and Boehne Camp Road. He has had some flooding problems through his car wash caused by excessive run off from large parking lot areas uphill from him. He retained Morley and Associates, who’s represented here tonight by James. Q. Morley, Sr., who put together a report detailing the cause and possible remedy for the flooding that Mr. Rupp is experiencing at his car wash. I’ll turn the microphone over to them for their presentation. The lot, you can’t see the car wash because these pictures were taken before the car wash was built. This lot has a bank in it now, but, essentially, this is Home Depot’s parking lot, and this service road carries a lot of water down, the water goes out into Pearl Drive and then this is the bottom of the hill, you start going back uphill in front of Hacienda. So, the water, any water that spills out and is not captured by inlet then turns through the bank property and through the car wash property, which is cross hatched, and runs through, actually runs through the car wash bays and out into this lake. So, here’s your pointer and you all can go to it.

Heath Rupp: Hi, guys. Thank you for your time.

President Winnecke: Could you state your name for the record, please?

Heath Rupp: It’s Heath Rupp. I’m the owner of the car wash on Pearl Drive. This problem basically surfaced soon after we began construction, and we took some steps to address it initially. What has happened is there are, and Jim can probably speak better to this than I can, there are five inlets on the back side of this, well, their parking lot is designed to shed the water from the front of their building, down to the back of this curb and collect it and go out their drain. The problem is the grade of their parking lot, I believe, is missing the inlets. So, the water is all piling up down here and it skips those inlets all together. By the time it hits the street, it is, when it collects on this drive it fills this drive curb to curb. I think Jim’s got a pretty good report that speaks to the problem. I would say, the fact that probably nobody’s made you gentlemen aware of this problem yet is because that when it does happen the traffic just naturally diverts and they start cutting through the bank parking lot, across B-dubs through Show-Me’s and then back out. They just go around it. It gets several feet deep out in the street when it does happen, as it does overwhelm the public storm drains out in the street. Now, there’s a storm drain located out here in front of the bank, in the street, and on the other side over by Golden Corral. We have attempted to take some remedy to this. As the water actually comes across and hits the bank, we put some speed bumps/water dams in to try to keep the water on their side, but several times when it gets deeper and it just overwhelms the whole property. If this were any business other than a car wash that wasn’t designed to hold water, it would wash it away. I mean, it would be in the dining room, in the kitchen and everything else. So, you know, then what happens is it’s washing out this grate in the back. We attempted to repair it a couple of times by Hinderliter Construction. I think one time we spent almost $5,000 fixing it, and then the other time I think we spent about $3,000 on rip rap. I think Bill said that might have not been the best thing because that kind of tries to slow the water, but, at any rate, our property is designed to handle our water. It’s not designed to handle all the run off from the street and stuff and it’s causing us pretty good problems. We’ve got a bid, I’ve only put it out for one bid with Naas and Sons to fix the problem that we have now, this time it’s $12,000. So, it’s a reoccurring problem. We’ve only been there for five years and we keep having to go back and fix the same thing over and over again. I’m going to turn the mic over to Jim and he can probably speak to the details.

James Q. Morley, Sr.: My names is James Q. Morley of Morley and Associates. I’ve excerpted in the report part of the drainage plans that were presented to you for approval, to this Board for approval back by Home Depot originally. Home Depot has a system of storm sewers, okay, that picks up water from down here along the drive, brings it back and down the hill and into the detention basin over here. We re-checked all of their calculations, their pipe sizes are more than enough. Their pipes are more than enough, however, the problem they have is that there are, there is one inlet on Pearl Drive over here, there’s an inlet in here, another one up here, and there’s one down in here in the corner of their parking lot. When water is flowing two inches deep, the capacity of those inlets to take on water is only a little over two cubic feet per second. The water coming off of the parking lot in a ten year storm is twenty two cubic feet per second. The pipe capacity that they put in is over thirty cubic feet per second. They can’t fill their pipe. Their problem is they didn’t set up for the situation that they needed to on the sheet flow. It’s sheeting off of the parking lot, the inlets are over against the curb and because it’s a sheet flow arrangement all the way across here, there’s no crown in the road so it doesn’t pile up very deep above the inlets. So, they can’t, they spent a whole lot of money on a system and the one little part of having enough inlets they didn’t check it, and when they submitted the drainage plan to Bill for review back in those days they didn’t include any data on the inlets. So, everything he checked was exactly correct. They just left something out, and that’s what’s causing the flooding on Pearl Drive. What they need to do, and I’ve marked on, I’ve taken Home Depot’s map and I’ve got a little pink marker on the, it’s like that first fold out page in there, and what I have suggested that they do is come off of this inlet in the corner right here and come across this drive with a trench drain across that drive. The next one with a trench drain, the entrance off of Pearl Drive take a trench drain across there, out of those existing inlet boxes so they don’t have to run any new pipe, just the trench drains. Then, there’s one over here and then one up here, and if you’ll catch those five crossings I think that will essentially come very close to solving the problem. They just missed it and never thought about the inlets at the time they put this plan together. You can see from the photos that he took, you’ve got some really serious flooding out on Pearl Drive. It’s washing the bank out behind Fifth Third’s branch bank here. They’ve tried to put a little bit of erosion control on it, it’s taking the bank out behind it, but it’s really washing worse behind Heath’s car wash here, coming down that bank. It’s just really washed it out very badly. The problem is he can’t solve the problem there, I mean, the county has a problem with Pearl Drive with all of that water in there and the traffic on it. So, if, and, obviously, as the landowner down here he doesn’t really have any control over Home Depot. So, somehow we need to get back to the problem. The problem’s at Home Depot, not a terribly expensive fix, you know, somewhere in the range of $30,000, and really that’s not very much in relation to how big the problem is and how reasonably simple the solution is.

President Winnecke: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Bill, is this a situation where we would need to send, or instruct you to send a letter to Home Depot? Or, do we pay a visit? What are your thoughts?

Bill Jeffers: Well, I believe it behooves the Drainage Board to notify Home Depot of a problem that was brought to our attention, particularly since it affects our roadway, Pearl Drive, but even more so because you have a car wash that’s zoned commercial and if the car wash were to sell and someone else wanted to locate a business there that met the requirements for C-4, as Heath pointed out they couldn’t put an office building there.

Commissioner Tornatta: Uh-huh.

Bill Jeffers: Because the only reason he can operate a car wash there is because it’s a car wash. So, water running through there a foot, foot and a half deep passes on through, but it wouldn’t pass through with an office building there.

Commissioner Tornatta: How would you like to, would you like us to draft a letter, you draft a letter? Then, send that to that particular location, or do we need to send it to corporate?

Heath Rupp: We’ve got–

President Winnecke: Step up to the mic, would you please?

Heath Rupp: I’ve already retained Mark Fine to, you know, try to submit what Jim had done to Home Depot. Their additional response was a favorable one, we want to be good neighbors, get a price to how much it is to fix it as it was. You know, the pipe is big enough, they just need to basically expand their drain a little bit. They came back and gave them a price, and then they came back and said, oh, no, it’s not our, you know, we don’t, all of a sudden we don’t want to be a good neighbor. You know, so, as he pointed out it’s an expensive fix but for the size and the scope of the problem, it’s really not that expensive. So, as of this afternoon we were going to re-submit a little more detailed thing showing exactly where it was going to be. So, if you guys would show some of your support and maybe draft a letter and stuff that maybe Mark could forward, we could all put a little more pressure on them here locally and they could send it off to wherever Home Depot’s, Mark’s contact at Home Depot was and we could, that would probably go a long way.

Commissioner Tornatta: So, they own the property?

Heath Rupp: They own the property.

Commissioner Tornatta: They do? Okay.

Heath Rupp: I’m pretty sure. Is that right?

Commissioner Tornatta: Well, a lot of times they’ll lease the property.

James Q. Morley, Sr.: I think that Home Depot owns this.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay. Okay. I would make a motion to have the Surveyor help us construct a letter to send to Home Depot.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second for the county to draft a letter to send to Home Depot in support of Mr. Morley and Mr. Rupp’s direction.

Commissioner Tornatta: This probably goes further than that. I mean, it sounds like, is it Fifth Third?

James Q. Morley, Sr.: Yeah, Fifth Third.

Commissioner Tornatta: Fifth Third has a pretty big problem.

President Winnecke: I’ll look into that.

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah.

Heath Rupp: Thank you.

President Winnecke: I was unaware of it till tonight.

Bill Jeffers: Mike Wathen and I have been there on a few occasions–

President Winnecke: I’m sure someone is, but I’m not.

Bill Jeffers: –and we confirm, we both confirmed the extent of the damage, and it’s very extensive and expensive what has already been expended by Mr. Rupp. Each time he does it it’s just going to get washed out if nothing’s done on Home Depot’s property.

President Winnecke: Okay, we have a motion and a second. Further discussion or questions? All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: On that letter, show a copy going to the County Attorney.

Bill Jeffers: And you’re not associated with Fine in any way?

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: I’m not. I am absolutely not.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, that’s a good thing because I didn’t want to cause a conflict. I didn’t know. Okay, will do.

Bill Jeffers: Paying claims for ditch maintenance. It’s that time of year. I have a huge folder full of ditch maintenance claims from all types of contractors, mowing, spraying, what have you, and you may want to take those and have them, and authorize Madelyn Grayson to stamp those. They are all in order.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or discussion? All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: I had down here that I was going to make some comments tonight, and I don’t think it will run you over on another half hour of paid time. So, if you have some paperwork to do, I just wanted to say regarding the petition from the League of Women Voters, and before I say anything, I am not in any way against improving government efficiency or government effectiveness. Not in any way, so long as it doesn’t result in the reduction of quality of public service to the taxpayers. I’m not against any form of government reform, whether it’s consolidation or any other type of government reform, so long as the resulting structure doesn’t end up lessening public accountability of the elected office holders. However, I have watched this process since the late 90's when the State Chamber of Commerce sent out its model of government reform, and pretty much that model has been refined, or followed pretty closely by the Shepard-Kernan proposals. What concerns me, first of all, is the characterization of county government as horse and buggy. I take offense at that, because, yes, our founding fathers rode around in horses and buggies, that’s true, they did. But, they, but our form of government is based upon the Northwest Ordinance, which is based directly upon the U.S. Constitution, which sets up a system of government of elected office holders, each of whom have sworn to uphold the Constitution. What’s being called for by many of these, well, by most of these plans to reform government, is setting up a system of government where you have one elected office holder at the top and under him, or under him or her, in a linear arrangement you have just a stack of appointed bureaucrats. None elected, I mean, that’s pretty much the way the Shepard-Kernan model is, and the Chamber of Commerce State model. They call us horse and buggy, I call that pretty much horse and chariot, you know, where you have Caesar and his Centurions running the government, with no accountability. So, I just want to say that, because, for example, and the reason I’m saying it here at this meeting is that they want to replace the County Surveyor, under the Chamber of Commerce model, they want to replace the County Surveyor and his entire staff with a Drainage Manager out at the County Garage. One single Drainage Manager at the County Garage. That just wipes out an entire set of statutes that you operate under as the County Drainage Board. Wipes out an entire set of responsibilities that the County Surveyor demonstrated in a very short meeting tonight, just a sampling of what we do, which cannot be done by the County Garage, because most of what we are addressing in this meeting is outside of county right-of-way. It’s out on private property, it’s covered by State statutes. So, when considering the make up of the committee, I would really, seriously would like for you to consider elected office holders, maybe not on the committee, but being represented in thought by what we do, which is we’re elected, we respond directly to the people. We don’t answer to a boss, the people are our boss. You have the County Auditor who answers to the people, and sitting in an office next to him is the County Treasurer who answers to the people. You don’t have an appointed Controller like you would under consolidation who answers to one person and is kind of shielded from the public, and to my knowledge has never taken that oath of office where he or she raises his or her hand and says I swear to uphold the Constitution. I swear to uphold the laws of the State of Indiana. So, just, I want that to be taken into consideration, if possible. There were some other comments made earlier this evening in your other meeting, but I really don’t want to get into a combative or adversarial position. I will say that a gentleman who was sitting here in the audience, Dr. Fisher, took a great deal of his time to closely examine each of the offices in this building, and the plan that they ended up putting together was not so bad. I mean, it kind of fell by the wayside. So, when Roberta Heiman says that there are other plans that were, at least partially, or almost completely formulated, that’s true. There were some that came pretty close to ending up with a representative form of government. I just leave you with two more examples, an elected primary law enforcement officer as opposed to an appointed chief. Something that came before you tonight, really the jewel, the crowning jewel of Vanderburgh County, Burdette Park, I can’t imagine what might happen to Burdette Park if it was just thrown into a system of Parks and Recreation that promised us back in the early 80's that they would be....there is a county-wide parks district, taxing district, and they promised us we would have county-wide satellite parks. That was 25 or 30 years ago. I didn’t even start working, I was still working for the city when that happened, 1981 I believe it was. I haven’t seen satellite park number one, except for Price Park which was paid for by the casino to replace the park that they occupied down here on the river. So, I just want to throw that out there for your consideration. I am a firm believer and supporter of county government. I hope that the system, I know we’re going to go for some reform, and I hope that the system that we end up with is a representative system where people that come up here to this podium at Drainage Board’s and County Commissioners meetings and walk into Bill Fluty’s office or Rick Davis’ office or any other of the elected offices down here get the kind of response that they deserve, the kind of response that they’ve been paying for with their tax dollars. I appreciate the opportunity for me to soap box on that. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bill. I do have one sort of question/comment in regards to our January 5^th meeting and this topic and the Drainage Board. It would probably be wise to not schedule a Drainage Board meeting for that night because it could be a pretty lengthy meeting, assuming we have a large crowd to come out and speak to it.

Bill Jeffers: I will be here and I’ll probably make some of the same comments.

President Winnecke: That’s fine.

Bill Jeffers: I might refine my comments.

President Winnecke: That’s fine.

Bill Jeffers: But I’ll be here.

President Winnecke: I’m thinking in terms of the Drainage Board.

Bill Jeffers: No, I agree. I think you should, well, can you, you can re-organize Drainage Board in your County Commissioners meeting of the first? So, you don’t have to have Drainage Board to re-organize, right? So, you can satisfy the statutory requirement–

President Winnecke: Right.

Bill Jeffers: –to re-organize the Drainage Board in your Commissioners meeting.

President Winnecke: Right. Thanks.

Bill Jeffers: Okay.

President Winnecke: Thanks, Bill.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, sir.

President Winnecke: Any other public comment to come before the Drainage Board? I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: We are adjourned.

(The meeting was adjourned at 6:25 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Lloyd Winnecke                        Troy Tornatta                            Stephen Melcher

Bill Fluty                                    Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Bill Jeffers

Madelyn Grayson                     James Q. Morley, Sr.                Heath Rupp

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Lloyd Winnecke, President

Troy Tornatta, Vice President

Stephen Melcher, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)