VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

June 30, 2009

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 30^th day of June, 2009 at 5:40 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Lloyd Winnecke presiding.

President Winnecke: At this time I would call to order the June 30^th meeting of the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board. Attendance roll call, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: President Winnecke?

President Winnecke: Here.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second to approve the previous meeting’s minutes. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed? The minutes are approved.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, Darmstadt West Number Two Subdivision, preliminary approval. Linda?

Linda Freeman: Right, and, then the County Surveyor recommends preliminary approval for that. We do know that there are some concerns, and we are currently addressing them. I don’t know if there’s anybody here to remonstrate, but, basically this is just a preliminary plan, and we are aware of some of the concerns. We’ve been addressing some of that with Kuester Engineering, and Greg Kissel is here from there to address those questions. Bill Jeffers wasn’t able to make it, he’s out of town, and he did, we would like to have this introduced into the record, Madelyn, that little packet.

Official documents pertaining to preliminary drainage plan approval for Darmstadt West No. 2 are on file in the Vanderburgh County Auditor’s Office.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion for preliminary approval for the Darmstadt West Number Two Subdivision.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Now we’ll hear discussion. Linda, are there other comments that you want to make before we move on to the folks affected?

Linda Freeman: Let me just cruise through this real quick. Basically, the plan is sufficient for preliminary approval, and then they go to APC, but before the final drainage approval and plat recording there are some things that need to be addressed. Bill has notified the engineer for the developer of those things. One is installing an inlet at the end of the cul-de-sac; install a pipe with a 25 year capacity and protect the ditch with erosion control. That’s a synopsis of it.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Commissioner Melcher: Since this is a preliminary, will we get it back?

Linda Freeman: Yeah, it will come back.

Commissioner Melcher: That’s what I thought.

President Winnecke: Who would like to speak first?

Commissioner Tornatta: Remonstrators?

President Winnecke: Rudy?

Rudy Montejano: Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Tornatta, and members of the Board. We’re here to express—

President Winnecke: Please state your name for the record.

Rudy Montejano: I’m sorry. Rudy Montejano, 2512 West Boonville-New Harmony, in Evansville. My wife, Linda, is here. Linda, please stand. Thank you. We are the owners in residence of a home located at that same address. We purchased it in 1991. We built the home in 1992, moved into it and have lived there ever since. We spent extensive time, effort and money, frankly, to develop our home and the yard, the landscaping that constitutes about four acres, which runs from Boonville-New Harmony Road south approximately 300 yards to a small, artificial manmade pond. The applicant, the subdivider, Mr. Jones, he is a brother-in-law, obviously, the brother of my sister, but there are differences. We’ve had continuous problems with the Jones family. Our property, frankly, is immaculate. It’s immaculate, manicured, the property of the western neighbors, the Hortons, also immaculate, and the other western neighbors, the Meyers, also immaculate piece of property. Unfortunately, the parcel in question has not been kept up according to appropriate, normal standards. It’s created difficulties. The issues we have are listed in a formal comment and objection we’ve filed with the County Surveyor, Mr. Jeffers. He has reviewed our comments and objections. He’s reviewed them, and on the whole we frankly have no great difficulty with most of his findings, but I do need to clarify two particular points. The first one pertains to a row of pine trees which are on our property. If I take you to the finding of Mr. Jeffers, he basically states, the County Surveyor has received conflicting claims as to the location of the trees along the proposed right-of-way for the cul-de-sac road. One neighbor says the trees are located on the property within the proposed subdivision and on the west side of the road. The Montejano’s now state the trees are located on the Montejano’s property.

Quoting, “Maybe there are two rows of trees, one on either side of the road.” Mr. Jeffers is accurate. There are two rows of trees. I want to clarify the record. The trees on the western side of the right-of-way, the proposed right-of-way, are in the right-of-way, and they generally are close to Horton property. Mr. Horton has filed his concerns with Mr. Jeffers. The row of trees we are concerned about are located on our property. We’ve had our property surveyed. So, we have trees that are, I think, we planted those probably in 1992, so they are now mature. They provide a visual break. They really protect against any further erosion of our property, and it provides privacy. It certainly improves the value of our property. Our concern is simply that the proposed road to be developed, and the proposed ditching to provide some water flow on our side, on our western side, on the road’s eastern side, is, frankly, going to or might impair, damage or destroy our row of trees. Mr. Jeffers makes that finding, saying basically that mature trees have an extensive root system that generally spreads well beyond the drip line of foliage. Excavation of ditches and construction of roadways often severs or compacts a trees root system to the point of killing the tree. However the county has minimum standards and necessary construction may cause the removal or death of the trees within or very near the limits of construction. All we’re doing at this point is, please, we wish that when the road goes in and the ditching goes in that appropriate measures be taken to save our trees. Otherwise, quite frankly, we’re putting everyone on notice, Mr. Jones especially, that we will take legal action to protect our property.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay, Rudy, could you just come up here, because normally we have all of this on a screen for us.

Rudy Montejano: Certainly.

Commissioner Tornatta: Since we don’t, can you come up here and show me exactly where you are, and where Mr. Jones’ property would be.

Rudy Montejano: Yes.

Commissioner Tornatta: We have some outlines, but I don’t think I...I want to follow.

Rudy Montejano: If I may–

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: Boonville-New Harmony Road, as you can see, runs basically east-west. Our home is on Boonville-New Harmony Road. Immediately to the right, to the east of this green line, the green line outlines the Jones’ property.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay, so your property goes essentially right to here?

Rudy Montejano: That is correct. We cover about four acres. Our western boundary contiguous and parallel to the Jones’ property for approximately 300 yards down to that small pond, artificial pond.

Commissioner Tornatta: Gotcha.

Rudy Montejano: That’s where we are. Our row of trees is along our western border, right in here. The Horton property is immediately to the west of the proposed right-of-way, and there are a row of trees also. We are referring only to the row of trees on our property. Mr. Horton is referring to the other row of trees that abut his particular property.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: We clearly state that the row of trees apparently on, next to the Horton properties are apparently within the right-of-way, the road right-of-way proposed. Ours are within our property.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: Thank you very much.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you, yes, absolutely.

Rudy Montejano: So, we just wanted to clarify that point, there are two rows.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: We’re only referring to our side of the property. The other is concerning the artificial, earthen dam. Manmade. Mr. Jeffers on his point six says, “Until this very moment the County Surveyor was unaware of the allegations made by the Montejano’s in their item number six. At this point it would be a matter of civil, a civil legal matter to settle between the affected property owners.” We probably agree, and we will pursue this issue in private litigation. But, I wanted to clarify the record, this is not the first time we have raised this issue before the Drainage Board and the Area Planning Commission. The record will show that we submitted similar comments and similar objections, and also in regard to the earthen dam, the raising of the earthen dam back on March 5, 2007. This was before the Drainage Board and the Area Planning Commission at that time. Actually, not of our doing, it went into litigation, and then it’s back here again. But, we did raise this issue, our comments and objections are formally on file. This is not the first time we’ve put it before you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: In any event, most of the points of Mr. Jeffers are well taken, on the matters of private litigation, which we will pursue, and we basically support his findings concerning the drainage system.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: Our main concern is flooding of our property and degradation of property and especially erosion of our property, especially along our eastern, western border, I’m sorry.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Rudy Montejano: So, comments questions? Yes, sir?

President Winnecke: Just to clarify, you’re fine, or you’re okay with the Surveyor’s proposed, the review notes of the subdivision?

Rudy Montejano: Yes, sir.

President Winnecke: That he’s presented?

Rudy Montejano: Yes, sir.

President Winnecke: Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you, Rudy.

Rudy Montejano: Thank you so much.

President Winnecke: Mr. Jones?

Greg Kissel: Good evening. I’m Greg Kissel. I’m a land surveyor at Kuester Engineering. I’m here with our client, Gordon Jones. I’m here to answer any questions that might take place over the drainage plan of this proposed subdivision. Just to give you a little bit of history, this was submitted to the Area Plan Commission, this subdivision, about three years ago, 2006, end of 2006, the beginning of 2007. What it is, it’s two existing lots, one is three acres, one is over seven acres, large parcels. It was declared an illegal division by the Plan Commission and permits were not issued. Since that time it’s been tabled. It’s been until now that we’re back. The two parties could not agree. The owners, Mr. Jones and Mr. Meyers, who’s also an owner of one of the lots in the subdivision, it has went to court and according to a judges order that the Plan Commission.... I just want to read the staff report from the Plan Commission which might clarify why we’re here, and explain some things. According to the subdivision staff report, from Area Plan, “The existing home on the proposed lot number one was built in 1981. An illegal split of this 10.9 acre property appears to have occurred on this site in ‘87. Three acres were broken off around the existing home with no road frontage and only an ingress and egress easement. The applicants, Gordon and Karen Jones, are the owners of lot two, and originally owned the entire parcel. They planned a two lot residential subdivision that dedicates right-of-way for a cul-de-sac, the needed road frontage, thereby creating a major subdivision, that according to this plat would bring the property into compliance with the county subdivision code and provide one additional home site on the remainder of the parcel lot number two.” So, that’s a little bit of the history that’s taken place. As a result of this being a major subdivision, a drainage plan has been requested upon, a road plan has been requested, and an erosion control plan has been requested. These are two existing lots. I mean, we’re not creating any new lots in this development. One thing concerning the drainage, there’s, according to the drainage booklet provided as a local regulation governing what can be done and what can’t be done, I’ll just read something from that. “It shall be the policy of the Board of County Commissioners of Vanderburgh County, Indiana, here and after referred to as the Commissioners, that an engineered drainage plan be submitted to the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board, hereafter referred to as the Drainage Board, for any new development, new construction, addition to existing construction, and/or other land disturbing activity located within the Commissioners and/or Drainage Board jurisdiction, which shall result in the addition of impervious surface exceeding a total of 10,000 square feet.” As a result of this, we are under 10,000 square feet, which can be interpreted as is a drainage plan even required? We are submitting one, and we are trying to work with people to get this approved. But, it’s the addition of the roadway, the roadway needs to be widened to meet county standards, and that slight addition in the roadway, which there’s already a drive there, would be increasing it 40 percent, you know, width wise. You know, it’s probably 12 feet wide and it’s supposed to be 20 foot wide. So, by that increased surface area of gravel, the theory is that there be a slight increase in drainage, but, that increase would be less than 10,000 square feet. Now, if, have you had a copy of our drainage plan? Do you have that in front of you? It’s a large drawing.

President Winnecke: No.

Greg Kissel: No?

President Winnecke: She’s got it.

Greg Kissel: Yeah, well, in particular, I’ll just point out a couple of things from here. This proposed road is the addition that we are proposing, a part of this, and that’s what will have to be improved. The natural, sheet drainage of that area is from the north, which is Boonville-New Harmony Road, southerly, Mr. Montejano’s property is on the east side, and some of that natural drainage does go in his direction. If you look, this shaded area here is an existing lake. So, really, that lake actually serves as an existing, a holding facility to slow down that water before it leaves the site. So, really we feel like, as a result of the requirements of the Plan Commission, we have to do something with this side ditch along the road coming down. That’s where it’s gone, and that’s where we’ve shown it to go, and we really feel like we’re not changing the natural courses of any water out there. We did talk to Mr. Bill Jeffers on Friday. We had a meeting with him, noting that there’s been some concerns of the neighbors, and we are willing to work with Mr. Jeffers for final approval. You know, if Mr. Montejano, if I’m pronouncing that right. If I’m not, I apologize.

Rudy Montejano: Close.

Greg Kissel: Sorry.

Rudy Montejano: That’s alright.

Greg Kissel: We’re willing to work, you know, with the property owners and Mr. Jeffers upon final approval, but we are seeking preliminary approval at this time. As far as the lake, as far as the trees are concerned, I’m not sure if that’s relevant to a drainage plan at this time. That’s something that could be considered in the future as far as approval from the Plan Commission, but I’m not, in my opinion that may not, should not affect the drainage. The earthen dam on the lake, I don’t, again, I don’t see how that affects the drainage. If you look at that drawing, the lake is further south than, if there’s any land disturbance we’re up northerly. So, I don’t believe that that is a matter concerning this proposed plan. If there’s any questions, we would be more than happy to answer them.

President Winnecke: I’ve got one, I’ll ask you the same thing I asked Rudy. Is your client, Mr. Jones, do you understand the points that Mr. Jeffers is making, and what we’re considering tonight, his review notes of the subdivision?

Gordon Jones: Yes, I do.

President Winnecke: There are four points, and you are in agreement with that?

Gordon Jones: Yes.

President Winnecke: Okay. Any other questions of this Board? Hearing none, we have a motion and a second concerning the Surveyor’s preliminary approval for the Darmstadt West Number Two Subdivision. Hearing no other comments, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed? Okay, and it is approved and goes to Area Plan.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Thank you everyone.

Greg Kissel: Thank you.

Linda Freeman: Other than that we have some blue claims.

President Winnecke: We have some other folks that....John, would you like to come up and report to us so that the Senning’s can hear what our plan is on their issue? Just as John’s walking up, and as the Senning’s are opening this up, I walked the neighborhood with John a couple of Friday’s ago, on a really, really hot Friday afternoon, and that was very instructive, and I think after having been out there and walked pretty much the entire, I think the entire area, I am hopeful that this plan that we’re going to approve, that I think we’ll approve tonight, will address your immediate need, and we also have made significant progress to inspect the pipes a little further west that have a sort of a bigger picture ramification. So, having said that, John, if you would like to explain what the plan is.

John Stoll: Madelyn’s got a copy of the plan there. I just handed a copy of that to the Senning’s. Basically, that plan provides for installing a curb along the south side of Bergdolt Road, east of Clover. On the north side we’ve got proposed paved driveway approaches. We’ve got paved approaches on the north side opposite of where we’re installing the new curb. In conjunction with that we’re proposing a run of corrugated metal pipe, it’s 12 inches in diameter, and then it increases to a 15 inch diameter pipe. That pipe will have, it’s called a slotted drain. Basically, it’s a vertical riser off the pipe that allows water that would sheet down the driveway to drop down in the pipe. So, we’ll have, run a pipe, a corrugated metal pipe with the slots in it trying to intercept any water that would be generated on the north side of Bergdolt. But, anything that would cross, then would hit the curb and turn the corner and head south down Clover. So, that should shut off the primary source of what appears to be the water that’s causing the problem for the Senning’s. This is only, one other thing, we’re also putting a small curb extension on the southwest corner of Clover and Bergdolt as well. So, that way, since we didn’t propose any milling and resurfacing on this, we wanted to make sure that water wouldn’t cross Clover and end up on the property at the southwest corner. So, we’ve got two runs of curb and then a run of new pipe with two new area drains and two paved approaches. The new pipe is sized for a 25 year storm. That is all we could get that would fit. Basically it was tough to provide a swale over the top of that pipe, so we couldn’t increase it to a 50 year event. I’m not convinced that the rainfall events that have caused some of the problems aren’t in excess of that, but I don’t have any accurate data to support that. Probably the biggest down side is, all this ties into the same system that’s on downstream that is a source of some of the other points we’ve seen as of late. It will tie in, and I forget the property owners name, but we tie into the same drainage system on the northeast corner of Clover and Bergdolt as what currently exists. We’re only really putting in new pipe across the frontage of the one parcel. But, that was our understanding of where the water was being generated. We eliminated milling and resurfacing from that plan because we felt that the existing crown was fairly adequate on Bergdolt. As it stands right now, there was only one location where our survey data showed that it was less than a two percent slope, and we felt that future resurfacing would probably eliminate...if we spent a bunch of money trying to make sure we had two percent all throughout, any future resurfacing might mess that up again. So, we felt that it would be better to put in the slotted drains and the paved approaches than to spend the money on the milling and resurfacing. So, that’s kind of where we stand right now.

Commissioner Tornatta: What’s a dollar figure on this project? And would we need to approve this in the Commissioners side? Or have we already essentially done this?

John Stoll: We went ahead and sent it out to contractors today. If it didn’t go out to contractors today, we wouldn’t meet the seven day advance notice requirement for receiving price quotes at your next meeting on July 7^th. So, if we didn’t get it today, then it would have postponed any bid opening until the 21^st, which then we couldn’t have awarded it until, I believe it was August 11^th. This schedule allows us to get it opened on the 7^th and awarded on the 21^st. So, it shaves a couple of weeks off the schedule. That’s why we went ahead and sent it out. I hope I didn’t jump the gun, but–

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay, well, we’ll go ahead and make that in the form of a motion. You just sent out the bids? And we’ll take care of that information. Now, is it best–

President Winnecke: I just had one, if you could clarify for the record, John, assuming that the bids are opened on the 7^th and awarded on the 21^st, then what the project time line would be? Mid August more or less?

John Stoll: I think we put a completion date of September 4^th.

President Winnecke: September 4^th? Okay.

John Stoll: That’s on the basis of the pipe is going to have to be a special order. The slotted riser that comes off the top of the pipe, it will vary in height, and the standard is six inches and we won’t have the standard. So, they’ll have to manufacture it. So, we allowed a little extra time for the manufacture of the pipe.

Commissioner Tornatta: Do we need to do this in the original meeting? Do we need to approve this in the Drainage Board meeting, or does it matter? Because we will send out bids in our regular scheduled meeting, is that right?

John Stoll: Since it’s a quote project, which....oh, I’m sorry. Since it’s in an estimated price range of $25,000 to I believe $75,000, it will be a quote, not a formal bid. Basically like the Baehl Road quotes that you opened this evening.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

John Stoll: We’ve routinely put those out to contractors, and just let you know we’re doing it, but we didn’t rely on formal action by the Commissioners. If it takes formal action, so be it. Likewise, we’ve done it this way in the past with just sending it out to contractors and then you would open the quotes when they are received at the meeting.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay, let’s just do it that way. Then they would come through the Commission meeting.

President Winnecke: Yep. Fine.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

President Winnecke: Any questions from...Senning’s would you like a question or comment?

Dave Senning: Okay.

Paulette Senning: Good evening.

President Winnecke: Good evening.

Dave Senning: This all looks good to me. I think it’s going to take care of our problem. We appreciate, John, you’ve been very patient. Thank you for getting us to this point. Chris Walsh, thank you very much. If this can be taken care of, the way it looks, I think it’s going to take care of us. That’s one thing we’ve been worried about is our property.

President Winnecke: Right.

Dave Senning: I would like to thank you all very much.

President Winnecke: Sure. We will, when we adjourn the Drainage Board meeting, we will reconvene the Commissioners meeting and approve that plan.

Paulette Senning: Do we need to look at coming back at a future date for any of this progression? Or does this pretty well–

President Winnecke: This will set the wheels in motion.

Paulette Senning: Okay.

President Winnecke: The plan will be approved tonight.

Commissioner Tornatta: For this plan.

President Winnecke: For this plan.

Paulette Senning: Great. Thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Now, future plans are future plans.

President Winnecke: For development, for issues farther west–

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah.

Paulette Senning: Right.

President Winnecke: –we’re not quite there yet.

Paulette Senning: Okay, I wasn’t sure when you spoke earlier, Troy, if we were going to confirm all of these tonight, or if we had to come to another meeting in two weeks.

President Winnecke: No, these will be confirmed tonight.

Commissioner Tornatta: We’ll go ahead and confirm it. We, as we talked we probably, I don’t think we actually need to do this, the ball is rolling.

Paulette Senning: And I also thank you all very much.

Commissioner Tornatta: Sure.

President Winnecke: You’re welcome.

Paulette Senning: It’s kind of exhausting. We’re to this point, so, thank you.

President Winnecke: You’re welcome.

Paulette Senning: John, thank you for all your long talks with me, and your diligence. Thank you very much. Chris, your help too, and, of course, in absence, Mr. Jeffers did a wonderful job, as always. We’re very appreciative of that also, and he knows. Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you.

Judy Mefford: I’m glad they’re all so happy with this plan. I’m not sure it’s going to work. Because, you’re going to put curbings up here along this road, and all it’s going to do is let that water not even get to the grass along there. It’s just going to kind of shove it on down our way.

President Winnecke: It’s going to put it on to Clover.

Judy Mefford: No, it’s going to put it on down Bergdolt, because that water starts running up there around Clover and it just kind of comes on down Bergdolt.

President Winnecke: Yeah, basically, I mean, I’m not an engineer, I’m sure John would, hopefully, back me up–

Judy Mefford: I’m not an engineer either, but I know what I can see. I was out there when they opened the drain, opened the fire hydrant.

President Winnecke: The feeling is–

Judy Mefford: Up there on Oak Hill.

President Winnecke: The feeling is that when this, when the curbing is installed there, it will direct the water down Clover, and not further down Bergdolt.

Judy Mefford: Now, you’re telling us, I want him to show me. You tell me where the curbing is supposed to be here?

John Stoll: From here to here.

Judy Mefford: From here to here? Okay. Why were they digging up here?

John Stoll: To direct the run off to this drain at the northeast corner of Clover and Bergdolt.

Judy Mefford: Okay.

John Stoll: The water that she’s referring to in regard to the fire hydrant over at Oak Hill and Bergdolt, that water doesn’t get here. It goes, it crosses Bergdolt and ends up going through yards well in advance of the curb that we’re installing.

Judy Mefford: I think that’s what ending up in Senning’s back, in Senning’s yard. (Inaudible) I’ll give it back to them. Okay, I’ve got some other things. Do I need to state my name again?

President Winnecke: Yes, please.

Judy Mefford: Okay, I’m Judy Mefford, and I live at 2909 Bergdolt. I’m sure you’re well acquainted with me since last time. I would like to know exactly where you’re at with getting the camera through the drains? Because I have talked to the neighbors and nobody’s talked to them about running it through their private property.

President Winnecke: Well, Mr. Walsh will be happy to address that, and there have been some, there has been progress made, and we have reached out to a number of neighbors in that area to–

Chris Walsh: Right. Chris Walsh, County Highway Department. We did some site work out there. We’re needing to get some more ingress easements signed so that we can schedule it. The pipe that runs, that’s now west of the Senning project, that runs between a couple of houses, I don’t know, I think you’re–

Judy Mefford: No, it’s–

Chris Walsh: –one house away. We’ve been knocking doors trying to get these ingress easements. Preliminarily what we see is the pipe’s holding water, and preliminarily, again, I want to get with Mr. Jeffers when he gets back in town, it appears that a couple of the open ditches that this pipe does feed into, have silted in through silt, vegetation, and that, and are approximately one and a half to two feet tall at the outlet end of the pipe. Which this whole north side of Bergdolt comes down, crosses over, now runs south into that utility easement down there that we had talked about earlier. Just in my opinion, if we could get in there and, whoever, could get in there and open that up, it would do a tremendous amount of good with all that north side water.

President Winnecke: But, to your–

Chris Walsh: The ditch on Leah–

Judy Mefford: Okay.

Chris Walsh: –in between there on the north side needs to be cleaned out, because it’s silted in as well.

President Winnecke: But, to answer your question, Ma’am, they are in the process of getting those approvals.

Chris Walsh: Right, right.

Judy Mefford: Okay, okay.

Chris Walsh: I’ll have a better report for you at the next meeting.

Judy Mefford: Okay.

Chris Walsh: Hope to.

Judy Mefford: Where are you at with the easements on Bergdolt?

President Winnecke: On where?

Judy Mefford: The easements on Bergdolt? You were supposed to be checking on the easements down Bergdolt. You were going to check on those, somebody was.

John Stoll: At the last meeting we stated there’s basically a 30 foot right-of-way along the entire Bergdolt frontage. I believe there’s one property that has a 20 foot right-of-way, and that’s at the northeast corner of Clover and Bergdolt, but the balance of it is 30 feet all throughout the frontage of all of those houses.

Judy Mefford: Which means you can do anything with it, right?

John Stoll: No.

Judy Mefford: If you’ve got a 30 foot easement–

John Stoll: If anything means a drainage project, yes, we might be able to do a drainage project that fits within that right-of-way. We have no funding allotted, so, I don’t know what we can do. Likewise, we haven’t surveyed that whole area. I don’t know if it’s a consistent 30 feet either side of the center line of the road, just what we’ve got to play with as far as room. Theoretically, yes, you could go out there, you could cut open ditches, you could install pipes. Ditches might be pretty tough to fit in, depending on the depth of the ditches and the side slopes. Pipes would probably fit with no problem, but you’re looking at substantially more expense.

Judy Mefford: Okay, there was a grate at the corner of Tanglewood and Bergdolt, and it’s the northeast corner? Yeah, I’m sorry, direction wise I have to stop and think. It’s at the northeast corner, and when Mike Wathen was out there looking, we kind of indicated to him about where it had been. That grate’s no longer there. I don’t know how long it’s been covered over, but it’s not there. So, that’s probably one of the problems. You know, some of the water could have gone in that. The other thing is that you bring up that there’s no funds. I hate to tell you this, but, you know, you just took the homestead credits away, and that’s going to be a two year amount of funds. So, I really think that we could come up with some funds someplace to do something.

President Winnecke: We are, we’re coming up with funds for the project a little farther east that we are about to approve tonight. We’re trying to get our arms around what the entire gravity of the situation is farther west. Once we further understand that through the camera work and other research, we’ll be able to figure it out. Unfortunately, that’s a bigger fix, it appears, than the other problem, and it’s going to take a little more time to research and figure out what our options are.

Commissioner Tornatta: And, let me just state that this Board had nothing to do with that homestead credit.

Judy Mefford: Well, but, there’s, like I said, there’s homestead credit funds around. So, we should be able to come up with some money someplace to do something about this problem.

Commissioner Tornatta: Those are also divided up through the taxing units.

Judy Mefford: Well–

Commissioner Tornatta: So, I’m just, I think it needs to be established, if you bring up the point, we need to clarify the point and say that this Board had nothing to do with that decision. I will also say that we are only the recipient of an amount of funds and appropriation for the taxing unit that we would get out of the funds that were collected.

Judy Mefford: So, you would, but you’re still saying that you’re going to have some funds?

President Winnecke: What we’re saying is we don’t know how much money we need. Once we understand the full gravity of the situation we’ll know about how much money we need and what pots of money we’ll have from which to choose. I think that’s the bottom line.

Judy Mefford: Could you tell me how many of these meetings I’m going to have to attend to get something done?

President Winnecke: Ma’am, we’re moving quickly.

Judy Mefford: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah.

President Winnecke: I mean, we are. We’re addressing this issue, I know, I’ve been out there, I don’t know about the other Commissioners, I know our staff has spent a lot of time out there.

Judy Mefford: I haven’t seen anybody in the last two weeks.

President Winnecke: Well, I apologize, I was there two Fridays ago.

Judy Mefford: Well, you know, it’s, most of the time when people are out looking around the neighborhood and stuff, we’re home enough that we see them. I’m not saying that we’re home all the time, but most of the time we see somebody when they’re out.

Commissioner Tornatta: Judy, I lived in that neighborhood for about 20 years. So, I don’t know how much you have to go out and look at your back yard, but I know that I’ve been out there enough to know exactly how the flow is. I know that there’s water that’s been standing in Clover for over 20 years. I know that water goes down and actually goes to those sub-streets where I had friends, we would play in that water. So, I mean, it’s been recreation for us as kids. Now, for adults it’s not so much. So, we’re taking care of other problems, but I will say that I drive that route several times. I’ve been in that neighborhood, especially since the detour several times, and by several I mean over 100. So, I do know what the problem is. Now, what I’m waiting for is that rain that we haven’t seen in almost a month. So, if I have that water that I can see flow through there, I’m going to be out there in a poncho, but until that time I have not been able to go see the flow of the water, and I’m not going to ask them to open up that fire hydrant again. I want to see what the natural course of water is. So, the next time that happens, you will see me, but until then, I know what the lay of the land is out in that area.

Judy Mefford: Okay. Thank you.

President Winnecke: We’ll keep you posted. I promise.

President Winnecke: Okay, let’s move on to claims.

Linda Freeman: I’ve given Madelyn the claims that we have, mainly for drainage maintenance, and then we had an emergency tree removal on Maidlow Ditch. The gentleman agreed to $100, which is great. Then we have the claim for Morley and Associates with the studies on the ditches.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve claims.

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? The claims are approved.

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Any other business to come before the Drainage Board?

President Winnecke: Any other public comment?

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to adjourn Drainage Board.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: The Drainage Board is adjourned.

(The meeting was adjourned at 6:20 p.m.)

Approval of the Bergdolt Road-Clover Drive Drainage improvement plan was voted on in the 6/30/2009 Commission meeting.

Those in Attendance:

Lloyd Winnecke                        Troy Tornatta                            Stephen Melcher

Bill Fluty                                    Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Linda Freeman

Madelyn Grayson                     Rudy Montejano                       Greg Kissel

Gordon Jones                           John Stoll                                  Chris Walsh

Judy Mefford                             Dave Senning                           Paulette Senning

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.)