VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

MARCH 16, 2010

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 16^th day of March, 2010 at 6:10 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Troy Tornatta presiding.

President Tornatta: Opening the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board, Tuesday, March 16, 2010.

President Tornatta: I need approval of the minutes, please.

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Tornatta: Let’s approve the blue claims, if we could.

Commissioner Winnecke: Mr. Chairman, I’ll....go ahead. Do you have anything to say about them? The routine? Motion to approve as presented.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: A motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Tornatta: Any other, while we’re loading, Linda, any other business while we’re working on–

Linda Freeman: No, sorry. I wasn’t aware that he was bringing video. We just had the blue claims, which are pretty routine. We had a couple of, additional work on a couple of ditches for slips and slides and things that got repaired.

President Tornatta: Okay.

Linda Freeman: This is Heath Rupp.

President Tornatta: Okay. Heath, if you want to work on that for a minute, you’re more than welcome, and we’ll kind of work around you.

Heath Rupp: Well, I don’t think it’s going to work. Sometimes these Windows media files are a little sensitive. If it shows that “x” like that, right off the bat, it’s just not going to work. I played it on my laptop before I came in, maybe I should just bring my laptop next time and maybe we’ll be able to show the video.

President Tornatta: Okay, that’s fine.

Heath Rupp: I can follow up and tell you guys where we stand with the Pearl Drive flooding issue, what’s been done–

President Tornatta: Okay.

Heath Rupp: –and what’s happened. Like I said, I’m Heath Rupp, I’m with Royal Car Wash, I’m following up on, a couple of meetings ago I came before you with Mr. Morley from Morley and Associates to present our findings of an engineering study we had done to address some severe drainage problems we’re having at our car wash. Since that last meeting the damage was significant enough that we weren’t able to wait for the process to go, we had to go ahead and have Mark Naas and Sons install a smooth bore pipe, way oversized for our size property. We actually installed a 24 inch pipe at the cost of a little over $11,500 to try and catch some of this water. The back of our property was just sliding off down the hill, just being washed away in a detention basin. Since then, the correspondence that my attorneys had with Home Depot’s, Kevin Wilkerson, he’s their real estate manager for this area, he stated that they feel they’ve built it to code and that nothing’s wrong. Then further correspondence, that Bill Jeffers had with Luko Robinson, also of Home Depot, he kind of just cites up the issues, and, you know, said that they were willing to take a look at it and take care of it, but, ultimately, he came to the same conclusion that it was built to code. So, my intent was to play some video to show you, you know, kind of what code looks like, and that’s it’s, obviously, may have been approved to be built by code, but they didn’t–

Commissioner Winnecke: They didn’t execute it correctly?

Heath Rupp: They didn’t execute the code correctly.

President Tornatta: Right.

Heath Rupp: So, I guess that maybe I’ll plan to bring the video back during the April meeting.

President Tornatta: April, the first week is that–

Commissioner Winnecke: The 6^th.

President Tornatta: April 6^th? Okay.

Heath Rupp: April 6^th I’ll bring the video back, and, like, I noticed in your e-mail that we hoped to try to have some of this stuff taken care of before this rainy, you know, before the spring showers show up, but–

President Tornatta: Right.

Heath Rupp: –that might give me a little more time to gather some new video, as these videos were from May.

Commissioner Winnecke: Mr. Chairman? I’m wondering, given the apparent lack of response to the County Surveyor’s office from Home Depot, if it would be appropriate that we ask our County Attorney to direct a letter to Home Depot asking them to address these issues? Maybe that would get their attention more than an overture from the Surveyor’s office.

David Miller: We will certainly be happy to do that, if so directed. We have not been involved in this issue to this point, so that will require a little bit of time to get up to speed on it, but we will be happy to do it if directed.

Linda Freeman: We could forward a copy of the Morley report to them if they’re not understanding maybe what the issues are, because Bill does agree with what Morley has written in his report about what happens out there when the rains come.

President Tornatta: Have you sent a letter yet?

Commissioner Winnecke: Have I?

President Tornatta: Uh-huh.

Commissioner Winnecke: No.

President Tornatta: Okay, I mean, I sent a corresponding e-mail. So, I mean, we’ll kind of get that....Steve, I don’t know if you’ve sent anything back.

Commissioner Melcher: No.

President Tornatta: I tacked something on with Bill’s and sent it back to the individual. I still have not heard back from him either.

Linda Freeman: Bill has not, yeah, when Bill left March the 5^th he had not heard anything yet when he left for vacation on that day. Then the other issue is John Stoll with the dam behind the lake. So, there’s a few issues with Home Depot going on.

President Tornatta: Okay.

Heath Rupp: Which, to some of those issues, I was out in front with Home Depot to tell them, you know, that a beaver kept creating a dam, and was overflowing the retention pond. They’ve since corrected that in that they cleared the blockage, which the lake was probably up 20 feet and started to erode the back of it. The blockage may have been cleared, but the beavers are still back to work, and they are well on their way to blocking it again.

Linda Freeman: It looks pretty much blocked again. Mike Wathen went out today and took some pictures.

Commissioner Winnecke: I would make a motion that we ask the County Attorney to draft a letter to Home Depot to address these concerns, and then in the interim if you could get with Mr. Miller or whomever at his office that he directs so that they have all of the facts–

Linda Freeman: Right.

Commissioner Winnecke: –so they can draft it.

Linda Freeman: I’ll get Bill’s e-mails forwarded to him so he can see what’s been going on.

Commissioner Winnecke: Yeah, that would be very, that would be great background for him.

Linda Freeman: Has your attorney been able to–

Heath Rupp: Mark Fine, Mr. Miller, has already been in contact with a couple of different people at Home Depot. So, he’s got some correspondence that may be able to help you too.

President Tornatta: Okay. We have a motion.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: Motion and a second. All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Tornatta: Okay.

Heath Rupp: Thank you, gentlemen.

President Tornatta: Thank you, Heath.

Heath Rupp: Appreciate it.

Commissioner Winnecke: Thanks.

President Tornatta: Any public comment?

Commissioner Winnecke: Heath?

Linda Freeman: Heath?

David Miller: Don’t go away.

President Tornatta: We’ll be done in one second, Heath. Any public comment? Seeing none, motion to adjourn?

Commissioner Winnecke: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Tornatta: All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 6:17 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Troy Tornatta                            Stephen Melcher                      Lloyd Winnecke

David Miller                               Linda Freeman                         Madelyn Grayson

Heath Rupp                              Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Troy Tornatta, President

Stephen Melcher, Vice President

Lloyd Winnecke, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)