VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 13^th day of November, 2007 at 4:31 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Troy Tornatta presiding.

President Tornatta: Good evening.

Bill Jeffers: Good evening, President Tornatta.

President Tornatta: Alright, welcome to the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board meeting, Tuesday, November 13, 2007, a little bit after 4:30.

President Tornatta: Is there a motion to approve minutes of the previous meetings?

Commissioner Nix: Well, we’re one Commissioner short, but I so move.

President Tornatta: Second.

Commissioner Nix: All in favor?

President Tornatta: Aye.

Commissioner Nix: Aye. Force of habit.

President Tornatta: It’s habit. It’s habit.

President Tornatta: Alright, Mr. Jeffers, good afternoon.

Bill Jeffers: Good afternoon. Does WNIN generally bill you for a whole half hour? Or if I wrap it up in a minute, or what do you think here?

President Tornatta: Probably not. We’ll talk to them on it. We’re good.

Bill Jeffers: Okay.

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Yes, yes.

Bill Jeffers: They bill ‘ya. We’re already in the next, okay. I’ll go ahead and discuss what, I’ll discuss what I came to discuss then. Because if we could wrap it up and they wouldn’t bill ‘ya, I would stop right now.

President Tornatta: Well, we’ll talk to them on it.

Bill Jeffers: Okay. We have some, two claims for services provided by Structure Pointe, American Structure Pointe, Indianapolis. The work has been completed, and is satisfactory, and I’m asking you to pay those bills as presented.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: Okay, since I have a half hour–

Commissioner Korb: You’re killin’ me.

Bill Jeffers: No, I believe Channel 14 has something they want they want to talk to you about that’s a little more important.

Commissioner Korb: They do?

Bill Jeffers: Yeah.

Commissioner Korb: Okay.

President Tornatta: About drainage?

Bill Jeffers: They have a broadcast at 5:00.

President Tornatta: About drainage?

Bill Jeffers: No, it’s not about drainage. It’s something more exciting.

President Tornatta: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: Last year we discovered. Well, let me start in 2002, FEMA came down and wanted to publish some flood plain maps, and we thought the flood plain designation was too high. So, we went through some studies and found out that it could be lowered by a foot, foot and a half. Subsequently, after looking at the studies that came from Morley and Associates, we discovered that if we replace some pipes in the old Wabash Eerie Canal, we could lower the flood plain possibly another foot. This affects five square miles of commercial areas. So, last year about this time we discovered that the Indiana Department of Transportation, INDOT, was going to rework Morgan Avenue and Green River Road, under which passes a pipe that has been designated as undersized. So, since their surface improvement did not include the replacement of a pipe, we pursued with INDOT the replacement of that pipe, hopefully to lower the flood plain another foot to a foot and a half. Our discussions, we had a couple of meetings in January, and the Vincennes district engineers basically presented an offer to us that if the county would pay for the pipe and some other costs that they would include it in their contract for the improvement of that intersection. The county, the Board of Commissioners under this letter, this is a copy of the letter, agreed to the terms that INDOT offered. Vanderburgh County would agree to pay the cost of the installation of a new culvert up to a maximum of $500,000. Anything over that would be paid by INDOT. Vanderburgh County also agreed that the County Surveyor’s office would cover the cost of obtaining the necessary environmental permits required for the installation of a pipe in the waters of the United States, or otherwise known as navigable waterway. Then the Vincennes district sent a letter back to the Commissioners on February 19^th. Your letter was sent on February 13^th, they responded timely on February 19, 2007, that they had received your letter, that they were preparing a contract, and that the contract documents would define the responsibilities between INDOT and Vanderburgh County as they pertain to the project, and that they would try to have this contract document in your hands in the near future. That contract came in last week, on or about November 5^th, and some of the terms of the contract came to my attention that INDOT wants Vanderburgh County to contribute the $500,000 before the construction of the culvert can commence. That was not what you agreed to in the letter. You agreed to pay incremental costs as they were incurred, up to, not exceeding $500,000. If the cost was $450,000, that’s what you would pay. If the cost was $375,000, that’s what you would pay. Now they are asking that $500,000 be sent to INDOT before...okay, that was one thing that alarmed me. What I would also say at this time is that we have provided a 401 water quality permit through our office. That comes from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. So, that has been fulfilled. As of Friday, the U.S. Corp, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers says that they have our application for a 404 construction in a navigable waterway or waterway of the United States under review, and it should be in the mail as we speak. So, we should have that within a week or so. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources, our application for construction in a flood way is under review, as of the week of....and we should see it, no, excuse me, it will be reviewed the week of the 19^th, November 19^th, and we should have that in our hands within two weeks of that date. It only needs technical review. All the other review is complete. So, we’ve fulfilled, or we will have fulfilled our obligation for the permits, hopefully, by the end of this month, and, although there may be a misunderstanding, there seems to be a misunderstanding on how much survey data we are obligated to provide, because we never agreed to provide any survey data. They’re asking for some now. I have asked American Structure Pointe to e-mail me all survey data they have gathered, and I will forward that to INDOT, if that will help facilitate. I’m also going to contact INDOT and see if any of the J.Q. Morley survey data would help them facilitate, but I am still somewhat concerned about their request for up front $500,000. Now, I do understand that John Stoll is also in receipt of this contract and has forwarded a long list of concerns that he has about the contract language to your attorney, and that you should be receiving briefings from those two department heads in the near future as well. Just wanted to bring that to your attention at this time because they want to go to construction in February, and we just need–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: Mr. President? I did receive a copy of that contract. If you think you were alarmed by it, I would not let the County Commissioners sign that contract under any circumstances, if they want to do it legally. It provides, for example, that the county will close Green River Road. This portion of Green River Road is in the city. It obviously cannot be closed by the county. It provides that the county will maintain this portion of Green River Road. It’s in the city. It’s maintained, we will maintain the culvert, but not Green River Road. It has numerous provisions saying that the county and its contractor will do certain things during the course of this project. Of course, as you know, there is no contractor for the county, INDOT is doing this work. All the county is doing is providing up to $500,000 to pay for it. So, I contacted the representative of INDOT who sent the contract down here. I started going through it to tell him how ridiculous it was. He responded that he agreed, but he was told to use that form of contract by his superior. I said, let me speak to him. He said, he no longer works for INDOT. I told him that when he found somebody at INDOT who was, or, I asked him if they had attorneys or they had to use the Attorney General’s office? They have both, they have their own and the Attorney General’s office. I said, have any attorney call me and I’ll be glad to discuss this contract with him, but the county is not going to sign it in its present form. I have not heard back from him.

Commissioner Nix: Golly, Ted. That was pretty good.

President Tornatta: That’s why we give him the big bucks.

Commissioner Nix: Just, any reason why the 500 out front? The 500,000?

Bill Jeffers: There’s–

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.: It’s just what the contract says, but there’s no reason for it.

Commissioner Nix: Because we never agreed to any of that.

Bill Jeffers: No.

Commissioner Nix: You know, a year ago when all this came about.

Bill Jeffers: Your letter specifically explains that the contribution, I mean, this is February 13^th you explained it, and we’re talking about having received the contract last week for your signatures, that Vanderburgh County will pay this contribution towards the culvert from the Cumulative Bridge Fund, but that you have to go through certain budgetary processes to obtain the money, you know, through your whatever, and that you wouldn’t be able to reimburse INDOT until beginning March 2008. All that was explained up front six months ago. So, I just wanted to bring it to your attention, because we really feel this is an important thing to address the flood plain on the east side, in this heavily commercial area, five square miles of flood plain out there, before FEMA comes back this year, or early next year with maps that they want to publish designating this entire area flood plain. We’re trying to reduce that impacted area as much as we can before those maps are published.

President Tornatta: I think that that is the main reason why we thought we were going to come out and just go ahead and handle this and put our signatures on it to get that work done. Not being moved around in other areas or through other terms that the state decided to approach.

Bill Jeffers: Right.

President Tornatta: Thank you so much for looking into that.

Bill Jeffers: I just wanted to air it out here and let you know what’s going on .

President Tornatta: And getting that on the record. Ted, thank you as well for trying to bring that to a head. So, any other business at this point?

Bill Jeffers: No, sir.

Madelyn Grayson: Bill, what about the petition for the obstruction? Did you need that?

Bill Jeffers: Oh, I’m sorry. We do have a petition. We have one of those petitions asking the Surveyor, or the County Drainage Board to remove an obstruction. It has been filed by Gerald and Linda Dennis, Clark and Linda Conway, Patti Dee Wazny, property owners, regarding, they own property on Anthony Drive and Caesar’s Court, on the north side off of St. George Road. Their petitioning that an obstruction that they allege to exist on property owned by Tim Harris, Pine Tree Drive, consisting of overgrown bushes and vegetation be removed from a natural surface watercourse to better facilitate drainage of their property. They have submitted the required $100 check, as a filing fee. If you accept this petition, and I recommend that you do, that will enable the County Surveyor to go onto private property within 75 feet of the alleged obstruction and bring you a report as to the validity of the petition.

Commissioner Nix: Motion to approve.

Bill Jeffers: So, you can set a hearing date.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: All in favor?

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Tornatta: Anything else?

Bill Jeffers: No, sir.

President Tornatta: Alright, any public comment? All those out there. Alright, without any public comment–

Commissioner Nix: I move we adjourn.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: All in favor?

Commissioner Korb: Yo.

Commissioner Nix: Aye.

President Tornatta: So adjourned.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:45 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Troy Tornatta                            Jeff Korb                                   Bill Nix

Bill Jeffers                                 Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Madelyn Grayson

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Troy Tornatta, President

Jeff Korb, Vice President

Bill Nix, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)