VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

NOVEMBER 17, 2009

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 17^th day of November, 2009 at 6:10 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Lloyd Winnecke presiding.

President Winnecke: Okay, at this time we’ll call to order the meeting of the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to approve–

President Winnecke: Attendance roll call, please.

Commissioner Tornatta: Oh, sorry. I got ahead, sorry.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Melcher?

Commissioner Melcher: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: President Winnecke?

President Winnecke: Here.

President Winnecke: I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the previous meeting.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

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: Thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Come on up, Old Man River.

President Winnecke: Good evening, Mr. Jeffers.

Bill Jeffers: Good evening. This evening we have with us from Warrick County, Commissioner Tim Mosbey and a contractor who does a lot of work for Warrick County, Mr. Henry Bigge. To refresh your memory on the issue, this is the county line running north and south right here. Everything on the right hand, east side of that line is Warrick County, everything on the left hand side, the west side of the line, is Vanderburgh, up to this point, and then the county line turns west and runs this way. So, in other words, here you have Pigeon Creek snaking its way back and forth across the county line. It looks like a dollar sign right there, that big “S” right here, with the county line splitting it, just like a dollar sign. What we really need to do, which would cost way more money than we have today, is start right here at the county line and run due west and cut a channel right through there and eliminate these “S” curves that just snake there way all back and forth. That would be the best solution, but until we can get permits from DNR and Corps of Engineers, etcetera and the money to do that, hopefully, through maybe some stimulus funding, what we have right now is a problem, at this point, right on the county line, a very large logjam of accumulated debris from the ice storms we’ve had and the flooding, the incessant rain storms over the year have brought all this debris out of the woods, down to this point and one large sycamore tree fell across at that point and that was the snag that caught this huge logjam. So, we have a substantial logjam, right on the county line. We’ve talked about that before, it’s backing water up all the way up Pigeon Creek, according to Mr. Bigge and other phone calls I’ve gotten from residents of Warrick County. The creek is now bank full at all times all the way back to Stevenson Station Road, and it’s causing flooding of agricultural fields and residential yards along in the area. Mr. Bigge was doing a job all the way up in Chandler, and the ditches that drain into Pigeon Creek have backed up to the point that he would periodically have to shut down for a week or two to let the water go down, all the way back up in Chandler to do the ditch work. What I understand now, and I’ll let him explain it, he has given Warrick County a bid to remove a logjam up near Stevenson Station Road, and he’s given a bid to remove the logjam that’s right on the county line, but the logjam on the county line has to be removed to let the water out of the creek sufficiently that he can do both jobs. He has to start down here. So, I’ll let him, Mr. Bigge, and Mr. Mosbey, Commissioner Mosbey, finish their description.

Tim Mosbey: The only thing that I want to add, he keeps saying that it’s on the county line. According to the maps, Mr. Bigge will verify, it’s like a couple hundred feet in Vanderburgh County this logjam. That’s the reason that we’re here tonight, because we spent oodles and gobs of money already cleaning the creek out, Mr. Bigge did most of the work. This logjam is the main problem and it is in Vanderburgh, because he, I think I called you whether to accept the bid, our joint Vanderburgh-Warrick Drainage Board. At our regular Warrick County Drainage Board meeting we accepted his bid, opened it, and it was the same, $6,200, I think? $6,200 for your logjam, plus for the one we’re addressing. So, that’s all I have to add. I’m just here to beg and plead and hope you agree.

Commissioner Tornatta: That would be Commissioner Mosbey.

Tim Mosbey: Yes, I’m sorry, Tim Mosbey.

Commissioner Tornatta: With an “e”.

Tim Mosbey: With an “e”.

Henry Bigge: Yeah, I’m Henry Bigge.

Commissioner Tornatta: With an “e”, right?

Henry Bigge: The logjam, see the narrow spot of the field?

Commissioner Tornatta: Henry Bigge.

Henry Bigge: Well, that’s about where it’s at right in that narrow spot.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay.

Henry Bigge: It was level full. Now, recent rains have....go just a little bit to the west. Right in that area is where that logjam is. It’s totally in Vanderburgh County.

Commissioner Tornatta: Hey, Bill?

Henry Bigge: The other one is upstream. Now, this one we just looked at it the other day. We was ready to move in, with the dry spell, now we’ve got all this rain and it don’t take an inch of rain and everything’s, like Tim said, up there at Stevenson Station Road the creek’s out of the banks again. When you get on the down side of yours, the water is down into the creek. Yours is backing up probably four or five foot of water, maybe more than that from the top down to the water that’s going out. The other one upstream, it’s gotten bigger, so it’s catching everything before it gets down to yours. Yours actually a little bit of it left. They, Warrick County went ahead and bid both of them out, and four contractors went down there, one contractor said that he ain’t going to mess with it at all, then another one didn’t show up for the bid, and then Mr. Elliott was the only other contractor to bid on it. He bid $60,000 for the two logjams, I bid $12,400. So, there’s quite a bit of difference. I’ve done 15 miles of Pigeon, from , I guess it was the county line all the way up to 68? What is that highway up there? 68, fifteen miles of it. I’ve done that once before back in 1995, we went through there, it was the first time we went through there and cleared a path all the way down through there. So, it wasn’t real bad going back through it this time. Yours has never been cleared. I think you’ve got six miles that goes all the way through. They was talking about going all the way to Lynch Road, I don’t think that’s ever been cleared before. I looked at some of it. Now, we went downstream the other day after we looked at this, and there’s debris all the way down through there, at different stages. There’s trees all the way across the creek, and trees laying down in the creek, and all of that needs to come out. It’s just, you take one out and then next time you get a rain, why you’re going to get another one.

President Winnecke: So, the issue really becomes, for us, how do we pay for that? I mean, we have Infrastructure money.

Commissioner Tornatta: Well, that’s what I was going to ask.

President Winnecke: The Commissioners do. We could pay for that easily.

Commissioner Tornatta: Hey, Bill? Did you have an idea of where these funds would come from?

Bill Jeffers: Excuse me, sir. Okay, the situation we’re in is the state allows two ways to pay for regulated drains, you can do them drain by drain, each drain has its own account. That’s the way we do it. Pigeon Creek is not one of our drains in Vanderburgh County. Or you could have five cents on a hundred valuation of property across the entire county, that goes into a general drainage fund, and then the county is allowed to work on any drain that has been worked on in the past. Basically, you could declare any drain that had been worked on since 1818, I guess, or 1816. I think it’s 1818 for our county. You could work on any of those drains and declare them a regulated drain, as long as they met the criteria. So, Warrick County has the money, because Pigeon Creek is a regulated drain in their county. Vanderburgh County, we don’t. So, I had suggested a few months ago that we find $5,000 and put it up as our half of the project, and Warrick County be asked to put up $5,000, because I thought we were addressing this one....well, here we are again, this one logjam right on the county line. So, I thought we could share that, because, you know, I know we haven’t cleared our creek because it’s not a regulated drain, but if you look at our side of the creek, above this drain the embankment is a cleared field. If you look at Warrick County’s side I think that’s where a lot of the debris came from. So, I thought maybe we would look at it as a shared project. I don’t want to get into a big argument with my friends from Warrick County, but I would still like to share that project. If their half turns out to be $6,200 and our half turns out to be $6,200, I think that’s fair. Next week, I went ahead and put this on the agenda this week because they’re pretty much wanting to present it as an emergency. I agree with them, but I wanted to put it on the agenda this week to give you the background, so that it would be fresh in your memory next week, seven days from today, I have a consulting engineer coming in to speak with you who thinks they have a source of funding through the new stimulus money, up to a million dollars, and, for logjam clearing and that type of work. If that could play out, we’re in fat city, because then we could continue on down the creek all the way to Lynch Road, which is the city limits.

President Winnecke: Since, if I understand you correctly, since Pigeon Creek in Vanderburgh County is not a regulated drain–

Bill Jeffers: Correct.

President Winnecke: –would the Commissioners have the ability to spend funds at its disposal?

Bill Jeffers: I believe we could check that with the Corps of Engineers and the Department of Natural Resources and, because they, and with the State Board of Accounts. I believe the answer would be yes. I mean, its an infrastructure improvement. It is a navigable waterway in your jurisdiction.

President Winnecke: That’s how I think we ought to proceed in terms of trying to fund the $6,200. We know we have plenty of money in that line item.

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah. I mean, I would say that we would use the Infrastructure account, with the caveat that if there were other funds coming out that we would replenish those, replenish that account.

President Winnecke: I guess, the other question I would have, just sort of, I’m sorry that Ted left, but from a legal standpoint, do we have to bid the Vanderburgh County project?

Bill Jeffers: I guess, what I had thought, and Ted could read the minutes of this meeting–

Commissioner Tornatta: This is a service. This is a service, we do not have to bid it. It’s under, yeah, I mean–

Bill Jeffers: You have a joint Drainage Board, you have a joint Drainage Board with Warrick County, and I would think, and they’ve always been the lead agency on Pigeon Creek, the things we’ve done before on this years ago, they were always the lead agency they took the bids and administered the bids.

Commissioner Tornatta: As long as we have three bids, we can take their bids and move on with that project. It’s under $75,000.

President Winnecke: Except they haven’t submitted them to us yet. I mean, to this body.

Bill Jeffers: Well, you could have, couldn’t you have a joint meeting?

Commissioner Tornatta: Well, actually we could take–

President Winnecke: Yeah.

Commissioner Tornatta: –your bids that you have. We have to go out and get three quotes.

President Winnecke: Right.

Commissioner Tornatta: So, we’ll have three quotes.

Bill Jeffers: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Three qualifying quotes.

Tim Mosbey: You won’t find three people that are willing to do it.

Commissioner Tornatta: Right, well, we’re going to use the quotes that are there. I’m just....legally that’s what we follow.

Bill Jeffers: Whatever the legal department determines is the correct way to do it, but I would also recommend at this time that you declare it an emergency, because that’s what it really is. Then, once you declare that an emergency exists in Pigeon Creek at the county line due to this logjam, I believe you also have some more bidding leeway, as long as it doesn’t exceed, I think it’s $75,000 or $100,000.

Commissioner Tornatta: I mean, I’m comfortable with the, working off of the Surveyor’s language of emergency that we need to go ahead and put the money out, take the money out of Infrastructure to fix this problem at a cost of not to exceed $6,200 and get the problem fixed. I would make that in the form of a motion.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. The motion is to declare the logjam in Pigeon Creek along the, inside the Vanderburgh County line an emergency, and therefore spend not to exceed $6,200 in expenses from our Infrastructure account to repair it. A motion and a second. Questions or further discussion?

Bill Jeffers: The only other thing I would say is that I consider it an emergency because it is flooding real estate, farm ground that needs to be worked in preparation for next spring, and it poses a hazard to roadways in both counties, public roadways and dwellings.

President Winnecke: All in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

President Winnecke: Okay.

Bill Jeffers: Well, thank you for your attention to that.

Commissioner Tornatta: We would need an invoice when the job is done, and then we would be able to cut a check.

Tim Mosbey: Does this mean that he can go ahead and do the job?

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah, we’ve approved it. I’m saying that he can go with it, and then once he’s done submit an invoice not to exceed $6,200.

Tim Mosbey: Submit it to whom?

Commissioner Tornatta: The County Commissioners office here, or Bill.

Tim Mosbey: I would appreciate, as a Warrick County Commissioner, if next week you check into that up to a million dollars to clean the six miles.

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah, we’ll let you pay us back on that deal.

Henry Bigge: I would be glad to do it for that.

President Winnecke: I bet we would get a lot of qualifying bidders there.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you all.

Henry Bigge: Are you aware of what–

Commissioner Tornatta: You’ve got to come up here. Kind of the rule.

President Winnecke: We’re on television here.

Henry Bigge: Are you aware of what the cost was for the 15 miles that I cleaned out?

Commissioner Tornatta: I heard it, but it’s almost–

Henry Bigge: It was $136,000, so that comes to about $9,000 a mile.

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah.

Henry Bigge: But, see, I cleared that once before, so I know the cost is going up and there’s a lot more stuff in the creek, but that’s a general idea anyway.

Commissioner Tornatta: Well, we appreciate that. I talked to Tim last year when we were going through the process and nothing but good things to say about you. So, thank you for keeping everything as low as possible.

Henry Bigge: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Okay?

Henry Bigge: Alrighty.

Commissioner Tornatta: Alright, job well done.

Henry Bigge: It was a lot better than the other guy that bid $30,000 on each one of them. So, that’s–

Commissioner Tornatta: Yeah, we do appreciate that.

Henry Bigge: Thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you.

Bill Jeffers: Henry Bigge’s done work for us before. He cleared Eagle Slough at one time. We had never cleared it and he cleared it with the same type of equipment, grinder drums and stuff, and he did a wonderful job. So, I mean, I’m familiar with his work from the past.

Bill Jeffers: The only other thing I have this evening is a folder full of blue claims for work that’s been completed on ditches. It includes a partial payment on Kolb Ditch at Audubon Lake. I had some additional, well, we went ahead and put some rip rap around that pipe because Vectren had gone ahead and moved the utility boxes, so there are some amounts in here that reflect some additional clearing and some additional rip rap, but they’re well within the budget and the County Surveyor recommends approval of all the claims.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second to approve the claims as presented. Any questions or discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye.

All Commissioners: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 3-0)

Bill Jeffers: Very good.

President Winnecke: Other business to come before us, Bill?

Bill Jeffers: No, sir.

President Winnecke: Any public comment to come before the Drainage Board?

Bill Jeffers: Well, yeah, I do. I was very proud of you guys the way that the security thing went down. I thought that was very well thought out. I know it wasn’t an easy decision, and I know there was a lot of things said, both in the meetings and outside the meetings in the newspaper and so forth that made that a hard decision for everyone involved, and I thought you all stood up to it and handled it in a very appropriate and timely fashion.

President Winnecke: Thank you.

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Any other public comment? Hearing none, I would move for adjournment.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

Commissioner Melcher: Second.

President Winnecke: We are adjourned.

(The meeting was adjourned at 6:30 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Lloyd Winnecke                        Troy Tornatta                            Stephen Melcher

Bill Jeffers                                 Madelyn Grayson                     Tim Mosbey

Henry Bigge                              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.)