VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 18^th day of November, 2008 at 5:33 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Troy Tornatta presiding.

President Tornatta: Continuing on. Tuesday, November 18th’s agenda for the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board meeting will commence. It is 5:33 p.m.

President Tornatta: I need a motion to approve the previous meetings minutes.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: So ordered.

President Tornatta: Mr. Jeffers?

Bill Jeffers: Good evening. The first drainage plan is Windemere Farms, sections four and five, amended final drainage plan, reprised. We went back and tweaked it just a little bit since the last time we presented it to you. It still conforms to the drainage code and the recommendation is still to approve. This is a formality. They made some additional repairs that improved the situation and this is a new as-built.

President Tornatta: I need a motion.

Commissioner Korb: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Tornatta: So ordered.

Bill Jeffers: Stonegate Estates, same situation. It’s a finished subdivision. They moved the spillway of the lake over to the southeast side of the discharge pipes because that was a more practical area for the emergency spillway. It followed the natural watercourse into the creek. There’s a few other very minor cosmetic changes that were made with some flagstones, etcetera inside drainage easements. This is another as-built, and we’re billing it as an amended final drainage plan with a recommendation to approve.

Commissioner Korb: So moved.

Commissioner Nix: Second.

President Tornatta: So ordered.

Bill Jeffers: Claims from ditch contractors, I have laid on your desk in front of Madelyn. It’s quite a few because it’s getting towards the end of the year. These are mostly maintenance contracts, mowing, sprayings, annual maintenance, along with a claim to Structure Pointe Engineers for approximately half of their plan to reconstruct East Side Urban at that weir to discharge more water north to Pigeon Creek. The recommendation, all of the paperwork is there and the recommendation is to approve the claims.

Commissioner Nix: Move approval.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: So ordered.

Bill Jeffers: Under other business, I’m going to skip the first bullet point.

Commissioner Nix: Thank you.

Bill Jeffers: The second bullet point, Hamilton Creek, you just approved that plan, and basically I wanted to clarify some comments that were made during the Drainage Board meeting of last week. Justin Shofstall would like to make some improvements within the easement in Hamilton Creek and also within the easement for Greenbriar Subdivision. I’m directing him to get permission from each of the property owners to do that across the line. I’m not saying it’s not doable, I’m just saying that we can’t automatically grant him the right to go onto another subdivision and make those improvements. However, if his plan works out, it will be for the better. If it doesn’t work out, all the improvements will have to be made on the Hamilton Creek side. I believe I sent you an e-mail with more details to that effect. As a courtesy, I included the next bullet point, Pigeon Creek clearing project. A newly elected official from Warrick County, Mr. Mosbey, Tim Mosbey, came over this morning and showed me a plan for clearing log jams out of Pigeon Creek between Stevensons Station Road and the Vanderburgh County line. They’ve already let that contract, and he was wondering if the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board would be interested in participating. I said we didn’t have funds set up at the current time for that. We would be interested in participating. There may be some funds come from the federal government as part of the economic stimulus package. We might want to look into that. He said something to the effect that what if they loaned us some money ahead. I said we need to convene a joint Drainage Board meeting between the two counties and discuss that. So, as a courtesy I brought that information to you tonight.

President Tornatta: I talked to Commissioner Elect Mosbey, and it seems like we have roughly a mile that we need to do, and they have quite a few miles to do, starting at Highway 68.

Bill Jeffers: Correct.

President Tornatta: So, if we were to do this, our, their bid was for $117,000, or something along those lines. Ours would be considerably less.

Bill Jeffers: Correct.

President Tornatta: If we were to do that. The outfit that they had was their lowest bidder and very reasonable, after looking at what he had bid.

Bill Jeffers: It was Mr. Bigge–

President Tornatta: Yeah.

Bill Jeffers: –from Posey County, who does excellent work. He and his son are now, I guess, have a partnership. They do wonderful work. The bid was dirt cheap.

President Tornatta: Yeah.

Commissioner Nix: Don’t tell Mr. Bigge that.

President Tornatta: Yeah, well.

Bill Jeffers: Hey, the contract’s been accepted.

President Tornatta: Anyway, that’s what–

Commissioner Nix: Wasn’t there one other issue we were talking about at one time about maybe talking to them about?

President Tornatta: Pigeon Creek.

Commissioner Nix: Along, yeah, Pigeon Creek there?

Bill Jeffers: There was some Build Indiana funds, but, I believe those were all withdrawn by the Governor back around 2000 or so.

Commissioner Nix: No, this was just maybe three or four months ago.

President Tornatta: Nova Conner.

Bill Jeffers: Oh, there was another issue on Williams Ditch.

Commissioner Nix: I don’t know if it was on Williams Ditch. This was further down, just north of the Lloyd. It seemed like there was an issue that both counties were involved with.

Bill Jeffers: Right.

President Tornatta: This was Pigeon Creek as it goes to the river. However–

Bill Jeffers: Oh, yeah, that one too.

Commissioner Nix: It comes back around. I didn’t know if maybe we could discuss that at the same time.

Bill Jeffers: I think you all should just have a joint Drainage Board meeting between Vanderburgh and Warrick and hash several of these issues out.

President Tornatta: I’ll meet with Commissioner Elect Mosbey, and we’ll see if we can address that.

Bill Jeffers: Okay. Good deal. That concludes anything I have for you tonight, unless you have something else.

President Tornatta: Okay. Welcome back.

Bill Jeffers: We did approve the minutes, didn’t we?

President Tornatta: We did.

President Tornatta: Any public comment on drainage? If not, I would entertain a motion to adjourn.

Commissioner Nix: So moved.

Commissioner Korb: Second.

President Tornatta: So ordered. Thank you.

(The meeting was adjourned at 5:40 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Troy Tornatta                            Bill Nix                                      Jeff Korb

Bill Jeffers                                 Kathryn Schymik                      Madelyn Grayson

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Troy Tornatta, President

Bill Nix, Vice President

Jeff Korb, Member

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)