VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

NOVEMBER 21, 2006

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 21^st day of November, 2006 at 4:09 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Bill Nix presiding.

President Nix: Good afternoon.

Bill Jeffers: Good afternoon, Mr. Nix.

President Nix: Call to order the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board, November 21, 2006 at nine minutes after four.

President Nix: Mr. Jeffers, or, excuse me, before we do that, I would entertain a motion to approve minutes of the previous meeting.

Commissioner Musgrave: So moved.

President Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

President Nix: Aye.

President Nix: Mr. Jeffers, good afternoon.

Bill Jeffers: Good afternoon, Commissioner Nix, Commissioner Musgrave, Mr. Ziemer, and staff, and students. Good afternoon. Our first item is Delaware Trace. It’s a group of apartments on North Green River Road, a little less than a quarter mile north of Lynch Road. What you’re looking at, basically, is two lots, two large lots split by the power easement. In the power easement there would be an extension of, I guess, Cullen Avenue, in case there were any development to the north or south. That would serve, basically, as a frontage road. There is 17 buildings. 72 one bedroom units, 96 two bedroom units, 56 three bedroom units, 24 four bedroom units. So, you can see it’s a substantial development. It’s got four canopied carports, ample parking, one clubhouse, a playground, and four substantial detention basins. It’s pretty much over-designed as far as detention goes, I guess, because they need fill dirt. It is a preliminary plan. The approval of the preliminary plan would allow the overall plan to go forward to Area Plan Commission, etcetera. They will coming back with a final plan to fine tune any minutia necessary. The County Surveyor has reviewed the plan and finds it comports with the drainage code for a preliminary plan, and recommends approval of Delaware Trace Apartments.

President Nix: Will that secondary plan come back to this board?

Bill Jeffers: Yes, sir, it will come back to this board. If there are any remonstrators, whether they’re here or whether they’re at home and have any comments to make, all those comments will be addressed by the modifications in the final plan.

Commissioner Musgrave: Do you want to call for anyone?

President Musgrave: Is there anyone here from the public who wishes to speak to this issue? If not–

Commissioner Musgrave: I move that we accept the recommendation of the County Surveyor.

President Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

President Nix: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: That one was in Knight Township. I forgot to tell you that.

Bill Jeffers: This next one is Summer Creek, Section One, also located on Green River Road, but north of Daylight, Indiana, in Scott Township. Basically, you have 59 standard size small lots, one entrance road off of Green River, three stubbed out roads for future interconnection to phase two to the north. This will be a substantial subdivision when phase two comes in. However, like I said, it’s 59 lots at this time. It has come to you before for preliminary approval. The road plans are in front of the County Engineer’s office, and I have a copy of, Keith Poff, the design engineer from Sitecon, I have a copy of all of his responses to Mr. Stoll’s questions addressing the street and drainage plans, and the County Surveyor has reviewed the modified final drainage plan, and recommends approval as it comports with the drainage code.

Commissioner Musgrave: Was Mr. Stoll satisfied with those responses?

Bill Jeffers: Mr. Keith Poff could answer that, but, I believe John has left Evansville before he was able to confirm that with me. Keith, do you have a comment on that? As I look at them, the plan satisfies them. However, some of the, I only looked at drainage. I did not look at specific street items.

Keith Poff: They have not been approved by the board, as of yet. We have a water line and sanitary issue that has to be resolved that is in the plans. So, we do not have his approval from the board, but he has commented, or we’ve returned questions to him about the items he’d raised, and we’ve settled the issues that we had to do. So, we’ve been satisfied, it’s just that we’re waiting on another department to clear some specifics in order to reissue those plans to him.

Commissioner Musgrave: So, you’re testifying that you believe the County Engineer is satisfied, but there’s another department, the city department, that you have not finalized plans with?

Keith Poff: That is correct. It’s the city, the Water and Sewer Utility Department.

Commissioner Musgrave: Um–

President Nix: Is there anyone in the audience that would like to address the issue?

Bill Jeffers: I would like to point out that Mr. Poff, or his contractors, will not proceed until he has the County Commissioners approval on the recommendation of the County Engineer with the street plans. They may go out there and move some dirt with regard to the drainage plan, which I recommend approval of.

Commissioner Musgrave: Alright, on that basis, I recommend that we adopt your recommendation.

President Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

President Nix: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: Yesterday the city’s, the Mayor’s Stormwater Task Force met for the first time at 5:30 p.m. till about 7:15 or 7:30 p.m. at the library. I wanted to let you know that the County Drainage Board is represented on that committee by the County Surveyor. I asked to be on that committee because, as I pointed out earlier in your Commissioner meeting, a substantial portion of the southeast side that was affected by this task force and recent flooding is drained into a county ditch, as well as significant portions of Evansville drain into county regulated drains, as you know, on the north side and the east side, before they enter Pigeon Creek or the Ohio River. So, I felt it was appropriate that the County Drainage Board was represented by their technical advisor, which is why I asked the Mayor to include me in that task force, which he did. Having said that, I wanted to let you know that we do have ongoing studies and evaluations of each of those drains that drains the city, the East Side Urban drains, Kolb Ditch, Eagle Slough and others, and that those studies have proceeded rather well. I have a report here that I could put into a better form for you, this is just a preliminary report that Charlie Alvey put together for me, but it reflects that each of the consulting engineers is moving rapidly along with their study and evaluation of those. Rather than read it into the record, I’ll just supply you with some notes later on, but let you know that everything is moving along in an orderly and timely fashion.

Commissioner Musgrave: I would like to thank you for getting on that committee and representing the interests that you outlined, but I would like to add one more, my understanding is that the cure for the flooding and so forth might be promulgated through the Water Department, and perhaps through bond issues or plans that are paid for by water rates. Is that correct?

Bill Jeffers: I’ve heard very similar ideas put forth, but I’m not, right now we’ve been charged with simply looking at the criteria to be used for determining what storm event we should plan for and design for, and what other criteria we should set up to determine which project should proceed first and that type of thing. That’s what the task force has been charged with initially. I’m probably more concerned with the condition of our county drains remaining adequate or superior, so that when they do discharge into our ditches on their way to Pigeon Creek or the river, that it will be handled adequately out of those pump stations and other facilities. I’m not sure how they plan on paying for it at this time, but I do know that the Waterworks is represented on that, or the Water and Sewer Utility is represented on that task force, as is the City Controller sits on that. So, I imagine when it comes to financing, those will be the two persons who will probably lead the discussion.

Commissioner Musgrave: Well, county residents have no representation on the Water and Sewer Utility Board, that board being totally appointed by the Mayor. If it’s going to be paid for with monthly water rates that are paid for by people not just in the city, but the entire county, and maybe even across county lines, I don’t represent those people, but I do represent people who live outside the city, as well as people who live inside the city. So, I would like you to keep us informed as to what may occur, so that any county representatives, county ratepayers who wanted to make their views known would at least have warning that they might want to step up to the microphone somewhere.

Bill Jeffers: Yes. I will do that. I share your concern about that, because when I was discussing it with Mr. Harry Lawson, quite a while in the past, about the rate increase for the county being disproportionate to the rate increase for city payers, one of the ideas that was pointed out was that a lot of the county’s sanitary sewer effluent passes through the city lines on it’s way to sewer treatment plants, and somehow or another that affected the flow rates of storm water in the combined sewers. But, I don’t really want to get into all that, but I will keep you informed, and let you know if I hear any comments, because all these meetings are open to the public–

Commissioner Musgrave: Right.

Bill Jeffers: –and people readily get up to the microphone and let their feelings be known. As we did last night.

President Nix: We don’t know whether there’s more water going out than coming in, is that correct? In a nutshell?

Commissioner Musgrave: Uh-huh.

Bill Jeffers: I pointed out that a lot of their water comes out to us, as well as whatever we donate to them.

Commissioner Musgrave: Alright, thank you.

President Nix: Thank you, Mr. Jeffers.

Bill Jeffers: And, if there’s no further questions on that, in closing I have claims here from those consultants that are submitting ongoing claims for their ongoing work on the studies and evaluations, and have checked all of them and everything comports with standard procedure, and ask that you pay these claims.

Commissioner Musgrave: Move approval of the claims as reviewed by Surveyor Jeffers.

Commissioner Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

President Nix: Aye.

Madelyn Grayson: I did have one thing, there was a petition filed in the Auditor’s office to remove an obstruction. I don’t know if you had a chance to review that.

Bill Jeffers: I’m sorry. That, you’re correct, I left it off my agenda. Sorry, but, what’s the fellas name?

Madelyn Grayson: Thomas and Laurie Dowd.

Bill Jeffers: Yeah, Dowd, on either Wayside, is that where they’re–

Madelyn Grayson: Yes, Wayside Drive.

Bill Jeffers: Yes, they have submitted a petition, and I have looked at it on, I’m sorry we don’t have it here for you to look at, but, it’s very clear that there is some fill going on on three lots that they indicate, and the fill appears to either be in or very nearby a substantial watercourse that empties into Pigeon Creek, and it appears that even on the aerial photographs you can see water backed up in the woods owned by Mr. Dowd. So, I have contacted the respondents and they have invited me to come out and take a look at what they’ve done. The complication is, is that it was turned in to Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water who came out there and said, “Our jurisdiction doesn’t include this, you should go to the County Drainage Board with it.” That was two years ago, and now we’re just now hearing about it, and there’s been a huge amount of fill placed in the last two years.

President Nix: Are there any issues with silting at all?

Bill Jeffers: I haven’t gone and looked at it personally, but I imagine there is going to be issues, yes. I’m surprised that the Corp of Engineers has not entered into this, being as it’s, I mean, just right there by Pigeon Creek, and it looks to me like, if it were a developer, they would have already been all over them.

President Nix: Yeah.

Bill Jeffers: But, it’s just individuals filling their backyards, apparently, but if it’s, like I say, now that the petition has, if you receive this petition right now, I will be out there next week to do my investigation and bring it back to you.

Commissioner Musgrave: Okay.

President Nix: Thank you.

Commissioner Musgrave: Motion to adjourn.

President Nix: Second.

Bill Jeffers: Motion to accept the petition?

Commissioner Musgrave: Oh, motion to accept the petition.

President Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

President Nix: Aye.

Bill Jeffers: Thank you.

Commissioner Musgrave: Now, I guess, I’ll make that motion to adjourn.

President Nix: Second. All in favor?

Commissioner Musgrave: Aye.

(The meeting was adjourned at 4:25 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Bill Nix                                      Cheryl Musgrave                      Bill Jeffers

Ted C. Ziemer, Jr.          Madelyn Grayson                     Keith Poff

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Bill Nix, President

Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, Vice President

Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.