VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

NOVEMBER 24, 2009

The Vanderburgh County Drainage Board met in session this 24^th day of November, 2009 at 5:50 p.m. in room 301 of the Civic Center Complex with President Lloyd Winnecke presiding.

President Winnecke: Okay, at this time we will call to order the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board. We’ll begin with attendance roll call, please.

Madelyn Grayson: Commissioner Tornatta?

Commissioner Tornatta: Here.

Madelyn Grayson: President Winnecke?

President Winnecke: Here.

Bill Jeffers: Good afternoon. Bill Jeffers, Vanderburgh County Surveyor. I did not bring an agenda because I only have the one discussion item, but if minutes are ready for approval you may do that, I suppose.

Commissioner Tornatta: So moved.

President Winnecke: A motion and a second. Questions or discussion regarding minutes? All in favor say aye. Aye.

Commissioner Tornatta: Aye.

President Winnecke: Opposed?

(Motion approved 2-0)

President Winnecke: Okay, thank you.

Bill Jeffers: I don’t have any drainage plans or claims or anything like that, regular business, but I had indicated to you last week, when you were taking care of an emergency logjam situation on Pigeon Creek that we would be back tonight with a discussion of funding. You’ve already handled the funding for that one severe, large logjam that represents an emergency. However, from the Warrick County line down to Lynch Road is all county jurisdiction, several miles and there are several other smaller logjams and accumulations of debris, and since Pigeon Creek is not a regulated drain in Vanderburgh County, as it is in Warrick County. We have no drainage funds set aside or assessed for Pigeon Creek, per se. From Lynch Road then down to the mouth of Pigeon Creek, that’s in the city, same situation, they don’t have any specific funding mechanism or account set aside for removal of logjams or improvements of the waterway. So, what I’ve done is I’ve invited Commonwealth Engineering, it’s an engineering consulting company that enjoys a statewide great reputation. They’ve worked in Warrick County, worked for Warrick County, they’ve worked for Newburgh, they’ve worked for the City of Evansville, I believe under a previous administration. So, they’ve never worked for the Vanderburgh County Drainage Board that I know of. So, it would give you an independent view. I don’t have any working relationship with them. I don’t have any political relationship with them. So, it would be like a fresh perspective. A completely unbiased perspective for you to view these projects from. Tonight David Hines, who is, has lived here in Vanderburgh County for 20 years, and has been the office manager for Commonwealth at their local office here in Evansville for ten years is in the audience, and with him, most of all I wanted to come tonight is Theresa Chris Hartwick, Hartwig, excuse me, who for seven years worked for the Indiana 15^th Regional Planning District. Ms. Hartwig is very hip on funding opportunities for this type of thing. There appears to be an opportunity for some stimulus money, and there will be training sessions coming up in the next couple of months to obtain those. I would like, before I introduce here I would like to point out that this isn’t just, I’m not just thinking of Pigeon Creek. The County Commissioners, I believe, in 2002 through 2004 had a study done on Carpentier Creek, that’s another creek that runs through the county and through the city jurisdiction, and another creek that has severe, several severe restrictions, including logjams, debris accumulations, and, again, there’s no funding available within the county for that creek either. Although you have a study sitting there that recommends many hundreds of thousands of dollars of work that truly needs to be done. Also, Eagle Slough, there is a six and a half mile regulated drain, which we do have funds that are assessed on an annual basis, it drains the whole southeast side of Evansville, plus the agricultural land lying over there in Knight Township south of the levee, but we never have adequate funds. We would never have adequate funds without raising the assessment to an astronomical amount per acre for the agricultural land to take care of beaver dams and logjams there. So, this just, you know, I would like for Ms. Hartwig to come up and give you an overview of what might be available to us.

President Winnecke: Great.

Bill Jeffers: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Thanks.

Theresa Hartwig: Thanks, Bill. I don’t think I’ve ever been introduced as hip. The funds that Bill was talking about is there is funding available for debris removal through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs. I have passed out a public notice of those funds. You’ll see from the first page it’s funds that have came down through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD funds. If you’ll turn to page eight you’ll see the counties that are eligible for this funding. The funding was made available for all counties who were affected by the Presidentially declared disasters that happened in 2008. You’ll see that Vanderburgh County is one of those counties that is eligible for the funding. The things that we do know about these funds, if you’ll turn to page 13, that talks specifically about the waterway debris removal. These grants will be made as first come, first serve. The applications will be due on February 1^st, and there is $15 million available statewide for these improvements. In talking with the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs today it is going to be very competitive. So, it is important to know that it is first come, first serve. There are a number of things that we don’t know yet about the funds, there is a training being held on January 13^th in Indianapolis, we’ll be attending that and we’ll bring that information to you. If you look on page 14, it says that grants will be made at the discretion of OCRA, so we don’t know if it’s going to be a 100 percent grant at this time. In looking at the past rounds of this disaster recovery money, when they said at the discretion, it’s been anywhere from a 100 percent grant down to a 60 percent grant. So, I would expect to be somewhere in that range. Like I said earlier, it is HUD funds, so it’s community development block grant funds. If you look through the entire packet, it has all of the different areas that they are planning on funding, of course, just going through the debris removal because I know that’s what you are interested in. But, because these are HUD dollars, most HUD dollars, the beneficiaries of the project have to have 51 percent low to moderate income, and all of the other categories they are requiring that the beneficiaries be that. In this category and in this category alone, they are saying that they will use the LMI requirement whenever possible. So, it leaves it vague at this point. In talking with OCRA, they haven’t made up their mind on how they’re going to use that, maybe possibly in the scoring. I looked at your census data, and according to the census Vanderburgh County is about 26 percent low to moderate income. It may be that they just use that in scoring your application. Like I said, there will be a training on January 13^th. I would be more than happy to bring back that information to you. Do you guys have any questions about the grant funding itself?

Commissioner Tornatta: No, it’s clear as mud is the way I look at it. I know that we’ve had those, I think when it all started, maybe last year–

Theresa Hartwig: Uh-huh, 2008.

Commissioner Tornatta: –when they were coming up trying to figure, it was all kind of up in the air. Have you found that they have actually kind of solidified some of their thoughts? I mean, you kind of sound like it’s still a moving scale.

Theresa Hartwig: Yes, what happened was the federal government first appropriated approximately $90 million, and we’ve already dispensed most of those funds. Those funds were used for water and waste water projects, downtown redevelopment projects, and they were all based on that low to moderate income percentage. You couldn’t apply unless you were a low income community. But, since then they have added another $253 million, and added new categories like dam and levee improvements, and debris removal. So, they haven’t given some of the specific details on this second round of funding.

President Winnecke: I guess I’m a little confused about the first come, first serve, and the 1/13 training. I mean, would it behoove us to present an application before that 1/13 training?

Theresa Hartwig: Okay, the reason I said first come, first serve, if you look at the other categories, a lot of the other categories have a specific date. So, for instance, if you were doing a waste water project, your application would be due say June 13^th and then everybody submitted at that time and they took the highest scoring applications. With this debris removal, they’re going to say, or they’ve said February 1^st we will start accepting applications–

President Winnecke: Okay.

Theresa Hartwig: –and then they will fund them until the money runs out.

President Winnecke: Okay.

Theresa Hartwig: Does that answer your question?

President Winnecke: It does.

Theresa Hartwig: Okay.

President Winnecke: Thank you.

Theresa Hartwig: Any other questions?

Commissioner Tornatta: Thank you.

Theresa Hartwig: Alright.

President Winnecke: Looks good.

Theresa Hartwig: Did you have anything else?

Bill Jeffers: Commissioner Tornatta used the term clear as mud, and that’s exactly what it was to me the first go round. I was very excited about it last year. I thought, man, here’s a real opportunity, and it turned out to be just absolutely as clear as mud. However, when I listened to Ms. Hartwig talk about it, it becomes, she has a very concise way of giving you the information and I feel much more encouraged.

Commissioner Tornatta: I felt encouraged from the get go because I thought that we in Vanderburgh County had a lot of projects that were that shelf ready–

Bill Jeffers: Right.

Commissioner Tornatta: –or shovel ready, and they’re back to shelf ready, because it seemed like there was always some criteria that would knock you out of the process. I think we’ve got, Debbie Bennett-Stearsman has been working with the, our economic based group down here and trying to give us as much, many pointers as she can as well. It just seemed like we’re either, we’re not a day late, because we have all of the projects ready, it just seems like we have some criteria that will throw us out. So, hopefully, we’ll be able to utilize this. We will be ready if we need to be, obviously.

Bill Jeffers: I just wanted to do this tonight so that if you feel, as a Board, that there’s an opportunity there, that we can jump on that opportunity, possibly explore that with Commonwealth, because what happened to me last time is I was all ready to go, and then I was told well you have to prove that you’re 51 percent low and moderate income. I said, well, let’s go, you know, go over here to Area Plan Commission and pull the census data out. Oh no, that’s not the way it’s done. So, you know, I mean, I was right up against the deadline there and they said oh it takes 30 to 60 days, and nobody in the State of Indiana is going to make that 30 to 60 days process of mailing out these questionnaires and this that and the other. So, I wanted to be a little bit more ahead of it this time.

Commissioner Tornatta: That’s why you’re a great Surveyor, and bringing not only the thought to the table, but the money as well. So, I appreciate that.

Bill Jeffers: Okay. Well, thank you for listening and I just hope that maybe individually you can pursue a conversation with Ms. Hartwig and see where it might lead.

President Winnecke: Great.

Bill Jeffers: Thank you.

President Winnecke: Bill, any other business to bring before the Drainage Board?

Bill Jeffers: No, sir.

President Winnecke: Okay.

Commissioner Tornatta: Motion to adjourn.

President Winnecke: So moved.

(The meeting was adjourned at 6:00 p.m.)

Those in Attendance:

Lloyd Winnecke                        Troy Tornatta                            Bill Jeffers

David Miller                               Madelyn Grayson                     Theresa Hartwig

Others Unidentified                   Members of Media

VANDERBURGH COUNTY

DRAINAGE BOARD

Lloyd Winnecke, President

Troy Tornatta, Vice President

(Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.)