VANDERBURGH COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
JUNE 7, 2003
The Vanderburgh County Board of Commissioners continued discussion of rezoning petition VC-3-2005 from their April 19th Rezoning meeting during the course of their regular Commission meeting. Additional discussion were held on June 7th and June 14, 2005 as well.
VC-3-2003: Pedcor Investments
President Crouch: We now will move to rezoning, VC-3-2005. Thank you for patience.
Krista Lockyear: Good afternoon, members of the Commission. Krista Lockyear, I’m here on behalf of Pedcor Investments, LLC. As I believe everyone is aware, we have been working with Commissioner Musgrave specifically in order to put together a written covenant that will address some specific concerns, and provide some accountability on behalf of our client in the future. I think it’s telling that we’re here after the earlier discussion about the rezoning on the west side. My client is very interested in putting in writing their commitments to the county, and standing behind the representations that they have made to you. I do have copies of the covenants as current draft. There are probably still some minor modifications that need to be made. My client would like to run these by their eviction attorney to make sure we don’t have any problems with some of the language, versus the language in the leases. I would hope that in the next couple of days we could have discussions with any of the Commissioners that may have additional comments, and we could finalize this before next week, to take this rezoning to a vote.
Commissioner Musgrave: I want to thank you, and your clients for taking the time to meet with me last week to respond to the numerous e-mail messages that have come, not only from me, but from concerned members of the public, seeking to arrive at this covenant, which will put in writing some of the things that are important to the community, and that you’re willing to put it on paper and stand behind it, I think that speaks very highly of your client.
Krista Lockyear: Thank you.
President Crouch: I do know that Mrs. Harp is here from Oak Hill Neighborhood Association, and I know she is here with some questions regarding this rezoning, because I did speak to her. So, if–
Krista Lockyear: Sure.
President Crouch: –you don’t mind entertaining, even though we won’t vote on it today.
Susan Harp: Thank you. Susan Harp, president of Oak Hill Neighborhood Association. This area out there, unfortunately, does not have any neighborhood association, and that is something that Mr. Farmer and the United Neighborhoods of Evansville and I, we’re working on to try to expand more neighborhoods in the county. Keystone would probably be your first neighborhood, then you get into the Green River Estates. Some of the concerns, and this was brought up at the East Sector Neighborhood Police meeting. Officer Vantlin spoke about the Vann Park apartments, and then I had just received the e-mail regarding this information, and there are some concerns from any neighborhood when you put in housing that may attract people of lower income that may be influenced by vices such as drugs. Of course, we do have the drug house ordinance in the city that we feel is going to help alleviate some of this, and I’m hoping this covenant would address those issues. But, in fact, these apartments do kind of attract, and it’s unfortunate, because everyone should be provided a place to live. My concerns were that would there be ample transportation for some of the lower income people to get to their job sites? That was one issue that was brought up. I know it will be on the Sheriff’s Department to help patrol this area. It’s just kind of secluded out there, and I know they are going to widen, or do some improvements on Green River Road, so that should help, but that’s, you know, down the road. Those were the concerns we really had. I did speak to a few of the people from Green River I and Green River II that they knew nothing about any of this. So, Timber Park neighborhood had concerns, but they’re on further south, but they and Oak Hill are the two nearest neighborhood associations, so, we’re hoping that the covenant would address the issues that protect those neighbors right there who may not know what’s in store for them.
President Crouch: Thank you, Mrs. Harp. Would it be possible to provide a copy of the proposed covenant to Mrs. Harp? Then if you could just briefly address her questions. If you could also tell her where the property is, because I think I told you the wrong location.
Susan Harp: Okay, thanks.
Krista Lockyear: Again, Krista Lockyear, for the record. Mrs. Harp, after the meeting I can give you a copy, as well as my card, and we can maybe correspond about any additional comments you have. Specific concerns that we are intending to address in this covenant is that my client is willing to commit that the leases, although this property is not to be, it’s not in the city limits, or I wouldn’t be in front of this body, we will include the language from the city ordinance about the drug enforcement and eviction procedures into our leases, so that we...and as amendments happen in the future, we will comply, basically, with that city ordinance and lease language. We also are putting in mechanisms of background searches that we will proceed and follow. Currently, at Vann Park, and intended at this Green River Road site, we do previous landlord checks, obviously, credit report checks, and we are committing to checking the Vanderburgh County Sheriff’s sex offender registry periodically, and to proceed to commit not to rent to anyone that is on that registry, as well as proceed to make sure that we don’t have tenants in the complex that are registered sex offenders. The other provisions that we are having in here is that we would agree that at any point in the future, if the Sheriff’s Department or the County Commissioners would request, as a result of criminal activity at the site, our client, or my client will hire on-site security at their own expense to cut down any problems that they may be having. Of course, we don’t foresee problems. It’s our full belief that this will be a microcosm of the neighborhood that we are locating in. I’ve indicated to this body before, our tenants that we are marketing to are the workers at the east side, close retail locations; Eastland Mall, the new Black Buggy development, the Schnucks development. This property is just north of Lynch Road on Green River Road, and, so, those tenants that we are looking for are the work force of that immediate area. As far as transportation goes, we are not marketing to individuals that require public transportation. Public transportation is just not really anything that our clients are interested in trying to accommodate at this point, or acquire. It’s the intent that most of these tenants will have their own transportation. These tenants are working individuals, and there are percentages of income requirements, but they are individuals that either currently work or may be retired, and that these complex, apartment units will be affordable to them.
President Crouch: What percentage students?
Krista Lockyear: That creates a whole nother can of worms.
Commissioner Musgrave: At our meeting last week, you and I talked about the police reports, and you relayed to me how it took your client about six weeks, I think, to get the accompanying incident reports that went along with those that you could identify problem tenants in your Vann Park Apartments. We were discussing this in order to forestall any problems in the future development. You had mentioned that your client might want to pursue easier and better access to those records. Has anything come of that?
Krista Lockyear: Not to date. I think we are going to work, perhaps with you. I would like you to kind of take a look at what our suggestions or comments may be. I don’t in any manner want to say that the Evansville Police Department didn’t produce anything and everything that we asked them to do. It was the mechanism of obtaining the information. Officer Vantlin is our beat officer, I’m not sure of the exact term. He is on-site periodically. We have had communication with him, and we now have his number to include in the community newsletter that Vann Park puts out. That hadn’t happened before this process. So, I think that’s a positive thing. We’re also going to see, in working with Officer Vantlin if there is a mechanism that we can get monthly incident reports, rather than going through a formal process through the record room to obtain these reports, and perhaps, because I think we pulled officers off of what they normally do in order to get these reports. So, if we could come up with some kind of system where any apartment complex, or any resident, for that matter, could get police reports of things that occur in their vicinity on a regular basis, that certainly would help our clients in managing the apartment complex, as well as others. We certainly would be willing to talking to the Sheriff’s Department about doing that in the future.
Commissioner Musgrave: Okay. But, the ordinance isn’t, I mean, the covenant isn’t ready to be signed today, so, I would make a motion to defer this until next Tuesday’s meeting.
Commissioner Nix: Second.
President Crouch: All in favor?
All Commissioners: Aye.
President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you, Mrs. Lockyear.
Brad Ellsworth: May I make a comment? Good evening, my name is Brad Ellsworth, Vanderburgh County Sheriff. It’s my understanding that the property in question is out in the county solely, and would therefore be patrolled by the Sheriff’s office until something changes that would preclude that. I do want to say that I’m sure you understand that the Sheriff’s office is a full law enforcement agency, not just a jail, not just a civil process. That we do have detectives, and patrolmen, and crime scene investigations. One thing, my concern, and I’ve talked about this a couple of times, is that these were cornfields traditionally, and cornfields never call the police. But, housing developments, whether it’s apartments, I think we used to refer to them as Section Eight, I don’t know if that’s still the case, but, even low income housing is, they call the police. But, in large subdivisions, Green River Estates, and even the costlier houses, they still call the police. We go to Green River Estates quite a bit. So, we get runs in every neighborhood in Vanderburgh County, whether it’s $500,000 houses, or whether it’s a $400 a month apartment. It’s nothing new to us to patrol or to work in this kind of atmosphere. Carriage House Apartments off Green River Road south of there was in our patrol jurisdiction years ago before it was annexed, and I think they were quite satisfied, and law enforcement was done, and patrol was made. So, any concern that we can’t handle that, or we won’t provide reports, I don’t know if that’s, maybe that’s not what I’m hearing, but our reports won’t be, depending on, I don’t even know Officer VanZant, but it won’t be dependent upon city police providing them, we’ll be providing those reports, and I can tell you that our office is pretty diligent in providing the information. I think if you ask the citizens that we do patrol, that they are pretty satisfied with the service the Sheriff ‘s Office has provided. So, it doesn’t concern us. We’re used to any kind of law enforcement, whether it’s low income, or high income. If you have any questions from us, I would be glad to answer those.
President Crouch: Thank you.
Brad Ellsworth: Thank you.
Krista Lockyear: If I may, just for the record clarify, this is not Section Eight housing. It’s housing that will utilize the federal tax program that is Section 42, and we have units that are designated for lower income, but it is not government housing. It’s not subsidized housing. It’s affordable housing. Again, I wanted to stress that we are marketing workers. There’s a median income level that, you know, we’ve discussed with various Commissioners, and, you know, as we’ve gone through this process we have found quite a bit of information to dispel, perhaps, the myth that lower income means problems. That’s certainly not the case, and to ensure that large apartment complex doesn’t mean problems either, that’s really the reason why my client is working with you to get this covenant in writing, and, again, to provide some accountability in the future.
Commissioner Musgrave: Would you go ahead and supply a copy of that to the Sheriff, since it does mention in it an action by his department.
Krista Lockyear: Absolutely.
Commissioner Musgrave: Okay, thanks.
Madelyn Grayson: May I have a copy for the record also? Or you can e-mail me, Krista.
Krista Lockyear: Certainly. Certainly.
President Crouch: Thank you.
Krista Lockyear: Thank you.
President Crouch: Unless there is further business–
Commissioner Musgrave: Move to adjourn.
Commissioner Nix: Second.
President Crouch: All in favor?
All Commissioners: Aye.
President Crouch: So ordered. Thank you.
(The meeting was adjourned at 5:28 p.m.)
CONSENT ITEMS:
Employment Changes:
Health Department (2) Circuit Court (1) Knight Assessor (1)
Burdette Park (7) Commissioners (1) VCCC (4)
Sheriff Department (5) Auditor (2) Superior Court (1)
Prosecutor (5) County Clerk (2) Pigeon Assessor (1)
Travel Requests:
Health Department (4) SWCD (1) Treasurer (3)
Commissioners (1)
Auditor:
Approval of Lien Release for Tax Code 03-110-03-132-030 (Mill Terrace)
Approval of Lien Release for Tax Code 02-040-02-130-039 (Old State II)
Submit Annual Report on Condition of School Funds
Commissioners:
Council Call: Disaster Resistant Community Corp: $10,000
Cinergy Phone Lines: Judge Heldt
Department Head Minutes: 5/24/2005
Local Roads & Streets Annual Operational Report for 2004
Hillcrest-Washington Youth Home Annual Report for 2004
Wesselman Woods Nature Preserve Surplus Request
Surplus Request Letters from Various Departments
Burdette Park: Airspan Internet Agreement
Department Head Reports:
Burdette Park County Engineer County Highway
Ozone Officer Supt. Of Bldgs. SWCD
Veterans Service CIO
Those in Attendance:
Suzanne Crouch Cheryl Musgrave Bill Nix
Bill Fluty Ted C. Ziemer, Jr. B.J. Farrell
Madelyn Grayson Adam Farrar Fred Padget
Les Shively Greg Moore Dan Spindler
Brad Mills Jim Morley, Jr. Bill Jeffers
Krista Lockyear Susan Harp Brad Ellsworth
Others Unidentified Members of Media
VANDERBURGH COUNTY
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
Suzanne M. Crouch, President
Cheryl A.W. Musgrave, Vice President
Bill Nix, Member
Recorded and transcribed by Madelyn Grayson.