5 April 2005 Dearborn County Commissioner Meeting Notes

5 April 2005 Dearborn County Commissioner Meeting Notes

Present: Benning, President, Hughes, and Fox
Also Present: Ewbank, Attorney, Pickens, Auditor, and Messmore, Administrator

The meeting was preceded by an executive session on personnel issues. No announcement was made of any decision resulting from that meeting.

1. Mike Hall- surveyor requested the Trackville Rd subdivision be tabled until April 19th due to a scheduling conflict. The developer had a meeting in Franklin County tonight. Commissioners agreed.

2. Bill Black- EMA Director – still couldn’t get commissioners to sign off on the county plan because they couldn’t get their disks of information to work on their computers. Benning requested that he present the disk info to them at the next meeting.
The 800 MgHz system that the surrounding counties are either on or are in the process of adopting has yet to be adopted by the county. They are still waiting to see if they can finance it completely through the bond bank and how much of that loan will be absorbed or forgiven by L-bg. The state pays for the tower sites and our radio service is “free”. Black has purchased many of the radios already with grant money.
Fox motioned and Hughes 2nd to allow Black to accept a surplus computer. Resolution to accept signed.

3. Catherine Deyer- DIRECTIONS- presented the background, the programs they run under the CMHC, and resolution to declare April Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Of interest- there are currently 111 convicted sex offenders in Dearborn County.

4. Ellen Davis of Lifetime Resources presented a sub-recipient agreement to be signed so they can pursue grants for homeowner rehab funds. The match needed is $30,000, but they intend to get it through other sources and grants – not the county. Pickens told then there were no available appropriations for this.

5. Claims and Minutes were approved and the Sparta EMS unit standard contract was signed. Bryan Messmore to check to be sure insurance is in place and the county is held harmless.

6. Bryan Messmore- Administrator- brought up the issue of notification for zone change hearings and what the commissioners would like to do regarding setting a policy or ordinance on that. Ewbank and he will review it and present options regarding certified mailings, regular mailings, newspaper notices, or combinations of these. [NOTE: The Planning Office also posts a sign on the property so neighbors beyond just the adjoining ones have some notice.] Ewbank noted that he wanted any possible court decisions to be substantive rather than just technicalities of notifications should a writ of certiorari be filed, for example. He also thought that they should make every attempt to insure due process for the affected citizens. [NOTE: That’s a step in the right direction.]

7. Bob Ewbank- Attorney- wants to work on ordinance review to clarify council and commissioner duties and powers so that they are not overlapping. He referenced a recent Council issue where they wanted to make a salary ordinance without Commissioners requesting it on a former commissioner employee.
He also wanted to clarify how wide a county road should be. He referenced The Apparent Right of Way Statute. He briefly discussed the option of declaring all county roads to be possibly 40 ft. Or 50 ft. [NOTE: There is a Transportation Assessment that would be helpful to start with for this information. It is part of the master plan and includes this data. Mandating all county roads to be a certain width would end up with the county owning property inside some people’s houses and barns. A more comprehensive solution would be to first- get a county engineer hired and second- continue on with more of the Transportation study and updates as well as creating the 4 year road plan doe prioritizing maintenance and improvements to county roads.]

8. Jeff Hughes- Asked several questions regarding the possibility of a light at Stateline and Stephens Rd. paid for by Macke as part of the Sugar Ridge Planned Unit Development and attached Transportation assessment. Apparently the bond for this will lapse in May and he wants the county to either renew that bond or decide to get the light installed. Engineering to set it up would cost $35,000 – 50,000 and the light would be about $10,000.
He asked about who did the study on the 4 way intersection in Bright. (Beam Longest and Neff) and what the status was there. (Study done and ROW acquisitions became issues.)
Hughes also asked about getting a building and or trailer with a bathroom for the District 1 crew. They have nothing and the other two districts do have facilities. [NOTE: It seems pretty bizarre that there is no office for D-1 highway crew.]

9. Rick Fox had no further comments and Benning added the news that IDEM had finally officially released the county from the environmental violation on the buried tanks that they had already cleaned.

Meeting adjourned at 7:45 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township