17 November 2005 DCRSD Meeting Notes

17 November 2005 Dearborn County Regional Sewer District Board Meeting Notes

Members present: Mike Hankins, Chairman, Pat Holland, Dave Enzweiler, Brett Fehrman, Barry Pruss, and Rodney Dennerline.
Absent: Greg Vollmer
Also present: Doug Baer and John Grace from Health Dept, Lisa Lehner, Board Att’y, and Tom Quinn, engineer.

VRUC was NOT present at this meeting. Craig Lysne was present primarily representing the POA.

The treasurer’s report was followed by Hankins stating that they had apportioned money and put some into savings to gain more interest.

Lisa Lehner read the statement into the record of the request that the DCRSD Board made to the Commissioners and the Commissioners approved at their Thurs evening meeting.
I asked the Board where LMH utilities fit in this scenario, as they are not a municipality nor served by SDRSD.
Lehner stated that it wasn’t a problem, as they don’t need to mention LMH. If they get within 300 ft. of them, they could be forced to hook on to the DCRSD, BUT THEY WOULDN’T HAVE TO ENFORCE THAT ON LMH IF THEY DIDN”T WANT TO. [NOTE: LMH needs to be notified that they have just been absorbed into the wording of this new DCRSD territory, before IDEM grants the approval. It seems unfair that neither the unincorporated county citizens nor the private utilities were notified of this action.]

Pat Holland expressed concerns with taking on more area when they hadn’t finished their original projects. Enzweiler kind of agreed, but thought they could do both so that they could have control of the entire county. Hankins felt that expansion wouldn’t prevent them from finishing the original project. [NOTE: There was a lot of talk about being IN CONTROL of the entire county.]
Dennerline motioned and Enzweiler 2nd to accept the commissioner’s request. 5 ayes and one nay. (Holland was Nay)

Hankins reported that IDEM granted their petition for a variance for the Cochran station at Aurora. They hope to get a rural development grant to fund the design and construction of that project. There are conditions on page 2 of the order from IDEM relating to that variance.
Lehner thought that because it takes so long to get variances (18 months) that they should apply right away for variances on their other projects. [NOTE: What other projects? Why do they need so many variances?]

VRUC was not present to discuss their letter of understanding with DCRSD. [NOTE: Is this because the proxy votes are all approved and the board is about to change?]

Steve Lampert, City Manager of Greendale was not present but sent a letter to the Board in care of Mike Hankins.This letter VERY TACTFULLY expressed 3 main concerns of Greendale: [NOTE: If anyone has a word document version of this letter, email it to me and I will be happy to post it in it's entirety on the blog.]
1. They hoped the county would prioritize areas in desperate need of service (via a master plan) [NOTE: FINALLY someone mentions a master plan!] and work with other municipalities and private utilities to service them. They also hoped they would cooperate with Aurora’s needed improvements to provide a win/win for both parties.
2. They were concerned with package plants and saw a regional approach as being an answer to prevent degradation of streams and water supplies. They hoped the county would use two large providers in the county to service the areas needed. (St. Leon and SDRSD)
3. They were concerned with the VRUC and DCRSD making an agreement that would by-pass Greendale by installing a DUPLICATE line. They wanted a more logical approach herein Greendale would work with DCRSD to service HVL.

VRUC item comes up again at the end of the meeting.

Roger ____ from Sunman discussed Sunman’s desire to cooperate with DCRSD in covering the western sides of Manchester and Jackson Townships from Negangard’s Corner to Weisberg Road to Lawrenceville to I-74. They currently serve Bear Creek Sub’n in Dearborn County. There is a public meeting in Sunman Town Hall on Nov 28th at 5PM with IDEM officials present- including Lynn Newland, Connie Stephens, and bob Jordan.
Hankins stated he wants Sunman to service the NW corner of the county- Jackson Township.

John Rumsey from Moore’s Hill introduced his replacement rep (he’s moving), Paul Grimsley. They still don’t have the results of GRW’s study yet; The DCRSD was to pay half of the study so they submitted a bill for $3700 to DCRSD. Holland motioned and Enzweiler 2nd to pay the $3700 out of the 207 account. All ayes.

More discussion on the bottleneck at Aurora and how it affects getting a feeder line down SR350. Joe Tierney of GRW is working with Aurora to solve that problem.

Mike Noel updated the board on his trailer park permits and plans to abandon their package plant to hook onto the county line to Aurora as soon as he can. He’s replacing their old lines out there and Baer suggested he meter the main one so that it will be set for the final hook-up with DCRSD.

Enzweiler reported that RFPs were sent out 2 weeks ago with results due by Nov 29. They will have some info ready for the next meeting.

Tom Quinn gave the engineering report. He met with Todd Listerman- County Engineer. County will hold off paving Stewart until the lines are in. The county does NOT want them to put lines down the center of Cole Lane as it was recently paved. (2 years ago)
They have to bore lines- no road cuts.
They plan a 3”forced main but may need a 4” because of potential further development. They were concerned with lowering the velocity in the line.

Quinn passed out cost estimates for designing a pipeline to by-pass Aurora for a cost not to exceed $16,000. (They are tired of waiting on GRW to produce any results for Aurora, so this may speed up that bottleneck solution.) They need to utilize public ROW per Quinn.

DCRSD is working (helping to pay) with St. Leon to redesign the plant to accommodate the 350-acre TIF district in their area. THERE IS NO FORMAL AGREEMENT YET.

Lawrenceburg is committed to fund a study of the assets and liabilities of a countywide sewer district.

Lisa Lehner met one of the governor’s aides and will go to Indy next Wednesday. No one was available to go with her at this time…. Hankins thought it was great to get a contact to have the governor’s ear.

County Council told them they could pay themselves a per-diem ($50) per meeting out of the DCRSD’s own funds. Total cost would be about $8400 per year. NO board member was willing to discuss that tonight… [NOTE: It is appropriate for board members to get a per diem to cover their trip and potential meal on the way plus time. $50 is what other boards are getting. Perhaps the members felt intimidated with the audience there and the budget being as tight as it was. Somehow the attorneys and consultants aren’t worried about that! Those bills are quite significant.]

Doug Baer announced the methadone awareness presentation open to the public on Nov 28 Agner Hall at 5:30 PM

Lehner reported that she’d revised the Letter of Understanding with VRUC but has received no response from them.
Craig Lysne (head of POA and member of VRUC) spoke up at this point and said that at their last meeting VRUC said that if there were no agreement reached by Feb. they would continue with building their own treatment plant! They are attempting to change the VRUC Board so that the new board can negotiate with Greendale and SDRSD.
Hankins stated that DCRSD doesn’t want to get into personal issues with those two boards. “We could run a parallel sewer line – but why? We would like to see you resolve your differences.” We DO want to stop overflows to Double Lick Creek.
On the issue of funding- Hankins noted that federal funding is headed south due to Katrina.
Dennerline noted that VRUC has a large problem and health issues need to be addressed. As it is they are spending money on attorney fees that could be better spent on solving their I and I problems.
They again mentioned issues in Guilford. [NOTE: WHERE exactly IS the Guilford issue with sewage? No one seems to know.]
Lysne questioned the lake pollution issue and stated that he has tested the lake right by the pipes and it is clean. He stated that the POA Attorney is Steve Shriver of Dinsmore and Scholl (sp?) but that even though the POA is against the efforts of the current VRUC, the POA has not used attorneys yet.

Maria LaRosa reported that they have devised a new VRUC board that has met preliminarily with Greendale. They have also submitted the petition and call for a public meeting.

Hankins noted it was $2 million from Lawrenceburg to build the extra pipeline and this money would be better spent addressing I and I problems and using the current Greendale access.

Everyone seemed surprised that VRUC and Greendale were not present. [NOTE: Perhaps VRUC’s attorney,Parvin Price, told VRUC that the petitions and proxies were legitimate and the board knows they are on the way out.]

DCRSD will move forward with the line if needed. There are 5000 people in HVL and they grow at about 40 lots per year now. They figure build out in 5 years per Lysne. He reported that Sammy Gutzweiler told Lawrenceburg that VRUC could take all the sewers from the northern part of Dearborn County at a recent meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 8:20 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township