20 March 2007 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

20 March 2007 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

Present: Hughes, Chairman, Fox, and Thompson
Also present: Pickens, Auditor, Ewbank, Attorney, and Messmore, Administrator
Dick Robertson, Vieste, Level 5 Engineering and County Project Manager was also present

The temperature in the building was high- A/C not working and the heat was still on.

Mariah Park Zone Change was advertised but cancelled. (Found this out at the end of the meeting)

1. Health Span- Diane Oliver- reviewed the county’s wellness program results and congratulated the county and the administrator and Pinnacle Advisory for implementing it with incentives. The industry trend is to move away from managed care to peer care.
Results indicated that 247 people participated in the wellness program. 27 males, 120 females.
144 had conditions that merited follow up with a physician.
83 were at risk of heart attack
125 had conditions that could adversely affect their productivity or work quality
4 had abnormal PSA
2 had abnormal thyroid levels
98 invitations were sent to people
62 needed phone calls only
25 answered the calls- 16 were stable and 8 refused.
14 refused education other than mailing material.

2. Animal Control- Cheryl Lohmiller - 69 dogs/26 cats present at shelter. Using Grants to change carpet out of the prefab buildings, get computers,a nd put kennels at police stations for nuisance animals when shelter is closed. Talked to Planning office about animal ordinances. They are also contacting BeastMaster for dart guns and other options for removing animals when live traps aren’t working.

3. Treasurer- Gayle Pennington- Ewbank reviewing the addendum to the tax sales contract with the increased fee ($5 more) for notification changes.

Pennington also introduced Christy from Certified IT to outline the program which would allow credit card payment for tax bills. Taxes will be viewable online and payable online or at a kiosk eventually. The charge is 2.75% of the bill- payable by the tax payer- not payable by the county.
Example- for every $1,000 of tax bill you pay $27.50 fee to the credit card company. Some of this fee- goes back to the county to fund the kiosk.
The county gets email notice of payment and they post this MANUALLY.
No data is sold to any other entity- they said.
Thirty counties use this- Ripley County just signed.
Tabled for Ewbank to review contract changes.

4. PUBLIC HEARING on Subdivision Ordinance changes and Zoning Ordinance Changes- both were DENIED after lengthy discussion from the commissioners.

On section 520 Thompson motioned to accept and died for lack of a second. Fox thought it went too far and didn’t want it to be accepted due to lack of action tonight, so he motioned to deny. Hughes 2nd. 2 Ayes- Thompson Nay.
Hughes had no problem with BZA on conditional use, no problem with the shaded parts, wanted info from utilities etc- not form letters, and had questions on #5 except for entirety.
Fox- Questioned #5 – thought the entirety went way beyond the blacked out part. Impact on the bond- didn’t know how to interpret that- wanted numbers not conjecture, and thought school info should be gotten by the staff- no need for the developers to get that.
Thompson had no issues.
On Section 1010 – animal controls- Commissioners all denied it due to needing to keep it in place until animal control ordinances were enacted.

McCormack reported there were 110 surveys turned in from the 1st open house so far on the master plan future land use maps.

5. Transportation Dept- Todd Listerman- took about 1.25 hours.
Listerman was granted approval additional $13,593 as supplemental work for Bells Branch- Bridge 15 due to additional approach and horizontal site distance work required. This is shared 80 (Dearborn Cty)/20 (Ohio Cty) on our 20% with the Feds.

Stateline and Stephens Road- signatures on bonds for this- Hughes signed.

County Roads has $1.2 million in budget and is spending last years money this year on Riverboat Revenue. Continuous thread through all this discussion is that highway needs more money!!! Problems with cut backs in gas taxes and excise taxes at about 3% per year for last 5 years- and that’s operating budget- not paving money.

The line striping list is the same as last year (annually done on roads with >1000 adt volume. Only addition is about 2000 ft on Trojan Road for turn areas etc. by EC. Total $150,000

Equipment- Total $400,000 - purchasing three 4x4 trucks at $42,000 each with small plows for smaller roads with short turn radii. Also looking at a small 30ft aerial bucket truck for cutting limbs and spraying plus a pneumatic driver for sign installations. A 500-750 gal sprayer to hook to the trucks for guardrail and fence spraying and retardant after the shredder goes through.
Hughes wanted to be sure Listerman was checking into bulk purchasing with local municipalities possibly.

This leaves $650,000 to do paving and emergencies.

More costs are associated with tank removals and cleanup at the county garage.

Paving list to keep up with part of maintenance schedule - $520,000. Roads to be worked on include: Rumsey Road and Fox Road are two SPECIAL roads. [ NOTE: Special?] Bonnell (Collier Ridge to Burzelbach), Kuebel (section up to Fuchs), Mount Pleasant (between Sneakville and N Dearborn) (hold till Maxwell fixes his end ), Dutch Hollow through Millstone, Hill Road ( Ashe to Wedding), and Stewart Street.

Fox- Going back to Rumsey- we gave them our word- I’m struggling – but when we look them in the eye it has to mean something. Only about 7 homes there and 7 on Coyote Run. Council pulled these last year. Rumsey was widened and gravelled so ready for paving. Davis told them it was on the list to be done- try to get dollars for this because of previous promises- per Fox. [NOTE: Clever how FOX Road and Rumsey are special- and Fox argues so well for Rumsey because of “promises made.” I wonder how long it will be before we hear about promises made for Fox Road to be paved too. Fox, his wife, his brother and sister- in-law own nearly 90 acres with access strip to Fox Road.]

Emergency situation exists on Wilson Creek Road by the Jacobsen properties –creek bank has slipped to the edge of the road. Planning a 450 ft retaining wall – 4 ft high- with rock. Repair is about $50-60,000.

Listerman to go to Council to get $92,000 additional for Rumsey and $50,000 for Wilson Creek.

Thompson motioned for striping, equipment and recommended paving options. Fox 2nd. 2 Ayes- Hughes Nay- wanted to check out the trucks more. Passed.

Thompson motioned and Fox 2nd- Testing and tank removals, emergency work on Wilson Creek Passed.

Fox motioned and Thompson 2nd to go to Council for additional $92,000 for Rumsey. Passed.

Listerman reported that all drivers are CDL now. Fox asked if they saw the reasoning behind this after this winter.

Commissioners signed the letter to INDOT requesting INDOT to consider an entire upgrade to SR 1 from G-dale to I-74, and appreciating Salt Fork and Georgetown Rd. intersection scheduled improvements. INDOT will pay for maintenance of a local detour road when SR 1 is closed off during intersection improvements and bridge work for 2.5 months in the summertime of 2008.

US 50 will be resurfaced from 56 to 275 at night time.

6. Lifetime Resources housing group- rehab letters signed.

7. Aurora EMS contract for 2 units signed.

8. Claims and minutes signed.

9. Pickens –mentioned tossing tapes of meeting and minutes being saved. Couldn’t hear all of this- but there was mention of just listing the actions taken and not all of the discussion. [NOTE: It would seem unwise to not have complete recordings and minutes of major actions like road acceptances, road vacations, zone changes and ordinances- to name s few. More than once- county officials have had to research minutes to find detailed info on these events during some legal question.]

10. Messmore-as previously discussed I asked Dick Robertson to come forward to square up invoices. Commissioners are to approve these itemized invoices and have them on Pickens list for claims to be signed at the next meeting.

Dick Robertson- Vieste- presented the Dearborn County Capital Plan Disbursement Control Form- which he worked out with Jessica in the auditor’s office. This will tell what money is coming out of what fund and how much is left in that fund. Of course the Auditor’s numbers are always correct…
Messmore- These funds are what was approved by commissioners and appropriated by council to do a preliminary design of the jail. Management is 5% of the cost of the project.
Robertson- If you want to change the form we can do that.
Messmore – as of now we have a stop work order…

Numbers mentioned out loud:
Total to be paid- $47,000. Which was approved to be paid at next meeting’s claims

$16,000 for work PSA Dewberry did in ANTICIPATION OF THE CONTRACT.

Of that $11,000 programmed and $5,000 architect study plus $4285 for a study of the Shumway Building. London Witte is in this for about $30,000 also.


Pickens- How do you handle Shumway when you didn’t even know if there would be an appropriation for this?

Messmore- 8% of the $26 million project is for architecture and engineering and it will come out of that. [NOTE: Let me get this straight. Work was done to evaluate the Shumway Building by Vieste and is now being charged to the jail project. They are just tucking it into the A&E section. This looks sloppy.]

Messmore-“ I won’t say that the cart was run out a little bit ahead of the horse…” [NOTE: Really???]

Hughes- I like to bring jobs into the county- not build jails.
Fox- But jails are a necessity.
Robertson- Council was Ok with the jail- thought the comissioners had already approved.

Progress meetings are on the same days as commissioners meetings and any ONE commissioner can attend. (2 would be a quorum and illegal)

Hughes- I’m goping to keep ferreting out options like Shumwayand the EMA building. I want to exhaust all of the options first.

Fox asked about a bill with all the mileage on it- payable to Vieste and they pay PSA Dewberry then. Thompson asked if mileage was reimburseable in the contract- Robertson said yes.
Shumway will get absorbed in the total and comes out of Vieste’s 5%.[ NOTE:I thought Vieste was to get their "cut" out of the master developers- looks liek they are getting it out ofteh county directly now.]
Robertson didn’t get a clear answer on when the next jail discussion will be. Thompson has to review the RQAW study he just received.

Messmore- no need to schedule a progress meeting if there is a stop work order.

Ewbank- No law suits against the county.

Meeting adjourned at 10:05 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township