3 August 2010 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

3 August 2010 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

Present: Ralph Thompson, President, Tom Orschell, and Jeff Hughes
Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor, Bill Ewbank, County Coordinator, and Jack Gay, Attorney.

OLD BUSINESS:

Tucker Development- Seldom Seen, 1, 2, and 3 and Old Orchard- Tucker met with Tech Review and waiting for engineer. Old Orchard bond has been renewed (Phase 2) He will talk to Todd on Seldom Seen and have Orschell in that meeting.

Langley Heights- Ordinance to Vacate-Stratton- attorney for Aurora present for Mayor Hastings. The city of Aurora does not have an opinion one way or the other with the exception of the paved roadway that gets Aurora back to their water tower there. They own a significant number of lots there- but they are in the city limits section of Langley Heights.
John Watson-attorney for Johnny Wright opposes the vacation. Most of the citizens are opposed to the vacation.
Larry Eaton attorney for Kern requested nothing be decided until he returned from his trip. (He has land that he is considering eventually developing and the ROW would affect this.)
Orschell stated that a turnaround is needed for garbage trucks and school busses. Because it is a legal ROW now- he wants the truck to be able to turn around thru the gate by the water tower and go back out. Gay says that this is county ROW. Watson says that Wright owns that. Wright does NOT want them turning around on his land. This was done back in the 1990s. He has a gate there that was approved by the county. Someone else created this problem. Rumpke has to find another place to turn around – not thru his gate. !986, 1991, 1994 and court cases were mentioned.
Commissioners decided to table this until they got their documents to the county engineer, If needed they can call a working session beforehand. They did not require Wright to open his gate until proven that this was NOT his property. They will turn around at the bottom of the hill for now.

Library Appointment- Don Siemers and Dan Toon were considered. Don Siemers was appointed to the board.

DCRSD Appointment-tabled to get more info.

Animal Control Fees- to be discussed during the next day meeting August 17th.

NEW BUSINESS:

Ed Opp and Dino Schmaltz- EMS and Fire Advisory Board- County survey- Opp said they are looking for a way to get best bang for the buck. 24/7 service and paid personnel are desirable, but funding is an issue. They’d like to send a questionnaire out the residents of the county and ask where they would like to see fire and ems services in the county. As long as it’s being sent- perhaps the county would like to add questions regarding road services etc. There will also be questions on how to pay for it. All the chicken frying in the world won’t support all these services. Tax levy might be needed perhaps. We have 9 FD and 7 life squads right now in the county. May have to combine some services. Orschell suggested Purdue University students could do the surveys and data gathering. Thompson said that about a dozen ems have met to help get this discussed. Ewbank will delve into this to see if we can get the survey done and at what costs. They are looking for an IMPARTIAL survey.

OKI- Memorandum of Understanding signatures- they tabled it to see if this was the same thing they had signed in early July.

HIGHWAY DEP’T- Todd Listerman – gave a 15- minute report.
Working with INDOT to get their RFP for Bridge inspections for 2011-12 on their website to get proposals. They will rate consultants and negotiate from this. Because of federal dollars- they do it this way- Feds pay 80%.

Collier Ridge Bridge was posted also and they will rate proposals and negotiate. Presently there is $1million allocated. Hughes wanted a site visit set up. Consultant will come up with all potential costs. They will also look at different bridge types as alternatives. Listerman is gone Mon-Wed next week with German foreign exchange student orientation.

Andy Patel ( sp?) here from Beam Longest and Neff regarding Stateline Road project. 34 parcels need to get ROW. Conversations have proceeded well with owners. Proceed with engineers and assess market value of the property and appraisals get reviewed to double check the work they have done. Once complete the offer will go out to landowner and they have 30 days to respond. Even if donated they still need to get engineers involved. Orschell said folks were vocal- many want to know exactly where it will be and how their property will look. They could do a paint line on their property to help show this. The agreement had estimates last year with $80,000 ROW engineering and $111,000 in other services. This can be lower if some are donated. This is an hourly contract with a not to exceed number. Because state law on ROW changed from earlier work they will have to redo some of this. There will be numbers based on previous work to estimate what this costs at next meeting for agreement. We’ll also have to see what we want to phase. County Council has set aside about $300,000. Thompson wanted to know if they had a SWAG on this (Super Wild A$$ Guess) People will see the benefits to this, and so will businesses as congestion clears. Commissioners definitely want a NOT TO EXCEED NUMBER.

AUDITOR- Gayle Pennington-minutes and claims were approved. June 15 minutes were amended and passed out 1.5 weeks ahead so that they could review them. Approved. July 6th approved. Executive session minutes July 20 approved. July 20 minutes tabled for them to review.

ATTORNEY- Jack Gay- reported “to the relief of everyone” that he had nothing.

COUNTY COORDINATOR – Bill Ewbank- 2011 Holiday Schedule needed because the courts were scheduling cases. Approved.

The charity roadblocks were tabled to see what state law was. He talked to Celeste at Bright Beacon and they carried a story resulting in him getting 25 emails, 4 letters, and 1 call. Only 2 were in favor. Most wanted a ban on it. Ewbank to check the cities to see what their ordinances are on this.

Good news- a good year on property and casualty insurance and will get a return of about $3,000 on a return of premium. Our fee next year will remain flat or be reduced. Pennington suggested we take the check so as to leave a paper trail.

COMMISSIONERS:
Hughes- thinks they should recommend an ordinance on salaries for county employees for Council. Hoping to hold the line on budget per Pennington.

PUBLIC COMMENT:

Greg Ritzi from Collier Ridge bridge 55. Asked about the RFP that was posted with INDOT for 3 weeks. INDOT gives approval to negotiate with the consultant. This will take at least 2 months. Negotiations are relatively easy as there are typical numbers with INDOT on these. The site visit with commissioners occurs before this.

Bruce Goddard (sp?)-Langley Heights- Johnny Wright said he will bring a survey in. Langley Heights- even if he has it on paper- what about the pins on the ground? Wight has pulled mine out and thrown them on the ground. There is a civil lawsuit pending that he is party to. He has problems with tenants who cannot get garbage picked up. He was encouraged to bring in whatever records he has.

Howard Luke- was at July 6 executive meeting. Tried to find out if there was another meeting scheduled in addition to the one special meeting he was able to go to on his son-in law. Tried to get Ken here tonight-but he is so depressed he wouldn’t come. He was concerned about suicide . He was told to get his questions in writing to county attorney to see about another meeting perhaps.

Meeting adjourned at 8:30 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township