7 September 2010 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

7 September 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.

Commissioner candidates, Jim Schuler and Shane McHenry, were present in the audience

An executive session preceded this meeting for a discussion on real estate property. Commissioners voted to have the county attorney make an offer made to the owners of Hoosier Square $575,000contingency that all legal issues will be resolved.

OLD BUSINESS:
Tucker Development- Seldom Seen and Old Orchard- tabled.

Langley Heights needs signatures on Ordinance to vacate which was passed last meeting. Commissioners signed ordinance- with Hughes not signing as he voted nay.

DCRSD Appointments tabled from July 20th- tabled.

Signatures not done yet for Animal Control Fee ordinance yet. Commissioners decided to have the attorney check on some possible conflicts with state law.

Lisa Taylor- Sugar Ridge Discussion- no one present. They will have to make a new request to be on agenda.

Brett Dodd, RQAW Pre-design contract. Thompson and the attorney were concerned about who has ownership of the record drawings post construction. RQAW will meet with attorney to get the legal language worked out to be sure this is what happens. Tabled until the attorney and Dodd have meeting to work out appropriate legal documents.

NEW BUSINESS:

Knights of Columbus Council 1231 request to use the Courthouse Square for a prayer session Fri Jan 14th starting at 11 AM. Approved.

Bill Black-EMA- received signatures from commissioners for the National Preparedness Month (Sept) Proclamation after reading it into the record. They are working on severe weather alert radios and WSCH is giving away some. Sirens – all 33 – in our county go off at one time. Sometimes the alert is for the northern part of the county – but all go off, that’s why they recommend checking local media when you hear a siren to see who is affected.

Burn ban suggested for the county due to extreme dryness per Bill Black. Discussion included not having enforcement options. Gay is authorized to see what can be done if a ban becomes necessary. Commissioners decided to issue a BURN ADVISORY to warn all citizens that open burning at the present time is exceedingly dangerous.

Ginny Daum- Dearborn County Medical Reserve Corps. Mark McCormack said they are applying for a $4784.57 grant from DC Foundation to establish a mobile disaster response unit. In a large emergency situation they are another level of response. This is essentially a 7x14 utility trailer of medical supplies. This will take about 3 months to see if it is approved. Commissioners approved the grant application. McCormack is pursuing other avenues for funds for this unit. This works as an auxiliary to Red Cross, EMA, Health Dept and Fire depts. DC MRC is a volunteer organization of retired medical professionals and others.

Ginny Daum- reapplied for the DC Medical reserve Corps in Feb and was approved this summer. Commissioners are the responsible fiscal officers. We are the 28th county in Indiana to have a Medical reserve Corps. She has nurses, pharmacists, EMT’s etc. She has $10,000 plus the almost $5,000 in this grant to get started. There will be a town hall Wed Oct 27th at 7 PM at the Tate St Adult center. This will explain how shelters get set up in an emergency. All volunteers will have police checks and predator/sexual offender checked before being on their team.

HIGHWAY DEP’T - Todd Listerman, Director, gave a 50- minute report.

Signatures obtained on design cover sheet for Bridge 159 - George St Bridge to be bid in Feb 2011 to be completed by Farmer’s Fair that year.

Bridge 34- still needs to get 4th parcel secured on Short Ridge Road. Signatures obtained for the design cover sheet.

Highway dept received City of Lawrenceburg Phase 2 grant for $100,000 for the salt building at Randall Avenue. This will cover over 50% of that building. This keeps salt and salt sand mix under cover. Thompson signed the grant acceptance form. Orschell asked Ewbank to write a letter of thank you to the foundation for this.

Acceptance of Laurel Valley Drive off North Dearborn Rd. depth tested at 4inches and a waiver recommendation from Plan Commission was requested to be accepted by commissioners to be 18 ft. wide instead 20 ft. for a length of 0.07 miles. This road serves about 4 homes. Hughes was concerned about giving this to one developer and others wanting it. Listerman noted this was an 8 year old road. Tucker did not offer anything that they knew of at the Planning meeting. TABLED to see what rules were at that time etc. Commissioners wanted to see why he didn’t perform his stated design.

Application for highway safety improvement funds for county roads with a 90/10 matching program through OKI. Listerman suggested it be for advanced warning speed limit at North Dearborn and Bright Elementary and Sunman Dearborn Middle School. These flashers will be up at times when kids are present. Principals can also set them for other times as needed. These will be solar powered with LED lights. Commissioners signed the support letters. Listerman is also working with INDOT to get some for South Dearborn schools along state highways.

Funding for reconstruction of the ford crossing on Holt Road that has been closed for 2.5 years. $10,000 for Barth Construction to design this “bridge” structure. Approved to sign documents and begin the process.

Two weeks ago he went to IN TIME – for first responders to look at traffic management in emergencies. They found over 20% of accidents are secondary accidents due to the primary one. Many fatalities occur in these also. If interstate is closed for an hour- it takes 4 hours to get the road traffic back to normal. Lusby now has someone trained to do photometry equipment that will do that traffic data faster. This can be for crime scenes.

Change order for $1501.56 for additional fog seal on North Hogan on a stimulus project was signed.

Bridge 34 over North Hogan Creek had environmental management work and needed a signature for Rule 5. Signed.

ROW agreements for property purchases along Stateline with a unit cost contract and a not to exceed amount were reviewed by Jack Gay. Commissioners signed the agreement for ROW Acquisition engineering with Beam Longest and Neff. Listerman had another quote to check these prices.

Final inspection and acceptance for North Dearborn, North Hogan, Yorkridge Rd, and installation of ITS cameras on I-275 were received from INDOT. Signed acceptance letters.

Spoke with Cathy Deaton of Seymour INDOT office regarding Old 350 (Wilmington Pike)- it has some slips etc. The county will sit down with INDOT to see about negotiating how to fix it so county will accept it. They will not accept anything that is a financial burden to the county.

SR 1 and Schuman Road and Trojan drive and Old SR1 have pavement markings that have served their life as turn lanes for the schools. Requested a quote from AAA striping for $5,333 to stripe them- double coated. State won’t do the approaches. County has to do this out of line striping fund.

Due to getting acceptable low bids there is $30,000 left. He is driving a 1990 Chevy Tahoe and over 190,000 miles. Wants to purchase a Ford F150 4x4 so that he can haul supplies and signs etc. this would give him more flexibility. $27,000 is the low price he rec’d for this and is $7-8,000 less than invoice price on a fleet quote. Commissioners thought he should get more quotes and get back to them.

AUDITOR- Gayle Pennington- claims and minutes approved. August 3rd minutes approved as a non-verbatim transcript. August 17th minutes tabled till Thompson could review as he didn’t receive his copy.

ATTORNEY- Jack Gay- nothing

COUNTY COORDINATOR- Bill Ewbank- nothing

LATE ARRIVAL INFORMATION-

Margaret Minzner GIS coordinator- wants to apply for citizens of Hardintown for a grant from the DC Foundation to get on the city of Greendale’s water lines for the cost provided by Steve Lampert of $82,400. She has prepared some preliminary applications and the county needs to be the applicant and administer the funds. They currently have Greendale electric and sewer but have well water. They need to do this before the upgrade the levee in Lawrenceburg. Greendale takes over and maintains the water line once constructed.

Bob Fehrman- having some problems with DC health dept- while they are redoing an apt on St Clair Street and a house on Center Street. He is aware of lead based paint problem. He took out siding, walls, ceilings, and windows. John Grace is refusing to grant occupancy permit, even though he used the Greentree Co he suggested Fehrman use and they cleared him. He has talked to Dr Scudder and the county attorney. Doug Baer told him they were complaint based. John Grace said City of Lawrenceburg requested it. Lawrenceburg said they didn’t. Health has no complaint in there. He likes John Grace and he liked his father too. Fehrman noted his wife is in the hospital with cracked vertebrae and this is his 51st anniversary too. He is supposed to get another $450 inspection. Jack Gay is to investigate this to see what the facts are and where the issues lie.

PUBLIC COMMENT- Howard Luke- is getting a letter from Jack Gay per the attorney. He asked who did hiring and firing from a county dept. He was told that the dept heads do their hiring and firing with HR dept doing checks on employee resumes etc. Luke said the ads stated that the resumes get submitted to commissioners. It was explained to him that the resumes come in to the Commissioner’s Office. Luke felt like something was being covered up. Commissioners explained to him that they do NOT hire the highway maintenance workers. Suellen Cauble is the HR person and she gets that mail at the Commissioner’s Office.

Meeting adjourned at 9:00 PM

Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township