Tuesday, May 07, 2013

7 May 2013 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes


7 May 2013 Dearborn County Commissioners Meeting Notes

Present: Shane McHenry, President, Art Little, and Kevin Lynch

Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor, Teresa Randall, County Administrator, and Andy Baudendistel, Attorney.

PROCLAMATION – Public Service Recognition Week 2013- Terri Randall- Shane McHenry read the complete proclamation for May 5-11 to recognize all public employees and volunteers. Commissioners approved and signed the proclamation. The meeting room was full of county employees. Doughnuts were available and a county employee was recognized and lead the pledge of allegiance.

OLD BUSINESS: none

NEW BUSINESS:

INDOT- Debra Ault- Contract # R-34521- Letter of Understanding for SR 1 Closure/detour- for July 8 to August 8. This reimburses the county for any damage to the detour roads during the closure. Commissioners approved and signed the letter. Sawdon Ridge to N Dearborn to McCann and Old SR1 is the official detour route.

HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT: Todd Listerman, Highway Engineer

Bridge 138 Agreement- on Bonnell Rd west of Burzelbach. Tried to seek federal funds, but decided to use local funds and that decreases the cost by about $250,000. It is considered a bridge, but is actually a culvert by railroad for a property owner’s driveway. The owners decided to MOVE their driveway, thus allowing the cheaper alternative. This new contract is $149,671. The old contract was $10,000 less for design. The construction cost offsets this increase easily. Commissioners approved the design contract.

Signatures for 2012 Highway Annual Report- Commissioners accepted and signed the report to be sent on to the state.

Signatures for Bridge 102- Utility Reimbursement agreement- on North Dearborn by Creekside. This is between Ohio Valley Gas and the county for $4,305 to be reimbursed to Ohio Valley gas for moving their gas lines. Approved and signed by commissioners.

Bridge Foreman Position – asked permission to go in front of Council Hiring Committee to post this position. The former foreman retired before Jan 2013. Commissioners approved this. It is an existing funded position. Grieve and Listerman share this position in their staffing. There is no full time bridge crew any more. They are looking for someone with bridge experience. Lynch asked if they had looked in house. Listerman said they would post it. Lynch said a lot of this was contracted out to other companies. Listerman said this work is maintenance not construction contract work. The standards and requirements today are stricter now- so we hire out the construction.

INDOT approved design for Stateline Road slip. Monday and Tuesday will be closed for survey and geotech work on Stateline between the two Augusta Drive ends. They will make the necessary announcements.

One Community One Family- Proclamation of Mental Health Awareness Month- Brenda Konradi- May is traditionally time for this. She shared a story that a video of a family with a son violent from the age of 3 was being presented to legislature. He has been in residential facilities. He has received help now and has not been violent for 5 years. He graduated high school and enrolled in IVY tech. Commissioners approved the proclamation and signed it after Lynch read the Proclamation into the record.

ADMINISTRATOR: Teresa Randall:

Former Animal Control Site- Cleanup and Fencing Donation to 4H- Bill Shelton and Randall- the agreement went to 4H and Shelton outlined what they did. Community Corrections took fencing down and the posts are yet to be pulled for them next. All that will be left when they are done is the block building. The Highway crew will take down the building with a track hoe. He estimated about $200-300 to get removal of debris. There are old septic tanks that need to be crushed and filled. Shelton will check to see if anyone wants the fill. McHenry commended Shelton for taking on the additional responsibility.

Project Update- Votaw-Shumway demolition and Parking Lot- looking better over there. Next phase- bidding out and bids come out Friday at 10 AM. They think 6-8 bids to open. Wants a commissioner there for bid opening. Little will be there. She said he will be Randall’s “buddy” all week for Public Service Recognition week- even making pancakes one morning.

Regional Workforce Board- Region 9- Local Officials agreement- they are ready to move forward to their new structure. There was a lot of turmoil at the last meeting and one of the mayor’s spoke up at that meeting. She has not reviewed this agreement with the attorney yet. Two members of the board were here to answer questions- Dennis Weinberg- told them this was meant to be locally managed and operated. Under Mitch Daniels it became centralized. Now they are attempting to turn it back around to what the original intentions were. Most ways of handling their agreements and liabilities are apportioned by population. Over the last 10 years there were 4 times there was a misspending and they never got to the level of having to reimburse that money. Most recent incident was around $3,000. The second part is who will be your representative. Commissioner Mark Asch from Jefferson County was the one selected as the chief elected official by the group. Who gets the money? The Work force gets the money to implement the programs. They plan to meet at least twice a year. Hughes used to be the chief elected official when he was commissioner. New system is supposed to start by July 1. Our county’s liability is 15.42% of the liability share. So far Decatur County has not signed and Bartholomew County only wants its own liability. The rest are signing. It is not necessary to have all sign, but eventually they will have to come to agreement, because they all have liability. Randall recommends signing it once the county attorney reviews the agreement. She said this is all about all the funds available to the region. We are the 2nd largest county in this group. The risk is not getting involved and asking for our share of the money we need here. Baudendistel has no issues with the agreement. Lynch said that as they’ve met with a lot of businesses in the area he has no problem with signing the agreement. Commissioners approved and signed the agreement later in the meeting after Randall got an original copy. They did not sign for who will be the representative. Tabled until commissioners can discuss who the elected official will be.

Permission to approach County Council for Jail Funding  - this was already done at the last meeting.

Randall met with Greendale, Bright, and St Leon- with fire and EMS with Kevin Lynch. They will have report soon.  They have found for the county that day coverage is an issue for each EMS unit. They can usually get evening coverage. Lynch said that with public service recognition week, these fire and ems people are way over the top with what they do for the community. We need to help them figure out how to better serve the community in what they are doing.

Greendale was approved by Commissioners for $40,000 for EMS two units. Bright was approved for two units for $40,000. St. Leon was approved for one unit for $20,000.

Brad Uhlman from Maxwell Construction- the big jail bid is due Thursday at 2 PM.  14 bid packages. After that Maxwell, Rosser and the commissioners will review and decide. Randall said the tally of results will be presented on May 21st. they will also have the tally on the alternate as well. This is advertised for Council and Commissioners as they meet back to back.

AUDITOR: Gayle Pennington- claims signed and April 16 minutes approved.

ATTORNEY: Andy Baudendistel- pending litigation on Stateline road ROW project - Bright Enterprises and Grotes both signed settlement agreements. This settles the case. Commissioners approved both settlements and signed them.

COMMISSIONER COMMENTS- Lynch wanted to recognize the employees and Randall for all her additional work for this week’s celebration of public employees. Little concurred. He said be careful telling Terri you’ll help- she’ll have you busy all week! McHenry concurred with thanks and hopes this is an annual event. He had one complaint on Jandel Dr.

LATE ARRIVAL INFORMATION- Mark McCormack and Bill Shelton noted $18,750 for permitting software. Schneider was able to set up the permitting software that will still leave $6500 in the account. This will make people have easier online permit application process. They want to PERPETUATE the funding. 764 permits issued last year- which is low due to downturn. Used to do about 1200 a year. They want to raise the fees $10 each to accommodate the funding to pay for this. They plan to visit several other counties to see how they like their software. Commissioners think it is a great service and will increase efficiencies. Mark and Bill estimate 6-12 months to migrate all the info in and get it running smoothly. Listerman said that the property’s history of permits will be easily tracked once this was set up. Pennington said that having this info available in the field would be a plus too. McCormack said that will depend on cell signals throughput the county. That’s a variable. [NOTE: Cell signal strength and internet speed and access are two main infrastructure improvements in the county that would enhance economic development and workers who bring work home.] Pennington said there is still time to get this on Council agenda to increase the fees. Commissioners are on board with the idea to allow online permitting and are OK with the increased fees to support this.

Terri Dillard- Community Corrections- 2 year $970,600 grant. It’s the same one they have done before. It’s their main funding about 75% and covers salaries. The rest comes from fees. Commissioners signed the agreement.

PUBLIC COMMENT- none

Meeting adjourned at 11:00 AM

Christine Brauer Mueller

Lawrenceburg Township

 

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