PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2004
10:00 A.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday, October 5, 2004 in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the Administration Center.

Those present: Commissioners David Burrus, John Evans, and Robert Harper, County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger, Melissa Hartig and Vi Wagner.

President David Burrus called the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of October 4, 2004, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF CLAIMS

Com. Evans moved to approve the claims of October 5, 2004, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Com. Evans moved to approve the minutes of September 7, 2004 and September 21, 2004, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

SHERIFF’S COMPENSATION AGREEMENT
David Hollenbeck, Attorney

Atty. Hollenbeck, “Good morning, Commissioners. I have my County Council hat on this morning and I am before you requesting your approval of what has become an annual event. As you may be aware of, in our state legislature, Indiana law allows the county sheriff to retain a portion of the monies he collects in delinquent taxes through his office as his personal income, I believe that is 10% and that amounts to a significant amount of money. In lieu of that, Indiana law allows a county to negotiate with the county sheriff to receive a flat rate salary and to forego that other income. For a number of years now, in the County Council’s wisdom, that has been a better way to go and I believe it is still the case where overall, in fact, the county ends up receiving more money than they would pay out in the salary. With that in mind, I have for your consideration this morning, the 2005 version of this agreement. It is identical to past years’ agreements. We started this in the second or third year of Sheriff Dembinski’s term so we have been doing this for a number of years. What it does is, it has Sheriff Reynolds forego any of these additional revenues that he would be entitled to receive. He received a flat rate salary which I believe is the same as last year. Yes, $90,350.00. The sheriff does not receive a pay raise this year.”

Com. Evans, “At his request?”

Atty. Hollenbeck, “Yes, he signed the document. I can’t confirm if it is at his request, but certainly at his acquiescence. The sheriff is here.”

Com. Evans, “You didn’t want the $1,000.00 that everybody else got?”

Sheriff Reynolds, “No.”

Com. Evans, “Is there any calculation of what the other amount would be?”

Atty. Hollenbeck, “It would certainly be over $100,000.00 a year. For instance, not to pick on our friends in Lake County, but the Lake County Sheriff does get this kind of stuff and it is a much bigger county, but I have heard stories that he is the highest paid position in Indiana in terms of public employment. There are significant dollars that Dave is foregoing. There are no other changes and I literally plugged in the dates because the dollar amount stayed the same.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the contract for the sheriff’s salary for 2005, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Atty. Hollenbeck, “The County Council approved it last week at their meeting. Dave is here so I can get a signed copy. Thank you.”

ELECTION DAY CONTINGENCY PLAN
Phil Griffith, EMA Director

Mr. Griffith, “I received correspondence from the Secretary of State’s office. And Dale Brewer from the Clerk’s office is also on the Election Board and she got a hold of me and we immediately started working on making the plan that deals strictly with the election should there be anything, weather related, or whatever, to have a contingency plan in place. We have been working with the Sheriff’s Department and the area police and fire departments and the Election Board on making sure we have a plan that will work for the event. I have a copy of the plan for each one of you, the only thing I don’t have on there is our alternate sites because we are going to keep those confidential for obvious reasons. The plan is perfect and we would not want to spell out where we were going to move to if we needed another site. The only ones to be privilege to that would be the Election Board and the officials that need to know.”

Com. Evans, “Does that include polling places, too?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, we are going to be working on every one of the polling places and we have already started with the Election Board, we have some ideas, and agreements in place. We have some agreements in place for some alternate sites. The Election Board does have spare equipment that we can move, we’ll be contacting the county _____ house if we had to move that equipment to XYZ site in a short amount of time. We could in fact, do it. It spells out basically whose responsibility it is to do what, where, when and how. Again, the Election Board would be the one to oversee it if we did move the site. They would have to oversee it and insure that all boxes were locked and pad locked and sealed and in custody. And the Sheriff’s Police would be working as the lead police agency. All meter releases would be done through the Commissioners and the Election Board, whoever you approve as your release authority and public information officer. All the agencies that we have been talking to, fire departments and our own board, what’s going on, we don’t have the emergency operation center, we will monitor all national news and weather to make sure . . .(inaudible).”

Com. Burrus, “And all the players who have responsibility under this plan are aware of this plan up to this point?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes.”

Com. Burrus, “If you do have to move to an alternative site with respect to polling places, how would that information be distributed or passed out?”

Mr. Griffith, “That would go through the media. Plus, if we had to move a site, we would have to post somebody at that site to tell them where their polling has been moved.”

Com. Evans, “Is it a graduating type thing? If disaster hits Portage, say, are all . . . . . . “

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, we would be able to take care of the north, by township, go to the center and the southern part or all.”

Com. Evans, “Okay, so if something happens in Portage, they move the precincts. Are we going to move each individual precinct all to one spot?”

Mr. Griffith, “They talked about moving them all to one spot, but we are revisiting that issue because that makes it too convenient if we would have a, heaven forbid, terrorist type attack, to have them all in one spot. If it is weather related, we could do that. Depending on the scope, we are going to take each precinct, and I have a list of all of them we are working on, and each precinct on where we could go and we are getting it all together.”

Com. Burrus, “Can you tell us, Phil, is this something that has to be approved?”

Mr. Griffith, “No the state is really recommending very strongly that every single county have a plan. I sent a copy of ours down to the state and they were pleased with it and in fact a lot of counties don’t have anything going yet so they are actually going to share our plan with them.”

Com. Burrus, “As far as you know, you don’t need a formal adoption?”

Mr. Griffith, “No, it is just a plan we will have in place. We will actually attach it to our Conference of Emergency Management Plan and alter it as we go through. We will update it on an annual basis as need be. It will be an annex to our overall plan.”

Com. Evans, “I think we should either approve it or just acknowledge receipt of it.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think so, too.”

Com. Burrus, “We can do that.”

Mr. Griffith, “The reason it says draft is because I don’t have the attachments that tell us where the sites are going to move.”

Com. Burrus, “If you need more time, we are having another meeting before the election.”

Mr. Griffith, “I will be meeting with the Election Board again. We will be doing classes with all the people at the election sites.”

Com. Evans, “A number of polling places change with each election without an emergency so that is going to be always a work in progress.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the Emergency Response Plan, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

National Weather Service transmitter,
Robert Wichlinski, trustee of Porter Township

Mr. Wichlinski, “I want to thank you very much for your participation and support of taking care of our farming around here and the public safety initiative through the Highway Department as far as locating and mounting signs from that initiative. Also, I would like to thank you for the efforts put forth to improve the quality of life in the Lake Eliza area through the Highway Department and the other agencies within the county. I can report that farm lands have begun to become established; there is lighting in place and signage for community watch initiatives, as well as to identify the fire lanes. Also, through the efforts of Commissioner Harper on dealing with the health department related issues, we have made a lot of progress and I am very proud to report that and to thank you for all the support and effort behind the scenes that you have offered in bringing that forward. What I am here to speak about today is the National Weather Service, a transmitter. You may be aware that in the Fall of 2003 I embarked upon an initiative to contact the National Weather Service to see about locating a transmitter in our county, specifically in Porter Township. That was as a result of some trial with respect to distributing weather radios in the township to the individual citizens as well as to organizations to provide for personal and group protection in the event of a weather related incident. The money that I portioned in 2004 to be able to complete that mission was circumvented by money that we had to invest in the fire lanes and some of the corrected measures that we put forth in the Lake Eliza area. Henceforth, we do not have the resources to complete that project in 2004 as we intended. At that time, I contacted Commissioner Burrus and Commissioner Evans with respect to their interest in associating themselves with the project and to turn it into a county wide project as opposed to a township initiative. At that time we had an opportunity to meet, we being David Sheibels from Porter County Dispatch and Phil Griffith from Emergency Management and Chief Lain from the Sheriff’s Department and went over the work that had already been completed and were to discuss the time frame on which we can move the initiative forward. As I sit here before you today, seeing what we can do about rekindling interest in that effort, formalizing a process by which we can evaluate in terms of location, resources required and inter-local agreement as required to be able to bring that initiative forward and to get implemented here in the county. Investigation work that proceeded the July meeting we had at the fairgrounds associated with the Porter County Fair, from that meeting it was discussed we would try to implement the system in coordination with the compliments in existing infrastructure that was being developed by the county in the northern part of the county. My understanding is that David Sheibels reached out to the National Weather Service to discuss what our ideas were and they did not react favorably to it. Their interest was more to have a location in the south part of the county because that is where the hole is with respect to transmission and reception. That was as I discovered their interest and they are busy sporting a south county location. Through the press and some of the conversations that happened pursuant to that July meeting we have had some other government agencies that have stepped forth and demonstrated interest in participating in an interlocal initiative. What I want to do is make sure that we do not lose the prime or the pump with respect to this project and at the same time find ourselves in a situation where they feign interest. We have an interlocal agreement happening at this time with respect to people who have demonstrated interest in participating. We have a lot of ______ to be put in through Dave Sheibels, Phil Griffith and myself to understand the scope of the project is and as is sit before you today in asking if we can begin formalize to acquiescence in support of the project and see what the Commissioners can do about acting as the corner stone upon which we view this project for the county. Once piece of information I think is important to understand is that not only does this transmitter support notification of folks in the event of weather related catastrophe but it also supports Amber Alerts, which we can all agree is very important, both in our county and in our nation, but more importantly it will also be a means by which we can contact our constituents in the event of a catastrophic disaster associated with Homeland Security. So far, as far as the equipment goes and infrastructure to the actual transfer and related equipment we are looking at the best one at over $50,000.00. As far as bang for the buck in terms of providing for the public safety, that is not a very significant amount of money. With respect to where we would actually locate it, we have reached out to several organizations and several private parties that have both demonstrated interest in doing so. What really needs to happen today is to formalize the support in terms of the Commissioners and to work towards getting a body of interlocal agreement formulated so we can actually solicit support and garner our resources and identify the team players with respect to moving the project forward.”

Com. Burrus, “Thank you, Bob. We will discuss it among the Commissioners for either intent or support.”

Com. Evans, “I think it is a very worthwhile project, we had this discussion before. We queried Dave Sheibels on the status of this last week. I think we need to support this fully and totally and then start to look at where we are going to get the money. I talked with Bill earlier this morning, I think he has a little money in some grants that we might be able to get a residual from. David, I think at one time we had conversation in regard to some money that was left over and there may be some money we can attach from those grants. I think we need to look at what we can come up with from those sources, then go to the fire departments and there are a couple that have expressed interest and several that expressed interest and had no funds. Then I think we need to look back at our own budget and see if we can help in the balance of that. David, I think you are familiar with the interlocal agreements that Bob speaks of and you can probably get those prepared and get this off the ground.”

Mr. Sheibels, “I am familiar with the interlocal agreements, I haven’t seen specifically what the language Bob is referring to but that is the correct approach, he is right on track with this is a combination of public safety, government, EMA, those type of entities that need to come together to fund this. We have already successfully negotiated terms with Vertical Real Estate on behalf of Porter County for a ten year lease. They are willing to go down to $420.00 per month with a 3% increase per year over the ten years and at the end of ten years, this is mandated by the National Weather Service, they mandated a ten year lease coming right out of the gate when we do a project like this. Then after ten years, National Weather will take over so we are only committed to a ten year lease.”

Com. Harper, “You brought this up at our meeting, two meetings ago. What were we discussing then?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Commissioner Evans asked me about the progress he was knowledgeable about the Fairgrounds meeting that myself, the township trustee, Dave Lain, held back in July. He just brought it up under old business.”

Com. Harper, “I am reading your letter. NWS is the National Weather Service, correct? They didn’t like the first proposal, what is this 552 600 West, apparently they didn’t like that, right?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Right. The original site that Porter Township Trustee explored with the National Weather Service, was the 552 S. 600 West site in Porter Township for the tower that perfectly met the needs of the whole that the trustee talked about and unfortunately as he explained, that project didn’t materialize.”

Com. Harper, “Because NWS didn’t like that?”

Mr. Sheibels, “It didn’t materialize because of funding at the township level. Then Commissioner Evans and I talked about the possibility of going into the Tom Title site where we are moving our public safety system into just piggy back some type of simple lease amendment to that site that we are going into with all our new equipment to add a National Weather Service system into thinking that the lease would be substantially less than the original lease as told to the township trustee from Vertical Real Estate about a year ago. That was the site I had the National Weather Service engineer, which was the Tom Title site at 213 E. 600 North, and they rejected that site as being the best site to go into because Michigan City is building the tower. They are going to build the tower, paid for by casino money I am told, capital funds from the casino funds in LaPorte County. At the Michigan-Indiana border up around the east side of Highway 20, because that project is firmly in place, now the National Weather Service is not going to allow us to put a radio system in our 600 North site which is too far north and too far east, it would conflict with the transmissions coming out of the proposed Michigan City site. So they firmly asked us to please reconsider and support the original site that the township trustee talked about. So we re-explored that and gave the site their blessing. If at all possible, it could fund the project and firm up the lease agreement with that site owner. That is the best place they feel we should go.”

Com. Harper, “The site they rejected was the 213 East 600 North, now so is there a tower on this site that you are thinking about?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Yes, there is an existing 300 foot tower. That is owned by Vertical Real Estate and Fort Wayne, Indiana.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, and I assume you already have those papers you have to make.”

Mr. Sheibels, “Currently, as I tried to overview in this document, we are going to be coming out of two tower lease agreement with Midwest Tower under existing public safety infrastructure down to a single tower lease agreement with Tom Tittle. I believe there is going to be substantial savings between that two tower lease agreement, consolidated down to one lease agreement, that would be adequate to cover the cost of this $420.00 a month lease.”

Com. Harper, “How are we doing this right now?”

Mr. Sheibels, “We do not have a system.”

Com. Harper, “So we blow off other areas of the coverage . . .”

Mr. Sheibels, “If you had noticed on some of the auxiliary information I added to on my report, there is a provocation map and a list of all the sites in Indiana. The two sites that are currently covering Porter County, there is the Chicago site, on top of Sears Tower and Lockport, Illinois are the two sites broadcasting in our direction.”

Com. Burrus, “If I am not mistaken, those sites are not giving us adequate or sufficient coverage. The receivers in here you are talking about . . . . “

Mr. Wichlinski, “There are ___ a piece of technology associated with the transmitter called ‘sang’ and what it does is special area messaging and coding is that when a warning comes out specific to your area, it lights up or turns on your radio. Now the quandary there is that the presumption is you have reception from the tower from which the same code for your county, your county codes have been admitted, currently those come out of the Lockport, Illinois transmitter and unfortunately if you go ahead and outfit someone whether they personally purchase it or make it available through the schools as we have, the work to receive that transmission, if at the time they encode and say here is a warning, they do not have reception, they do not get warned. The alarm does not go off.”

Com. Harper, “Who does not have this, the schools, is that what you are talking about?”

Mr. Wichlinski, “If they do not have adequate transmission capability, the extent to which one of these radios can receive it, it is much like it if a radio broadcast came out of a place in Chicago and they gave a warning that said you need to take action immediately and you couldn’t hear it when they said that on the air, we would not avail ourselves to the warning. Basically what it comes down to is that it’s through the inadequate coverage . . . (inaudible) we not only take care of Porter County, but we also have our sister counties to the south and the southeast.”

Com. Harper, “Dave, let me ask you about when you said “I am really not sure what the benefit of the southern site would do for ____, it seems to be covered by the Chicago site.”

Mr. Sheibels, “No indications and this is coming from the fire service people. The northern part of Porter County seems to receive their signal from the Chicago site and or maybe a combination of Lockport. The NWS indicated that we only needed 300 watt transmitter at the south side to cover that particular gap. I don’t know if this has been a benefit users in the far north of Porter County, I think that is pretty inadequate. The Michigan City site is certainly going to help the northeast part of the county. Currently today even the Pines area, Beverly Shores and Pine Township area, are ___ to know the National Weather Service signal. They are getting some skip from Chicago and some from South Bend I understand. I don’t have any personal experience in going out with a receiver and testing that which is what I have been reported to by the fire service. That is why the NWS is so excited about the Michigan City site because it will fill that gap between Berrien County, Michigan and down around through LaPorte County, Niles and into our Pines area.”

Com. Harper, “So now what you are proposing to do is work out a lease agreement with the owner of this tower. Do you think it would be covered out of your budget by the money that is saved from having these two towers we had before?”
Mr. Sheibels, “It wouldn’t be my budget, sorry, it would be the Commissioners’ budget. Commissioners’ budget pays for tower leasing.”

Com. Harper, “You think the Commissioners would save enough out of their budget to pay for it?”

Com. Evans, “There is an alternative, isn’t there another company that is willing to put up a tower that we could use to help get the tower on township property or property that have to do away with the lease agreement and would cost us nothing?”

Mr. Sheibels, “I did mention that . . indicated that Lee Ellis had been looking at a placement for a tower in Porter County and indicated to Bob that if that would materialize, he would be happy to put a NWS transmitter on with no lease cost. I tried to reach out to Mr. Ellis once and he did not return my call. That was just a conversation we had maybe early . . . .”

Com. Harper, “Now why would some one do that?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Just to be of public service. This happens in other counties. I have not personally seen any engineering movement on behalf of Mr. Ellis and the tower.”

Com. Burrus, “The primary thrust here is to have in our hand the utility and put it on the existing tower and if anyone else would like, it would be an option.”

Com. Harper, “So we are down to the funding problem and the equipment.”

Mr. Sheibels, “It is a two pronged project, one is that Porter County enters into a lease with Vertical Real Estate that would be on behalf of Porter County proving that lease authority and make the lease payment so that secondly the outright purchase of the equipment which I’ve updated the price with ERB who is a national weather service reseller, we have that company over in Elkhart. There are only two companies in the nation that resell NWS radio systems and we went with this company. They both have to sell at the same price so not one is cheaper than the other.”

Com. Harper, “Do you think . . . the Sheriff has some federal money to be applied to this?”

Mr. Sheibels, “We discussed with Dave Lain the Department of Justice grant we are using to build out our new public safety radio system is a part of a two grant project if you recall. It looks like it is going to be a few thousand dollars left in that grant. Because that project is still a little bit flux for . . . it is still in the process of its final application approval. I do believe and the sheriff has indicated that he would like to help out on this project and if there is any money left, and if we can get it, as they indicated in the letter it would require some re-application work and I am not 100% sure as I mentioned last Commissioner meeting that we would be able to pull it off. We certainly can give it a try.”

Mr. Griffith, “I have in my Homeland Security Grant $7,000.00 that we have not spent. The state is coming up here in the next week or the week after and we are going to resubmit the application to be able to utilize those.”

Com. Burrus, “Are there any other Homeland Security funding sources out there?”

Mr. Griffith, “Not until the 2005 comes out. The current Homeland Security budget has me submit those. The state has budged money if XYZ company is going to get so much to spend on certain items that has to be spent on those items only. Then if we don’t spend all of it, then that goes into a residual and we can resubmit.”

Com. Burrus, “Is there a possibility if we were able, from those grants, if we were able to fund it ourselves initially that we could be reimbursed?”

Mr. Griffith, “It certainly wouldn’t hurt to have that put into the 2005 grant cycle once I get the information on that. I am not sure it will go much beyond 2005 as far as the Homeland Security grant.”

Mr. Wichlinski, “I know our township has and through the media and Trustee Conover has expressed interest in participating. The genesis of my request today was to get something going and get it formalized to the extent we could formally reach out as the parties suggested to any other potential participants to the extent they would have financial resources that they could allocate to the project.”

Com. Burrus, “Bob, before you express your opinion on this then, is it appears that we have somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000.00 installation cost and somewhere in the neighborhood of $450.00 in lease costs that will be absorbed through savings of changes made in our other radio leases. Does this put you in a situation that you are prepared to make a decision?”

Com. Harper, “Yes. I wanted to ask Phil a few more questions. He wanted to say something.”

Mr. Griffith, “I wanted to explain a little bit how the National Weather Service actually covers the various areas. Porter County, Lake County and Jasper County and Newton County are covered by the Chicago weather section. LaPorte County, Starke County, and areas east are covered by Northwest although half way through Jasper County, they are covered by Indianapolis so the tower in Michigan City will be covering from the Northwestern site but it will not actually transfer on the same frequency that his weather and radio or the one we have right outside here at the front desk here, it won’t transmit on that kind of frequency because it is not meant to cover Porter County. It is meant to cover up in that area while the people in Pine Township may very well be listening to that because they are close enough. But Porter County is kind of in a void as far as the National Weather Service. So, Porter County is going to rely heavily on this type of a tower to actually boost our signal. For example, the north county site, because of being inside that building at the North County Complex, we need to put it next to a window or run it outside like an antennae. The same way with this same radio installed at the front desk. If we were in the chambers here you wouldn’t hear anything but if I put it over by the window you would with that receive down there it would give us the boost necessary. My house for example, I live about eleven blocks from here, because I have aluminum siding, my weather radio, I had to run a wire outside for an outside antennae because I am relying on the Chicago sites to get to me. This boost will bring that 300 watts or whatever right to my county. I won’t have to go that distance to get that signal. So it is actually going to be a real big boon because it is used for Amber Alerts, it is used for terrorist attacks. It can be used for snowstorms, and for floods, and for severe weather, any type. It can also be used for any kind of major chemical spill, the sheriff’s department dispatch has the authority, as I do, to call the National Weather Service and say we need to advise people in the southern part of the county to ____ here and the people in the northern part of the county to come there. So it does give us quite a bit of information ability, plus these radios have the same technology as ones that sell for about $35.00 to $80.00, depending where you buy them. You can buy them at Radio Shack or Wal Mart so the general public can buy these as a warning advice inside their home.”

Com. Harper, “What percentage of the general public have them now?”

Mr. Griffith, “It is in the down percentage part. We are given the amount to various agencies and as we do our community response we are issuing them to people.”

Com. Burrus, “I have one but it doesn’t pick up the signal.”

Mr. Griffith, “You are far enough away from the Chicago site.”

Com. Harper, “Dave, do we need this?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Yes, this is a void that should be filled. It will help southern Porter County and the middle, central part of Porter County. It has not been so much of an issue through the years I have been with Porter County, but with thought initiative and exploration, I think it is time we address this and fill the gap.”

Com. Evans, “I think not only do we need it, it is essential to Porter County and to our neighbors to the south.”

Com. Evans moved to formalize their support for the project, and direct Dave Sheibels and Attorney Rinkenberger to draft the interlocal agreement, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Burrus, “The next step is to after we pursue the interlocal agreement is to begin to assemble our resources, we can address that on another day, we have an indication right now, and apparently we have one firm location for the tower in the form of an existing __________ that we can pursue. Dave, we appreciate your help in pushing this through.”

Mr. Sheibels, “I will finalize a lease agreement with Vertical Real Estate and I will work with Gwenn for that language.”

Com. Evans, “And prior to that if you would, just check with the other party that was willing to allow us to do that for nothing and if they did install the tower and see if they have a time table. And if that is in fact something they are still planning on doing and we might save some money.”

Mr. Sheibels, “I am not familiar with that, maybe Bob has some ideas on that he can share with me.”

PCDOS TRANSFERRING TO PACT OFFICE

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I have been contacted by Judge Harper to sit down with her and the State Board of Accounts to determine the effectiveness to transfer the PCADOS program to be administered by PACT and she is working on a contract that we think is going to be executed by the Porter County Board of Commissioners authorizing PACT to take over the program. I think Judge Harper is in the process of preparing that for us to look at and review so she can get the program transferred.”

Com Burrus, “So this is simply a heads up on action with a near future date?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Correct.”

Com. Burrus, “Okay with that in mind, we will set that at a later date and move on to the next item.”

RISK LOSS REPORT-
Mike Anton, Anton Insurance Agency

Mr. Anton, “A couple months ago as you may remember, we traveled around the county and did a road check and I am here today with a report on that. There were a couple of gentlemen that traveled with us, they are Al Hoagland from the Highway Department, Chief Deputy Lain, and Engineer Dave Schelling.”

Com. Burrus, “And this was focused on county roads that had a history of high accident counts.”

Mr. Anton, “Correct. They were sights that we visited and were chosen on accident frequency over the past 12 to 18 months that were recorded by the Highway Department. There were six intersections we looked at in Center District, five in the North District, and five in South. You will see a list of those particular intersections. We did not do an inspection on the state highways for obvious reasons, as that is not our responsibility. I think the first district is the South District and I don’t know if you want me to enumerate, but what we did was went to the intersection, made our observations as to primarily the sight lines, if there were any obstructions at the intersections, we looked at signage, we looked at the markings. We proceeded to make those types of observation. You will see I also listed in conjunction with conversations by Al Hoagland and that many of these actions have already taken place at the respective intersection that were recommended by the inspection crew. Some of the issues when it came to the installation of stop bars at some of these, I am not a big proponent of stop bars, and striping have been scheduled for the 2005 schedule of road improvement. I think it was a pretty successful event, probably 15 hours worth of inspection. We had a few laughs, nobody got injured, I was accused of illegally parking the van occasionally, but I think the county will benefit from the exercise and I will go through these with you if you choose.”

Com. Burrus, “I think we can indicate that they are on file and if anyone cares to look at them in detail they will be available. I think the high points that you are going over for each district are fine.”

Mr. Anton, “Yes, we did this five years ago and I think Al and Dave would agree that there were some significant positive results from that as to activity. One of the things that were observed in our travels is that the demographics of the county is changing, the traffic is changing; some of these intersections weren’t necessarily designed for traffic that we are experiencing and we are going through a process of evolution to correct those things and there are going to be property owners from time to time that are going to have to be contacted in terms of helping with the site lines. One of the things taking place and Chief Lain and myself and Al Hoagland will get together soon to discuss and come back to report to you is traffic studies, to get traffic counts as some of these intersections and the monitoring of speed at some of these intersections and to see the effect of that and what recommendations can be made to deal with that. I am not here to report the sheriff’s activities but I do know there is supposed to be increased enforcement issues at some of these intersections.”

Com. Burrus, “Our primary focus on this effort is to increase public safety. As a side benefit, I think this has the opportunity of maybe lowering the county’s exposure in terms of liability. Is there side benefits on our insurance as a result of these efforts?”

Mr. Anton, “Absolutely. In the past we have had, not recently, but a few years back, we had a number of instances, where we had road design issues that came forth as the result of an accident, there were some guardrail issues that came forth and the from these inspections it has allowed us to go out and observe those kind of potential situations, make the corrections. I can’t speak highly enough of the Highway Department and the Sheriff’s Department in terms of their cooperation. I think we’ve got increased communications between those departments as a result of some of this. If one of the deputies is out and observes a situation that has developed overnight, they are notifying the Highway Department to make the corrections. All of that really comes into a positive situation in terms of the county’s general liability.”

Com. Harper, “Mr. Anton has given us a document that includes 19 intersections and each of the Commissioners, individually, and with the Sheriff’s Department, drove through those intersections in their district and those intersections were selected because the Sheriff’s Department has done a study and the number of accidents at those intersections. Then when we were done, each individual commissioner heard recommendations from the Highway Department and from the Sheriff’s Department and then after that was done, corrective action was taken in all three districts and which actions I believe, are all what is necessary to insure the best we can that these are safe intersections and that we considered this matter. I have had a chance to look over south and north districts, and I am sure you two have had a chance to look over the recommendations and what went on in the center district. So, I would like to make a motion that A, we mark the intersection that documents are prepared for, and the comments and actions taken and as B, and I would further move that we have done what is necessary at this time to insure public safety at these intersections and make these documents a part of our record.”

Com. Burrus, “I would support that personally. What kind of frequency, Mike, would we need to revisit this again, you mentioned five years earlier.”

Mr. Anton, “That is an interesting issue because some of the intersections that we inspected, the frequency wasn’t that great in a sense where we had two, three, or four accidents over a period of a year. But they were becoming problematic because of the ____. I would suggest to the Commissioners to be proactive in this situation instead of reactive. I could almost suggest to you to do it every year, that we take a look at some points.”

Com. Burrus, “The intersections might change in terms of which would have the highest frequency of accidents. It would certainly be appropriate to visit this on an annual basis to look at those that do have a high incidence. If they haven’t been addressed before, we would have the opportunity. Secondly, we might increase some additional steps that have not been taken.”

Mr. Anton, “If there is any population migration in a particular segment of the county we need to be on top of that.”

Com. Burrus, “Bob, was your comment in the form of a motion?”

Com. Harper, “Yes.”

Com. Evans seconded,

Com. Evans, “I would like to add my thanks to Mike, to the Highway Department and to Dave Lain for their participation even though you put our lives in peril several times.”

Motion carried.

Mr. Anton, “I have one quick item. This is a request for services to be continued from Stewart C. Miller, currently administrating the county’s flexible spending account. That is one of the programs that is for the benefit of the county employees to allow them to set aside pre tax dollars for un-reimbursed medical expenses that they could incur during the course of a year. The administration of that, was, in the past, $2.76 per month per participating employee and they want to at the new term of January 2005 to increase that to by 1.5% or four cents per month. So I wanted to present that to you. That particular rate is probably 60 to 65 % of what the market appears to be so I think it is a very favorable rate. Four cents, I don’t want to suggest it is nothing but it is close to it.”

Com. Evans, “It says here per eligible employee per month, that doesn’t meant per employee that is participating?”

Mr. Anton, “In this case, they have to be a part of the flexible spending account.”

Com. Burrus, “This is an optional item, right?”

Mr. Anton, “Correct. It is underutilized in the county, frankly. It is a program that is effectuated by the IRS that allows you to put free tax dollars to medical and it should be utilized greater than it is. There are about 25 people enrolled in it.”

Com. Burrus, “Is that the total?”

Mr. Anton, “Total.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the new contract with Stewart C. Miller, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS

Agreement for Bridge 1010 Rehabilitation
David Schelling, Highway Engineer

Mr. Schelling, “We have an agreement with DLZ for the design for federal aid projects for the repair of Bridge 1010, which is over the CSX Railroad. It has changed names to Rail America but we have to fund money for this bridge. There are several issues with the bridge, there are some questions with the substructure and another issue is the load bearing capacity of that bridge is right at the verge of being posted and we want to increase the weight bearing capacity at the two end spans. Through a steel bridge with two approach spans and that is with controlling the operation of the road rating issue. We have an agreement with DLZ for . . . ”

Com. Burrus, “Is this a result from the Request for Proposals received a month or two ago?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes.”

Com. Burrus, “Did we have something like 18 engineering firms?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes.”

Com. Burrus, “Then to your review and recommendation, your selection to us was DLZ Engineering out of South Bend?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes.”

Com. Burrus, “And this is for the Joliet Road Bridge here in Valparaiso. Is there a fixed fee in this?”

Mr. Schelling, “It is a fee not to exceed $93,700.00, I don’t have it in front of me.”

Com. Evans, “This bridge is going over the railroad, in the past when the bridge was constructed over Sedley Railroad, the railroad had all kinds of conditions. Are we going to run into the same thing here and is it going to escalate on cost?”

Mr. Schelling, “Not in this situation because that was a completely new bridge, and we are having this bridge kind of grandfathered in so a lot of those issues we had with Sedley are not appropriate in this situation.”

Com. Evans, “Is this the same railroad that has the crossings on state road 2 that have been a problem?”

Mr. Schelling, “No.”

Com. Burrus, “Has the county attorney had a chance to review the document?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes, I sent that to her previously.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the contract with DLZ, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

United Way Campaign and Proclamation
Sheriff Dave Reynolds
Chief Deputy Dave Lain

Chief Lain, “I would like to thank you for allowing us to come in this morning and bring life officially to an issue that never goes away and that is the issue of need to the citizens of Porter County. I also want to thank the Commissioners and other entities within county government because there has been a tremendous amount of support for United Way in the past. We are doing things a little more aggressively this year. In that we are actually asking you consider doing a resolution or a proclamation in support of United Way. With me is the director of United Way in Porter County, Sharon Kish. She can briefly outline what it is the United Way does provide for the citizens of Porter County.”
Ms. Kish, “I also want to echo the Chief’s appreciation of the county employees who have been so supportive in the past. Last year 66,800 people were impacted by a United Way service here in Porter County. Those services are available from pre-natal care all the way through the hospice. There is a great need that even though the economy is on the upswing, we still have a lot of people out of work, a lot of people without health benefits and all the agencies are reporting a waiting list. So we are appreciative of your past support. A proclamation would be wonderful because right now, the loan executive from area businesses who are out in the community, we have 18, soliciting employees. I do have copies of this years’ brochures. With the new businesses coming into the county and are having the support from the county would be very helpful.”

Com. Evans, “I will read the proclamation.

WHEREAS, the United Way of Porter County has been a vital part of the community services; and
WHEREAS: The United Way of Porter County has been a vital part of our community since 1957; and
WHEREAS: Their mission is to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of the Porter County Community; and
WHEREAS: The United Way has been successful in their mission by reaching out to help strengthen families, prepare children, increase self-sufficiency, provide emergency care, improve health care, help people with disabilities, and assist the elderly; and
WHEREAS: The United Way of Porter County is known for caring close to home; and
WHEREAS: The United Way of Porter County is dedicated to being a community-building leader in Porter County;
NOW THEREFORE, We, The Porter County Board of Commissioners, do hereby proclaim the month of October as United Way Community Month. We encourage all citizens and businesses within Porter County to participate, as they deem appropriate.

Dated this 5th day of October, 2004.

S/David L. Burrus
S/John A. Evans
S/Robert P. Harper

Com. Evans moved to accept the proclamation to declare October as United Way Community Month, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Chief Lain, “We will be approaching department heads in the next few days and weeks and start campaigning which was officially kicked off September 26th.”

Inmate Health Care Proposal and Contract
Sheriff Dave Reynolds

Sheriff, “I faxed over a contract. As you know one of our problems at the jail is dealing with medical bills. We do have a per diem of $15.00 that we charge the inmates. We do get some of that money. Of course if they are indigent and they don’t have the money to pay we don’t get the money. I don’t actually have the figures right now how much that actually offsets this but it doesn’t offset it that much. Right now we have a certain amount of money that is allocated and passed by the Council for medical that would go towards this. We pay $35,000.00 to one attorney and with no disrespect to him, I think he has done a pretty acceptable job but I don’t think he is really meeting our needs.”

Com. Harper, “$35,000.00 for an attorney?”

Sheriff, “I mean a physician. He comes in once a week. But really where it gets a mess is the meds. By the jail standards we have to treat anyone that requests treatment. Not to go into a lot of great detail what is really hurting us is the site meds that the doctor is prescribing over the last couple of years. You can see, we have allocated $135,000.00 and you can see 2002, 2003 and 2004 we have gone to $151,000.00; $174,000.00; and $211,000.00 which is a little bit over my budget. We are proposing after much research and we called and contacted local area departments that have contracted out medical services which would include the physician and the meds which would be $135,000.00.”

Com. Harper, “When would this start?”

Sheriff, “January.”

Com. Harper, “So with the physician, you don’t have a contract?”

Sheriff, “We have a contract with him but we have sixty days to notify him.”

Com. Harper, “It used to be that if you had a non violent inmate of low risk you could at least ask for communication with judges and have them released if there wasn’t some pressing need. Is that still going on? You used to have if you picked up someone and they weren’t a danger to themselves or others, and maybe had some sort of illness, you used to be able to have some communication with the courts and I just wondered if we are getting so big its not possible anymore.”

Sheriff, “Diane could probably respond to that better than I could. Things have changed. I think our relationship with the court is as good or better than it has ever been. If we have a situation and we think it is in the best interest to society and our jail to release the person, we have no problem contacting the judge. We had this conversation a couple years ago, like who is in our jail and we have gone through our roster. The people that are in our jail right now are people that need to be in our jail. Contrary to what you read in the paper or the editorials, we don’t have shop lifters in our jail. We’ve got people that either can’t bond out, or the bond is high or they need to be in jail.”

Com. Harper, “But you can have that communication?”

Sheriff, “We have that communication with the judges. I think how times have changed is when I came in we had one nurse, now we have a medical staff and that really resulted in saving money for the county because we pride ourselves in trying to keep the inmates from going to Porter Memorial. If they had their way, there would be a bus going back and forth from Porter Memorial, because everybody, when they go to jail, if they can get drugs and no one is going to turn them away. So it is our responsibility to make sure they are screened and not getting medications they don’t need. I really can’t say enough about our medical staff, Diane has done a great job, she is on top of this. And this is a year thing. We can look at it and see if it works. From indications of talking with Tippecanoe and LaPorte, their savings went down almost 50% mainly because of the meds. Really, it has been a problem ever since I became sheriff. At one time, I started packaging them ourselves and we were really saving a lot of money. Then we found out we couldn’t legally do that so we stopped doing that. We have tried everything we can and I think this is a good option.”

Com. Burrus, “Does this have the same general effect as an insurance policy, you’ve got a fixed guaranteed price for the year for whatever your needs are?”

Sheriff, “For as along as the jail population stays within a certain number. The number they gave us, an average 300 count, that does not include the DOC or the fed. DOC, they would treat them and we would get reimbursed for the feds.”

Dr. Johnson, “I am the president of Advance Special Health Care. We are the largest jail provider of inmate health care. The issue of DOC or out of county inmates is that the sheriff is responsible for providing the care but not necessarily paying for those drugs. So what we do is we set up a direct billing system, such that those bills do not even come to the sheriff. They are paid directly by the DOC to the company and that is how that is done.”

Com. Burrus, “And would that same concept work with physician care and so forth?”

Dr. Johnson, “The contract we are proposing provides physician care regardless of the number so the cost does not go up with increased numbers. If Porter County inmates go above 300 and those are the ones the sheriff is primarily responsible for and there would be a small additional cost. That cost to amounts $1.00 per day.”

Com. Harper, “So this is a fixed contract you are entering into. What if you have a catastrophic loss, is that yours to eat? Is that the way it works?”

Dr. Johnson, “That is correct. This is just physician and pharmaceuticals so the odds of us having a catastrophe is minimal.”

Com. Harper, “But the sheriff is saying that he is ____ this against what he is spending now. If this is yours to pay for out of your budget, you just need the contract.”

Dr. Johnson, “We have designed this contract where it should save you an enormous amount of money, it should add a great deal of risk reduction for you through policies, procedures, training of the staff to reduce their risk of losses, training the staff to remove the risk from themselves and put it on the physician who should be primarily responsible.”

Com. Burrus, “Dave on your column of expenses here you show your prescriptions, doctor contract, medical hospital and medical liability and come u p with a subtotal for the whole year, will all of those categories be covered under the contract?”

Dr. Johnson, “The answer is no. This will cover pharmaceuticals and it will cover physician. Now we will add with the sheriff’s permission an on going network which will lower your offsite costs and we will put in a very aggressive utilization program and we would expect, and we have seen across the board, considerable savings.”

Com. Harper, “So for an extra charge, you would put in some sort of plan to evaluate those people running to the hospital and for dental care.”

Dr. Johnson, “There is no extra charge, this is all included in the present program. This is automatic.”

Com. Harper, “Is the dental included in this?”

Dr. Johnson, “No.”

Diane, “Our dental policy as it stands right now is that all inmates except DOC and feds are responsible for their own dental extractions. This is set up privately through the dentist that we use. That is explained to them. . . . . (inaudible) for their request for more than prescription medication for say an infection or pain we do what is reasonable and necessary. If they have pain or infection, we treat that, but the ultimate financial responsibility, at their request, for fillings or extraction, goes to the inmate or their family as they choose. That is our policy.”

Com. Burrus, “Dave can you share that cost with us a moment. If you look under the column for 2004, and under your agreement that would include prescriptions and doctor’s contract. Those total about $129,000.00. How then could we expect to see with the remaining three items that did not come up in your contract be reduced.”

Dr. Johnson, “I would expect that the hospitalization cost be considerably reduced. I would even expect that any indigent cost for dental would be reduced. I would expect the transportation costs would be reduced. That is the history of every county we have.”

Com. Burrus, “So you are projecting that the cost savings of those three items then would be greater than the total of the contract?”

Dr. Johnson, “Yes.”

Com. Harper, “On your contract, you have 90,000 plus 40, so if you didn’t have any cost savings, there would still be enough for this contract. Plus, what the sheriff is saying and I see this as a problem, that staying with this private provider, the costs are going out of sight, we have to do something.”

Sheriff, “The drugs are killing us.”

Com. Harper moved to approve the contract,

Com. Evans, “How many days a week will a physician be on site?”

Dr. Johnson, “The physician will be on site one day a week but will be on call 24/7. In fact, there will be two physicians on call with an additional at least two nurses on call.”

Com. Evans, “And that goes for any exams from psychiatric screening exams and . . . .”

Dr. Johnson, “The psychiatric medical screening exams at jails are required at the 14 day period of time that their ___ test is done. We will set up those programs at the same time. There is not a separate psychiatric exam, this is a medical screening. Everybody should be screened at the 14 day period.”

Com. Evans, “I spoke with the attorney before she left and she has no problem with this.”

Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

COMMISSIONERS’ REPORT

North District: Com. Evans

1. Jackson Heights, Unit C, Performance Letter of Credit is a check from Fifth Third Bank in the amount of $20,000.00. Recommend approval.

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Center District: Com. Harper

1. Meadowbrook Subdivision, Subdivision Acceptance Form and Maintenance Letter of Credit, in the amount of $98,600.00, from Peoples State Bank of Francesville. Expiration date is September 22, 2006. Recommend approval.

Com. Harper moved to approve, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

CORRESPONDENCE

Weights and Measures monthly report for September 2004 is on file.
Building Department monthly report for August 2004 is on file.

Approve official bond for Roger Kleist, Coroner

Com. Harper moved to approve the official bond for Roger Kleist, Coroner, in the amount of $8,500.00, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Approve Animal Shelter Services contract with the town of Chesterton for 2005

Com. Harper moved to approve the Animal Shelter contract with the town of Chesterton for the year 2005 in the amount of $6,076.00, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Proclaim October 23-31 as “Red Ribbon Week”, fighting drug abuse

Com. Harper moved to proclaim October 23-31 as Red Ribbon Week, and to approve the use of the Administration Center on October 20 for kick off, and to hang the banner from October 10-31, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Request for additional appropriation—Highway Dept.

Fund 25 $210,000.00 acct 0498 Joliet Road Bridge
Over Rail America

For design and matching federal funds.

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Request for additional appropriation—Highway Dept.

Fund 26.191 $25,000 acct 3950 contractual
26.291 $25,000 acct 3950 contractual
26.391 $25,000 acct 3950 contractual

For road striping and tree removal.

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

The meeting was recessed for five minutes.

RECESS

PLAN COMMISSION

Petition to vacate Garden Terrace Subdivision
John Kremke, Duneland Group

Mr. Kremke, “For the record I am John Kremke from the Duneland Group. This is the petition of Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe. I included what I hoped to be very detailed packets for all of you. I just wanted to give you a background of why this is being requested. The Roscoe’s currently reside on Lot 31 on the map, here amid all these trees. The other two lots are on each side. The Roscoe’s purchased this home approximately five and a half years ago and found out the day before closing that the septic system for the home was actually on Lot 25. Being the day before closing, they had to have a place to live, they closed anyway. But they have since been trying to find methods to get the septic system back over closer to their lot. Because the original had the septic in the front yard and because of their age primarily, they want to get this home more marketable and saleable. In the meantime since they own two other platted lots in the subdivision, we thought why not take those two lots and see if we can get one buildable lot for them out of the portion of the right of way. We had to exclude the easement shown on the map I gave you and the existing septic field but with the remainder of those two lots and the addition of the portion of a vacated right of way, we did manage to get one acre of useable ground. Throughout this process we also worked out an agreement with Valparaiso Water that they had run water lines whereby where the vacation is approved, there will be an easement (inaudible.) There is also the county highway regarding the end zone, and what it needs to look like when development occurs on lots 24 and 25. To the south of these lots is an existing 25 foot right of way that the pipeline (inaudible) We have contacted the pipeline company both verbally and by certified mail of the same packet you received asking for any comments from them, we have not received any. The primary concern was to try to find a way to get the septic system to fit next to the Roscoe’s current home and the secondary benefit was to try to get one buildable lot in the county out of two lots which we did manage to achieve. In the packets also are the letters from Valpo Waterworks approving a 25 foot wide easement and also a letter from Dave Schelling approving what we propos as well. I am open to your input and questions.”

Com. Burrus, “Since this is a public hearing, I would like to offer the opportunity to anybody else who would like to speak on behalf of the petition. Seeing none, then next I would offer the opportunity to those who would like to speak in opposition and I see Mr. Todd Leeth moving forward.”

Mr. Leeth, “Good morning. My name is Todd Leeth and I am here this morning on behalf of Mike and Cindy Martin. The Martins purchased their home three years ago and I distributed to each of you a drawing of what is part of Mr. Kremke’s package in support of the petition to vacate. However, I have added some highlighting so we can discuss the different proposals. The Martins live on a lot in Quail Ridge Subdivision which I highlighted in orange on the drawing you have. As you can see, the blue portion which is the area that is ____ vacated, lies immediately north of their lot and is a buffer strip between their home and the neighbors in the Garden Terrace Subdivision today. That is how they had acquired their property with that buffer known to them and part of the aesthetics of the lot when they purchased that home two years ago. As Mr. Kremke’s letter indicated what we are doing is creating an additional _____ parcel on lots 24 and 25. Mr. and Mrs. Martin frankly don’t have any objection to that provided that the perceived buffer is continued so therefore if you feel inclined to grant the request to vacate the Martins would simply ask that the condition be added that any structures for this newly created buildable site be located on lot 25, the northern portion. We don’t think that is unreasonable at all in the fact that as we understand it there is currently a septic system that would be abandoned on lot 25 so the home would go over the abandoned septic system, the new soil would be on the virgin soil in Lot 24 and would not be a structure as I indicated, it is certainly an improvement but not a structure. At the access to the new buildable site on 24 and 25 and a portion of the vacated right of way would have more direct access to the home off of the end of Willowwood Avenue rather than having a long driveway back into the woods that disrupts the Martins’ setting back in that area. Lot 25 is 112 feet wide and meets the width requirements by itself. Taking into consideration we are adding to that Lot 24 as well as portions of vacated right of way. So our request then is if you look favorably on the variance request we ask that you simply condition the granting of the vacation such that there will be no structures located on Lot 24 or that portion of the vacated right of way. Thank you.”

Com. Burrus, “At this time we will open for discussion among the board members.”

Mr. Kremke, “The blue highlighted area is a little incorrect. It does not extend all the way to lot 5. there is still a 25 foot right of way through here between these lots and where the proposed vacated right of way goes and lot 5 because of the pipeline. It is existing public right of way and we don’t need to make things complicated. Again, the intent was to leave the 25 foot strip there.”

Com. Evans, “Its an easement and . . . .”

Mr. Kremke, “Its an easement up to lot 31 and then from there it is actually a right of way. Its not approved, you can see the tree_____ field, its not approved.”

Com. Burrus, “What the pipeline consists of is an east west easement, is that correct?”

Com. Evans, “If you look at the aerial, the blue line and the red line were ___ off the easement, is that correct? Where the blue line ends is where the right of way begins?”

Mr. Kremke, “Right. The red line indicates the southern boundary, so this 25 foot strip from lot 31 west, is public right of way.”

Com. Burrus, “So that is being anticipated half of the connecting street between the two parcels had it never been built?”

Mr. Kremke, “Actually, yes. It had never been built.”

Com. Evans, “And obviously that is never going to happen, right?”
Mr. Kremke, “Correct.”

Com. Burrus, “So what you are talking about Todd, it is going to remain intact as a 25 foot right of way on the north side of your client’s property line.”

Mr. Leeth, “We understood that the 25 would remain.”

Com. Burrus, “Okay, but your request is still they not build on the number 25?”

Mr. Leeth, “Right. As I indicated I don’t think that farm is their intent to create an additional buildable site for the reasons I stated.”

Mr. Kremke, “Actually we are not gaining an additional buildable site, we are just combining two lots to create a buildable site.”

Com. Evans, “Are both of those lots buildable with septic?”

Mr. Kremke, “Individually, no. They don’t meet Porter County’s standards so they need to be combined together with that portion of the right of way southwest of the water line to get enough ____ for Porter County septic standards.”

Mr. Leeth, “Let me clarify, Mr. Kremke is correct, and I want to make it crystal clear that even combining those two lots doesn’t make it a buildable site without the addition of the right of way. It needs a ______ portion of the right of way in addition to the two lots to create a building site.”

Com. Burrus, “For the numerical definition what is required to make a buildable lot?”

Mr. Kremke, “An acre of useable ground, and useable is defined as since this is flat, we don’t __ the issue, but it is outside any easements, outside the existing septic field, those you cannot include any acreage for useable on the site.”

Com. Evans, “The existing septic would remain as it is or it would be moved?”

Mr. Kremke, “No, the Roscoe’s intention is to move it (inaudible). . . .

Com. Evans, “Would it also serve Lot 31?”

Mr. Kremke, “(inaudible) and the one that is there would be abandoned when the site is developed, whether it is the Roscoe’s or someone in the future.”

Com. Burrus, “Would your client be prepared to make a commitment to build on Lot 25?”

Mr. Kremke, “The compromise they are willing to offer is that when Lots 24 And 25 are constructed they would do either a privacy fence or a vegetative barrier. On the north side of the pipeline so they are still within the 25 feet plus a vegetative or visual barrier or whatever type of fence or planting (inaudible.).”

Com. Evans, “So we are talking about putting a roadway in then?”

Mr. Kremke, “No, we are talking about putting in a visual barrier.”

Com. Evans, “Well, if you don’t build on Lot 25, then you will have to go back to Lot 24 with some type of entrance.”

Mr. Kremke, “It is our anticipation that the home is probably going to be oriented at an angle toward the entrance up here and closer to that and then the septic system will probably be installed in this area away from the septic, is kind of what makes sense out here. So the majority of the home may be on Lot 25 but we cant physically say all of it will be on Lot 25. Maybe a portion on Lot 24. But they are willing to put up a visual barrier for Lot 5 of Quail Ridge.”

Com. Evans, “This drawing is where the existing septic is?”

Mr. Kremke, “Yes, sir.”

Com. Evans, “And that is 16,349 square feet?”

Mr. Kremke, “Yes. I think that represents is what is left after . . . (inaudible).”

Com. Evans, “So the septic itself takes up 16,349 feet?”

Mr. Kremke, “Currently, yes. So what we are adding is the remainder of Lot 25, all of Lot 24, and the right of way plus the _____ lines.”

Com. Evans, “16,350 square feet turned at an angle as you described it will be a very large house. You could use that as a blueprint.”

Mr. Kremke, “I don’t think that septic would be along the house. . . . . (inaudible.) Again, we are looking at almost 225 foot between the north line and the south line. Obviously the house is going to be closer to the entrance that it needs to be but it may not, because of the angle be able to be included entirely on Lot 25.”

Mr. Leeth, “One of the fears we had was losing the privacy there. The offer of the fencing, whatever that might be, would certainly be acceptable. However, I think the condition I suggested to you solves the unstated fear that we haven’t mentioned yet this morning and that is that we have sanitary sewers ____ running to the Hawthorne Subdivision up Silhavy Avenue in this. The concern is that at some point in time the other sanitary sewers will be extended down Willowwood and then it would make both 24 and 25 buildable sites. What they suggested to you is that their goal is to obtain one additional buildable site. We are willing to allow them to do that with our consent with the condition I stated. It makes perfect sense; the most reasonable access is on Lot 25. the most logical place to put the septic system is on the virgin ground. So all of those things fit within their stated goals and the concern isn’t necessarily with the one home and where it can be located because they can screen that but it would be two homes in their back yard and that is not what they indicated.”

Com. Harper, “Do you understand what Todd is saying? Even with sanitary sewers you should have larger lots. I can’t believe it . . . “

Mr. Kremke, “Actually the public right of way ends at Lot 25 and if this was vacated so Lot 24 would have absolutely no public road frontage.”

Com. Burrus, “What is the dimension that would be considered frontage?”

Mr. Kremke, “It would be the portion of the 112 plus that 37.81 which we do have enough frontage to meet the R1 requirement.”

Com. Harper, “Are you planning on getting two lots out of this if you get ____?”

Mr. Kremke, “Actually, what I should say is I don’t think it is possible because if you choose to vacate this right of way then it is no longer approved road frontage on Lot 24 that leads anywhere.”

Com. Burrus, “Except for the portion of the vacated parcel that is joined with it.”

Mr. Kremke, “Correct. But if you vacate it, it is not public right of way. It would become part of Lot 24 but it still doesn’t create two home sites.”

Com. Burrus, “I am not sure we headed in the same direction, here, but in the event we would see to approve this petition, would it have satisfaction to your client with the parcel that the sum total of both lots would only accompany one house restrict them to any particular quadrant?”

Com. Evans, “This is kind of unusual in that normally when there is a vacation the parcel that is vacated is shared by property owners of either side. This is very unusual to have the same property owner on both sides.”

Com. Harper, “I think we should continue this for two weeks to give these people a chance to discuss this and see what they can work out and give us a chance to look over the paperwork a little bit.”

Com. Burrus, “Would that accommodate the two parties here and to give you a chance to compromise? For two weeks?”

Mr. Kremke, “Yes.”

Com. Burrus, “Think about that proposal Mr. Harper has and in the meantime I have a checklist here of interested parties and it included the Highway Department, the Water Department you do have an agreement with a 20 foot easement, that is considered acceptable. They had no negative response. With respect to the septic issue, the Board of Health had to review this to see what is required.”

Mr. Kremke, “Yes, we had additional ___ both on lot 24 and lot 31 to determine how to design that. initially the septic was on lot 31 because that is the primary concern and to make sure that is it not possible to put it on lot 24.”

Com. Burrus, “What about on lot 25?”

Mr. Kremke, “We can put a portion of it as long as we don’t put it in the same place as the existing one.”

Com. Burrus, “That is something that the restrictions might add to the legal concerns there.”

Com. Evans, “Mr. Leeth mentioned the possibility of the sanitary sewer coming through, are we going to put the Valparaiso municipality in a land locked position or is that something we can consider as far as the easement to come across the property in the event that they do want to bring a sewer?”

Mr. Kremke, “Actually, I don’t think so, no. Because this is where the lift station is for Hawthorne Subdivision and the proposal was initially to have Valparaiso be a customer of the conservancy district on Burlington Beach Road. The other proposal then is to run a force made facility north on Silhavy all the way to the creek. So this is the point of connection though and this is all included on what Dave Pilz asked us to design. So realisticley what is going to happen, is there is going to be gravity or pump to that lift station to get there.”

Com. Burrus, “I think the accessibility for future sewer improvements will not be hampered at all.”

Mr. Kremke, “No, not all. There is plenty of road access. This is unimproved right of way that is still available.”

Com. Harper, “Dave you have in your first letter the residents of a subdivision may want walking paths for recreation or for children to access for school. You didn’t have that in your second letter.”

Mr. Schelling, “I don’t know if that is an issue or not, I know there is a walking path along the south border of the subdivision to the road that is to the west. But I don’t know if that is _____ or not, I kind of threw it out initially.”

Com. Burrus, “From the Highway or a thoroughfare point of view, Garden Terrace is laid out for the potential of expanding it to the south and then Quail Ridge was platted and approved and it was not taken advantange of the provision for expansion. So, anything that exists along the south property line of Garden Terrace with respect to the right of way is probably going to be unnecessary.”

Mr. Schelling, “That is true. . . . . . (inaudible.) the sanitary sewer can easily be extended to this location.”

Com. Burrus, “Quail Ridge currently has sanitary sewer so there is no need for a connection there.”

Mr. Schelling, “It could be extended to the Roscoe’s property.”

Com. Harper, “There people bought this large piece of property and had some expectation as to lot size and house size in the area you are building and I hate to see us do something that could change that in the future. My thought is no matter what the county requirements are, this is probably going to be annexed at some point. I hope these people can put something together that assures Mr. Leeth’s client that he is not going to be looking at a piece of property that is at least a different size lot that what he expected when he bought it. So I would like to see it continued until they get a chance.”

Com. Burrus, “Is that acceptable to the parties?”

Mr. Roscoe, “Yes. I am not sure what my neighbor is asking for to accomplish. The only thing is I think he doesn’t want something on the other side of the property that is going to make his property look less desirable. If there is no vacation given, and several years down the road there will be city sewage, they will want small houses on each one of the those lots, a whole string of lots there is blocked off there because it is too small. With the addition of sewage, it would be very saleable. I was trying to suggest the one, but if you hold this off, chances are you are going to have a smaller less expensive house. I put together a package here that has a one acre of land under this. If I was to build a house on it or sell it to somebody, surely it is going to better than normal house sitting on an acre of land.”

Com. Harper, “He is saying he wants a guarantee that it is going to be one house on an acre of land.”

Mr. Roscoe, “He is asking to put the house on Lot 25.”

Com. Burrus, “I am prepared to entertain a motion to continue. We need to keep in mine the existing concerns of the residence but at the same time we need to look at the existing realities and you can look at any of the lots in Garden Terrace and all of them are lager than lot 6 in Quail Ridge. So lot size is not a relevant issue inasmuch as the structure and the flavor of the subdivision that might be built there. Lot size, we need to take into how they enter into he equation. With respect to the continuance, is that your motion, Bob?”

Com. Harper, “Yes. “

Com. Evans, “I think that is a good idea and we can give the two respective parties the ability to converse and see if they can work out an agreement. I think we need to first close the public hearing.”

Com. Burrus, “We will close the public hearing portion right now.”

Com. Harper moved to continue the hearing until the next meeting, Com. Evans seconded,

Com. Burrus, “Before we vote, I think this is simply offering an opportunity for the parties who appear to be willing to work together to simply clarify their agreement and come up with something that will be acceptable to both.”

Mrs. Roscoe, “Mr. Burrus, may I say something, I understood that Garden Terrace was laid out ____ for Quail Ridge. Why does Quail Ridge . . . .(inaudible) We purchased lot 24 and 25, their house sits right next to our home in Quail Ridge. Which is no different than what we have for our two lots.”

Com. Burrus, “The procedural answer to that is that whenever any improvements are made, whether it’s a new subdivision or a change to an existing one, property owners within a certain distance of that have a right to be informed and have the opportunity to comment. All we are trying to do here is to find out a satisfactory resolution to two positions that appear to be very close. I don’t think we are going to have a problem here but we need to have some time for you folks to talk and come back with a common solution.”

Mrs. Roscoe, “Last spring, John and I went to Lot 25, and we cleaned the brush out and we chipped the wood. Mr. Martin took pictures of us doing that and submitted it to the board of Quail Ridge and said somebody was either taking or stealing wood. Now I am very visible with this white hair. We were told this by a board member of Quail Ridge and I don’t know what is going on there.”

Com. Burrus, “We don’t either and there is a certain limit to what we can get involved with here and we’re certainly not going to get into those disputes so don’t jeopardize the opportunity to reach a compromise here. It will be to everyone’s advantage.”

Mr. Roscoe, “One more question. You are suggesting we take some time, talk it over. Lets suppose we cant agree, will you have to arbitrarily say . . . “

Com. Burrus, “We will reach our own conclusion. We have the final jurisdiction. We are hoping you can resolve these issues.”

Motion carried.

Com. Burrus, “The date for continuance of this will be the date of our next meeting, two weeks from today, October 19.”

Com. Evans moved to recess, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

With no further business, the meeting was recessed.


BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

David L. Burrus
John A. Evans
Robert P. Harper

Attest: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor