PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2005
6:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, February 1, 2005, in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the Administration Center.

Those present were: Commissioners Robert Harper, John Evans, and Carole Knoblock, County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger, Melissa Hartig, and Vi Wagner.

President Harper called the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance.

APPOINTMENT TO DRAINAGE BOARD

Com. Evans moved to appoint Joel Harris to the Drainage Board,

Com. Harper, “I believe that is the only application we have.”

Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of January 24, 2005, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF CLAIMS

Com, Evans moved to approve the claims of January 18, 2005 and February 1, 2005, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Com. Evans moved to approve the minutes for January 18, 2005, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

REPORT FROM ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Jim Jorgenson
Matt Kaiser
A.J. Monroe

Mr. Jorgenson, “My name is Jim Jorgenson and I am the chair of the Valparaiso Economic Development Corporation and I am here with other members of the Porter County Economic Development Alliance to present a report and a request to the Commissioners. As you remember last fall, at the request of the Commissioners, an alliance was formed with key economic development partners within Porter County. The purpose of that alliance was to assist you in promoting economic development in Porter County and specifically, to assist in recommendations as to how the counties share of the EDIT money will be spent. The alliance consists of the five economic development organizations from Duneland, Portage, Valpo, Kouts and Hebron. The three colleges and universities that have facilities in Porter County, Valparaiso University, Ivy Tech State College, and Purdue North Central, also Workforce Innovations and the ___. We have met, we have determined a list of priorities that we would like to present to you with the request that the alliance be given $100,000.00 of the county’s share of the 2004 EDIT money. One of the purposes of forming an alliance was to relieve the commissioners of the burden of having to create your own economic development department and bureaucracy and infrastructure. We think we have gathered within the alliance the experts in Porter County with a proven record of economic development and we want to share that expertise with you. We did prepare a packet, I hope you have had a chance to review it. Sorry I couldn’t have gotten it to you any sooner than this afternoon. Within the priorities, we have three for the $100,000.00. The first is to allocate $15,000.00 to a very unique and significant scholarship program that has been created by ISG the steel workers and Ivy Tech. A key component of economic development is the constant training and re-training of the employees and also the need to replenish employees of the existing businesses as their employees reach retirement age. The steel industry still plays a critical role in the economy of Porter County and statistics indicate that within the next three to five years the mills could lose as many as a third or more workers through retirement. So we need to help them replenish the workforce for those key jobs. ISG steel workers and Ivy Tech put together a certification program where individuals of all ages in Porter County can attend Ivy Tech and take courses that would lead towards certification. That certification could be used generally towards an Associate’s Degree at Ivy Tech. And also could be taken to ISG and we hope to US Steel as well. It greatly enhances their ability to apply for a job because now they have received training in manufacturing and manufacturing techniques. So, they gain academic and scholastic experience to make them better employees and hopefully more attractive as an applicant. We would like $58,000.00 to help fund that project. The criteria for the scholarship is in the packet and will only be available for Porter County residents but it will be available for all Porter County residents throughout the area. We think it is a significant component of retaining jobs, excellent quality jobs in Porter County. The second priority is to allocate $2,500.00 towards the small business development corporation. The SBDC used to be hosted by the Northwest Indiana forum. Starting on January 1st, it is now hosted by the Regional Development Corporation. The Regional Development Corporation and the SBDC are seeking a vested partners to help raise the cash monies that they must use to leverage the state and federal SBA monies. We are asking for $2,500.00 so the alliance can be a vested member of the SBDC. The SBDC is the critical entity that helps create new jobs in Porter County by encouraging entrepreneurship and every statistic shows that the new jobs and new hires in large part are going to be created by start up innovative kinds of businesses. The SBDC provides the infrastructure to assist those individuals in starting a new business. So we think it is in an investment very well made. The third priority, $82,500.00, deals with infrastructure and Matt Kaiser from the Duneland Economic Development Corporation can explain that.”

Matt Kaiser, “I am representing the Duneland Economic Development Corporation for the Porter County alliance and currently, the chair for the sign committee formed to develop a county wide signage plan. Together with the members of the alliance groups, we used the future land use plan from the Porter County land use and thoroughfare plan that HNTB did for the Porter County Plan Commission in May of 2001. That plan identified 14 entrance gateways into Porter County from the surrounding areas. There is one additional gateway and intends to use an architectural or sign design company to design a layout and a concept that represents Porter County. The signs will help identify Porter County as the preferred place for quality businesses to locate. The alliance intends to make use of the identified gateways and the adopted designs and signs at each entrance location. We look forward to working with you on the ongoing project and invite any questions or suggestions on the county signage issue.”

Mr. Jorgenson, “We feel it is a critical part of economic development that assists you in implementing a plan such as this and secondly it creates the brand or the message that we want to create for Porter County. That Porter County is the best place to either have a quality business or to relocate a quality business. So we have to remind ourselves of that and others as well. Those are the three spending priorities. We also want to work with you and take your time so we have two non spending priorities that we think are critical for economic development. A.J. Monroe from Portage will present those.”

A. J. Monroe, “Here’s some supplemental information that will go along with the information we delivered today. Again, my name in A.J. Monroe, I am Vice President of the Portage Economic Development Corporation and director of Community and Planning Development of the city of Portage. Our community believes that the Porter County Economic Development Alliance ___ the cooperation it represents would yield great results for Porter County. There are two initiatives that I would like to discuss with you this evening. Website development and the concept of round table discussions. First being the website development, the alliance would like recommend the plan be developed to create the county economic web page. Because the site selection process usually starts with the internet, the alliance believes the website would be a perfect place for an economic development in Porter County. This unified web page will demonstrate coordinated efforts of Porter County local economic development. In developing this webpage, the alliance would like to ask for the support of the county by allowing the county website administrator to work with the alliance website committee. The county website administrator will provide valuable input in making decisions as we develop this website. In a few months, I would like to come back before this Commission and present our findings. The website committee will work to set forth some recommendations to create a webpage on the county website or create a page that seems to leave links to and from the county website that currently exits. With the assistance of the county website administrator, a truly effective and innovative webpage will be developed by the alliance committee to promote Porter County and to encourage continued economic development. The second, and I find it to be a very intriguing idea was laid forth by the alliance, is the idea to investigate the initiating round table discussions to counter stations in the future community and economic development opportunities in Porter County. The goal of these round table discussions to focus on county wide economic development projects and initiatives. Once governing the common concerns and goals of the communities countywide. The identification of such common goals, ideas, a unified vision for the future, community economic development in Porter County will be revealed. These deliberations will foster relationships between the county and our community and will build a strong network for Porter County economic development endeavors. Several years ago, we used to do this on the planning side. The county planners, the community planners, would get together once a year with the County Commissioners to discuss planning issues and therefore the county. And knowing the relationship between planning and economic development, it really seems to make sense to take those specials to the next level to talk about planning, to talk about economic development, especially when the county is in the current situation of trying to adopt a zoning ordinance and deal with the continued growth and development we are seeing now. A wonderful opportunity with the round table discussion and hopefully with your support we can develop a website that would really allow us to provide the best information for Porter County for those looking to develop here. Again, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to present to you this evening.”

Mr. Jorgensen, “As much as we’d like the money to help on economic development, we really want the engagement. At the first round table we would like to do is invite the three Commissioners to meet informally with the alliance and just exchange information, views, opinions, on economic development, no set agenda, nothing planned in advance, and then just see where that leads us. I think it is critical, economic development is such a huge topic. It is very important to have a focus and a vision of a plan that we can get together and implement in the county. So we very much appreciate the opportunities and take maybe an hour or two and sit down and talk to us about economic development and share your views with us and we can do the same thing.”

Com. Evans, “I give you my support and my thanks for doing our job for us, you have done a tremendous job. I know the alliance, I was there at the signing, and the enthusiasm and the support from all the communities is just tremendous. It is a great thing for the whole county.

Com. Evans moved to give the appropriate CEDIT funds to the alliance to use it in the manner described, Com. Knoblock seconded,

Com. Harper, “Ever since I have been here, and in a way I am in support of what some of the cities are doing, and I think the chambers have been the engine behind it and also the city planners. Obviously, Portage and Valpo are spending a lot of time in planning and with the thoroughfare plans and what the entrance to the cities and business districts will look like. I think because the way city government is set up there is probably going to be a lot more at the city level than the county level. I am with Commissioner Evans, I think it is great you put this together for us and hopefully that round table discussion sounds like a great thing to me. As you know, the Commissioners have put money in the plan to rewrite our zoning ordinances which we have been told would really help us fuel economic development and I would like to see this whole thing work together. So I appreciate what you have done. One of the most exciting things going on in the county is the new Ivy Tech building and I am glad to see this plan is helping to support that Ivy Tech effort. It is going to be good for us in many, many ways.”

Motion carried.

REPORT ON COUNTY BUILDINGS, JOHNSON CONTROLS, INC.
Rick Renner
Bill Rasco

Mr. Renner, “I would like to take a minute and thank you for letting us come tonight and speak. I do want to take five minutes and provide a brief history between Porter County and Johnson Controls. Johnson Controls have been providing facility management services to Porter County for over ten years and in 1997 we performed an energy audit of the facilities which resulted in a ten year performance based contract. As a result of the ten year term, the projected savings are going to be $1,196,000.00, again, that is energy and operational savings for year end 2007. To date we are continuing to provide preventative maintenance predicting high maintenance services to the buildings. That’s to include the HVAC systems, fire arm systems, security systems, and also a full time employee on site employee at the jail. These in front of you are the documents with the improvements we have made in the last year primarily at the jail and also at some of the other facilities, and because of those improvements, a number of maintenance related calls at the jail have decreased from approximately 100 a week down to less than 10 to 12 after the first year. Also included and because of our history in the facilities, we are able to provide some recommendations based primarily on expected or life expectancies and that is what we would like to talk about tonight, some of the recommendations we have made just from our time being in the buildings. The first one is at the Administration Building, where you have the two main fan systems, east and west, are severely worn and had some vibration problems. The recommendation is to install a variable frequency drive to eliminate the fan speed and get rid of the vortex vanes. What this would do would not only increase the comfort levels, but it will also provide some additional energy savings. If you look at Tab 8 in the book, that is where we have the list of recommendations. At the north annex building, there are two air conditioning condensers that have reached their life expectancy and we recommend they be replaced. They are failing on a regular basis, we’ve already replaced two compressors, despite cleaning the coils six times per year. The second recommendation at the north annex building is regarding the fire alarm system. The existing fire alarm panel is obsolete and currently there is no city tie in or reset button. The recommendation of ours is to replace the panel, upgrade the panel, add smoke detectors, duct detectors, and strobes. The recommendation we get a lot of complaint calls from employees and the reason is the mechanical system above the ceiling are existing by pass boxes and the recommendation there is to replace those with variable repair volume boxes. They give much better control and it will increase the comfort levels and again you will have additional energy savings by doing that. The recommendation for the Expo Center, six roof top units. The fan systems there are original and according to ASHRAE they have exceeded their useful life expectancy, they are starting to fail. We would recommend replacing them, in addition we would recommend adding some metasys controllers, those are the Johnson Controllers that are . . . in fact, that is the only building that is not tied to the building management network so we can’t see what is going on in that building from the jail where we have our work station. So adding those controllers we’ll be able to monitor that facility, therefore be alerted in any change in the environment. So those are the recommendations that we are bringing tonight. There are only the three buildings at this time. There are some minor recommendations towards the end of that section that smaller scopes of work, not as costly, and really we just need more time to investigate what the recommendation would be. Some of those just include some locks and vibration type systems.”

Com. Harper, “Did you get a copy of this packet?”

Mr. Renner, “We did. Many of the concerns in there we have addressed here.”

Com. Harper, “How big a problem is this problem at the north annex with the heating and air conditioning, not the units but the one on the second page, the last item.”

Mr. Renner, “What that is, I guess older technology could get away with this, it was by pass boxes, wouldn’t be recommended today. There is a constant volume system where air is constantly flowing. The recommendation is to get rid of those and putting in a different type of box where we can regulate the amount of air that is coming through, expanding the system, adding boxes. One of the pages in the book shows where there are two large rooms, very large rooms, divided by a concrete wall, and only one of those rooms has a thermostat that happens to control both rooms. So when the Records room is looking for heat, the other side is getting very hot and they can’t do anything about it. So that is one example of what the recommendation is.”

Com. Harper, “Do you think it is a serious enough problem that it’s affecting the employees? I mean their work?”

Mr. Renner, “Like I said, that was one of the buildings and one of the issues for receiving most of the complaint calls.”

Com. Evans, “We replaced the boiler in that building a year or two ago, and is that not part of this recommendation or is part of it for the duct work?”

Mr. Rasco, “Bill Rasco, Johnson Controls. Mr. Evans, the boiler was replaced by another contractor and as far as the heating system goes, the boiler appears to be adequate. It is the fan system itself that is how you push the air in that facility, that is the original system in there and that is what we are recommending. That and the condenser outside has exceeded the life expectancy. The boiler is adequate as it stands.”

Com. Evans, “One of the things we considered at the time besides heating and cooling was we always need storage in that building and there was the possibility of using the one open area that is used for records now and when it was redone for the boiler and doing a loft type thing for additional storage, would this new duct work be a problem if we wanted to do the loft system?”

Mr. Rasco, “(Inaudible) . . . if we knew ahead of time it is possible, it is something that is easily done if we know ahead of time and take it into the plans.”

Com. Evans, “What about the ceiling and the infrastructure that exists right now, it’s a drop ceiling through most of those halls and corridors, is that going to be something that needs to be replaced as well, are we going to need additional height there between the ceiling?”

Mr. Rasco, “I can’t say right now, Mr. Evans, its something we need to look into. I couldn’t give you an answer right now. It is something that is possible to do.”

Com. Harper, “You were going to talk about some of the problems we are having at the jail?”

Mr. Renner, “Some of the problems in the jail have been addressed in the first year and the majority of that book documents what the improvements have been. Many of them have saved some money for the county. We are saving the county $300.00 per year on salt usage because of the controls on the equipment. The water softener system is another area we are able to get some controls replaced just before the system when out of its warranty. Those are the things that our on site employee looks for.”

Com. Harper, “Is the boiler issue on going at the jail?”

Mr. Renner, “There was an issue with the burners with the boiler that we got taken care of under our contract.”

Mr. Rasco, “That is something to not be concerned about because the boilers are relatively new and for repairs we should be seeing at this time. Again, it is something we addressed and just want to bring it to your attention to show we are on top of it. There are issues that it is a little bit early for such new equipment to be seeing that kind of breakdowns we have been seeing. The actuators at the jail is another issue that we have identified. We have replaced some actuators at the jail at no cost to the county, we’ve replaced the valve actuators on the hot water side of the system. I know that is something the county has investigated.”

Com. Knoblock, “Is the sprinkler there frozen? ….(inaudible)”

Mr. Rasco, “That is in reference to the vibration problems we are having with some of the units in the ceiling. It is my understanding that the county personnel had to turn off these particular units because of the noise and the vibration and because they did, they busted a sprinkler head. We do have a solution to that; they need to have isolation springs on them. That is something we have identified that would drastically cut down on vibration and noise. This is something we need to bring to the Commissioners and get your okay to do the work.”

Com. Harper, “This is going to be an additional cost?”

Mr. Rasco, “Yes, it will. That is something that was done on the installation of the project.”

Com. Harper, “I don’t think we should decide tonight. We have all these other issues that we’ve been presented that need to be done. Do you have any other issues, can you give us some cost estimates on these things? What else do you think we are going to have to do over there?”

Mr. Renner, “We have taken care of a tremendous amount of problems. We think we have the jail under control. We have two individuals that work out there on a regular basis. At this point, everything we have identified to date is listed in the book under Section 8.”

Com. Evans, “They do have costs for ones they have delineated.”

Mr. Renner, “We’ve provided some budget numbers based on experience from the past for the ones that we describe on the first few pages. The additional ones needs more investigation.”

Com. Harper, “What is this air handler repairs about? Second to the last page.”

Mr. Rasco, “This is in the penthouse at the jail. We found that the structure of the air handler is twisting and bending, in fact we have a digital photograph that shows the cracks. If you look at the ___ diagram, ….(inaudible.) It is something that is part of the structure of the fan. We do emergency repair on it, if you flip the page you will see how we increased the strength of the bracket.”

Com. Harper, “Did you contact the people that installed this?”

Mr. Rasco, “We are in the process of contacting them right now.”

Com. Knoblock, “So this wasn’t your company that put this in?”

Mr. Rasco, “No, it wasn’t.”

Com. Evans, “Has Skillman been made aware of this as well?”

Mr. Renner, “We have been working with them in the past. A lot of the things we have identified and they have been very helpful in coming out and taking care of some issues that we have had. Not all of these have been addressed with them yet.”

Com. Harper, “We just want to make sure we get them addressed before it is too late and starts a problem. On the page before that, there is the boiler issue, is that a jail problem?”

Mr. Renner, “It is something we have identified. We have made the corrections which fits the other issues, but we wanted to address the Commissioners. We felt it was repairs that were happening a little more regular than they should have. Again, that is something that was corrected.”

Com. Harper, “What about this, they both have major cracks in their assembly?”

Mr. Rasco, “That is when the boilers fire up for the season, the winter season, as they ignite we are finding the cracks.”

Com. Harper, “Should this be happening this soon after this?”

Mr. Rasco, “It seems a little early, We don’t usually see repairs like this, . . . .”

Com. Evans, “Are we out of warranty on this?”

Mr. Renner, “I think so.”

Com. Harper, “How much more do we have?”

Mr. Rasco, “Again, we weren’t involved in the planning specs, but typically it is a year’s warranty.”

Com. Harper, “Any more issues need to be solved?”

Mr. Renner, “Well, its not a part of what we do for the county, this is a ___ contract (inaudible). . . . issues that we have identified. And if we catch it at an early enough stage, I think it is something that should show true cost, it wont be a problem for us and that is what we are tying to do here. We want to catch this early enough so it isn’t a problem for the county. I can make a phone call to the general contractor and find out . . . . “

Com. Evans, “Is there any way to research the units themselves like the boilers to find out if this unit has been manufactured for five years, or that how many people have had problems with it or that type of thing?”

Mr. Rasco, “We are pursuing that right now.”

Com. Evans, “The jail isn’t included in any of your cost estimates here so far?”

Mr. Rasco, “I would like to say that we don’t feel that we are going to be getting prices at the jail. That is something I am investigating, something we have identified and hopefully, and when we have done this in the past you have made these corrections. It is our responsibility to make you aware of these issues.”

Mr. Renner, “What we have done is identified it and fixed it, if this was a billable item to the county, there is nothing we can do for the structure or the proper piece of equipment. We want to make sure that we are on top of this so that in three years from now when this is six or seven years old, that is it not dropping across the penthouse.”

Com Harper, “Maybe I don’t understand. You show pictures of stress cracks.”

(three people talking at once.)

Mr. Renner, “This is a picture we took, whether the ___ caused by vibration has such _______. That does need to be addressed.”

Mr. Rasco, “If I am not mistaken, Commissioner, that is turned off by ____ people because of the noise and that is what causes the sprinkler head problem, because of the heat in the particular areas. So you need isolators on that so that the one is not going to disrupt any (inaudible)…….

Com. Evans, “The problem is somebody unauthorized to turn off those switches has been solved by the addition of your man out there that takes of that pretty much.”

Mr. Renner, “The sprinkler head (inaudible.)…. Again, there is only so much we can do, we don’t have the authority out there, if somebody wants to turn them off.”

Com. Evans, “Do we need to do something for the recommendations they have made and take any further recommendation for the jail or do we want to wait and do it all at once?”

Com Harper “Don’t you think since we just got these prices that we should wait and get it all together and give us a chance to think about it?”

Com. Evans, “The packet you got from the _____ County people, (inaudible)…..”

Mr. Renner, “Exactly. (inaudible…..) Some of the items were, where we can have an impact …(inaudible). Some of it was replacement, we are not really involved in.”

Com. Knoblock moved to wait four weeks to look it over and consider the prices, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Let me ask you on this list; you’re not involved with the doors at the North County Government complex? Some people are concerned about the doors and the entryway with the automatic doors.”

Mr. Renner, “No.”

Com. Harper, “You are for the air conditioning and the heat. What about the emergency lights?”

Com. Evans, “Those doors have been looked at by 3 or 4 door companies. That may be the problem.”

Com. Harper, “Lets put this on the agenda for the first meeting in March.”

Com. Evans, “As long as we are on this topic, I would like to throw one out and that is I would like to ask my fellow Commissioners to go up and look at the North County Highway Garage and maybe we could set that on the agenda as well because that building absolutely has to have something done to it. We can’t ignore it any longer, so if you would, please go up and there and look at that facility and see if we can’t come with some way to take care of that building.”

Com. Harper, “Anything else?”

Com. Knoblock, “Just that the windows are being looked at.”

Com. Harper, “Dave Schelling just gave us a letter, which I think we need time to look at.”

Com. Evans, “It has a lot of merit and I think we should follow through on that water test.”

Com. Harper, “Maybe we could discuss this in two weeks from now if that is okay with everyone.”

Com. Evans, “Maybe Dave could give us a presentation.”

Com. Evans moved to put this on the agenda for two weeks and have Dave Schelling give a report on the windows and the leakage of the Administration Center, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.


OPEN BIDS FOR MOBILE AIR CYLINDER STATION-
Phil Griffith, EMA Director

Com. Harper, “How did you want to do this? Are you going to bring them back?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, I wanted to review them and bring it back for next meeting. I am not sure how many you got.”

Com. Harper, “There is only one bid? Apparently we have one bid from Hoosier Fire Equipment, Inc.”

Com. Knoblock, “Was this advertised?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, it was advertised twice. We had three agencies pick up specs. I had one agency call today and say they weren’t going to bid on it and I have not heard from the other ones. I assume they would be here.”

Com. Evans, “This is for the trailer for the air bottles?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, the air bottles and the generator for the light tower.”

Com. Evans, “And this is something that is in use for other departments?”

Mr. Griffith, “It is used across the state. We don’t have any in this area.”

Com. Harper, “The bid is $66,500.00.”

Com. Evans, “Is that in the ballpark?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, we figured roughly about 67 or 68,000.00.”

Com. Evans, “Since they are the only bidder and they meet all of the specifications, I’d say we go ahead and grant it.”

Mr. Griffith, “I agree. Russ is here, we will sit down and go through it.”

Com. Harper, “This is going to be paid for with grant money?”

Mr. Griffith, “That is correct.”

Com. Harper, “And it is going to be used by all the departments?”

Mr. Griffith, “Every department in Porter County has the availability of it.”

Com. Harper, “And Portage has agreed to house it and pay the insurance on it?”

Mr. Griffith, “That is correct.”

Com. Harper, “Is there anything in this bid that would limit other companies from bidding on it?”

Mr. Griffith, “No.”

Com. Evans, “Can you and Russ take a look at it and let us know before the end of the meeting?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes.”

Com. Harper, “So, it wasn’t anything specific that other people couldn’t have it?”

Mr. Griffith, “No, in fact we have on the front page it says, if you have exceptions, please list the exceptions. Everything else they could have . . a light tower, (inaudible)… I don’t know anything in there they could not buy.”
Com. Knoblock moved to have Russ and Phil look over the bid and get back to the Commissioners before the end of the meeting today with their recommendation, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

PROPOSAL FOR WILDLIFE SANCTUARY
Steve Morgavan, Wildlife Board
Gale Carmona, Wildlife Board

Mr. Morgavan, “I am President of the Wildlife Board.”

Ms. Carmona, “I am secretary of the Wildlife Board.”

Com. Harper, “We put money in the EDIT plan last year to help improve the Zona Wildlife Sanctuary and it was my understanding that the improvements would require the approval of the Park Board and the Wildlife Board and the Commissioners, that is my understanding. That they would follow the plan that Ed Melendez, just told me the other day, that everybody is in agreement with. So I see no reason that this is not going to go ahead, I don’t know if we have to take action tonight or not. I don’t have the plan in front of me. I would suggest, as far as I know it is going to be approved, okay? And maybe in two weeks from now we can put it on the agenda and have a plan so we can vote on it then.”

Com. Evans, “There was an appropriation of the CEDIT monies, there was talk of the money for the Wildlife Sanctuary and the Park Department, it was decided that the Wildlife Board would get their own $25,000.00 to spend and the plan is as I understand it, is to do trails and benches around the perimeter of the property, and signage and utilize the Boy Scouts troops to assist in that endeavor along with the Park Department. The money is theirs, appropriated for your portion of the 2004 CEDIT funds so I would as soon as Ed gets us the piece of paper like he did for the last one for the Parks, we can go ahead and start appropriating that.”

Ms. Carmona, “Do we need to come back for this?”

Com. Harper, “I think everyone indicated we are going to do this as we had planned so really it is up to you if you want to be here or not. So everyone knows we are dealing with a piece of property that was donated to the County, 92 acres.”

Mr. Morgavan, “We are trying to make it a sanctuary so that the whole county can enjoy it.”

Com. Knoblock moved to put this on the agenda for two weeks, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Evans, “I know your frustration. It looks as though it is going very slow, but look how fast it has evolved to this point, we’ve got the road out there, there’s a gate out there, there is a paved lot.”

Ms. Carmona, “Some people might not remember that it was landlocked out there. I think everyone has helped, you have helped, Kevin has helped, Gwenn has helped. We have had a lot of assistance from the county officials throughout all the different administrations have all been willing to lend a hand to get this moving.”

Com. Evans, “And these funds I think will make it go over the top, it will be a wonderful, wonderful thing.”

OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS

Health Department-
Keith Letta, Director

Atty. Rinkenberger, “This is a contract for the field representative, I have problems with the language the state put in their contract. I contacted an attorney down state saying that we disapprove of the language and they are going to review it and consider modifying it. I talked to Keith Letta, he said he doesn’t care if we execute the contract or not because the Health Department doesn’t receive a benefit from the contract so we can have the language we want and approve it.”

Com. Evans, “What is the fee?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “$6,000.00 per year. We are supply space in the North County Annex for a field representative to come in and make calls in the office.”

Com. Harper, “Keith is not here, he had something else.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I told him I’d wait because I didn’t get an answer back from the attorney down state.”

Com. Evans, “We’ve been in this contract for a year.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “They changed the language from last year. You know, we indemnify them, they don’t indemnify us, we are to provide Workman’s Comp and unemployment insurance, and they are not our employee. There are just several different clauses in the contract.”

Com. Evans moved to wait until the attorney is happy with the contract, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Lonnie Steele, Expo Center Manager

Com. Harper moved to approve Lonnie Steele’s employment contract, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Lonnie Steele, “I think you have a memo that outlines what the Porter County Ag Society has proposed that they add to the 4H Exhibit Building, not to be confused with Expo East. Make sure they have the right building, it is the Exhibit Building which is to the east of the Expo Center Complex. They are proposing to improve that facility for the 4H program, but also improve it for year round use. I am supposing they will take care of all the expenditures of adding central air, and heat, insulation, new ceiling that will be a steel ceiling and the roof has already been approved and is on the docket to take place as soon as we get the weather straightened out so now we are looking at the Ag Society proposing to add these improvements to the 4H Exhibit Building. I think the expenditures and so on are in your memo I sent to you. They did it pending your approval, at their most recent meeting and the expenditure of up $70,000.00 to complete this project. I don’t know how you might view this, but I view this as a gift to the 4H program as well as a gift to the county. The Ag Society does certainly see some benefit to their program of the county fair as well. I am encouraging you to give your approval for them to improve one of your buildings.”

Com. Evans, “Far be it for us to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Knoblock seconded,

Com. Harper, “So everyone understands, this is a building they have built and not connected to the Expo Center, its next door and because they built it and it is on county property, they are going to pay for it and so forth, but they feel they need permission since it is our building and our property. Any questions?”

Motion carried.



Integrator.com Contract
Ken Perkins, JDC

Mr. Perkins, “I am here tonight to ask you to renew a service agreement with Integrator.com which services our security entrance system and the programmable logic controller. It is actually, even though most of it is in Detention, it is for the entire building. There are some control panels in Probation and the Neiquest Center and there are alarms connected to the system with the Courts.”

Com. Evans, “This isn’t the door system, is it?”

Mr. Perkins, “It is the control panel that opens the doors, but it is not the locks.”

Com. Harper, “Gwenn, you have reviewed this?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Yes, I have.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the contract, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Memorial Opera House
Holly Siebel, Director

Ms. Siebel, “I met with Gwenn about this and she and I were discussing how to handle everything that I have to sign during the month and then just present everything once a month for your ratification.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “These are boiler plate contracts that apply for the production of her shows, instead of her coming all the time and having us approve we can grant her the authority to sign off and ratify her actions once a month.”

Com. Harper, “Instead of having her come in for every new show.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We can have her come in every three months if you want. It is up to you. If you want her to come and present.”

Com. Evans, “These are not the same as agreements for shows that we pay royalties for?”

Ms. Siebel, “No. This is for someone to come in and do the choreography or for a director for a show. For someone’s services.”

Com. Evans, “Is this for the ability with people who write the shows?”

Ms. Siebel, “No, I am not doing that. This is to hire someone to do choreography for a show, its for services.”

Com. Evans, “But the other type of contract that is entered into for the Opera House is when the rights to do the show are purchased from the author.”

Ms. Siebel, “Right, and that is something we submit.”

Com. Evans, “I don’t want to do those on as needed.”

Ms. Siebel, “No, we are talking about if someone has been renting there. . . “

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I would make a motion to instruct the department heads they need to present on a monthly basis for ratification and anything that involves productions, she submits to us in advance and we’ll approve it.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the have the Opera House present the contracts for services on a monthly basis, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Knoblock, “I want to let people know this is not general fund money, its for the Opera House.”

Com. Harper, “Now we have another issue?”
Ms. Siebel, “Yes, for the purchase of a sound system, a mixing board and an amp because ours fried and we had to get it replaced right away and this is giving us permission to make installment payments to make the purchase. It is our money, Opera House money.”

Com. Evans, “Is the new one already in?”

Ms. Siebel, “Yes, we couldn’t do the church services without a board.”

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

Tower site update
Dave Sheibels, E911 Director

Mr. Sheibels, “I am here to present an update on the Porter County National Weather Service radio project. I have three documents before you and one is the updated price quote from a company IREC in Elkhart, Indiana. They are the manufacturer reseller of the National Weather Radio equipment. As of yesterday, there is a revised price quote of $44,550.00 which include installation and some details of the nature of the equipment and installation if you care to pursue it. Also, is a financial summary report today. We’ve been going over this financial situation. The Porter Township Trustee has contributed $10,000.00 in the intergov agreement, Boone Township Trustee has given a check for $1,000.00 and I learned from Chuck Conover just last week his board did approve $5,000.00 at their January meeting. They have not signed an agreement as yet. The total contributions of $16,000.00 with the radio and for $4,550.00. We need to find the means to fund $28,550.00 to do the project. In coordination with that, I now have presented to Gwenn last week the agreement that came from the National Weather Service, this is a standard boiler plate type of agreement. They’ve done hundreds of these types of agreements across the county. Take a look at it, it has all the details for the site in question, radio equipment that we have been working with IREC with. Everything looks in order, I believe Gwenn concurs to go ahead with the agreement from National Weather Service. It will be at your pleasure whether or not you want to go ahead and approve the Vertical Real Estate tower leasing contract or you can even wait a little bit longer on that one. We get the agreement from the National Weather Service signed off and sent back to them and we come up with a final plan, I can order the equipment from IREC and wait another month or so before we get to Vertical Real Estate because we don’t want to pay tower leasing fees and we don’t have a system put in yet. IREC still contends it will take them approximately three months to complete the manufacture and set up the testing of this radio equipment. So even tonight, by approving the National Weather Service Agreement if anybody has an idea about the rest of the funding tonight, it will be still three months minimum before the system will be ready to install.”

Com. Evans, “Thanks, Dave, for your work. This has been kind of an ongoing project. The cost of the system went down $2,500.00 in the interim so we saved money already.”

Com. Evans moved to acknowledge the intergovernmental cooperation of Porter, Boone, and Center Townships, and to approve this project, and take the additional $28.550.00 from unallocated CEDIT funds and get it done as quickly as possible,

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think if we are taking the $28,550.00 from unallocated CEDIT you may have to go to the Council and have them approve that unallocated portion. If you take it from our other choice, which is our CCD fund, other equipment, I think we can approve it here and not have to go before the Council.”

Com. Evans, “How much money is in that fund, Missy?”

Ms. Hartig, “I’m not sure, I would have to check.”

Com. Evans amended his motion to other equipment then instead of unallocated CEDIT funds,

Com. Knoblock, “We just got this.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “The agreement for the donation is boiler plate. All it says is once we get the equipment, we can donate to them and they are going to be responsible for the equipment and operate the equipment and maintain the equipment.”

Com. Knoblock, “This is just a one time expenditure?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “It is a win win situation for us. It’s a one time expenditure and a one time gift to the National Weather Service.”

Com. Evans, “Actually, it’s a gift from them to us. They are giving us the ability to be warned.”

Com. Harper, “We will have the tower lease?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Correct.”

Com. Harper, “Well, which department is going to pay that?”

Mr. Sheibels, “We have been discussing to come out of the Commissioners’ tower leasing fund. For the first year it is going to be $420.00 and there is a standard 3% increase per year for the next nine years after that. That contract is a ten year contract.”

Com. Evans, “How much did we save when we moved that up to the towers around our other equipment, more than enough to cover the cost?”

Mr. Sheibels, “More than enough. I don’t have the exact numbers from Tom Tittle yet.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “And approving this agreement from donations, it is still conditional upon us approving the lease agreement for the tower from Vertical Real Estate so there is really no harm in approving the agreement for the donations and making a motion to allocate the money.”

Com. Evans, “Well, we don’t want to pay for a lease that we can’t use until we’ve put the equipment on the towers.”

Com. Knoblock, “So there will be a tower in each one of these townships?”

Com. Evans, “No, there will be one tower. Currently the only tower that services the whole are comes from Lockport, Illinois. So, we are becoming a chain for the National Weather Service. In the south where we can’t receive those signals.”

Com. Harper, “If you want time to think this over, it won’t be a problem. I’ve seen it before and have had a chance to look it over.”

Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Mr. Sheibels, “So we are funded now and we are going to approve the . . .so I have the authority to order the equipment?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Let Melissa do the paperwork to retrieve the money out of the CCD fund before you order it.”



COMMISSIONERS’ REPORT

North District: Com. Evans

1. Liberty Minor Subdivision #1724-D-1 Road Agreement, located on the north side of CR 700 North between Meridian Road and Calumet Avenue. Offer to contribute $750.00/lot for a total of $750.00. Owners and subdividers are Justin Wheeler and Rozella M. Johnson. Recommend approval.

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

Center District: Com. Harper

1. Pheasant Hills Phase A, Part I & II, Performance Letter of Credit #00496 from Centier Bank in the amount of $75,000.00. Expiration date is January 29, 2007. Recommend approval.

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

2. Pheasant Hills Phase A, Part 1, Maintenance Letter of Credit #552 from Centier Bank in the amount of $28,000.00. Expiration date is January 29, 2007. Recommend approval.

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

South District:

1. INDOT has selected the last phase of CR 100 South project for federal funding. The funding from Lake County to CR 600 West is just under $2 million. This is 80% construction money, so our construction cost would be $500,000.00 for the local share. We would be responsible for the design costs and any right of way costs. The right of way costs are unknown at this time for both this phase and the first phase. Enclosed is the letter from Carter Keith and the form to be signed and returned to INDOT.

Com. Harper, “With this amount of money, I think we should discuss it.”

Mr. Schelling, “Basically we have been working with the _____ to try to get federal money to improve County Road 100 South. We tried to get one project for the entire solid mile ___, but INDOT has a limit of around $2.5 million at a time so they did award us the $2.6 million for that phase from State Road 2 to 600 West and that is under design right now. This letter, for just under $2 million is for that phase from 600 West to Lake County Line and this is something that your money is not due until its under construction. As an example, that first phase is probably going to be under construction in the calendar year of 2007 and so we are looking toward the future. I do want to point out I have been here over 17 years and this is the first federally funded road job. So this is really kind of wonderful to get $4.6 million in gas tax money back into Porter County. We can have a very nice safe road when we are done. The last phase probably will be in a year or so after the first phase in 2008. I should introduce these other people, this is Greg Smith, Fred _______ and Rich Hudson.”

Mr. Smith, “I am Greg Smith from the Bonar Group. These federal funds are from the federal gas tax of eighteen cents on the gallon that you pay goes to Washington DC and is distributed back. Only certain streets are eligible which is 100 South as it fits the eligibility requirements. Not all applicants that submitted a __ funds were approved this last go around. It is an annual cycle that occurs. The funding is not mandated by INDOT so much as it is mandated by your time frame that needs to be chosen. Certainly the quickest that any project could be put together is about a two year time frame. As with any federal project, there is red tape associated with it and it takes about two years from start to finish at the quickest. Generally they range from two to three years. You are under no obligation whatsoever in signing this. All this is is a recognition from INDOT that you accepted the award and the commitment letter that is attached to a congratulatory letter just helps them in the tracking process to establish a DES number, (Design Engineering Number) that they use to track that has the dates that INDOT would like to know when you might feel you would have a project ready. Again, that is within your control as to when that might occur. The earliest is two years, but generally it is three years out. You have the ability to say when that would occur. They are not demanding that you have to have it as this letter states on November 2007. That is just their fill in the blank.”

Com. Evans, “This is to tie in with Lake County’s project from I-65, right?”

Mr. Schelling, “Right. This will be on the same line up as 109th Street and that is where the proposed interchange with I-65, so its kind of a long rang goal to get it kind of in the corridor and set up to both Lake and Porter County and the traffic out there is over 7,500 vehicles a day now and its just going to increase. Basically, when we submitted this to INDOT, this phase would be my personal highest priority because it has no vertical ____, I don’t want to say more dangerous, but it is more of a challenge. We have that intersection with 725 West which is a fairly high accident rate. So we want to get this improved. We have 45 days after the date of Carter Keith’s letter to accept this, if not we lose it. It is 80% total of construction, it’s hard to pass by.”

Com. Evans, “It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Com. Harper, “When I first came here and John was involved in this longer than I was, there was a push to get more money for 149, in fact, I went with John to meetings where that was a project that was pushing for. I know Carole knows if NIRPC finally took action on it, we were just plain dictated to that this was going to happen and that the money was ____, at that time it was the Commissioners’ top priority and I think it probably would still be. The pulled the money and basically told us that we weren’t going to get any and this is where it is going because they had already decided to make an exchange in Lake County.”

Com. Evans, “Actually, there were too many dollars in a fund for 149, recovered funds that were redirected by Congressman Visclosky to the I-65, 109th project. That was really as much as Bob said was our directive, if you want to participate, this is where you want to participate, so it would be foolish not to participate.”

Com. Knoblock, “We don’t really need a east west road in South County and we needed the 149 Bypass. If I would have been here on Phase 1, it would . . . then Dave, you said there is going to be a lot of traffic. Did you have protesters come at the first meeting?”

Mr. Schelling, “Not that I recall.”

Com. Knoblock, “Because I have heard from a lot of people on 100 and they are really upset about this going through.”

Mr. Schelling, “We do have an obligation to make the roads as safe as we possibly can and this is a great opportunity to do it.”

Com. Knoblock, “Our road is good in Porter County, its Lake County where it’s not.”

Mr. Schelling, “The road structure itself is in fairly decent shape right now, its been resurfaced within the last three years. But that still doesn’t have that much base under it, its still effectively under frost law. Plus we have visibility issues at every intersection that this project will improve, plus we have the vertical curves on the road that don’t meet standards and is a liability.”

Com. Evans, “And Lake County is going to proceed with their project and they are going to have an exit on 109th which will come into 100 South so if we don’t do something with 100 South, we are going to, I mean, they are going to dump that many more cars on it by creating that exit.”

Mr. Smith, “The road isn’t in a bad condition from its ability to drive on it, but it is the safety elements. If a car were to drop a wheel off the side of the road there is no recoverable zone that allows them to slide back on, . .”

Com. Knoblock, “There’s talk around that the reason this is going is because of the dump.”

Mr. Schelling, “We had plans with Bonar since about 1995 or 1996, so it has been in the works for quite some time. There was another grant for the federal money for construction until fairly recently and there wasn’t any real reason to design something. That is why it kind of languished.”

Com. Knoblock, “I just want to go on record as saying no.”

Com. Evans moved to sign the letter,

Com. Harper, “Would you like a couple weeks to think about this? Do you need more ideas on this?”

Com. Knoblock, “No, its already Phase I.”

Com. Harper seconded, motion carried, with Com. Knoblock voting no.

Com. Harper, “Lets hold off on the signing of this until Gwenn has reviewed it.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Then you need to amend your motion to make it conditional upon the attorney’s review.”

Com. Evans moved to amend his motion to make it conditional upon the attorney’s review, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

DISCUSSION REGARDING REPAIRS TO COUNTY BUILDINGS

Administration Center Windows and Sealing of Building

Com. Harper, “One other thing we asked Dave Schelling to make a recommendation regarding the sealing here at the building and window leaks. We need to pursue it and take care of it. I really appreciate the fact that you got this letter to us and some of your recommendations. I personally would like to have a couple weeks to read it over. We’ve had several different things going on.”

Com. Evans, “Should we pursue this water testing? They are talking about water testing the outside of the building on the windows. Charlotte was kind of organizing that. But given your findings, they seem to be more structural than window in nature.”

Mr. Schelling, “I think before I did anything else with the windows, I would wait until we get the concrete situation resolved and then do the windows.”

Com. Harper, “How about having two weeks to look over all these documents and when we come back, we can make a decision. We need to do something about it.”

Com. Knoblock moved to approve to wait two weeks, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Thank you, Dave, for putting that together.”

WASTE TRANSFER STATION I THE TOWN OF PINES

Com. Harper, “The next thing on the agenda is a letter that you have, Dave, from Melissa Hawkins, and she is with who?”

Mr. Schelling, “She is with IDEM, and this is pertaining to the waste transfer station on LaPorte-Porter County line. This is something that is in the hands of IDEM, LaPorte County is giving their blessing to the project. As you know we have concerns about the people living out there plus our county road rules as far as the ten ton limit. The bottom line is IDEM will have a public hearing and both Porter and LaPorte will be invited to that meeting.”

Com. Knoblock, “Will they actually come out and look at the site before they make a decision?”

Mr. Schelling, “I am sure they will. They indicated they (inaudible…).

Com. Harper, “I would like to thank Dave for his help, for following up on this and keeping us aware.”

HIGHWAY VEHICLE DISCUSSION

Al Hoagland, Highway Superintendent
David James, Assistant Highway Superintendent

Mr. Hoagland, “I will try and be as brief as possible. This will all be information you can read later. We are calling this our urgent needs assessment, try to bring you up to speed of where we are at. Porter County Highway has a total of 56 vehicles in our fleet and our urgent needs are for upgrading the 29 dump trucks that are assigned for snow and ice removal program. Plow trucks are not your average trucks, they are specially built to withstand abuse and long hours of service. Ice control chemicals alone can destroy an average truck in a short period of time. At this time we find it close to 50% of our plow trucks are over ten years old, we are operating with five that are fourteen years old and eight that are ten years old. Repair costs and physical condition of these trucks have made keeping them on the road much longer unrealistic. We are also finding at this time that the county engineer’s car is unsafe to the point where I have had it parked and removed from our insurance. We are in the process of developing a cost replacement program and by the next Commissioners’ meeting we hope to present costs, along with a long range plan. New heavier longer lasting trucks seem to be the answer as to how we can stretch our dollars and bring our level of service up to a standard the citizens of Porter County will approve of. I hope that the pictures we have provided will show without a doubt our needs to upgrade are urgent. We have no backups in our inventory, just having one truck not running adds an additional 30 miles of roads the other trucks have to cover. Having added over fifteen new miles or roads and 23 subdivisions in the past five years has stretched our resources to the limits. We are confident in our ability to do the work, we are asking for the right equipment that will allow us to maintain the roads properly and efficiently. As you can see, we have provided you with some information, if you have any immediate questions, we can answer. We do intend to come back in two weeks with a plan for replacement and some costs.”

David James, “We have some pictures here and this is our chief head mechanic. This is a fourteen year old truck body, since we have been using calcium chloride now we are getting a lot more damage to the vehicles from the ice control materials. Calcium chloride is not our friend to our equipment but is a friend to the highway. It is a cheaper way to de-ice the roads, too. We have a lot of savings going that route but it does do a lot of damage to everything it touches. So fortunately we don’t have an issue there, but the bodies are just not taking it. The next picture shows what salt and limestone does, calcium chloride will eat right through it. This is another fourteen year old truck bed. This is the inside of a cab. As you can see through that one part, that is the ground. It has been replaced by a sign that was no longer in use from one of our sign repairs and the mechanics were able to adjust and repair the floor. In the past, the money was spent on the roads to improve the roads. We’ve got to the point now where we’ve got such good improved roads, and several more miles to take care of we now need the equipment. We are piecing these together. Its like we are spending good money after bad.”

Mr. Hoagland, “We have always had rust with the salt but with the addition of calcium chloride, which is the choice right now, it has just increased. We are finding now other units are finding different ways and we should have a report on that also.”

Mr. James, “This picture is underneath a cab; this is a cab mount holding, cab struts holding a cab to the frame, which this won’t last much longer with the driver going down the road. That cab had been replaced, because it already ate away once, we are just fixing it again. That is an oil pan, there is oil coming out of that pan. How many oil pans have we replaced already this year? Five. That is a snow plow, you can see it is going through, and that is a bigger picture of the full view. It just lays up there. The fellows do spray them off as much as they can, and keep them painted; it is just usage. We are not the only department, the state highway has the same problem I am sure. And LaPorte and Lake Counties. We went over and visited Lake County yesterday, they have issues like that too. This is long years without any replacement. That is a picture of a truck bed.”

Mr. Hoagland, “Notice the spots that are different colored. Those are actually holes in the truck bed, a lot of time it bleeds out so we do a lot of patching.”

Mr. James, “We have one more, and this is hard to explain, but this is a picture looking down at the top of the rear axle. These marks right here, the darker ones, are actually cracks. We have to do something or our mechanics are just going overtime trying to fix these.”

Com. Harper, “How long has it been since you purchased any trucks?”

Mr. Hoagland, “Well, we have some that are listed as 2001, purchased previously to 2002, so there hasn’t been anything added to the fleet since then. The handout gives you a graph of years of the trucks and the number of the trucks and also a listing.”

Com. Evans, “Is there anyway to address the calcium chloride issue?”

Mr. Hoagland, “No, what we are doing in our research is not only are we talking to the vendors of the equipment, we are going out to the other departments and talking to the people that operate them. Because they are going to tell you if it works or not. We are finding out the solution to the problem is that separate chloride pan on the truck pipe it back so the actual chloride itself is only going on the rear step of the truck, the way we are doing it now is the way it was done fifteen years ago. We scoop our cinders and salt in a loader bucket, go off under a spray bar, which it gets liquid sprayed all over everything, including the truck, dump it in the bed of the truck, part of the liquid goes on the side, goes on the ___, contaminated everything. Where with the new salt contain units they are finding the spray itself is directly on the centers on the road. I am sure you have driven down a county road, where we centered, and you will see it; dry spot in the road, bare spot in the road, and then a little bit further there is black spot where we put cinders but they haven’t worked. The reasons they haven’t worked is we have no way to mix the chloride equally with the cinders so that part is not getting treatment. We’ve done some research and have talked to people with the calibrated spreaders, they are telling us that on average after you purchase nine of these, you will pay for the units themselves and the savings on salt and sand. They’ve done studies, and these are from counties, not the state. They’ve gone from like 2,200 pounds a mile to 800 pounds a mile because they are able to apply it effectively. The opportunity that there’s new equipment out there that we have not updated. We are running basically with the same trucks we started with when I started here 25 years ago.”

Com. Evans, “With the new trucks come with plows?”

Mr. Hoagland, “We will have to order new plows. A plow takes a tremendous amount of stress, particularly in cold temperatures. We are finding out now that the plows that we typically had the last twenty years are what’s called highway plows; they are designed to throw snow as far off the road as you can get. We are finding that the residents have their mailboxes so close, that maybe we have to look at a different type of plow. Something called a J plow, where the snow comes out lower to the road so we don’t damage all these mailboxes. We get multiple mailbox complaints. The guy didn’t hit the mailbox, the snow comes off the plow is what takes it out. They buy these plastic mailboxes and they’re fine in 70 degrees, but when you get down to the 20’s, it doesn’t take much to shatter them. This is another thing we discussed with fellows that operate the equipment. What works and what doesn’t.”

Com. Evans, “And the transmissions?”

Mr. Hoagland, “Transmissions are basically automatics. I am not going to say they are standard, but they probably will be. When they first came out fifteen years ago they were a little bit shaky, now you’ve got . . . we find that with automatic transmissions, we save wear and tear on the clutch and we haven’t blown any differentials at all, we have never had a differential go bad with the automatic. They’re driver friendly. If you are driving a snow plow, you have six levers to operate bed, box, plow and spreader, you’ve got your shifting, actually you are staying pretty busy. The fellows with automatics can go a few more hours without getting cramped up quite a bit. They seem to be maintained well, now that the bugs are worked out has dropped considerably. When they were new everybody had problems.”

Com. Evans, “So you will write the bid proposals yourselves?”

Mr. Hoagland, “We have specs ready for them, what with six different counties and the state, and we are going to try and pick and choose what we would find ideal. We understand that whenever we buy product, we always have to downsize. We are to the point now where we need to look at some different type of equipment.”

Com. Evans, “How about smaller trucks for some of the subdivisions that kind of cramp the larger trucks?”

Mr. Hoagland, “We have on our list, we have two one-ton trucks now that were specifically dedicated for cul de sac use. They are about at the end of their life span. They were a little bit under rated when we got them. We are not really sure which way we are going to be going. Right now we are trying to focus on this but we are picking up bits and pieces. I don’t have the exact number of cul de sacs, I do know, for an example, between Division Road and 600 North, County line to county line, we maintain I believe 239 cul de sacs just in that area. There’s a lot of them. That is one thing we have to look at with these new trucks that we can maneuver. We won’t be able to clean them out if we can’t maneuver and get around in there.”

Mr. James, “We are finding out a lot of trucks are having shorter turning bases now. It makes it more user friendly for that kind of situation, plus the automatic transmission. Young men are coming on board that don’t know the first thing about shifting. They have never shifted a truck or car in their life. It’s all Greek to them.”

Com. Harper, “Aren’t most departments going automatic now?”

Mr. Hoagland, “I would say yes, most of them are. We looked at a unit today that had a ten speed shifter in it, but I don’t know, certain departments have certain rules. Typically everybody that has operated the automatic, you pretty much have to beat them with a stick to make them go back to a clutch.”

Com. Knoblock, “You will get different bids from different makes of trucks?”

Mr. Hoagland, “What we do typically is we write specification on what we would consider our minimum and it’s a ___ type spec. There again, its financing some of these trucks that we’ll be looking at will have to be fitted with under bodies, some of them won’t. We’re hoping to have a hard enough figure that we can finance the first go round on this but I am just trying to do right now is to let you know where we are at, we are trying to get the most for the buck, but we need to actually look at something that is stronger than what we have been buying now because these things are just getting beat to death.”

Com. Harper, “I assume you want to come back in what, two weeks or four weeks?”

Mr. Hoagland, “I would like to come back in two weeks and get your approval to go ahead and let bids for at least some plow trucks. The opportunity would probably come up in February where the state has the purchase list that perhaps we could find something on that. We’ve got two foreman trucks that are just about at the end of their life that we are going to have to be looking at real quick and depending on how we allocate the dollars, it will depend on what we get. I can only give you my opinion. The traffic in Porter County, I never would have believed I’ve seen as much traffic as we do now. Fifteen years ago when you got called in at 3:00 in the morning to go plow, where I live, I could drive all the way to Valpo and maybe see one vehicle on the road. Not now. There’s cars every single hour of the day.”

Com. Evans, “Is the calcium chloride resistant to plastic?”

Mr. Hoagland, “Yes, and there again, this is one of those outright costs that is spread out over so many years, the safety that we can provide in the winter by the ___ product better, it’s a cost savings. Its just a matter of doing it right. It is much like compared to farm equipment. The difference between what they were farming with 25 years ago and what they are doing now and how much better everything is. It is just time to make a move. We can provide the packets.”

Com. Harper, “So lets put this on for two weeks from tonight. Just for an update, we talked about raises for part time. Lets have Melissa give us an update. At the last meeting we talked about part time increases for the part time people and lets start off on what we talked about last time, not counting the security position.”

Ms. Hartig, “That was discussed at the last meeting that we give fifty cent increases for our part time maintenance people and switchboard. We thought we had to go before the Council for approval, but as we are under what our maximum what we pay our part timers, we are still under that. in the salary ordinance, we can just go ahead and give them their increases. We are short in our hourly line item to pay our part timers so we would have to do __into that line item to cover the increases. But I don’t think it would just be increases, it would be part time salaries even if we left them as they were. I think we would be out by the end of the year.”

Com. Harper, “Do you know why that happened?”

Ms. Hartig, “We have the same amount of money in our hourly line item for almost five years now and the part timers I think have had two increases and I wasn’t here then so I can’t say how many part time people we have now versus how many we had then but its been some time since that line item has had an increase in it.”

Com. Harper, “How much are we going to be off?”

Ms. Hartig, “I figured it two different ways. If we take our part time security and move him to full time, of course we won’t need as much money to be transferred. If we do not include the part time security we would need roughly $10,000.00 to cover the part time raises to get us through the end of the year. That is an estimate if our part time maintenance people if they work 60 hours a pay.”

Com. Harper, “If we went in front of the Council to make this transfer where would we take the money from?”

Ms. Hartig, “We have an open full time position for a groundskeeper and we also have a maintenance engineer who was on Workman’s Comp that we took out of our full time money so far this year.”

Com. Harper, “We just got these figures, and because the Council is not going to meet for awhile, why don’t we put this off for two weeks and give us a chance to digest what we are dealing with here. Why don’t we take two weeks to give us a chance to think about it. Does anyone have any objection to that?”

Com. Evans, “No, I think it is a good idea.”

Com. Knoblock, “No. No objection.”

Com. Knoblock moved to table this until the next meeting, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “I want to thank Melissa for putting this together and giving us a head’s up so we can decide what to do.

PETITION TO VACATE-FORMER STATE ROADS 49 AND 30 KNOWN AS COMEFORD ROAD
Todd Leeth, Hoeppner Wagner Evans

Atty. Leeth, “Good evening, my name is Todd Leeth and I am here on behalf of Porter County Development, the owners of property on the south side of Valparaiso. Joining me is John Curran, a representative of the company. We have given you a drawing that shows the property that is about 4.3 acres in size. On the north side of the property is the Woodside Medical Building. As you can see, coming through the property and what you are seeing is only the south side of the entire 4.3 acres. The south side of the property is bisected by Comeford Road as it cuts off of Sturdy Road and heads then easterly. The southern piece of this property also has what I refer to as a cross-over or cut over road for Comeford Road and Sturdy Road. It connects those two so that at least initially, permission was given for the school corporation to run their buses in that cross over road now used by the public as well so that there is free movement of traffic from westbound Comeford Road and to southbound Sturdy and northbound traffic on Sturdy Road can head east then on Comeford Road. They use that cross over road that is currently located just north of the orange portion which is the proposed building. You can see a dash line where that cut over road is. Our proposal is to relocate that and dedicate an easement for that new cross over road northerly road, as shown in blue. Comeford Road exists today in the location shown also in blue on that drawing and the petition is to vacate the north and east 26 feet of Comeford Road. Today that right of way is 85 feet wide. Now probably due to the fact that back when the right of way was created, it was done so with state highway rights of way in mind. Of course, now with the development of Highway 30 and the 49 By pass that is no longer needed. Once you vacate that 26 feet, on the north end of Comeford Road it eliminates encroachment of the Woodside Medical Building further north than this drawing shows. Also, then leaves for the county an existing 60 feet of right of way which certainly is consistent with the thoroughfare plan. The other right of way that we are asking to vacate is the east side of Sturdy Road as it runs the western boundary of this property. Once we vacate ten feet there, we are still left with right of way that is consistent with the Sturdy Road right of way under the county thoroughfare plan as well. That is the petition. Well actually with the vacation of Sturdy Road only and relocation of the cross road, it allows for that southern piece to have a development similar to what we are showing here. Which is a very small office building and some affiliated parking. That is the petition somewhat convoluted in a very difficult site as we all recognize but with those rights of way there which are excessive with the vacation it creates a buildable site in that location, that is our petition then. To vacate those two rights of ways to do that.”

Com. Knoblock “I just wondered if they already have a permit for the building? Should that come first?”

Atty. Leeth, “Well, you need to create site because the site frankly doesn’t lend it self to the building unless we have the vacation of that ten feet. Then with that, we need to have a plan showing our rights of way, showing parking that complies with the zoning ordinance and all of those things and then we can apply for a building permit.”

Com. Evans, “I have been out there and looked at the site and am very familiar with it. The stick you have in the ground now will be the new boundary of Comeford Road, where it comes into Sturdy Road?”

Atty. Leeth, “As I understand it, the sticks out there is where the new road will be.”

Com. Evans, “I wanted to ask Dave Schelling if he has been out there.”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes, I was out there this afternoon. I am not quite sure when they staked it but I went out there today and I feel comfortable with this proposal.”

Com. Evans, “Actually the way it exists now is kind of hazardous the way those roads intersect on a curve, it is not really a good thing.”

Mr. Schelling, “It is awkward.”

Com. Harper, “Who is going to pay for this? It is my understanding that is we do this, this cutover is going to be moved, who is going to pay for it?”

Atty. Leeth, “We agreed to dedicate the right of way for you to do that, but we have not intended to absorb the costs of putting in the new crossover road.”

Mr. Schelling, “The existing road is where the parking is going to be so they save a little bit there.”

Com. Evans, “Can you give us an estimate of what it would cost?”

Mr. Schelling, “If it is only about 70 feet of pavement, it would probably be a couple thousand dollars.”

Com. Harper, “It is going to have to be engineered, right?”

Mr. Schelling, “Oh yes. That will be in conjunction with the site agreement.”

Com. Knoblock, “I feel that shouldn’t be our responsibility to pay for that as long as . . .”

Com. Harper, “We could ask the county attorney. Don’t you think that is an easement the way that is now?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “(inaudible.)”

Atty. Leeth, “It is certainly a possibility provided it was done without the permission of the landowner, but it certainly has been done over the years with the permission of the landowner.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We can either negotiate or argue over it. How about 50/50 on the road.?”

Mr. Curran, “I am having a hard time with this because I don’t understand why you want us to give you the property as well as put in the road. Its fairly a minimal cost. We give you the property and you put in the road. It think the property is worth more than $2,000.00.”

Com. Harper “Does that answer your questions? There is a debate over whether that is a road or not a road. It was never platted. So the debate is, their argument is, that it is not a road so in fact there is only land developed, and our view is it is a road because it has been there so long, its in fact a road.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “If we vacated it and put in a road, you are saying it would cost $2,000.00?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes, maybe $3,000.00.”

Com. Evans, “What about the initial survey, and the cost for the survey, since you are going to be surveying your site, do we include the survey cost on your side of the ticket?”

Com. Harper, “Lets put this off for two weeks and get this down to some sort of agreement. Is that a problem?”

Atty. Leeth, “It is not a problem because tonight you can’t take any action anyhow because we hadn’t noticed it as a public hearing. So that gives us the opportunity to . . . .”

Com. Harper, “Maybe you can talk to the county attorney and see if you can work out some financials and be ready at the next meeting? You haven’t noticed the public meeting?”

Atty. Leeth, “No, at your request we have not noticed the public hearing. We will go ahead and do that for your next meeting and hopefully we will have some resolution with regard to cost of the cross over road.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is that going to be enough time for the notice request to do what you need to do? Should it be the first meeting in March? I think you better put it off.”

Atty. Leeth, “Let me work with Melissa with that; my suspicion is that your next meeting is in 14 days and if tomorrow we can get it published in the next two days, then we can meet the 10 day requirement. So then it is not an issue. But give me the opportunity to try and do that. If not, I will go the later date.”

Com. Evans, “What kind of offices will be there?”

Mr. Curran, “Porter County Development. Business offices.”

EMPLOYEE PERSONNEL POLICY MANUAL AMENDMENT

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I simply inserted the words, “duly designated department head” in the sentence before ‘any elected official upon hiring an employee may determine that prior employment serves as crediting’….. I added and/or a duly designated department head. If you have a department head that you want to give that authority to, you can do so. This is on crediting vacation time.”

Com. Harper, “Lets bring Carole up to speed since this is something that was brought up last year. Gwenn, bring her up to date.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Years ago we had it subject to the policy manual that we are having the Commissioners credit an employee who has prior county service with vacation time accrual. For example, someone works for the county for ten years and then severed their employment for one year and then came back, they were coming in as a new hire. We didn’t think that was fair. We wanted to be able to give them credit for their experience and expertise in terms of benefits. That is something that the Commissioners would determine on a case by case basis when it occurred. About six months ago the Commissioners decided they shouldn’t be making that decision for other elected officials. Those elected officials should be making those decisions on new hires themselves so we modified the policy manual to say each elected official will decide whether or not an employee should get credit for prior service. Now we are taking it one step further to say that an elected official or a department head such as Al, or Russ or somebody like Sharon Lippens that falls directly under the Commissioners, could credit somebody vacation time for prior experience.”

Com. Harper, “We also at the same time limited it because it was wide open, they were given weeks actually. We limited it to ten days.”

Com. Evans, “What happened was Jackie Sterling worked for the county as an elected office holder for 20 some years and then didn’t seek re-election and became the Chief Deputy in the Recorder’s office and actually was to be given the same type of compensation as a first year employee.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Under the old way, she was entitled to the same amount of benefits as somebody who had worked 25 years which was a lot of time. So, we kind of tweaked that so there is no more than 10 days no matter how long you have worked for the county.”

Com. Harper, “To have this board voting again and again, it just became like petty issues and so we alluded at the time to try and make it reasonable and this is taking it a step further so we don’t have to continue voting on these kinds of issues.”

Com. Evans moved to amend the Employee Personnel Policy Manual, Section 6.01 Vacations, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.


PORTER HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION BOARD DISCUSSION

Com. Harper, “It has been called to the county attorney’s attention that certain appointments to the Porter Hospital Building Corp., am I giving it the correct name?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “The Porter Hospital Association Board.”

Com Harper, “They’re required under Indiana statute to within so many days after their appointment, to take an oath of office and file it in the clerk’s office. Because of our most recent appointment it was discovered that the other appointments had not done this. By the way, in years’ past this has been done. Ten years ago and so this was done but for some reason this was not done for any members presently on that board. So I believe based on the recommendation of the county attorney that we are going to announce tonight, that we are going to ask that anyone that is interested in that board, including members on that board, get an application in by the next meeting and we will take action on that. The only exception would be our most recent appointment which went in and qualified as it should.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Under the technical wording of the statute for vacant positions if the members reapply we can reappoint, get their 10 day time frame and have their oaths filed and then they are all in.”

Com. Harper, “We are opening it up for anyone that wants to apply for it.”

Com. Knoblock, “For how many positions?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think we have four here.”

Com. Harper, “I think it is five and one is filled correctly and the other four are going to be opened.”

Com. Evans, “Subsequent to this discovery it is my understanding that the people that were involved that hold those positions currently went down and swore that oath, so I really don’t know that we need to do this. I’d say we just make a motion to reappoint them after having reaffirmed their oath.”

Com. Harper, “I think the County Attorney is of the opinion that we do this.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “From a technical standpoint, it says if they don’t have their oaths filed within ten days, it shall be a vacant position. So even though it seems like we are just jumping through a hoop, and we are, it’s a technical hoop. To clean it up would be to have them reappointed and have them file their oath ten days after the reappointment.”

Com. Evans, “I think we had a duty to inform also that’s been violated.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, no we did. I asked Melissa to pull the letters and we sent notice to each of them. We notified them but we didn’t follow up with a prepared oath for them to sign. We didn’t do the condition precedent of notifying them that they were appointed.”

Com. Knoblock moved to put it out to the public for applications for the four positions, Com. Harper seconded,

Com. Evans, “I think those people shouldn’t have to pay the penalty for not having been informed that their obligation was not met.”

Com. Harper, “I don’t think it is a question that the people pay the penalty, I think it is the question of this hospital has some serious issues facing them regarding bonds and so forth and I think if they aren’t going to take further action and its not done correctly bond counsel is not going to approve it and that is where I think the county attorney is advising us on and what she is concerned about. I think she is correct so I think we should approve this and take those applications. Any further discussion?”

Motion carried, with Com. Evans voting against.

AIR STATION BIDS

Mr. Griffith, “Russ and I went back and we went through this. Hoosier does meet all the requirements and I wanted to reinforce what we discussed prior. I asked each company to give us a list of units they have in service. This company has 19 in service, I don’t know about the other companies because they didn’t respond. On the bid specs, we put in there bids to be clearly marked and we also said that the servicing agent for any product as such by the bidder may tender another product as its _____. So we really didn’t try to put a brand name in on anything we allowed them to. If they had an exception to something we put in there, they were allowed to write that exception down and just say it was an exception or is equivalent to.”

Com. Evans, “So is your recommendation to accept that bid from them?”

Mr. Griffith, “Yes, it is.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation of Hoosier, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

CORRESPONDENCE

Weights and Measures monthly report for January 2005 is on file.
Clerk’s monthly reports for November and December 2004 are on file.
Court Security Activity monthly report for December 2004 is on file.

Agreement between Porter County Animal Welfare Board, Commissioners and Attorney Matthew Soliday to represent Animal Shelter for 2005

Com. Evans moved to approve Attorney Matthew Soliday to represent the Animal Shelter and Animal Welfare Board on all legal matters for the year 2005 for the amount of $3,720.00, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Additional 3 days bereavement leave for Pat Gibson, Plan Commission Secretary

Com. Harper, “This is for Pat Gibson due to the death of her husband, any questions?”

Com. Evans, “She is entitled to more than that isn’t she??

Com. Knoblock, “She can have seven, can’t she?”

Bob Thompson, “One employee manual we looked at it said seven and then I got a phone call later and was told it was changed to three.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the maximum allowable days for bereavement leave, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Appoint Dale Brewer, Clerk, as representative to Common Wage Construction Rate Committee for 2005

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

Request for Transfer of funds—Commissioners

Fund 01.30 $65.00 from acct 3520 water and sewage
Into acct 3930 dues & subscriptions

To cover newspaper subscriptions through the end of 2005.

Com. Knoblock moved to approve,

Com. Evans, “How many newspapers do we get?”

Ms. Hartig, “Two, we get the Times and the Post Tribune right now.”

Com. Evans, “We don’t get the Chesterton Tribune? Why don’t we get the best newspaper in the county. We need to correct that.”

Ms. Hartig, “We get it sometimes from another office. I don’t know if they read it or not, but they pass it along.”

Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Fund 01.30 $108.00 from acct 3520 water and sewage
Into acct 3650 vehicle repair

To cover repairs to Soil and Water Conservation truck.

Ms. Hartig, “The repairs were done the end of November or early December, but we didn’t have the money in the line item to pay for at that time.”

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

Fund 01.30 $139.94 from acct 3520 water and sewage
Into acct 4440 furniture/fixtures over $100

To cover purchase of a filing cabinet.

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

PLAN COMMISSION

Approve Job Description for Code Enforcement Officer
Robert Thompson, County Planning Director

Mr. Thompson, “This was before the Plan Commission and just to let everybody know, this has been a budgeted position for the last two years. It just has not had a job description created for it. So, I didn’t want to do this until I felt comfortable with the new building and planning and zoning fund. We created this because the Unsafe Building Ordinance specifically calls out this position and we are also calling this position out in the new ______ control ordinance that could be coming before the Commissioners within a month. I had this before the Plan Commission, and the Plan Commission request was, and this came from Commissioner Harper, that the position, instead of being underneath the Plan Commission would be underneath the Building Department. The Plan Commission case was 05 Miscellaneous Case 1. They approved it with a motion that this position would go underneath the Building Department. I believe I made those changes within the staff report that was sent out to everybody. That was the only item the Plan Commission requested and it carried under unanimous vote of the Plan Commission 8-0 to approve the job description with the changes going to the Building Department.”
Com. Harper, “Part of that was under the recommendation that we put the Unsafe Building Ordinance under the Building Department and the Plan Commission so this job is going to have a lot to do with that. I think that was everybody’s recommendation, is that right?”

Mr. Thompson, “I guess I should point out one thing. Even though I did put it under the Building Commissioner, the Building Department as requested by the Plan Commission, I still kept it as a dual role within the job description that it will be enforcing this position or this person will be enforcing planning and zoning also with the building codes and I also added so that way it would report to the Executive Director as far as issues on planning and zoning and also would report to Mike, obviously since it would be considered a Building Commissioner employee.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “The job description states it is a Porter County Building Department employee.”

Com. Harper, “What do we need to do about this?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, you might have to get this job description approved by the Council. It’s been approved by you and now we send it to the Council and they have to approve it and then fill it.”

Com. Evans, “Even if it doesn’t come from the general fund money?”

Mr. Thompson, “Yes, it is coming from the Building and Planning and Zoning fund.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the position description, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Mr. Thompson, “My intent is to have this on the Council agenda as soon as they meet, when the reconvene.”

Rezone, C2 to C4, Dale Gouwens, Four Seasons Mini Storage, 1st reading

Mr. Thompson, “This is Plan Commission Resolution 05-01, petitioner was Dale Gouwens, Four Seasons Mini Warehouses, he was requesting from C2, Offices and Institutions to C4, General Business. This is an existing mini warehouse facility. The reason for the C4 zoning was for outside storage. But I do not see the petitioner. I will admit at the Plan Commission meeting, which was held on January 12th, it was recommended denial by the Plan Commission by a 7-0 vote. At that meeting I did announce that this case was going to be heard before the Commissioners on February 4th, realizing I made a mistake when I went home after Plan Commission. Immediately and the very next day I sent out notice to the interested parties that I had made a mistake and that the actual meeting was scheduled for February 1st, the regularly scheduled Commissioners’ meeting. I spoke with the attorney who represented this case before the Plan Commission, Adam Decker, last week and confirmed he had received a notice that he was aware the meeting was going to be tonight. At that time he told me they were going to withdraw the case or that he was going to talk to his client about withdrawing his case, but I never received a letter and I do not see him here.”

Com. Harper, “Is there anyone here to speak on this? This has been noticed for a public hearing, right?”

Mr. Thompson, “Yes, it is generally the petitioner is here to present the case before the Commissioners and allowing the public to speak.”

Com. Harper, “Lets start out with anyone that wants to speak against the petition. Stand and state you name and address clearly.”

Richard Sutledge, “I live at 1934 ___ Lane, I live on the property due west, right behind the storage and I really can’t see changing it from C2 to C4. There is going to be a small chain link fence, basically a five foot fence surrounding that, maybe five and a half foot. They were talking about putting slots in it to block it. The building is probably three to four feet higher than the fence, so anything built ________ would be visible. Any type of RV would be totally visible from the road. At the last meeting their attorney said that the property values wouldn’t be affected by this but I can tell you that the lot across the street sold for $26,000.00. I think that is a disparity right there. The one across the street doesn’t really face it, you are down looking at the house, so I can’t see where the property values stay the same. If you allow them to have people park things in there, possibly it could become a junk yard, storage for abandoned vehicles. I really can’t see having that.”

Com. Harper, “Anybody else to speak against? Anyone to speak for? I will now close the public meeting. I will say this to relate a little bit what happened at the Plan Commission. There were several neighbors there if I remember correctly. It was pretty obvious this storage facility had been built in an area surrounded by homes. I think it is pretty clear at that meeting and they have kept it in pretty good shape, this fellow does a pretty good job of keeping it up. It is pretty clear that everyone on the Plan Commission tells him it would have a dramatic impact to allow vehicles and would really change the neighborhood and that is why there was a 7-0 recommendation not to approve. Does anyone have any questions?”

Com. Evans moved to deny the request, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Any other zoning matters?”

SETTING ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION MEETING

Mr. Thompson, “I listened earlier to the Economic Development Alliance that was . . . they were talking about thoroughfare plan, they were talking about code revision, they were talking about a lot of stuff that was happening at the Plan Commission. Curiosity got me and I went outside to find out when the Round Table meeting was and they asked me to set the Round Table meeting for them. When A.J. Monroe was talking about how planning departments usually get together as far as the county communities and have these round tables, you know, for three years I did organize those meetings and set those up, so, I am used to it; they did ask me to coordinate between the Alliance and the Commissioners on when would be a good day for the meeting. I hope you don’t mind if I tag along. Also, I did ask them, since I am trying to get some names for an advisory committee for our code revision, I asked them to give me a possible name for somebody because I think it is important to have economic development on the advisory committee for the code revisions. So if you can let me know of any times and dates.”

Com. Harper, “Can you give us some sort of idea of when you will be having them and what time, and where you will have them.”

Mr. Thompson, “We didn’t used to have them with communities as far as with planning. We used to have it on Saturday every year. It would be a Saturday like in February when not too much is going on with the departments. The last one we held was at the Aberdeen Manor. We also had one out at the Expo Center and also one in the Administration Building. It was generally on Saturdays because a number of Plan Commission members couldn’t make it during the day. They were, I don’t want to say all day, but we did include lunch with a short session after lunch. The last one we had there was a presentation by HNTB on the land use plan prior to its adoption and also we had some other designs as far as the environmental developments within Valparaiso. We had a landscape architect give a presentation on that design.”

Com. Harper, “We are already into February, what if all three of us in the next couple of days pick two or three Saturdays, but lets not start until 3 weeks from now and go from there, somewhere between the third week of February and the third week of March, would that be okay Carole and John? I will get ahold of you to give you some suggestions.”

Com. Evans, “It might depend a lot on the Chambers of Commerce directors.”

Mr. Thompson, “Yes, I was going to call them also. I don’t know a number of people on the alliance. Generally they meet early in the morning. Usually after a meeting, A. J. stops by and visits with me about 10:00 or so.”

Com. Harper, “We’ll shoot for a Saturday, if that is not going to work, you let us know. I’ll look at my schedule and try and give you a couple three Saturdays after the third week of February. Anything else?”

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


BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

Robert P. Harper
John A. Evans
Carole M. Knoblock

Attest: K. Vuko, Auditor