PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2005
6:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 4, 2005, in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the Administration Center.

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

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

SETTING TRICK OR TREAT NIGHT IN THE COUNTY

Com. Harper, “We have to establish a time for Trick or Treat and Portage and Valpo are going to do theirs from 5:00 to 7:00 on the 31st. Does anyone have a problem with that?”

Com. Knoblock, “Sounds good to me.”

Com. Evans, “I like it.”

Chief Lain, “We have been fielding calls from other agencies and I don’t know why, but somewhere along the line, we were told in 1999 that the Sheriff’s Department decided this. So we have memos out that say Trick or Treat is 5:30 to 7:30 on the 31st.”

Com. Harper, “That is fine with me.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That makes people angry because they have to be at their homes from 5:00 to 7:30 instead of 5:00 to 7:00, that’s what happens, people don’t like it.”

Com. Harper, “It’s fine with me.”

Chief Lain, “There is no consistency among the municipalities either. They are different. We are the same as Chesterton, and again, different municipalities have different hours anyway. I just wanted to inform you that we already have established the times.”

Com. Harper, “That is fine.”

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of October 3, 2005, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Com. Knoblock moved to approve the minutes for September 20, 2005, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF CLAIMS

Com. Knoblock moved to approve the claims of October 4, 2005, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

AMENDMENT TO EMPLOYEE POLICY HANDBOOK, ETHICS

Com. Harper, “The next thing we have is first reading of the Ethics Ordinance.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Actually that is not completely accurate. Because of the way this is drafted, it is an amendment to our Personnel Policy Manual. There is a section in there already that addresses conduct of the employees and so we added Section 4.09 in compliance to the policy manual. The first paragraph talks about the purpose and intent of the policy and then obviously the ____ government to be independent and impartial and responsible. The second section talks about when and if the favors and services are acceptable and when they need to be reported. Section C addresses nepotism such as when there is going to be an employer/employee relationship, a supervisory relationship between people who are related, Section D talks about when people offer to pay expenses, lodging, travel, registration fees and they are expecting some type of favorable consideration from the employee or elected official in exchange and it prohibits that or requires that the employee gets permission from their elected official that is responsible for them. The next section prohibits political activity while on duty but it doesn’t prohibit anything when they’re not working for those in the county. The next section prohibits moonlighting and that is engaging in outside employment that could result in a conflict of interest with the duties you are responsible for performing as a county employee or elected official. We have a section for conflict of interest already in our policy manual so I referenced that and then I looked to other ordinances passed by other municipalities and counties and just looked at all different variables that could constitute conflicts of interest. Then I refer everyone to the IC code because a lot of the things that are addressed are governed by state codes and are enforceable by the State Board of Accounts. There are other manners to endorse and punish somebody for conflict of interest, it’s a Class D felony if you actually are involved in one. So that is really governed by criminal code, but it doesn’t hurt to have it in our policy so there is a statement saying that we oppose it and don’t condone it.”

Com. Harper, “The state just put out their ethics ordinance and that may (inaudible)…… and they reference statutes and so forth and different things that are already in the books which has made it plain that it was their policy. Now I had a couple suggestions.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “One was that you wanted to make sure that when we pass it that it is a retroactive application that has an effective date that goes forward. There are already situations that could violate nepotism and that you would have to go back and fire somebody that has been working here and doing a good job for five years.”

Com. Harper, “This just applies for things in the future.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Then I think you have an idea about gifts, section B and I think you are talking about putting some type of monetary limit on that of $100.00 so if somebody gives you a sucker or a piece of bubble gum, I think that is what you were thinking.”

Com. Harper, “Most of the ordinances that I have seen have some of limit like $100.00. That way if somebody (inaudible)…. “

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Otherwise you will have your employee, you know, anytime that I went out with Skillman and they are our project managers and they buy lunch at Strongbow’s, I would have to report it.”

Com. Harper, “So I was thinking anything under $100.00. Is there anything else, John?”

Com. Evans, “I said before I wouldn’t participate in an ordinance but since we are doing it in a policy, I can accept that. There’s a couple things in the section you just talked about, those types of things are not applicable to the financial contributions for campaign activities. The other thing is under Section G, number 9 you are going to have a difficult time allowing Rita Stevenson to vote on the budget as a Council member because then it says any employee or elected official may not participate in a decision of any vote of any kind in which the employee or elected official or that individual’s spouse or emancipated child has a financial interest. So how is she going to vote on the County’s budget, she is a county employee.”
Com. Knoblock, “I was going to bring that up, is that a conflict if they have more than one job in the county?”

Com. Harper, “The state has allowed that.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “If that were a conflict of interest, she would have been removed from one of the positions a long time ago. It’s not a conflict of interest under state code.”

Com. Evans, “Well, you created it as conflict of interest under this policy.”

Com. Harper, “I understand that. But I think we have to follow state laws. That is an issue that is going to be decided sooner or later.”

Com. Knoblock, “But if anybody is connected with another department, they should not vote on, like the Clerk’s Department, she couldn’t vote on anything.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “If I was her attorney I would advise her not to, but I’m not.”

Com. Harper, “I don’t think we can . . . “

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well this is first reading.”

Com. Knoblock, “Well, anybody connected like she is should excuse themselves from voting on anything that would come up from their department.”

Com. Evans, “It is going on in a number of places throughout the state.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “It is going on in Lake County.”

Com. Evans, “In an attempt to address all these things obviously there is going to be differences of opinion. I just want to make sure that we don’t set a policy that is not going to be able to be enforced. If there is a state law that is contradictory to our policy I don’t know that the law allows her currently to vote, this policy does not.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I had all sorts of examples and I just took what I thought was the best language from multiple sources and put it together into a amendment.”

Com. Evans, “Why don’t we pass this on first reading and then come back and revisit it before second reading and make our corrections.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the policy amendment pertaining to ethics to the Personnel Policy Manual on first reading, Com. Knoblock seconded,

Com. Harper, “I think we are going to need a legal opinion on the question of what John has raised here.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, I can you right now it is not a violation of state law, you guys at your discretion could make it a violation of county policy but I don’t know why we would.”

Com. Harper, “Well, all right. I don’t think we could say a county employee cannot run for County Council. The state has clearly said they could do that. So if we can’t do that I am not sure if we could do the next step. I would have a question about that. If we can’t do that, I guess we need to take a look at what the state law does say.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I don’t think we want to do something that is contradictory.”

Com. Harper, “I think we have to address this thing to make it compliant in the future. People have worked on certain ground rules and if we are going to change the ground rules.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I’ll do three things, we are going to make an effective date with no retroactive applications, we’ll look at some monetary limitations and I will check whether subsection B9 is legal.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, then we are passing it as it is tonight on first reading.”

Motion carried.

EXPO CENTER MANAGER TEMPORARY DIRECTOR

Com. Harper, “For purposes of advertising, we have this job description that has been worked on under the past few year. Has everyone had a chance to look at that?”

Com. Evans, “Before it was in the form of a contract.”

Com. Harper, “Well, it covers the responsibilities.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think what we did was this was a full time salaried position and then this job description was written as a full time salaried position and then when the Commissioners hired Lonnie, they made it a contractual position but made the job duties the same. So, they took it out of full time salaried and made it a contract employee but didn’t really change the job description. I think if you guys want to make it full time salaried, I don’t think there is any change to make to the job description, just let the Council approve us changing it from full time salaried to independent contractor, and you would request that they adopt this same job description as full time salaried if that is what you wanted.”

Com. Harper, “Now we do need to go before the Council, and first we have to advertise. And when we advertise, do we have to advertise the salary?”

Ms. Hartig, “I have been given the salary range.”

Com. Harper, “Apparently if I am reading this email from Jan correctly, if you go by the classification of this job, the salary range is from $32,000 to $49,000. Is that what this email says? Did you see it Carole?”

Ms. Hartig, “I just put it in the book today.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That’s why you could do a range, from $32,000 to $49,000.”

Com. Harper, “And we need Council approval.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “To make it a full time salaried position instead of a contracted employee, you need their approval.”

Com. Harper, “Do we need their approval on the salary, too?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I think it is safe to advertise it at the low and the high. Then if you are going to pay somebody anything other than the low, I think you are going to need their approval, bottom line. That’s why we advertise it low to high because if you get somebody that has high qualifications, then you’ve advertised it so you will have to pay them more.”

Com. Harper, “Do I hear a motion to advertise this as a salaried position with the low and high salary being that which Jan at the Council told us about the job classification . . . .”

Com. Evans, “I want to make sure that salary range is effective for a regular hire or that is only in the contract situation that we are under.”

Com. Harper, “So why don’t you make it conditional upon checking tomorrow and making sure that it was the salary range rather than a contract price.”
Com. Evans, “I’ll amend to that.”

Com. Evans moved to approve to advertise the Expo Center Manager position with the low and the high salary ranges, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Now we need to have someone be a temporary manager out there, I believe until we fill this position. Do we have any motions on that?”

Com. Knoblock moved to have Liz Culp be the interim Expo Center Manager, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

NATURAL GAS RATES DISCUSSION

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I spoke to them and what is in your binder is a contract for twelve months and then we can automatically renew it for another twelve months. We can also get out of it before them. They give us what they call a flexible floating rate on a month to month basis for twelve months. And the example they gave me was for September. NIPSCO’s rate was, and believe me I am not an expert but they are trying to make me one, is $1.29 per therm and their rate, had we contracted with them was 1.008 so our savings for the month of September would have been $3,000.00 on natural gas. So then I said do you know what it would be in October and they said NIPSCO came out with their rate which is $1.41 and they’re anticipating that their flexible floating rate for October would be either $1.10 or $1.20. So, again, they would figure our savings at between $2,000 and $3,000. They said that what happens is they can fix the rates for three _____. One, they can fix the rate for a set period of three months if they think that benefits the county and I asked them if we could ever lose money on this and they said that it’s possible that in January or February or March when NIPSCO’s rate goes down because they have stored gas and they are on the storage plan, NIPSCO’s rate will actually be lower than the flexible floating rate they give us and we could actually lose money in January, February, or March.”

Com. Evans, “The months that we use the most gas.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “So, that’s it. We have a contract here with a credit application, a twelve month contract with another twelve month extension. They have something here called a C2 Client Agreement that costs us no money but they will come in and review all of our electric charges, our phone bills, they will come in and review all sorts of stuff and then offer shared savings like other business entities do for us. They come up with a savings, they get half of what they save us. That is what the C2 Agreement is. I thought that was not even related to gas. It also doesn’t cost us anything.”

Com. Knoblock moved to stay with NIPSCO, Com. Evans seconded,

Com. Evans, “So far we would have saved $5,000 and by the end of this month we would have saved $5,000 and then in January, February and March when we really use that much gas, we will be giving that money back it sounds like. So, why don’t we pass a motion to give them $10,000 and send them to Vegas. Probably what we should do is stick with our provider.”

Com. Harper, “I have to say I agree. There is only so much you can save and so much you can lose. But we have to stay with what’s in the history.”

Motion carried.

COMMUNICATIONS TOWER/AQUA LAND COMMUNICATIONS
Dave Lain, Chief Deputy, Porter County Sheriff’s Police

Chief Lain, “I believe you all have packets of information regarding a couple different issues. One is the history of what the cost of public safety communications have been over the course of the last couple of years. Not to go into too much detail, it has been approximately $38,000 annually. With the new build out of the communications backbone that has recently been completed, that is an on going process for a number of months and we have an entirely new system, much more reliable than we had in the past. This was done as a cooperative effort through, well, all them involved public safety agencies in Porter County. As you probably already know the main tower now have been consolidated instead of a number of different towers. Our main transmitter now is located at the Aqua Land Communications, that is Tom Title’s company, and his annual charges are going to be approximately $24,000, so it is a significant savings. The invoice is for the past thirteen months. Mr. Title declined to charge the county until the entire project was completed and since that was recently completed, he submits this invoice.”

Com. Harper, “Is that it?”

Chief Lain, “Other than the fact there is the tower site lease agreement which really just expands on what those charges are, how that is entailed, and . . . .”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “The only thing that jumped out at me is there is a paragraph three and there’s a 3% increase annually.”

Chief Lain, “Well, we found that there were increases with former lease holders as well. I think probably that is to basically cover the increased costs, cost of living increases.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That’s a good question, that’s the question I asked Melissa, how did we pay for this? If we have a $26,000 invoice, where is it coming from.”

Ms. Hartig, “I don’t think we ever had one that large.”

Chief Lain, “The reason is, is it has been split up by month and it may denote the fund on some of that. I am not really sure.”

Com. Evans, “Some of that is electricity and some of that jumped from one fund to another depending on what the bill is for. Mr. Title has done an outstanding job for us bringing us all into one umbrella and as you mentioned, he graciously went for a whole year without even giving us a bill. He’s provided a block building out there that we have access to and use that we never had before. We are saving $12,000 per year.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “So $6,000 is for 2005?”

Chief Lain, “Actually for the last thirteen months. Its from 2004 when the project was actually done.”

Com. Knoblock, “What fund did this come out of?”

Chief Lain, “Well, I am not sure. As Commissioner Evans just said, I think it came from various funds. I am not sure which fund. The Commissioners paid essentially I think $20,000 annually just for the rental and the electricity costs.”

Com. Evans, “I think part of it came from 911, didn’t it, Dave?”

Mr. Sheibels, “No, sir it didn’t. It came from the sheriff and EMS.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, if it is going to be annual expenditure we probably, if we are going to approve it, should just take the fund and make that the money comes out of it every year.”

Com. Harper, “If it came from the Sheriff’s and EMS before, why is this still not coming from the Sheriff?”

Chief Lain, “The way this has been divided is it makes for a much cleaner package. We’ve incurred other costs that we have not passed on to the Commissioners. For instance, the maintenance agreements for the x-ray machines that we have incurred. So, I think the overall savings is going to be a plus. If we were to pay the additional $4,000 split between the three agencies, we certainly can. I am not so sure it is going to be easily discernable on an annual basis as to just what bill goes where just because of the way the tower is now configured. Before everybody had their own site but now there is some overlap as far as tower space and that sort of thing. It is not really as definable.”

Com. Harper, “I am sure you guys already took it out of your budget knowing we were going to pay it so _____ probably deleted it from their budget. ____ the Council (inaudible)….”

Com. Evans, “I think when we talked about this, we talked about bringing it all under one umbrella. I think Melissa found the line item.”

Ms. Hartig, “We pay our regular monthly tower site out of our general fund, 3710, which is other equipment.”

Com. Evans, “Remember this is for a whole year.”

Com. Knoblock, “How much is it?”

Ms. Hartig, “$37,400.00.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Takes it out of there? Might as well. There is enough in there to take it out of, there is $37,000 with a $26,000 invoice, this is other equipment so if somebody wants other equipment they can go to the Council and ask for money.”

Ms. Hartig, “That’s also where we pay some of our copier lease payments.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We’ve been wanting to get those out of our budget anyway.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the lease with Aqua Land Communications and have the money come from line item 3710, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

United Way Support from Commissioners

Chief Lain, “This as you know is the beginning of the United Way Campaign and I was hoping that the Commissioners would officially recognize the value of the United Way and the job it does throughout Porter County. In this way, with the support of the Commissioners, it will really pave the road for the executives that will be coming through the various departments and soliciting support for the United Way Campaign. If it comes from the top, I think it sends a strong message that the Porter County as a whole supports United Way and just as an aside, one thing we are talking about doing in United Way this year. The city has already committed to this but we are looking at adding some incentives to the campaign, door prizes if you will, for contributors. So I think it is going to be an exciting campaign and I hope that you officially support that.”

Com. Evans moved to officially support the United Way Campaign and encourage all employees and those involved to give as generously as possible, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

DRIVEWAY CUT PERMIT, COUNTY LINE ROAD, TRANSFER STATION
David Schelling, County Engineer

Atty. Rinkenberger, “What precipitated asking Dave Schelling to come before the board was I received a threat of litigation from the individual who is planning on putting a transfer station on LaPorte-Porter County Line Road unless we issued a driveway permit. A driveway permit was requested and the request was denied. A subsequent request was made and once I got the threat of litigation I suggested that they come before the Board and articulate the reasons why he was again going to recommend that we deny the application for the driveway permit and so the Board can approve or disapprove of his recommendation and then if we get sued, we have articulable reasons for our actions.”

Com. Harper, “Does anyone have any comment or questions?”

Com. Evans, “I would like to say that I saw the fax that Gwenn received and I thought it was kind of presumptuous and a little bit of an attempt to intimidate not only the engineer but us as Commissioners. I don’t think it is going to work. If you compromise your beliefs for something just because you are going to get sued, then you don’t have any business trying to defend the public’s position. So I commend you, David, for your stance and encourage you to continue.”

Mr. Schelling, “We got that fax that afternoon before the public hearing and that’s one thing to be threatened to be sued but they talked about suing personally, too and that is uncalled for. But I felt secure with Gwenn protecting me.”

Com. Evans, “Let’s say why we think there should be no permit.”

Mr. Schelling, “Is it okay if I send that letter to IDEM to include with their public comment?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That’s fine.”

Mr. Schelling, “The outline that I just gave you was what I utilized for my talk at the public hearing, at least the majority of it. I will run through it real quickly. The road conditions our there are there is poor soil, there is wetlands, the wetland is underneath the road, too. It has very poor bearing capacity in the soil, there’s organic material there. There is high water table. This type of soil has severe frost action, so even if there wasn’t a weight limit on there, we definitely would have our frost law posted there because in that kind of a year, there would be virtually no support for the road. The road has been posted ten tons however, for many years and even if you go out there today you will see the edges of the road cracking and it is just an indication of poor soils underneath it. There’s areas where the road has got some alligator cracks. Repeated heavy loads are just going to destroy the road. To eliminate that you would have to remove that entire road get that organic material out from under the road and that would be quite expensive. The access is just south parallel and just south of Amtrak Railroad. Sean Blieden has repeatedly told me that all traffic is going to be going to the south and coming from the south. Well, how can you guarantee that? You can’t. So, there has been some discussion, well, the bottom line is Porter County is liable for that road and we can’t delegate that liability to other people. Sean Blieden originally made an application August 25 to construct the drive to an industrial area. He put very few details on the application, again Sean said that all traffic would be utilizing County Line Road to the south. On September 7, I faxed an email to him that I had tried to send to him on September 2. He changed his email address so I never got confirmation that he got it so that is why I faxed it, but I told him the county would not be issuing the permit on a ten ton road and also sent him a copy of the Porter County Commissioner Resolution 05-04, the one that was opposing the waste transfer station and upgrade of County Line Road. After that I got some additional information from him on September 9 and 13 for the access to the property which shouldn’t change the ten ton weight limit. Then on September 12 he wanted a permit to operate a solid waste transfer site with just vehicles weighing ten tons. September 14 he repeated the request for that type of permit and said he could not control other people or firms that might be overweight. Well, that’s true, too, about him telling me that all the direction would be to the south. He can’t say that. With the railroad so close, he would have to have a turn lane, a passing blister, he would have to widen out that railroad crossing, he would have to relocate the railroad crossing signals. He is talking about a fortune of money just to make the road safe. You can’t compromise the safety of the public. Also, INDOT would need at least a commitment for traffic signals on 20 and County Line Road because these slow moving trucks coming out of County Line Road crossing two lanes of traffic would be a nightmare without traffic control.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “His attorney brought up the fact that a road cut was granted to an adjacent property owner just days before and I asked if you could distinguish the two.”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes, LaPorte County approved a cell tower just south of ______ access location. This is on the same parent property that Sean is planning to use as a proposed transfer station. On the permit for the cell tower, it was specified that any overweight vehicles would have to get overweight permits to access this site and it is a situation where in just a short period of time, that heavy loads would have to utilizing the road to access the site and build a tower. Once that is built, it would probably come to the site maybe once a week in a vehicle, in a car. The difference between that and the waste transfer station is pretty obvious. There is to be continuous heavy traffic year round.”

Com. Harper, “Is that all the reasons that you wanted to go over?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes.”

Com. Evans moved to uphold the denial of the permit made by the engineer, Com. Knoblock seconded,

Com. Harper, “One thing I want to say is I have been involved with you and the Highway Department and the other Commissioners in going around and looking at safety issues for the county roads which is done on regular intervals. Intersections and this and that, and you know, I believe that in addition to the road problems you are saying this is a safety problem and that is because of where that driveway is in relation to that track, is that correct?”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes.”

Com. Harper, “You can look at it and see it is a safety issue. Anything else?”

Com. Evans, “Besides the safety issue, it will create on the feeder roads of Highway 20 and Highway 12.”

Motion carried.

COMMISSIONERS REPORTS

North District: Com. Evans

1. Portage would like to acquire right of way for their 4 million dollar Willowcreek Road Project between CR 700 North and US6. The Commissioners have the original documents. The agreement between Porter County and the City of Portage is to purchase the sign, light post and tree for $4,500.00. They would like the County to give them the right of way. See attached memo Exhibit “A”.

Com. Evans, “They are not going to move them, they are just going to pay us?”

Mr. Schelling, “That is what they are proposing. When I talked to them previously, I had the understanding that they would move them for us. (Inaudible)…”

Com. Evans, “I think it would be cleaner, but I don’t know that number one we want to re-erect that sign or number two, that it is adequate compensation. What’s your opinion?”

Mr. Schelling, “The sign we have out there is a brick sign and it looks pretty nice, but I really don’t know what the cost was.”

Com. Evans, “Well, it doesn’t look pretty nice, its been leaning over three times, I had Highway out there trying to correct the problem. I think we need better signage there. It looked pretty bad. Highway was able to help us quite a bit by making it erect again, but I don’t know that the thing is even going to be able to be re-erected once it is taken down because it is all brick. I just don’t know if $4,500 is enough money.”

Mr. Schelling, “They would like the county to (inaudible)…. The right of way.”

Com. Evans, “I don’t have a problem with that but I have a problem with being adequately compensated for those things we are going to have to have removed or re-erected.”

Mr. Schelling, “That’s why when I talked to them previously, I thought they would make it whole again and reinstall a sign to our specifications and the light pole and the tree that might be a good way to go.”

Com. Evans, “I like that idea better.”

Mr. Schelling, “Yes, why should we have to hire a contractor.”

Com. Evans, “Why should we guess that is going to be enough money.”

Mr. Schelling, “If there is some type of over run, that is their problem.”

Com Evans, “Can you talk with John Shepherd and see if he will…. I don’t really have a problem with the right of way.”

Mr. Schelling, “It’s a big project that they are going forward with in planning and construction next year. (inaudible)…

Com. Harper, “Let me say this, I think they have tried to give the county every heads up because of this project and ask the county and the hospital, and ask everybody’s input and try to make it easy for everybody. It is going to be a substantial financial expenditure on their part. So I would like to see us get this done.”

Com. Evans, “I don’t have any problem giving them the right of way but I don’t think we should dig in out pockets to do the replacements.”

Com. Harper, “Do you want to continue over to the next meeting?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “You could make a motion to give him the authority to make him a counter offer. Then if they accept it you don’t have to do it again.”

Com. Evans moved to grant the request for the right of way and the movement of the light, pole, tree and sign, as long we are making ___ and don’t suffer any financial loss, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

2. Troon Subdivision Performance Letter of Credit #107500020 from First National Bank of Illinois in the amount of $282,400.00. Expiration date is March 27, 2008. Owner and subdivider is Pat Kleihge. Recommend approval.

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

3. Swift Subdivision, Replat of Outlot 1 in Woods of the Winding Creek, Unit 1 Road Agreement, located directly west of 620 North 50 West. Offer to contribute $750.00/lot for a total of $750.00. Owners and subdividers are Michael Swift and Charlene Swift. Recommend approval.

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

5. Eagle Ridge Subdivision, Performance Letter of Credit # 2005-ILC-584 from Bank Calumet in the amount of $229,460.00. Expiration date is March 28, 2008. Owner and subdivider is Strathmore, LLC. Recommend approval.

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





Center District: Com. Harper

1. Beauty Creek Estates North @ Windsor Park Performance Letter of Credit #MNB-2137 from Mercantile Bank in the amount of $390,000.00. Expiration date is September 20, 2006. Owner and subdivider is SW Developer. Recommend approval.

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

2. Beauty Creek Estates North @ Windsor Park Road Agreement, located on the southeast corner of CR 150 West and CR 450 North. Offer to contribute $525.00/lot for a total of $61,950.00. Owner and subdivider is Bryan J. Siewin, member of SW Developers, LLC. Recommend approval.

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

3. Beauty Creek Estates @ Windsor Park Road Agreement, located on the CR 150 West and CR 400 North. Offer to contribute $525.00/lot for a total of $57,225.00.Owner and subdivider is William H. McCabe, Naples-UPZ Development, LLC. Recommend approval.

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

4. SR 2 Canadian National Railroad Crossing is now open and is a very good job.

Com. Harper, “Thank you, Mr. Schelling. Now if we could work on the 250 North.”

South District: Com. Knoblock

1. Prairie Crossings Subdivision Performance Letter of Credit # HACH110105OS from Harris Bank, in the amount of $98,000.00. The developers have a performance bond in place but are switching banking institutions. The expiration date is July 20, 2006. Owner and subdivider is Prairie Landings of Porter, LLC. Recommend approval.

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

Com. Harper, “For the Center District we have the petition for establishment of the Union Township Conservancy District. When did we receive this?”

Mr. Schelling, “I don’t know if it under the subdivisions, that’s why I forwarded a copy of what I received.”

Com. Harper, “Does it need Commissioner action?”

Com. Evans, “We need to appoint the directors.”

Mr. Schelling, “It’s not a conservancy district yet, so, this is really for informational purposes only.”

Com. Evans, “Whomever their attorney is they will contact us later and ask that we appoint the directors.”

CORRESPONDENCE

Weights and Measures monthly report for September 2005 is on file.

Approval of Animal Shelter services with Town of Porter

Com. Evans moved to approve the Animal Shelter services with the town of Porter for 2006 in the amount of $4,371.00, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Approval of Animal Shelter services with the Town of Pines

Com. Evans moved to approve the Animal Shelter services with the town of Pines for 2006 in the amount of $1,209.00, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Porter County Red Ribbon Committee kick off and balloon rise

Ms. Sterling, “I just wanted to share you with you some of the wonderful artwork from the children. This is the tenth anniversary of the Red Ribbon Campaign in Porter County and each year we partnership with the schools for an awareness and education program through the schools. We have contests that start in January throughout Porter County and we have four placemat winners. This is one of the placemats that will be in a the fast food restaurants in Porter County during Red Ribbon Week. That particular student is from Jackson Elementary. Then this one is from Courtney Shiteman from Union Center. This one is by Megan McDaniel and she is from Morgan Elementary. This is from Gabrielle Farmer from Ethel Jones Elementary. Then we have a poster winner every year and the posters are in all the schools during Red Ribbon Week and this is from Northview. Our shirt this year was designed by Tracy Autenry from Boone Grove High School. I brought Linda’s shirt because I forgot to bring mine. It says Porter County Red Ribbon 2005, Don’t Do Drugs. We thank you for your support in the past and we would like to have your continued support. We can’t give up the fight even though a lot of people say Red Ribbon doesn’t work, its no different than other organizations such as the organizations for drug abuse and also child abuse. We don’t give up on cancer crusades because every life is important. And if we save, life is precious. We thank you for continued support and we would also like to ask you to allow us to have the kick off on October 26, in this building as we have in the past. Our actual Red Ribbon Week is October 23 through the 31. But we have a great speaker in Dr. Mann Spitler that has quite a message for the young people of Porter County. And so we are going to have it on the 26 if that is agreeable with you. Once we had to have it inside because of weather so that wasn’t too bad but with the weather right now as it is, let’s hope it stays. We also would like to put our banner in the rotunda.”

Com. Evans moved to approve Red Ribbon Week,

Com. Evans, “A thank you to you, Jackie. This is your tenth year you have been doing this, and have been the chairman every year and is always well organized, well thought out and well carried out just like your posters show, you put a lot of effort into that.”

Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Request for transfer of funds—E911

Fund 37.31 $8,000 from acct 3730 lease purchase
Into acct 4510 data processing

Fund 37.31 $25,000 from acct 3730 lease purchase
Into acct 3610 maintenance agreements

Secondary answering 911 equipment at Hebron Police Department, maintenance expenses.

Mr. Sheibels, “This is a pretty routine end of the year transfer, I am typically here in October every year just readjusting the budget for some things that have happened unplanned through the course of the year. We have had some maintenance expense increases this year and doing the Hebron project of putting back the secondary E911 answering point which I didn’t plan for occurred this year also.”

Com. Evans, “I would kind of like to see Hebron pay for those expenses and then we start up again where we were with them before. They obviously want the system back, I think they had a pretty good deal the way it was going. If they want to put it back in then I think they ought to bear the cost of it and at that point we will pick up the maintenance and the liability like we do with everybody else’s secondary reception. I think that undue expense should not be your hardship.”

Mr. Sheibels, “In theory I agree. We have a track record of providing secondary answering points and they are 911 answering points and we have funded those fully all these many years. We had two secondary answering points at Porter and Chesterton which we support. I know what you are saying and I agree with it but I don’t know if, its up to you, but I don’t know if that is really what we should be doing.”

Com. Evans, “Are we starting aggressive? If now somebody gets mad at you and they say okay, we are going to put our answering point back, in Kouts, or somebody else, then we are going to pay for them too. I just don’t think this was a well thought out idea.”

Mr. Sheibels, “It wasn’t thought out, it came to the Sheriff and I without any pre planning or pre warning. We read about it in the paper together without any acknowledgment from Hebron. But, they have started their own dispatching as they said they would. They resumed their dispatching activities September 1st and are awaiting a secondary answer position back. Currently we are transferring calls outside of our trunk system to an administrative line which is what we call Phase 0, we have no data, just a voice. I am not too sure if there is a liability problem there till we can get equipment back in there like we had before.”

Com. Harper, “Have you made this expenditure for Hebron before, in other words, is this an expenditure that ever came to the county?”

Mr. Sheibels, “Yes, they were in a secondary answering point.”

Com. Harper, “So now you are making it again, and so if they come back next year and then they want to go down the year after next and we keep making these expenditures. How much are we talking about of this, you are asking for transfer of $33,000, how much of that is for what it is going to cost?”

Mr. Sheibels, “The $8,000 amount will about cover it. I have a price quote from Verizon on PC equipment, printer, interface device called an H___, it is going to come to about $8,000.”

Com. Harper, “I understand what you are saying that we have (inaudible)... but we haven’t done it three times in Porter or Chesterton.”

Mr. Sheibels, “It is unique, it is a precedent.”

Com. Harper, “I am for approving your transfers but also put it in the motion that it not go for the secondary.”

Com. Evans, “I think we need to invoice Hebron for the amount that it is going to cost to get them up and running and then we will take back our responsibility where we were before like we do with every other secondary piece. The whole thing was done wrong, I expressed that before. When you can dispatch the city of New York with one piece, Porter County could have gotten by with one. So I really don’t think this expense should be born by the taxpayers in the county if Hebron wants to do it then its Hebron’s expense.”

Com Evans moved to approve the transfer from fund 3731 for $25,000 to account 3610 Maintenance Agreements and invoice the town of Hebron for the start up of capital costs of their new secondary,

Com. Knoblock, “I would personally like to see them stay with the county, but obviously we don’t have that control.”

Com Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Before you leave, we didn’t approve that $8,000. Was it just needed for that or something else? Do you understand what I am asking?”

Mr. Sheibels, “The $8,000 was for the Hebron project. The other amount has nothing to do with Hebron.”

INVITATION TO DEDICATION TO DUNN’S BRIDGE
Harold Erwin

Mr. Erwin, “I would like to invite all of you to our dedication to Dunn’s Bridge County Park on October 14 at 4:00 p.m. in the afternoon. This is a park that we used state funds to refurbish the old bridge that is put across the Kankakee River, we’ve put in a boat ramp and we would like to dedicate this and invite you all down there on October 14 at 4:00 p.m.”

Com. Harper, “I am so glad you are doing something down there on the Kankakee River.”

Mr. Erwin, “We would like to, if we can get some more people that would like to give us land or make it available to us. We are always looking. We are not going to turn down anything that looks good if we can find more land down there to turn into a county park we are more than willing to do it. That’s on 500 East, the Kankakee River. There should be signs down there to direct you.”

Com. Harper, “How much land do you have?”

Mr. Erwin, “I believe we have about 3 acres down there. It encompasses the bridge itself and there is a picnic area and a boat launch and then we have a parking area. The boat launch we made and the concrete goes right into the river.”

Com. Harper, “Is it being used quite a bit?”

Mr. Erwin, “There’s been quite a bit of use down there to my knowledge and we hope to have more. We figure this dedication is going to bring a lot more to the public like Sunset Hill Farm. A lot of people don’t know that those places exist. We are trying to make it available for people so they know those places are there and Sunset Hill has really developed over the last five or six years. We hope Dunn’s Bridge will do that same.”

Com. Harper, “Thank you for coming and thanks for asking.”

EXPO CENTER COMPLAINT
Mario Alvarez

Mr. Alvarez, “My name is Mario Alvarez and I put on events at the Expo Center and in your search for a new guy I would hope that when you do the search that the individual will know that he needs to run a service there not just rent a building. And that his job there is to take care of the customers there. In the past that hasn’t been done in the last five years or so.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, anything else?”

Com. Evans, “I work in the service oriented business so I know what you mean.”

Mr. Alvarez, “I have stuff here that would freak you out to no end but now that problem I think is gone. So in the hope that when you get a new guy, that we know will provide a service and not just a building or a piece of property.”

Com. Knoblock, “It could be a he or a she.”

Com. Evans, “A new person.”

Mr. Alvarez, “You are right because I have been doing things out there for twenty one years and I have been through everyone out there and the last guy was just not . . .”

Com. Harper, “I have to say something. When we pick a department head, that’s the guy or woman that is running the show. We don’t micromanage those people, they run the show. We pick them with the confidence that they will run the show out there. Okay, thank you.”

PERSONAL PROPERTY AUCTION

Atty. Rinkenberger, “For policy matters, the Sheriff’s Department asked Commissioner Harper to sign a personal property auction contract for their surplus vehicles and I would like a motion from the board approving the contract. They do it with the same auctioneer every year, with the same terms.”

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

RENTAL OF REAL ESTATE FOR TOWERS

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I have sitting on my desk, two requests from a business. We rent real estate to that we put towers on and they have the right to assign their interest in the lease, which we state in our lease we will not oppose for no good reason. But I have multiple calls on both of these and I began to wonder why we were being so pushy but in the terms of the lease, and I was thinking they were perpetual. They go on and on and on for twenty five years and the rental payments we receive are not very much. They were signed quite some time ago so I thought maybe before we took board action approving the assignments of the interest, we might want Dave Sheibels to look at these rental payments we are receiving and see if we want to increase on them before we approve them.”

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

PLAN COMMISSION---Contractor’s Registration Ordinance, 2nd reading

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I have reviewed it and they have made it in proper form for codification and they have the right terminology throughout so it’s a registration and not a licensing. I think I saw one typo though. It’s good to go. The typo is on page 5 under Fee Schedules C, it says each applicant shall submit a non refundable application fee in the sum of $25.00 to the Plan Commission.”

Com. Evans moved to approve Porter County’s Contractor’s Registration Ordinance No. 05-17 on 2nd reading, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

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: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor