PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, APRIL 18, 2006
6:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, April 18, 2006 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.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES

Com. Evans moved to approve the minutes of April 4, 2006, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of April 17, 2006, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

ROADWAY WIRELESS SENSING PROJECT
Michael Stacey, University of Notre Dame

Com. Harper, “Is there anyone here on this? Is that a Plan Commission matter?”

Ms. Hartig, “He called today and said he would be here so maybe they are just running late.”

Dave Schelling, “They are coming from South Bend. He and a group of other students that are planning to do some wireless sensing of traffic and weather conditions and things that could be utilized at accident locations. It’s something that I can’t really talk about because I don’t really know. But it is something that he is looking for a county to experiment in. It might be a neat project but I need more information and that is why he is going to make a presentation.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, lets wait and see if he shows up. Mike Anton can’t make it tonight so we will put that back on the agenda for two weeks from now.”

EXPO CENTER REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS

Com. Harper, “I don’t think John was going to be here; he discussed it with us before, about the carpet and air conditioning and so forth.”

Com. Evans, “We have all been out there and looked at it, and can sympathize with what he is going through and what he has to work with. I think he needs new carpet in the main Expo building itself, he can use a storage facility in between the two buildings so they don’t have to do double work all the time and then he needs heating and air conditioning in the Expo East building.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the process to get the Request for Proposals for the projects, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS

Award bids for liquid bituminous
Al Hoagland, Highway Superintendent

Mr. Hoagland, “We got three bidders for liquid bituminous and up until about three hours ago I was going to recommend we take one bidder and one bidder only. Then I found out that liquid bituminous by the ton today went from $150 to $360. Because of petroleum. As you can see, there is a note on the side there, we are already looking at $.30 a gallon increase over last year’s prices. That’s all estimated costs so my recommendation would be to take all three bids, see where this thing starts out.”

Com. Evans, “Why do we bid this, they always put in the escalator cost.”

Mr. Hoagland, “Well, we are always hoping we are going to find a silver lining in the dark cloud. They try to be competitive and they are in fact competitive with other areas, but from what I am hearing from everybody, the transportation costs, the same thing is going to happen with the (inaudible). Our lowest bids right now on that which we already accepted are over $5.00 a ton more than they were last year and who knows where they are going to go when they start mass producing.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the recommendation to accept the bids from Seneca Petroleum, Sens Materials, and Bit Mat Products, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

OPEN TRUCK BIDS FOR HIGHWAY DUMP TRUCKS

Mr. Hoagland, “These bids are for the regular dump / plow trucks.”

Com. Harper, “There is a unit price and then an added for a unit under body, what is that for? An add-on? Let’s just read the top prices. This is from Pozzo Truck Center, Inc. Their base bid is for $889,850.00.”

Com. Evans, “That is for six Class A trucks.”

Com. Harper, “The next one is from Great Lakes Peterbilt GMC and their bid for the six trucks is $802,788.00.”

Mr. Hoagland, “I will have a recommendation by the next meeting. That’s it, just two bids.”

ITS Department—Back scanning
Sharon Lippens, Director

Com. Harper, “At the time we were talking about going through the records of the county to see what we could save, what was the bid we got?”

Ms. Lippens, “For the back scanning? It was $1.2 million.”

Com. Harper, “And the Council, in one of our joint meetings, suggested that we just do part of the back scanning with the big books and so forth that we would need. Unable to do it on our own, and the IT Department, once we got the equipment up and running, could hire a person to start working on that rather than spend the million dollars at this time. Sharon has had a full time person that is no longer going to be full time, is that correct?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes, part time, she would like to retire.”

Com. Harper, “But she will still be part time, right? And what she would like to do is fill that full time position with this person to do the back scanning, correct, and then have the part time person. You are on the Council agenda for next week?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes.”

Com. Evans, “What is the effect on your budget?”

Ms. Lippens, “It’s exactly the same. What would be happening is we are changing the titles of two positions, the current position that the employee is retiring from is mid- range Operations Support Technician and some of those duties would be assigned by another employee who is currently holding just Operation Support Technician, so they would be moving into the vacated position with the additional duties and then their vacated position will be re-vamped, which is why I needed the new job descriptions to include all the document imaging functions as well as assist the senior Operations Support Technician when they are not there.”

Com. Evans, “More help, same price.”

Ms. Lippens, “Exactly.”

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

Ms. Lippens, “There is no money that needs to be appropriated from the Council, there’s already part time money that was originally allocated to bring an intern in, but we have found that when we have an intern in we spend more time dealing with them then getting county work done. So, that could be used for the part time.”

Motion carried.

Video Security Request for Proposals

Ms. Lippens, “When we did the video security request for proposals, the blueprints that I had for the courthouse remodeled indicated that there was wiring and conduits in place for this to be done. We found out later that the wiring and conduits were not in place, there were indicated in the blueprints but they were not done, they were pulled at the end due to financial restraints. So, we’ve now had to come back and include the wiring and conduits put in that we thought were there to begin with. The company that we accepted the proposal from for the video security equipment has given us the proposal as they would be the best qualified to run the wiring and conduit that they need for their equipment. That is $17,482.00, that includes work at the Porter County Courthouse, the North County Annex, for additional cameras that were added that never existed before and Juvenile Services Center which currently doesn’t have anything.”

Com. Evans, “Are these conduits going to have enough access for whatever else would come along?”

Ms. Lippens, “They are probably going to be specialized for this equipment because of the run like in the court rooms, they will be up by the ceiling so that the camera will be up towards the ceiling pointing towards the judge. So there probably won’t be anything else we can use them for.”

Com. Evans, “We are going to experience the same type of problem here with GIS in this building when we go online. Can this company give us a proposal for what it would cost to do the same thing here?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes, we do have that problem in this building and the courthouse and a little bit at North County. Some of North County has been re-wired through the years but this building and most of the courthouse.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the Request for Proposals, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Agreement for Professional Services from Phoenix Solutions

Ms. Lippens, “Lastly, is an agreement for professional services from a company called Phoenix Solutions. The Juvenile Probation and Juvenile Detention and Juvenile Courts purchased new software last year. They will continue to use the old software with the hopes that they could extract the data from it and convert it to be used in their new software. We had a very difficult time trying to find anybody that could do that, that conversion, because the application that the original program was written in was not very widely used at the time and when it was used, it was in the very early 1980’s. And there is hardly anybody around that has even heard of it let alone able to work with it. I was able to, from the company’s website that produced that software, I was able to find a vendor in Oklahoma that said they had been experienced in working with this type of data, I sent them a CD, a sample of the data, they said they would be able to extract it, they gave us a cost, the total cost was $13,000.00. The Juvenile Probation Department found the $13,000.00 and we are getting ready to move forward. We also had an independent contractor that was going to look at and because of personal reasons, she had to bow out. During the time that the software was getting installed and the training was occurring, about six to eight months went past and so before moving forward with the data, I went back to the website just to see if there were any other companies, since only having one quote I felt comfortable with, there was about four other vendors on that site and I contacted all four and got a response from one. I sent them the CD as well and asked them to give me a price to convert the data over. They gave me a much more expensive proposal outlining exactly what they were going to do and they outlined a lot of the data information that showed me they spent time reviewing that CD and knew exactly what was on it and what they needed to do. Their price was $2,750.00. So, I am recommending that this proposal be approved and the money is in the Juvenile Probation budget.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the proposal, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “We had a discussion a meeting or two ago about the problem with data from the Juvenile Center and the Highway Garage. I read that company (inaudible)…recently entered the tower contract. Will that solve that problem?”

Ms. Lippens, “No, it will probably make it worse. They entered into an agreement with the city of Valparaiso to provide service to them in exchange for use of their water towers to place their equipment to sell their product. Which they did approach the county as well. At the time the county didn’t feel it was proper to open Pandora’s box to outside people putting things on our buildings and on our towers. We felt the county needed to keep separate from private businesses.”

Com. Evans, “And we still feel that way.”

Com. Harper, “And again, that is a $70,000.00 project.”

Ms. Lippens, “One of the things that would be part of that $70,000.00 would solve the Juvenile Center and the Highway Department but the equipment that is being used currently at those two buildings we could re-use at the Expo Center to allow them connectivity with the county which they don’t have right now.”

Com. Harper, “I think we should discuss this next time and at least discuss it because it is going to get worse between now and next time. We should look around and see what the solution it, it’s going to get worse, it’s bad enough as it is.”

Com. Evans, “In the meantime would it be worthwhile to contact, to get a license for those frequencies that we need?”

Ms. Lippens, “I have contacted a vendor that we had used in the past two frequencies that we used and the microwaves and they have given me a proposal, that is where the $70,000.00 came from, they kind of wanted to give me an estimate so that obviously they can bid. But we can not apply to the FCC for the license until we have the equipment. The type of license that we would be getting would be outside of the range that the other company would be using. So if they were to get in first, there would not be a licensing issue or two different frequencies.”

Com. Evans, “But because they got higher in the air they probably don’t need to worry about that now.”

Ms. Lippens, “They are going to be talking on a different frequency than we are. So there won’t be a problem with them and us, they will be talking on a 5.8 mega hertz frequency and we won’t. If we put in a licensed frequency system there will not be any interference because no one else will be allowed to use that frequency and if they do, the FCC will _______.”

Com. Evans, “It’s not going to go away without spending some money.”

Com. Harper, “Let’s put this on the agenda for two weeks from now. Maybe you could, if we had a Council meeting, you could do a little presentation for us to let us know exactly what the problem is and exactly what we need to do to solve it.”

Ms. Lippens, “Sure. We have looked at several options and we found what we feel is the best solution which includes adding the Animal Shelter as well as stepping in so speak for the Environmental Building when it’s completed so we would be adjoining the Animal Shelter and the Environmental Building, the Juvenile Center Services and the Highway together. So we would be adding some assets as well.”

Com. Evans, “Would you do that in the same frequency?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes. Those four buildings would be connected by fiber, underground and then they would go to one tower that would feed them to this building. Then the equipment that is used currently could be used over at the Expo Center because they are so close to the Jail even if this place, which they operate in that area as well, we’re so close they almost couldn’t interfere because they are so close. So we could re-use the equipment we have now.”

Com. Evans, “And we don’t need another tower.”

Ms. Lippens, “There’s a direct line of sight from the Expo Center to the Sheriff’s Department and they have plenty of room.”

Com. Harper, “So we will do this two weeks from now.”

Memorial Opera House
Holly Seibel, Director

Com. Harper, “The next thing we have is the Opera House. Holly, come on up. They have an approval for a billboard contract out of the portion of the CEDIT money that can be used for the promotion of the Opera House. Gwenn, you have already seen that, right?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Yes, I don’t have a problem with the contract, I just wanted to make sure we wanted to spend money on billboards. I think the best way to figure that out is to ….”

Com. Harper, “Well, the idea was for the promotion on this and we have the money set for this. (Inaudible)…”

Ms. Seibel, “Yes, we did pay the newspaper bill with some of the CEDIT money and this is the second one. The one billboard is at State Road 2 and Horseprarie and the other one is at US 130, half a block west of Joliet Road. It for one in November and one in December to promote our 2007 season. We were luck to get these.”

Com. Harper, “You can sell season tickets, I mean, that’s what brings in the money isn’t it?”

Ms. Seibel, “Yes. And they had nothing to offer us for earlier in the year for current events.”

Com. Evans, “Under Standard Provisions, Number 5, calls for the payment of interest if the bills are paid on time.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We’ll pay it on time.”

Com. Evans, “Well, that sometimes doesn’t happen in government.”

Ms. Seible, “We haven’t received the billing yet, they faxed this to us and I just brought it down for you to look at. We have told them we are government and we don’t pay interest, that it’s just not done.”

Com. Evans, “Just as long as they understand.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We have never paid interest.”

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

Ms. Seibel, “If you could all sign it and I could get the copies back to them.”

Com Harper, “Can you get it tomorrow, is that all right?”

Ms. Seibel, “That’s fine.”

Com. Harper, “All right. Next we have commissioners reports.”

Com. Evans, “I think the wireless guy is here.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, lets jump back to the Roadway Wireless Sensing Project.”

ROADWAY WIRELESS SENSING PROJECT
Michael Stacey, University of Notre Dame
Peter Bower

Peter Bower, “I am in the University of Notre Dame, Department of Electrical Engineering and am part of this easy sensing starting company.”

Mike Stacey, “My name is Mike Stacey, I’m in graduate school at Notre Dame, in the college of business. Just to give a brief overview, Peter and two of his students are working on some type of technology, wireless sensing technology at the university and we are looking to commercialize the technology. We are in the early stages of that, we are actually a finalist in the Business Plan Competition at Notre Dame right now. In order to get to that point of commercialization, we are looking to form a partnership with a local county, local agency in the area. The concept that we have, wireless sensing technology, is the core of it. Wireless sensor can basically sense raw information such as temperature, humidity, acceleration, motion. We have developed a concept to apply this to roadways and specifically our initial target would be a rural county road, similar to 49, where there is multiple kinds of threats that happen on the road such as deer crossing the road, ice, debris, accidents on the road. The sensor can sense multiple things and there are sensors out there on the roadway such as the animal sensors on the toll road. Our sensors can basically sense multiple things at once and then produce the output, not only for the drivers but for the benefit of the counties and local agencies. In the future phases of this we hope to connect cars as well, so cars would have sensors and the outputs can go to the cars as far as what the threats are, so the initial phase will be the back up and the output would be a sign on the road and future phases and would be within the car or in GPS or On Star or cell phone technology. Maybe Peter can elaborate more on the technology.”

Mr. Bower, “The focus there is on stretches of road that are accident prone or basically a number of hazards and there are I would say, with occluded vision when you have obstructed vision. So it could be tight turns, s curves, winding roads, over a hill kind of situation or when you drive at night on state roads, county roads, or even interstate highways. The idea and the concept there is to invent sensanals on the street surface and they communicate with each other, gather data and dump it into something we can digital street pole that extracts useful information from these sensors and communicates it to the driver. In the first version, it would be signs, watch out for deer crossing, or watch out flooding, or watch out oncoming traffic too fast, things like later. Later this could be communicated directly into the vehicle with a box that is basically compatible to our system that you could install where vehicle manufacturers put them in. So this is really technology tool that we reduce the number of fatalities and accidents in trouble spots on state roads, county roads, and interstate roads.”
Mr. Stacey, “Through the Beta Partnership which we are looking at with the county and two to three counties in the areas, it is really to study the data to test the reliability of the product and to tweak it to make it more meaningful. I think our expertise flies in electrical engineering, however, we need to understand roads and what the traps are and what are the meaningful solutions, so that’s the purpose of our partnership.”

Mr. Bower, “This project, for a little background, was started by an NSF National Science Foundation Research Project that was given to my group in the electrical engineering department to data mining and sensors for threats against terrorist activities and we found that the digital street phone concept would be a very, almost ideal, playing field for this kind of sensors we have out there.”

Com. Harper, “So what are you asking from Porter County?”

Mr. Stacey, “I guess initially, if there is interest in a Beta Partnership and ultimately it would be a Beta Partnership. To start out with, the first step would be a letter of intent.”

Com. Harper, “Are we talking financial contribution or just to allow you to work?”

Mr. Bower, “In terms of financial contributions, what we had in mind is that we would produce the system for one of your most notorious trouble spots and deliver it at our own cost, so to speak, and that would be a system of ___ and a ______. (Mr. Bower had a foreign accent and could not be understood). The other options are to leasing it to the ____ of our cost, the main focus here is not to get the company started, the main focus here is to prove a concept, we are looking for a partner. We would do that at cost.”

Com. Harper, “What does that cost?”

Mr. Stacey, “That is something we are actually working towards. I think probably by the end of the week we would probably have an exact cost. If we to ball park, I think probably between $20,000 to $30,000 for the initial one stretch of road application. This would be a county road so it would be a two lane road, not a four lane road.”

Mr. Bower, “Or a state road.”

Com. Harper, “The night before last, you know we have been working with these black boxes, almost every car has those now, I don’t know if people realize that, and last night on CNN, and by the way, those black boxes, in my opinion, bring back a lot of really good information. Last night on CNN, they were showing where many of the commercial lines in the very near future, are going to have cameras in the cab of a semi or a bus that will report the activity for five seconds before and five seconds after an accident, automatically, which is going to be unbelievable as to what that is going to do to accident prevention. I think if a semi is going through stop lights, and I think about how many death cases we have because of that. And, my mind tells me that shortly this is going to be in all commercial vehicles and it is not going to be long before they come out with it in cars. With things like you fellas are working on, pretty soon its going to be pretty safe to drive. We may not see it, but it will be there. It absolutely is. With what they are learning about how people get hurt when cars wreck, I am sure with you being in the engineering department, that you will experience this, but I am not sure we are talking about Porter County. I would say probably the best for you, my thought would be, for you to visit with our engineering department, Dave Schelling, our engineer, and if he thought there might be some value to this, he could bring it back to us.”

Com. Evans, “I kind of like the lease type thing that you talk about, too. It might be a better option. If the technology gets so good that what Commissioner Harper is talking about, just think of the number of accident and injury attorneys we can do away with.”

Com. Harper, “And also the funeral homes.”

Com. Evans, “Also this morning on Fox News, they were talking about some guy who stole or bought on EBay a sensor for the intersections that turn the lights, that when they come to an intersection, to turn the light green for emergency vehicles and this fellow had caused traffic jams at the same intersection in Phoenix, I think it was, for like three or four months. They finally had to put cameras on there to figure out what was going on and it was always the same people going through there. With your technology, what is the chance of outside influence or outside, or we were just talking with our IT people about somebody else on another frequency that affected this with the risk of errors also there, too, that we could put somebody in harm’s way.”

Mr. Bower, “We just talked about that where we recently said about the tampering with the sensors that are buried in the street, would be very dangerous for the person who would want to do that because these things, literally, are embedded in the tarmac, in the tar. So, it would take him a very long time to get it out, he would probably destroy the sensor by the time he has it out and more importantly, since it is ___, he would probably get hit by a car in the process of trying to extract it. (inaudible)…..”

Com. Harper, “I don’t know how the other two Commissioners feel but I think if you guys get with David, our Highway Engineer, and if he feel that he wants to bring something back to us, that’s fine.”

Com. Evans, “Personally, I think it’s a great concept, and I would love to see Porter County be made a project booster for you. The problem we are going to have obviously is financial.”

Mr. Stacey, “Okay, and we can work towards that, we are still working on some financial aspects and the leasing arrangement. It will probably be a different quote than I gave you. It will probably be a quote where you would own the hardware, I think a lease would be something different.”

Com. Harper, “Are you doing this anywhere right now in this area?””

Mr. Stacey, “Not this specific concept. There are a lot of different technologies in the wireless sensor market but what we are looking at besides multiple threats in the county, the rural setting, the two lane road setting, there’s nothing like this.”

Mr. Bower, “Are you asking whether we are going to get someplace else?”

Com. Harper, “No, just anybody, if anybody’s doing it.”

Mr. Stacey, “There are road sensors out there, the animal sensors on the Toll Road, but again they’re sensing one thing, they are not sensing multiple things.”

Com. Harper, “Now how does that work?”

Mr. Stacey, “I spoke with Sam Wolfe from the Toll Road and there’s a sensor on the side of the road, there’s a barrier on the Toll Road and when a deer crosses the barrier, there’s a light, says animal present when flashing. So, basically when a deer crosses that barrier, and that is a huge problem, even on 80 in Elkhart County.”

Com. Evans, “What about the ability to help with weather diagnostics and barometric pressure and those types of things?”

Mr. Bower, “Actually, yes. That would be the second stage then, the second stage we would not just make the ___ just for motorists that are entering this particular curve, but the long range communications are for weather stations, or subscriber services, and you know, disseminate the information on an _____. But that is kind of a few years down the line.”

Com. Harper, “Why don’t you set up something with David and get back to us.”

Mr. Stacey, “Very good.”

COMMISSIONERS’ REPORTS

North District:

1. Request for Federal STP Group I Funds for a possible project to improve the CSX Bridger over CR 50 West just north of CR 900 North. It is unknown at this time if the project is possible, but it would be great to change this one lane underpass to a two lane underpass. This request is for $480,000.00 federal funds with $120,000.00 local funds for a total project cost of $600,000.00. This is probably over twice the funds needed but it is better to estimate high.

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

Center District:

1. Augustine Subdivision Road Agreement, located on the east side of CR 325 East south side of CR 400 North, and west side of CR 400 East. Offer to contribute $750.00/lot for a total of $52,500.00. Owner and subdivider is Larry Bucher. Recommend approval.

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

2. Turtle Run Subdivision Road Agreement, located on the south side of CR 500 North, 1700 feet west of CR 450 East. Offer to contribute $750.00/lot for a total of $32,250.00. Owner and subdivider is Centre Point Properties, LLC, Tim Chesna, managing partner.

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


CORRESPONDENCE

Treasurer’s monthly report for March 2006 is on file.
Court Security Activity Report for March 2006 is on file.
Weights and Measures monthly report for February and March 2006 is on file.
Emergency Management monthly reports for January, February, March 2006 is on file

Approval of catering contract with Gelsosomo’s for Expo Center

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

Approval by Valpo Lions Club for flag poles around the courthouse for Avenue of Flags

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

Request for additional appropriation-Highway

Fund 25 $65,000 acct # C-3950 Bridge Inspection
To pay for semi annual bridge inspection.

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

Request for additional appropriation-Highway

Fund 26.191 $30,000 acct 3950 contractual services
Fund 26.291 $30,000 acct 3950 contractual services
Fund 26.391 $30,000 acct 3950 contractual services

Funds to be used for pulverizing roads and road striping.

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

DOOR REPAIR AT NORTH COUNTY

Com. Harper, “They have had trouble with that for ever. Mrs. Miller has gone out and got some prices for that.”

Com. Evans, “These kinds of things come up and most of the time they are an emergency type situation and we end up patching it up until we can get somebody to give us a bid or do something else. I think most of the time it would be more expeditious to have somebody from our body with the authority just to authorize the expenditure up to say, $2,500.00 that would be able to say do it and repair it in a manner that is going to be permanent rather than just do a makeshift job and try to patch it up so we can get to this body to ask for funds. So I would like to make a motion that Commissioner Harper be given that authority.”

Com. Evans moved to approve Com. Harper be given authority to authorize expenditures up to $2,500.00 for repairs to county property,

Com. Knoblock, “Are they putting new ones in or just repairing them?”

Com. Harper, “No, she’s putting new ones in now, what John is saying is rather than having, he’s made a motion that if it’s $2,500.00 or less, then I am able to decide for the county to make improvements until we get it done. Do you have any questions about that?”

Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Do you want to handle these now or do you just want me to handle it?”

Com. Evans, “Why don’t you just handle it.”

Com. Harper, “I’ll keep everybody informed. We had a request, the federal government is requiring us to put in another locked door in Voter’s Registration.”

Ms. Hartig, “This one is for $14,000.00.”

Com. Harper, “Is that for the sliding doors?”

Ms. Hartig, “That is for replacing the automatic doors at North County.”

Com. Harper, “People have been having trouble with those doors. They have these sliding doors up there that I think have been up there for years and I don’t think they have worked right. So I think this weekend they were opened. The security guy said they had some problems this weekend. But it goes on and on with these things. Have you looked at this, Gwenn? I don’t know what will happen.”

Com. Evans, “There is only one quote.”

Com. Harper, “It’s for swinging doors, automatic for handicapped use so apparently there are not going to use the sliding doors.”

Com. Evans, “I would like to see more than one proposal.”

Com. Harper, “All right, then let’s put it on the agenda for two weeks and ask Mrs. Miller if she get more. Do you have any suggestions?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Did she try to get other proposals? She usually tries to get three, she knows we need three.”

Ms. Hartig, “Usually she does and she said she was going to call Trout Glass but she said the last time they contracted out to Great Lakes next door so she didn’t.”

Com. Harper, “Why don’t you ask her to do that?”

Com. Evans, “Yes, I would like to see at least one more, possibly two, please.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “They got started on the window cleaning, first time in ten years.

FLU EPIDEMIC

Com. Harper, “Our Emergency Management Department and the Health Department have been doing a lot of work and continue to do a lot of work, to try and plan actions to take in case we would have a flu epidemic or if we had it with or without medicine and how it would be handled in the county. I have read, and the Health Department has prepared a plan, they have put a lot of work into it. They have done that along with Emergency Management. I would like to put them on the agenda for a 20 to 30 minute presentation of that at our next meeting to bring everybody up to speed on how they plan to deal with that and some of the plans they’ve made. Then after they do that, I believe that they plan to set up some public meetings in various parts of the county to explain some of the various things that they have planned and are going to plan in the future. In addition to that. someone is going to have to help with the date, I think maybe on May 12, but in the near future they are having a run through exercise out at the Expo Center. Does anyone know that date that is here? Anyway, they are going to do that. I think it is important that everybody know that they are trying with the resources they have, on a county level, to prepare if something like that happens. Is there any objection to giving them 20 to 30 minutes at our meeting two weeks from now to make that presentation. We will put them on the schedule and put them on at the end of the meeting, and once they get done here, they will set some meetings around the county so people can go. They have a written plan, I haven’t asked the Health Department but I assume it is available if anybody wants to see a copy of it. I had a copy but I loaned to somebody. It shows that they are working to try and be prepared. Is there anyone else that has anything to come before the Commissioners? Let’s take a five minute break and then we will go into Plan Commission. In the Plan Commission we are going to have the discussion of the trails and greenway Master Plan contract and the Marquette Plan discussion. So we will take a short five minute break.”

PLAN COMMISSION
Development Plan—2nd reading

Com. Harper, “Let’s start with the Plan Commission. The first thing on the agenda is the Development Plan, second reading.”

Mr. Thompson, “Again, this is second reading and we continued this from the last Commissioners’ meeting so that way Commissioner Knoblock had time to review the actual ordinance on it. If you want me to go through a full presentation, I can.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the Plan Commission’s Development Plan No. 06-04 on second reading, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Before you go into the Trails and Greenway Master Plan Contract, the Plan Commission has been working on the unified county planning ordinance. Bob, why don’t you announce what type, where you are at and what type of hearings you sell.”

Mr. Thompson, “Right now we are involved with what is called Draft C. Draft C is available and it’s at our office for review and it is also on the webpage. It has been on the webpage for awhile. We are announcing here shortly what I will be sending this to the newspaper to show them we are going to be holding public hearings on May 9, May 11 and May12. May 9 is a Tuesday, May 11 is a Thursday, and May 12 a Friday. We are breaking this down into chapters. Right now there is a total of 12 chapters within the UDO.”
Com. Harper, “What’s UDO?”

Mr. Thompson, “Unified Development Ordinance. I know I have a tendency to do that, to shorten it up. The Unified Development Ordinance, what we are going to be doing on Tuesday, May 9, is we are going to be discussing Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4. Those chapters very quickly, Chapter 1 talks about the statutory powers that create the Plan Commission and establishing the zoning districts. Chapter 2 discusses the zoning districts very extensively, talking about the uses that are allowed. Chapter 3, overlays; Chapter 4 I believe is the Planned Unit Development section. The Thursday night meeting that we are going to be holding on May 11 will be covering chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8. Chapter 5 deals with development standards for zoning districts; Chapter 6 is subdivisions and subdivision types; Chapter 7 talks about the development standards for the subdivisions and Chapter 8 is construction standards. The Friday meeting on the 12th is 9, 10, 11 and 12. 12 is definition; 11 talks about non-conforming uses and it just starts getting more into the legal backgrounds. I think 10 is procedures before the Plan Commission, no 9 is procedures. And the other one is penalties and enforcements. It is getting more into the legal aspect of it. In my opinion, the more important days, well, all of them are important, but the ones that I feel are the most important would be Tuesday, because it’s establishing and talking about the zoning districts that night and the Thursday night one is going to be discussing the development standards for those zoning districts plus subdivisions. So that is where we are at right now. If you cannot make those meetings, we are taking public comments up until May 18 and that’s a Thursday, May 18, we will take public comment all the way up to that point, written to me, address it to me, and then on that Friday what we are going to do is I am going to be working on trying to gather all this information. Once we get all the information for the public comment and other comments we are taking. We are sitting down with Plan Commission members on a one on one basis now to get their comments on this. Also, we are going to be presenting that more likely, at a public hearing for the Plan Commission and then sending that back to Ground Rules. This isn’t going to be the last draft. I’m looking at this as probably, this is going to be draft D.”

Com. Harper, “I think you should get, I know I’ve got a hard copy, I think we should get one to Commissioner Knoblock and Gwenn’s got one, then everybody has the latest hard copy available. We are going to be faced with this in probably three months as Commissioners.”

Mr. Thompson, “If you would like, give me a call and I would be more than happy to come down and go through that whole document with you and discuss any concerns you have.”

Kevin Breitzke, “Bob, you didn’t state that the meetings will be held here in the Commissioner’s Chambers and the times are?”

Mr. Thompson, “You’re right. All of these meetings will be held here in the Commissioner’s Chambers and they will start at 6:30.”

Com. Harper, “This is not a document you can digest in one night.”

Mr. Thompson, “No, it’s not. That is why we broke it up.”

Mr. Breitzke, “Also, Mr. Chairman, out intent is not to cut off comments, period, but to put those into the draft D of the document. We have Draft C that is done, and we are still taking those comments by that, but there’s potentially a Draft E but hopefully we can satisfy most of our concerns with the Draft D. We are, to the credit of Mr. Thompson, and Attorney Tallion, there is a great piece of work with the consultant. It’s a huge document in that we do repeat some things, but its for the simplicity for the user so there is some restating of things but its to make is simpler. So don’t be put off by the thickness of it because we are just trying to make it an efficient document. A lot of things are unstated or understated.”

Com. Harper, “The other one was like this and didn’t have anything about dumps. So it’s good to be like this.”
Com. Evans, “Your opinion of the consultants is, I mean, when we went into this there were varying degrees of cost associated with the different consultants and I just wanted to know how you’ve been working with them and what is your impression?”

Mr. Thompson, “It’s a nice document, I will state that. I consider it to be very user friendly. There’s a lot of references to it. That part I can like. I will say, they are small, because it is a small operation, that I am dealing with there could be a few shortcomings in the sense like I am probably going to be doing a little more work than I expected on some of things. For example, Chapter 8, Construction Standards. We are probably going to creating a document like a ___ resolution that talks about these construction standards and going through and redoing it, mainly because I don’t want to step on the engineer’s toes. I don’t want to talk about compaction or anything like that but I want to get a basic right of way width with the basic pavement width. Then that’s it, boom. Then David will take care of the compaction and what not and the types of material and everything like that. I don’t want to get into that, I just want to keep it very simple for some of the things we do have. Also, what I want to get into would be dealing in some of the areas in the planning areas such as parking lots. There I need to get a little more extensive such as depth of stone and asphalt and constructing a well made parking lot. I am also going to get into landscaping, listing trees that we would like to see in certain areas.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “How come this is more work you are going to be doing instead of them?”

Mr. Thompson, “I am more comfortable doing it myself.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Oh, I see.”

Com. Harper, “Plus it probably has something to do with paying (inaudible)…”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That’s what I was wondering, we could probably give him more money if they need it.”

Com. Harper, “We have almost $200,000.00 set aside for it.”

Mr. Breitzke, “There’s many things we can accomplish, we just want to make sure that we get the biggest bang for the buck out of this and if there are things we need in the end or need expediently, we still have some source of revenue.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Bob shouldn’t have to do the extra work. We should come up with more money if we don’t have enough money to finish the project.”

Com. Harper, “Bob, have you thought about that?”

Mr. Thompson, “There’s a lot of things I am trying to make a list of things, and one of the things I had on was landscaping. We talked about buffers and everything and right now, it’s just well, go out and put a pine tree here, it’s like …….”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Would that be like an amendment to the contract to have them do it and do it right so you don’t have all this additional work?”

Mr. Thompson, “No offense to Ground Rules, I think they are very good at writing codes or planning and zoning in this situation. I don’t know, this is an aspect I really want to get involved with them because I have been talking with Ed Melendez on that since he has a degree in Horticulture and everything like that. It’s summed up the other information I have from the Department of Natural Resources on tree selections and things like that. I would feel more comfortable and this isn’t a slam towards Ground Rules, but looking elsewhere if I had to go out and use somebody else. One of the things I have been talking to them about is this construction manual. Brad Johnson, the principal for Ground Rules, has been talking to an engineer that he knows, he knows a few engineers that are in private practice and could possibly step in and assist them with doing that.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is this going to be part of a whole package that all of it is going to be done before the Commissioners consider the whole thing?”

Mr. Thompson, “I guess my first reaction is to say no. It will eventually be there and I am going to be working on it, but ___ construction standards and a lot of it cross referenced to other manuals and materials. It is going to come through as a separate ordinance to this so that way we can cross reference it and not be included into a, it would be a working manual.”

Unidentified male in audience, “The public hearings in May, in this room, but which body presides, the County Commissioners?”

Com. Harper, “No, its just the Plan Commission. Well, I don’t even think it is the Plan Commission.”

Mr. Thompson, “It is going to be Karen Tallion and I standing up here and becoming writing machines and taking down all the comments. It won’t be in front, as far as an advertised public hearing in front of one of the boards, it is just going to be Karen and I taking comments.”

Male, “I personally think that members of the Plan Commission should attend so that they can hear what the public has to say. They may or may not agree with some of the comments, but I think the Plan Commission members should be encouraged to attend the public hearing.”

Mr. Thompson, “They are more than welcome to come. The only thing I ask is that this is for public comment.”

Mr. Breitzke, “Mr. Chairman, that is something that when we talked to Plan Commission, and since I am the chairman of the Plan Commission, was we were looking for public input, not for discussion, or debate, but just to hear what the public had to say and their issues with portions of it. See if we can address it. Likewise, I would like to mention, too, that my concern with any aspects of this is we go to a specialist. If you are going for a medical issue, or a legal issue, I always look for the person who is specialist, not a generalist. We have hired somebody that can put together our ordinances generally, but there’s a specific aspects that we wanted to make sure that we had a wallet for that just in case, because of the times we had, we don’t know if there is more money necessarily down the road, but we do know that money is there for what we need at this time. But I appreciate your support for the whole process. That’s nice.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I just want to make sure I am understanding the public hearing and maybe I am misunderstanding it. It seems like you are just having public hearings to hear comments so you can take information and add it to your ordinances. Then when you get ordinance E, you will be presenting it to the Plan Commission and they will have public hearings. Then when the Plan Commission refers it to us, we will get it and we will have public hearings. So, this is probably going to end up going through several public hearings.”

Mr. Thompson, “After these public hearings when Karen and I take all the comments and put them all together we will probably be presenting it to the Plan Commission at a public hearing for them to decide what direction to go.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That would be a Plan Commission public hearing. Then when it gets to us, it will be our public hearing.”

Com. Harper, “Maybe we can take part in this. Let me say this, whenever you do a project of this size, you can’t please everybody. That’s what Ground Rules knows. They have worked on that premise and somehow the document has to come together with the idea that you take public comment and try and work with what you can work with. Somehow you will never get everybody satisfied.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Public hearing doesn’t mean everybody is happy, it just means they’re heard.”

Com. Harper, “But you have to get to the end point. And it has been my understanding that this has been tried before in Porter County and it got the input that John (Inaudible)…… turmoil. You know, at some point, you need to bring closure. You need your public hearings, but you also need closure.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That is why the Commissioners can say we are going to have a public hearing for two hours, everybody gets three minutes, when we’re done we close the public hearing and we are making a decision.”

Com. Harper, “Plus the Commissioners can go to the Plan Commission. The idea is the Commissioners may have input. We can sit down with Bob and spend four or five hours and say I don’t like this or I don’t like that and so forth, that’s ideal.”

TRAILS AND GREENWAY MASTERPLAN CONTRACT

Mr. Thompson, “I was on the selection committee with the Parks Department for the five year master plan and when we were going through the interviewing of the consultants, one of the things I kept asking them about is their experience doing trails and greenway plans. They were along the line of what NIRPC did, off road trails for citizens to use for walking, riding mountain bikes, in areas connecting green corridors, wildlife people to enjoy that type of recreation. So, the two companies that were finalists with the Parks Department did put this in their scope of work as an additional at this time. Ed and I are going to proceed on looking on how we can further supplement and work with in doing something like this. The whole idea of this would be as a resolution and amendment to our land use and thoroughfare plan and it also could be considered with our zoning and subdivision control ordinances as an alternative type of transportation plan for the trail part of it. So, the Park Department selected Everetts & Kelsey to do the five year master plan and within their scope of work and their contract we added an additional for this. Ed and I went in front of the Council and Commissioners at a joint meeting and talked about it. We didn’t hear anything negative from that meeting other than don’t ask us for the money, go find it, you guys got it and work it out. So Ed and I have done that; essentially what we are asking since this is going to be in ordinance part and also in the Thoroughfare Plan, I am going to take $12,500.00 from CEDIT fund that the Plan Commission has and Ed is going to take $12,500.00 from his CEDIT funding that he has due from Parks and we are going to come together on this. This is really supplemental to the existing contract that the Park Department has with their five year master plan. Why is it here before you? Since I am paying $12,500.00 for the Plan Commission, Plan Commission can’t approve contracts or supplements to the contracts so I need your approval on this.”

Com. Harper, “John, you read that. This is sort of what was at one of our joint meetings with the Plan Commission. That is what they sort of suggested that we do. In the process, he is asking approval as part of the $200,000.00 set aside for Ground Rules. (Inaudible)……., So he is asking to use $12,500.00 from that and to combine it from the Park Department and be part of the plan.”

Com. Evans, “Excellent idea.”

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




MARQUETTE PHASE 2 DISCUSSION

Mr. Thompson, “This is Marquette Plan, Phase 2. I was approached a while back by John Swanson, (inaudible)… asking to become partners within Phase 2 of Marquette Plan and also they explained the situation and asked that Porter County will be able to help contribute to this plan. Phase 1 was done, it was essentially done in Congressman’s Visclosky’s area and it goes from the Illinois state line over east towards the east side of Portage. Phase 2 will be in Rep. Chicolas’ area, as kind of a pick up from the area in Portage where Phase 1 left off and go to the Michigan state line. Again, I was before the Commissioners and Council on this requesting the possibility of CEDIT money for about $50,000.00 on this match. Part of the match, Mike Molnar, who is behind me, will probably get more specific as far as where who is paying for this and where the money is coming in as part of the federal side. I know part is coming from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U. S. Department of Commerce. This will be getting into more specific a site, I guess in the situation of what Portage did. Portage adopted it within a north lake study and was more specific of a comprehensive plan. Again, this would be more specific of a plan in Porter County and could be adopted as an amendment to the Land Use Plan. One of the things also, too, is looking at it and one of the aspects within this study, and I think Mike and Reggie will get into it more, is to be able to create a sustainable economic development strategy for US 12 and US 20. So there is little more than open way and green ways on this but is actually looking at an economic study for the US 12 and US 20 corridors. With that, I know Reggie Korthals with NIRPC here has more on it. Mike Molnar here with the Department of Natural Resources and Jenny __ here with the Department of Natural Resources and I think your questions will probably be better answered by them and also have a brief discussion with them.”

Mike Molnar, “Good evening. Thank for affording the opportunity to come before you and try to explain a little more. You have on your desk three documents. The large one was the document produced as a result of Phase 1 Marquette Plan. Phase 1 is dealing with a different area than we are to based upon the demographics and also the land use that we see present throughout there. So that had a little bit different angle to it than Phase 2 will have after we go forward. When we were going through Phase 1, that was the only study that was going on at the time so it was a little bit more comprehensive and Reggie will talk a little bit about some of the things that NIRCP has going on and how we are developing some synergies between the different projects that are ongoing. The first Phase was $200,000.00 total in cost. We provided $160,000.00 of grant funding to Portage. They were the lead community in conjunction with the other four participating communities; East Chicago, Whiting, Hammond and Gary. They all signed a Memorandum of Agreement prior to the start of the project as to what the principals were that they were going to look into. Each of those communities donated $8,000.00 in cash match to the project to bring it up to $200,000.00; we provided $160,000.00; their match was $40,000.00. As we move into Phase 2, some of our requirements have changed due to the age of our program. When the program was first put into place back in 2002, our federal sponsors gave us a favorable match rate on planning projects such as Marquette. At that time it was a 4 to 1 match. With the funding that we have for this project its down to a 1 to 1 match. So, we had to get creative with what we are doing with this project. I don’t think that in these times that anybody can write a check for 40, 50, or 60 thousand dollars and just say here’s your cash match. So you look at the scope of this project of Phase 2, it is $125,000.00 of our award, we are putting in $15,000.00 of our staff time commitment as match to it because we see it as a very important project. Then we’ve come up with some creative funding solutions for the rest with some of these ongoing studies that can compliment and reduce the workload of what Phase 2 is going to be. The $50,000.00 that Bob is asking you for from the CEDIT funding, would be an important component. Its an area that probably wouldn’t be a main focus area of this study given everything else that is being looked at. It can be a real benefit as it goes forward and benefits the county through the economic development potential in the future. So that is my little introduction. Also, the second thing that you have there is a background document that I prepared for you. Just in case you weren’t familiar with the program, you can look through that at your leisure. We are also having our advisory board meeting tomorrow night where we will be giving the state of the program ____ and that is going to be at Red Mill County Park before our advisory board. So if you read through that and it peaks your interest and you want to know more, feel free to come out here and hear the whole story. Thank you for your time.”

Reggie Korthals, “Good evening, gentlemen and Carole. I’ll just start out with a little background. One of the things NIRPC did when it decided to take on this project, was that we went to the Illinois Indiana Sea Grant Fund and asked for $10,000.00 to do a feasibility study. We got 5 an matched it with 5 so we were able to see if this is really something that the communities along this corridor wanted to undertake because this is the different demographic than what the other area is and we conducted one on one interviews with the elected officials in these communities that are on this map that you have. And the overwhelming consensus was absolutely. We need to be part of this, we want to be part of it. Some of the feedback from the smaller communities like Dune Acres, the town of Pines, Beverly Shores, Pottawatomie Trail, even Porter, you know we have limited funds and we are not going to be able to provide you any money to do this but we certainly could provide you with input. Then we would like your help in helping us do regional planning, or area planning. So we are looking at that, too. Then as Mike said we needed to look at how we were going to fund this. So once the feasibility study was done and we determined that we would move ahead with this project, the coastal grant is $125,000.00. NIRPC received a grant from the Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelly Foundation of $165,000.00 to do a green space and water trails project for all three counties, the whole area of all three counties. So what we did, was we took a percentage of that which covered the area that falls within this planning area, the Lake Michigan coastal area, and determined that the percentage of that grant that covers this area is $71,800.00 so we are going to use that to help match the $125,000.00 because the work will be the same and we won’t have to duplicate it and we already have our partners together. Then at the same time, another effort was going on in LaPorte County. LaPorte County came together and decided to create a LaPorte County land development master plan and it was a partnership between the city of LaPorte, Michigan City, and the Commissioners of LaPorte County. It’s the same area we are covering in the north. So we have signed written agreements from the mayor of Michigan City, Mayor Morris from LaPorte and the LaPorte County Commissioners that we can use the percentage of the funds they set aside as the match funds for this and that was $38,500.00. So we are getting closer to what we need. One of the things we discovered also in our conversations with Bob and we’ve been working on the UDO, Unified Development Ordinance, and being able to see what we can do a partnership that will compliment what he’s doing and a major component to that was looking at development along the 12 and 20 corridor. So the initial funds that we have accumulated for Marquette 2 won’t allow us to do the extensive work that needs to be done on that corridor. That’s why we initially came to you to say this is where we are going to need the help with the CEDIT money. Our initial presentation with the joint meeting had some questions from the Council, more of the procedural things of the Lake Michigan coastal program not really the grant itself. Certain Council members were remembering back to 1995 when we had some issues with that and Mike was kind enough to help explain that to some of them and if we have to again, we can. But, we are to a point now where the grant has been completed, the money is there ready to move ahead and we are looking at probably July 1st to do that. I also took a great deal to heart on some conversations you had with me, Commissioner Harper and looking at what it would take to do this and be physically constrained that the $50,000.00 could actually come down to $38,500.00, which happens to be the about the same thing LaPorte just gave us, and that would be enough to do the project.”

Com. Evans, “I think it’s great and I go with the sentiments of all those people and all those communities that you talked to and it’s very much needed. But really is there a lot of emphasis that we need to put on economic development on Highway 12? I mean it is national park.”

Ms. Korthals, “Here is something that is in the Marquette Phase 1, it’s recommended that we consider Highway 12 for a scenic corridor. In the development of a scenic corridor, there are opportunities for small businesses to develop along that scenic corridor for tourism. So I think that is something we need to look at; not that it would be light industrial or anything like that, but I think if we were to look at as a scenic corridor, we need to look at what opportunities would be available for small businesses in that area.”

Com. Evans, “Is there any property that could be purchased on 12?”

Ms. Korthals, “See, that is part of it that we are going to have to look at. I think there are areas there, there is an area currently immediately east of the development where Portage is doing their 249 that actually is for sale now. That might be something we might want to look at, historic area, historic home. So, that would be part of what we would have to find out.”

Com. Evans, “I would like to know what at least LaPorte County does.”

Com. Harper, “I visualize the Marquette Plan as being downtown Chicago, trees, and so forth, and preserving green space. Now this strip of land we are talking about has a national lakeshore and the Indiana Dunes. How much of the lakeshore would you be dealing with in this plan? Would there be any part of this plan that would be dealing with ____ this lakeshore property?”

Com. Evans, “I can answer that. It doesn’t look like shoreline crosses south of any of the national park boundary.”

Mr. Molnar, “That was one of the things we looked at with Phase 1 as one of the principles that was used as a planning guide, was that the plan was supposed to take onto 75% of the public access to the Lake Michigan shore. Right now that Phase 1 is about 33% public access, if they fully implement the Marquette Plan it takes them up to 80%. When I began my presentation, I touched on the fact that we do have some different demographics in the area and it is based upon the land use that we have. If you look at the eastern portion, you are probably in excess of that 75% public access right now at this moment. So, as the full scope of the work for Phase 2 is flushed out, that is going to be one of the things that will be looked at is the focus really needing to be on the natural area of protection or can it shift to some of the other purposes that the towns need regular planning and technical assistance of that nature. So, its up to the public as to what comes out of this document and that is one of the great things about it, is you look at the area, typically you see towns plan to their boundary and that is where it ends so you may have towns that abut each other that their plans don’t match up. What Marquette is striving to do is get that regional comprehensive plan approach to it so that you are planning for everything as a region. So if the public sees it needs more of one thing versus another, that’s the direction it is going to take.”

Ms. Korthals, “I think it’s important to know, too, that this is really going to be driven by the community. We are not going to go in there with a pre-conceived idea on what to do. So with that said, expansion of the national lakeshore, if that is kind of where you were going, that isn’t necessarily on the table. Okay? We need to find out what these small communities particularly Porter and the Dune Acres, Beverly Shores and Pines, those communities, what they want to get out of this. We looked at a number of things, one, are they going to need assistance for community land development strategies, are they going to need assistance for small business economic development, are they going to need a mechanism for, one of the things that came out of our initial interview are small communities wanted to see this plan create a mechanism for better communication between the small communities and the federal and state land owners. Better communication between the state and the national parks. So, what the ultimate result of this plan, in my opinion will see, is different than what you will see in Marquette 1. You are going to see a comprehensive land use plan for the entire coastal area but it is going to be different from what each county needs. What the needs of those people are.”

Com. Harper, “What’s going on with Marquette 1? Where is that going, that goes nowhere unless it is approved by the RDA, right?”

Ms. Korthals, “No, there is already, the RDA approval is not so much for the plans, it is for projects that are in there. The city of Portage, we had a special presentation yesterday in Merrillville, NIRPC and NICTD did a presentation, on what we call transit oriented development around train stations. It gives the opportunity to see what Portage is doing with that development from where our building is to down to the lakeshore, all under the Marquette initiative. It’s unbelievable, it’s astronomical what they are putting in there.”

Com. Harper “Are they putting in anything there that is going on more public access?”

Ms. Korthals, “Yes, absolutely. More public access, more housing.”

Com. Harper, “Do you think this plan will in any way increase public access?”

Ms. Korthals, “You know that is a good question. As you look at what the holdings are in Phase 2 with the national lakeshore and the parks, I know Michigan City is going to be doing some expanding, but in Porter County itself, land wise, I am not sure what that is, but I am not going to say it won’t until I have a better conversation with the communities. But just knowing the land, I don’t know how, in talking with Dale Lindquist, I don’t know how that would happen.”

Mr. Molnar, “One of the other things that was considered in Phase 1 wasn’t just getting it right to the lakeshore, it was accessed throughout the entire planning area, the north-south connectors, the east-west connectors, and some of that is lacking, even in this planning area, so it is a matter of going with that transit or development, especially with the South Shore being the central, you know, getting access more south from the east-west connectors.”

Com. Harper, “Carole, do you have any questions?”

Com. Knoblock, “No.”

Mr. Thompson, “I guess one of the things I would look at when talking about public access and everything, I also look at another point. With Lorelei Weimer’s report that she gave out, you think people just come in here for a day trip. If we look at the aspect and building on what Reggie said about some of these small businesses, it might come in and it might build up. Who knows, maybe we can start to change some of these people that come in for the day and maybe they will come in and spend the night. Which does bring in more money to this area.”

Com. Harper, “It is coming out of economic development, but let’s not forget about what brings them in. The fact that we have the beach and the natural resources, we can’t forget that. We can’t say all of a sudden we have an economic development plan…”

Ms. Korthals, “I think one of the best things about this, Commissioner, is the fact that as we are doing this regional green space comprehensive trails plan and water trails plan, we have the opportunity to identify where there are possibilities for protection, areas that are already in restoration so that we have some continuity. And we are not just pulling out 20 acres here, 20 acres there and this is also going to work with what the Parks master plan is doing so, we are all doing it at the same time and having some partnerships and continuity to it.”

Mr. Breitzke, “I don’t know whether to speak as a member of the Coastal Advisory Board, or as Chairman of NIRPC. A couple weeks ago we presented this in Michigan City, and you are right, it’s not just about getting the public access. But that is the them of Marquette Plan 1 and 2, but also the enhancement of this and the benefits derived there from. I think you stated very well that there is so much to be derived for all of us, whether visitors or those of us who live here, if we continue to invest in the lake and the lakeshore, and that is really the ___ of this. Thank you.”

Com. Evans, “Who will make the determination as to whether the red line continues across LaPorte County or goes up towards Michigan?”

Ms. Korthals, “Good question. Right now I am looking at it going up to Highway 12, I think that is where the money is, because that is the money we have. If, depending on what that LaPorte County master plan is doing, they hired Eric Kelly out of Ball State to do that and then our partnership with him. If we find that we can financially go over this way, we will because it is part of the coastal area, and we can do that. But right now the dotted line is kind of what we are looking at.”
Com. Evans, “So we need a motion to approve $38,500.00 from CEDIT funds?”

Com. Harper, “If we do pass it, it will have to go in front of the Council as an amendment to the CEDIT plan.”

Com. Evans, “Where’s the money come from, will you have to write a new one?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I will have to go back and look at how much we have, I mean if we have unappropriated money for 2004. To me, the smart thing to do is make an amendment to the 2004 plan and make it Project whatever it is going to be and make it $38,500.00. If you want to make a motion that we make an amendment to the 2004 unappropriated CEDIT funding in the amount of $38,500.00, I can just write that up and then we can take it to the Council. I am sure we have $38,500.00.”

Com. Evans moved to approve $38,500.00 from CEDIT for the Marquette Phase 2,

Com. Harper, “For purposes of discussion, let me ask a question. When you prepare this plan, (inaudible)….. once the plan is worked in the communities and worked with our planning department and all that, once the plan is prepared, who has the oversight of whether they approve that plan?”


Mr. Thompson, “I guess, in that situation, I would like to do what Portage did, and take it and make it as amendment to our Porter County Land Use Thoroughfare Plan so that way it will come in front of the Plan Commission and be reviewed as part of an amendment to our plan and it then it will eventually get to the County Commissioners, and if the County Commissioners adopt it, it will be a resolution as an amendment to our actual county land use and thoroughfare plan.”

Com. Harper, “So in other words, once the plan was done, we would have a final say in whether we approve that or not.”

Mr. Thompson, “Correct.”

Com. Harper, “If we saved enough green space or if they did something that we had final say.”

Ms. Korthals, “It would also go through the NIRPC Commission. It will have to go through that and be approved by them.”

Mr. Molnar, “As far as the final implementation, its left up to local communities as to whether or not they want to adopt the pieces that are identified within the planning area.”

Com. Harper, “Does that need to be added?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “That’s what I am wondering. How did Portage, what vehicle did they use to make it a condition upon which they need a plan.”

Mr. Thompson, “I think they took the Marquette Plan just a little bit further and they put in the train station and the marina, they ended up hiring one of the same consultants that worked on Phase 1, and just took it a step further and made it a little more comprehensive of what they were actually do. They did do the access on it, they have purchased property already as far as the public park in Portage that is going to have now a Portage beach in this area. So they have actually gone out and purchased that land as far as Phase 1. They’ve incorporated Marquette Plan Phase 1, but then they took it a step further and just did a little bit more work and had a more detailed comprehensive land use plan for that area. I think it might have gone a little bit further south than the original.”

Com. Evans, “I think we need to make the motion contingent upon making it ___ the master plan, we can always do that, and look at it and approve it.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I just want to make sure we have the right to look at it for approval and I wasn’t so sure we had that.”

Ms. Korthals, “Yes, you do.”

Mr. Breitzke, “I don’t think Portage had any contingencies. As I recall, on Part 1, that they just embraced it and (inaudible)…. Be more successful.”

Mr. Molnar, “As far as the arrangement between the DNR coastal program and the local communities, we were just the grant’s words of the funds for that plan involvement so there’s no connection between saying okay, now that you’ve planned it you have to put it into place. It is just the matter of us turning over the money and the local communities meeting the planning requirements and that’s it.”

Ms. Korthals, “One of the reasons we wanted to do this at this time is that we were working so close with Bob on the county plan that we make sure that we have included the things so we don’t run into that problem at the end.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Its in our jurisdiction.”

Com. Harper “I just want to make sure we have the final say no matter what. Okay, any more questions? John? Carole?”

Com. Knoblock, “I personally don’t want any of that (inaudible)…, I am not even for the hotel that’s going in out there.”

Com. Harper, “But do we want the final say on it? Do I hear a second?”

Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “I think that fact that we have the final say and join Commissioner Knoblock in saying that when I first heard the Marquette Plan, my thought was green space and more public use of the property. So we have to think about that in this plan.”

Ms. Korthals, “I will make sure I keep you updated and not just at the end but as we go through.”

Mr. Thompson, “I will be sending you reports also on this.”

Com. Harper, “And you are going to make sure everybody has a hard copy of the correct one?”

Mr. Thompson, “I know Commissioner Evans has one, I don’t know if I got one down to Commissioner Knoblock, but I will get one down there.”

Com. Harper, “I don’t think there is anything wrong asking (inaudible)… to want hard copies.”

Com. Evans, “It’s available on line, isn’t it? So, that is quite a document and they could go on line and print it themselves.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “I agree with Bob, I think we should have hard copies.”

Com. Evans, “Well, I am not going to stand in front of the copy machine and do it. The technology is there, if somebody really wanted a copy.”

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

With no further business to discuss, the meeting was recessed.


BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA


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

Attest: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor