PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, JULY 18, 2006
4:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 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, Administrative Assistant Melissa Hartig and Recording Secretary Vi Wagner.

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

APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Knoblock moved to approve the payroll of July 10, 2006, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.


OPEN BIDS FOR WAN UPGRADE (SOUTH LINK)
Sharon Lippens, ITS Director

Com. Harper, “Lorelei is going to be a little late so the next thing on the agenda is Sharon Lippens, ITS Director, and to open bids for the upgrade of the South Link. The first bid is from Midway Electronics, is there a dollar amount in here somewhere, Sharon?”

Ms. Lippens, “There should be.”

Com. Harper, “The bid for the county courthouse, the Highway Department, their bid is $33,750.00 from the Highway to Animal Shelter is $39,500.00. Who all was contacted for this?”

Ms. Lippens, “Midway, (inaudible) …. And another company that I don’t recall.”

Com. Evans, “Have you had any contact with anyone that bid?”

Ms. Lippens, “I did take a phone call this morning.”

Com. Evans, “Any indication that specifications were…..”

Ms. Lippens, “They said they (inaudible)….”

Com. Evans, “Why don’t you take this under advisement and determine if they met your specifications and qualifications.”

Com. Knoblock moved to have the ITS Director take the bids under advisement and make sure they meet the qualifications, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “In DO6 you need to get that bracket?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes, I found one on line, but no body sells them locally for me to go look at and some of the places that I talked to, like at Bowman Electronics, they were kind of concerned about putting a television of that weight and size up on the wall, especially with someone standing right underneath there in the courtroom. It says it accommodates up to 200 pounds, and the specifications from the vendor says the tv weighs 160 pounds, or 180 pounds.”

Com. Evans, “What about the possibility of building like a mantel?”

Ms. Lippens, “Is that something Maintenance could do possibly? I could talk to them.”

Com. Harper, “Why don’t you talk to them and see if they can.”

Com. Evans, “We’re going to have to do something, they might be able to help us with regard to the wall and to determine if that would be a possibility. We could take that into consideration, if somebody does sit there.”

Ms. Lippens, “Do you want me to wait until you …(inaudible)”

Com. Evans, “We should be able to get that by the middle of the week, Wednesday or Thursday..”

Com. Harper, “Is D02 ready to go?”

Ms. Lippens, “I called the vendor today to ask them when it will be completed and they will get back to me today. All the rest of the courts are finished and Judge Jent’s court is being finished up today and the television that is in Judge Jent’s court from the old system will be taken over to the jail so that they now have two conferencing rooms available.”

Com. Harper, “Then these problems in the north county complex, is that our trees?”

Ms. Lippens, “No. We have kind of isolated them and they appear to be either on or around the property of St. Paul’s Church. That’s the area the Surveyor’s office was very good at assisting in using their topographical maps and the current visual photography we got from Homeland Security to identify the high spots in the ground and look to see where there were items that could be in our line of sight. Right now it only happens when it rains and it’s sporadic so it isn’t a big problem, but it could be in the near future, it’s something we can try and keep an eye on. The biggest issue right now that I wanted to bring up is talking about this bid, is the south county link; we’ve a had a problem, it went down Thursday, and we were able to get back up this morning, but it’s tentative. We have a bad cable on the roof at the courthouse and it can be replaced with the equipment that this bid is going out for. The vendor said that they could rent us radios and we can and they could come out and install them by this weekend for about a little over $3,000.00. That would get them up and running and keep them up and running until we get the bid finalized and it will take about 90 days once the bid is awarded to actually do the work. They have to get permits from the state; they have to run fiber optic cable underneath State Road 2, under Heavelin Road.”

Com. Harper, “(inaudible)…There’s a lot of the work they can’t do, so it is costing us more in the long run if we would that, with that money, get a price (inaudible)… from the fund for CEDIT because that is a capital improvement. The $3,000.00 she is talking about to get these radios and then the line up to keep south Porter County going until we get this job done.”

Com. Evans, “What, if the problem is just a cable on the roof of the courthouse, why can’t, if it is going to be replaced anyway, can’t they do that first and make that a priority and then deal with them direct?”

Ms. Lippens, “We would still have to get the new radios put out and then all that when they run this. The equipment that the cables are connected to are not supported anymore, they don’t make them anymore.”

Com. Evans, “How long would it take you to review that bid? I mean, you’ve only got one bid.”

Ms. Lippens, “I could probably review it . . . .”

Com. Evans, “Could you review it and come back to us at the end of the meeting and then be able to award the bid at the end of the meeting today and they could include that work and you could skip the inconvenience charge? ….they could get those things done as part of the bid package.”

Ms. Lippens, “You mean add their costs in for the temporary solution to the bid cost?”

Com. Evans, “Well, if they got the bid, and they are going to do the work, we are going to be out of service while they’re doing it anyway so why not just get on it and get it done and we won’t have that inconvenience of having to pay for a temporary service.”

Com. Harper, “What’s the best case scenario?”

Ms. Lippens, “It is going to take about 90 days for them to get the entire project done.”

Com. Harper, “What’s the best case for the software?”

Ms. Lippens, “To either get the temporary radios out…”

Com. Harper, “If we do what John says and decide on this bid today, and everything starts now, are you telling me it will take the 90 days to solve the problems in south county? If there’s anything extra, just give us a call. Do you understand my question?”

Ms. Lippens, “Right. You are asking if they can put the radios up first and get them connected and then run the fiber optic later. They could probably get them up for one or the other but right now all of the sites are going to be connected together as one ____ so they could get Juvenile up but not Highway, or Highway up but not Juvenile. Because right now we are going to have one radio from the courthouse and one at Highway and then the fiber optic between.”

Com. Harper, “Who uses it more?”

Ms. Lippens, “Juvenile.”

Com. Harper, “Because I am told that they have people that can’t do their work right now…”

Ms. Lippens, “They do. Because when they have Juvenile Court, they ___ it as planned.”

Com. Harper, “The corridors are just down.”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes.”

Com. Evans, “Well, why don’t you review the bid and then we will mull it over and give a temporary ___ to do the same thing and you can come back at the end of the meeting.”

Com. Harper, “Which isn’t going to be too long. Thanks, Sharon.”

Award Bids for hearing & air; Purchase of carpet and installation
John Thorstad, Expo Center Manager

Mr. Thorstad, “Good evening. I have the recommendations on the bids. There’s three separate bids, one for carpet, one for carpet installation, and one for heating and air. All three bids that are before you were the lowest bidders. I checked, and these bids versus the competitors that put in their bids, some are very close. The carpet between the two carpet people are very close. Going with Capital both with the carpet and the carpet installation, Mr. Galvin comes recommended. He actually did the carpet installation on the last time the Expo had it done so we recommend as far as carpet and carpet installation we go with Capital Flooring.”

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

Mr. Thorstad, “The heating and air was a little bit different. There were only two bidders and there was quite a substantial difference between the two, which kind of concerned me, but after talking with Mr. Sharro, I felt confident because he was the lowest bidder that he could do the work. I may be wrong, but he was $30,000.00, the next closest bidder was $48,000.00. So I recommend of course, going with the lowest bidder.”

Com. Harper, “John, let me go back to that first one. What was the bid on the first one?”

Mr. Thorstad, “The carpet bid, the carpet itself, was $33,940.00 and the installation was $15,560.00.”

Com. Evans, “$18,000.00 is a lot of money. There’s got to be a substantial differences in the type of equipment or the installation, ductwork, material.”

Mr. Thorstad, “I didn’t see much and I talked to both gentlemen. Mr. Sharro said he does everything but the big difference is that he does everything in house but the Sennak will do the electric, will do the gas, and most other companies don’t do that. They’ll bring in an electrician and do it separately. They’ll bring in people to do cement separately. I had the same concerns, John. That’s what concerned me. They are both pretty reputable companies as far as being here in town business-wise.”

Com. Evans, “Your specs were answered in both bids?”

Mr. Thorstad, “Yes.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation to use R&B Heating and Cooling, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “I would like to see someone make a motion that the monies for these come out of Project Fund Number 2 for the Center District for 2004 and whatever, if there is not enough in there for 2004 of the CEDIT fund, then it can come out of the 2005.”

Com. Evans, “I’ll make the motion to spend your money.”

Com. Evans moved to use the CEDIT Funds from 2004 or 2005 for the heating and air installation at the Expo Center, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Do you have anything to discuss about those?”

Mr. Thorstad, “Originally when we did the carpet and air conditioning, we talked about a storage area. We are in desperate need of storage. We needed to changed what we had originally had decided on because the engineer came out and looked at the map, the specs of the building to where it is and there were too much of an electric and gas and utility that ran under the area, we wanted to run it so we have to change that. I will bring to you a proposal at the next meeting, as far as the storage area that is more than anything, desperately needed. And then to start considering the other things. One thing that I would recommend is since you are putting out quite a bit of money for carpet, is a new carpet extractor, to clean the carpet. And I will have some recommendations on that at the next meeting.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “If you want to do it quicker, they can just make a motion to authorize you to release proposals and just do it for your storage, you won’t have to wait for the next meeting. It will be two weeks, and then it will be two more weeks. Just do it.”
Com. Evans, “I think that is a good idea.”

Com. Harper, “It’s an old piece of equipment out there.”

Com. Evans, “I would throw in the carpet extractor as well.”

Mr. Thorstad, “Great.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the Expo Center to release proposal for the storage and carpet extractor, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

CORRESPONDENCE

Treasurer’s monthly report for June 2006 is on file.
Court Security Activity Report for June 2006 is on file.


Request from Martha Seroczynski to use the Courthouse Square to protest the war in Iraq

Com. Harper, “Is there anyone here on that? Why don’t we put that off for two weeks?”

Com. Evans moved to receive the request in two weeks and to make sure the person who makes the request is present, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Request for transfer of funds

Fund 01.30 $349.98 from 2110 office supplies
Into 4440 furniture/fixtures over $100

Purchase of file cabinets for Jail Building Corp. correspondence

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

RECEIVE RECOMMENDATION FOR WAN UPGRADE
Sharon Lippens, ITS Director

Ms. Lippens, “The company that bid, Midway Electronics, is the current company that has installed all of the wireless in the county so I am familiar with them. They have complied with all of the bid specs and one of the things I didn’t realize when we were doing it is, and John was mentioning, the temporary proposal that they are giving an estimate for is for unlicensed radio set, they use these as temporary so if somebody goes down and they need something right away while their equipment is being repaired, they can flip that on and keep them working. The equipment we are looking at purchasing is licensed frequency which has to be applied for with the FCC which takes several weeks. So I understand what you are saying, they couldn’t put those up without the license to run them until that gets done.”

Com. Evans, “So it’s a temporary fix until they get the . . .”

Ms. Lippens, “No, that is a separate item because they did not get expect that it was going to go down Friday. And we kind of have it running right now but its running because we have a cable running from the roof of the courthouse down into a window.”

Com. Evans, “Why don’t we give you authority to do that if and when that cable breaks again and in the meantime let’s let the mandate and see how long it goes.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the bid and give Sharon the authority to go ahead with the temporary fix of the temporary radios if and when it becomes so warranted, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Ms. Lippens, “This will be in the agreement.”

Com. Evans, “Did you read it?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “How could I? I haven’t seen anything. Why don’t you approve it conditional upon my review?”

Com. Evans moved to approve the bid conditional upon the County Attorney’s review, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried.

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Did you read it?”

Ms. Lippens, “I glanced over it, it is pretty much boiler plate from the last upgrade that we did.”

APPROVAL OF CHANGE ORDERS FOR VISITOR’S CENTER
Lorelei Weimer

Ms. Weimer, “Thank you for letting me get in at the end. We have six change orders that are before you and I will go through those real quickly. The first one is change order number 9 and what that is in change order number 2 we actually took out a landscape feature that was a dunes. And that gave us a savings actually, a credit for the project of a little over $29,000.00. In place we are putting a rain garden. So the change order for number 9 is what we are going to need to do to get that grading and storm sewer ready for the rain garden that will, the actual garden itself, be paid for by the Save the Dunes Conservation Fund. But that’s the change order for $8,511.00, our 20% share would be $1,702.00. Change order number 10, is what we are doing is down the road we may want to put automatic doors in the Visitor’s Center. We are not quite sure but in the meantime we wanted to go ahead and put the conduit in it so if we do make that decision it will be a lot less expensive to add the electric door, so that is change order number 2 for a cost of $525.00 and our 20% would actually be $105.00. Change order number 11, basically what this is is we have two types of lights, a type F and a type S1 and it would be actually a luminating to S1 and just do it all S light fixtures and that is actually, there is no monetary result fixtures in that. Change order number 12 is Verizon, after the contract was bid, they actually make it mandated that we have to provide a 4 inch conduit and that was at the cost of $3,810.00 and 20% of that would be $762.00 which will be our cost. Change order number 13, this is the guy that is actually putting in the curb detail and asked us if we could do a split form curb which is the one we had specified and that will actually be a credit of $2,000.00 to the project by going with what he has recommended. And then change order number 14 is that we are adding additional masonry work, additional metal, and minimal roofing because the roofing situation that occurred in one of our actual ____ regarding the duct work. Let me give you a breakdown from the date we started this, we had a total of 14 change orders. The cost to us included the credit back and we are at this point of $16,262.00 worth of change orders. If you minus out, we had some flooring changes and that is going to be paid for by the National Lakeshore, so really what we are looking at today is $7,650.00 of change orders that are going to be paid by state of 80% and then we are going to pay $1,912.00 which is our 20%. So, the real total of change orders today adding those two up is $9,561.00.”

Com. Evans moved to approve all change orders as proposed, Com. Knoblock seconded,

Com. Evans, “I just want to know; the conduit for the doors, the doors are not going to be automatic or push type?”

Ms. Weimer, “Right. As the building is designed right now we meet all the codes for handicap accessibility. It’s one of those things that as the owner, we want to look down the road and say we may want to add those. So, we are in code right now but we just were kind of thinking in the future that if we had the monies, we may like to maybe add that.”

Com. Evans, “Well, there is never any time like the present when you are in construction. I, my personal opinion, I think I’d would spring for the cost of that, because you have to put the conduit in anyway.”

Ms. Weimer, “Okay.”

Com. Evans, “It probably wouldn’t be that much more on the closures.”

Ms. Weimer, “Then get it done. Okay. I will be happy to fix that as well. Another thing, I will let you vote and then bring one more thing to your attention.

Motion carried.

Ms. Weimer, “With the project engineer, which is mandated by the state where we have someone out there 40 hours a week, it’s an 80-20 but we actually have to pay the full freight and then we get reimbursed as we go. We do have it that you do not allow me to sign those claim forms so then we had Robert Harper sign those but the other things we talked about is that the check is going to come back to the Commissioners and I asked that they could actually send the check that is made out to the Commissioners and the PCVRCC and endorse it back to us. And they can’t do that, so I didn’t know if we could work together and figure out how if the check comes to you, how we could get it back into our accounts.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Why don’t we just sign it and say for deposit only into the line item. That’s how the ___ procedures are.”

Com. Evans, “Either that or we can endorse it pay to the order of the Visitor’s Center.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “We’ll sign it over to you.”

Ms. Weimer, “Just to let you know we have not paid any bills since October because we have not had a contractor’s _____ so we have just submitted a check for $145,000.00 and so we are pretty much current. So we will be getting a reimbursement check hopefully within the next couple of weeks from the state. And if you think that works out, that will be fine with us.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “As long as no one tells us we can’t do that, I think that is what we will do, is sign it over.”

Ms. Weimer, “That will be great. I appreciate that. Thank you very much.”

Com. Harper, “Is there any other business?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, reading this, what they do is they incorporate their response as the contract so really, I am going to have to refer this back to Data for a very close review of the bid response because they are not going to give us anything else just that the bid becomes the contract. So we want to make sure they were responsive in all respects so I would say this is approved conditional upon a review by ITS that the bid response becomes the contract.”

Com. Harper, “Anything else? Do I hear a motion?”


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







With no further business, the meeting was recessed.

BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA


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


Attest: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor