PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
REGULAR MEETING
TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2006
6:00 P.M.

The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. in the Commissioners’ Chambers of the Administration Center, 155 Indiana Avenue, Suite 205, Valparaiso IN 46383.

Those present were: Commissioners Robert Harper and John Evans, 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 March 7, 2006, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.


APPROVAL OF PAYROLL

Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of March 20, 2006, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.


TRANSFER FROM BRIDGE FUND TO FAMILY & CHILDREN FUND

Com. Harper, “Isn’t there another request from the Bridge Fund, weren’t there two requests from the Bridge Fund or is that the only one? I thought there were two.”

Ms. Hartig, “I think they split it up between the two.”

Com. Harper, “Oh, okay. I think that’s what they were going to do because they needed the money for the general fund also, right, John?”

Com. Evans, “Yes, the request from the Children & Family Fund is for $1.25 million and I am not sure if is all going to come from the Bridge Fund or if they are going to go to the . . . . “

Com. Harper, “No, I think they are requesting that all come from the Bridge Fund and they will go to the other fund for the money for the other one. David Hollenbeck is not going to be here for this.”

Com. Evans, “They really beat this up last night at the Council meeting and I think I want to go on record anyway saying these people do a great job and they do the job they are mandated to do by the courts and I don’t know where we would be without them.”

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


APPROVAL OF TALTREE TEN ROAD RACE

Com. Harper, “Todd Henderlong is not here, is there anyone here from this? Opportunity Enterprises are having this race. It takes place April 22, 2006 and they have sent us the route. They are working with the Sheriff’s Department. Do I hear a motion on this?”

Com. Evans moved to approve the request based on the consent of the Sheriff’s Department to block the necessary roads and the group to provide the adequate insurance coverage, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.


APPROVAL OF COURSE FOR VALPO MINI MARATHON
Ezra Hurwitz, Race Director

Com. Harper, “You are the race director?”

Mr. Hurwitz, “Yes, I am.”

Com. Harper, “Tell us a little bit about this.”

Mr. Hurwitz, “This is the second annual event, it is a half marathon. It starts and ends here in Valpo, winds its way through town, and north of town. It heads into north county just north of Andover on Meridian, it makes a left onto 550, over to 50, back down to Ransom, back out to Campbell. We are requesting use of those roads. We don’t plan on closing any of the roads along the run. I have spoken to Capt. Chayhitz and between Valpo city officers and county officers, we have enough police officers to man the course to make sure there is minimal interaction between runners and vehicles. There will be a truck following behind the last person in the race so that I believe out there the county’s section will be completely reopened and cleaned up. The race starts at 7:30 a.m., running at a fifteen minute pace. It would be for a couple of hours, about 2 ½ hours. So from about 7:30 to 10:00.”

Com. Evans, “Who won it last year?”

Mr. Hurwitz, “It was a Kenyan by the name of Shadrick Kennelly who won the race. This year we upped the prize money to $1,000.00 first place, male and female. We are going deeper in the prize money as well. We’ve got several leads coming in from several different countries, several Kenyans, a couple of Polish runners, they are coming in from at least three different countries, ten different states, we are trying to market this as a come and see Porter County, come to Indiana. Don’t think that Chicago is the only thing to see. Don’t forget about us, too.”

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


APPROVAL OF CHANGE ORDERS FOR VISITOR’S CENTER
Lorelei Weimer, Director

Ms. Weimer, “You should have three change orders regarding the Visitor’s Center. If you go to number 2, we had a landscape figured at the property, actually a dune. And after we talked about it extensively, we realized that it would require a lot more maintenance to have a dune because it is a living thing, so we thought let’s get rid of that. And we took the Dunes Conservation Fund that is providing grant money and we will put in a rain garden in place of that. So change order number 5 is there are going to be some changes as far as the storm sewer system. So taking the dune out we are saving $29,000.00 because some of those things will then go toward the rain garden. That’s change order number 2. Change Order number 4 is after all the plans were submitted and so forth, we realized from a national level that the national park would need to have a wheelchair accessible for this and change order number 4 is for the wheelchair lift. Then change order number 6 is when we were looking to do the sanitary sewer tap, we had to go down a little farther than we anticipated and because of having to go down deeper and need some additional manpower to do that, we need to have a change order for that as well. All these change orders are 80-20, 80% through the INDOT T-E process and 20% provided by our office.”

Com. Harper, “So there’s change orders number 2……..?”

Ms. Weimer, “Number 2, number 5, and number 6.”

Com. Harper, “There’s only three?”

Ms. Weimer, “Yes.”

Com. Evans, “You anticipate how many more? I know you have brick going up and I saw steel hanging there and it looks like it is really shaping up.”

Ms. Weimer, “We do have one coming in April. I guess most of the change orders occur when you are on site and putting in the sewers, that is where you run into complications. We received one once the site work is finished that really, the building, we should not be seeing many because we are watching it very closely as well. but you know even though it is 20% its still out of our budget. So we anticipate that things are really going to come down to a minimum once the building goes up.”

Com. Evans, “So the Save the Dunes Council didn’t have any problem with the substituting the water feature for the dune?”

Ms. Weimer, “In fact, the rain garden will be much more advantageous as far as slowing the water down and cleaning it before it goes off in Munson’s Ditch. We just felt there’s too many complications with the Dunes not doing it itself. In order to stabilize the dune grass there, it almost doesn’t look like a dune. If you don’t stabilize it, now you are talking about sand getting into the sidewalk so it just became more of a… it was a great feature and it sounded great at first, but it just became too complicated and we just don’t have the ability for the maintenance for that.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the change orders 2, 5, and 6, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.


HEALTH INSURANCE RENEWAL
Mike Anton, Anton Insurance Agency
Leigh Westergren, Anton Insurance Agency

Mr. Anton, “We are here to discuss the renewal terms for the employee benefit plan. The reason I wanted to go to page 14, is just to demonstrate that the market research to find the very best program that handles the coverage issues that we require to support the plan. The first thing we are going to give you, kind of to bring a short look at that and is kind of complicated, with our recommendation. You will see on the left hand column there is the current plan with United Life and those numbers represent the year about to close. The middle column is the renewal. And it readily becomes apparent that they don’t want to do the real one.”

Com. Evans, “Is there a reason for that?”

Mr. Anton, “I think the reason is this. Our experience of this past year while overall we have had excellent experience in the aggregate, that the claims are running about 70% to the expected which is literally outstanding. We have had potential issues in the specific side and if I may, that is the insurance that would go over and above our specific stop loss, in this case $90,000.00. So if any employee would have in excess of $90,000.00 incurred of medical expenses, then the re-insurance would take over. In that situation we have eleven employees or dependants that have made significant encourages towards that or exceeded that. So that, eleven plan participants that have had major issues in the past year, account for about 30% of the claims, which is pretty significant. So I think AUL looked at that; thought that there was an opportunity in their mind to exceed the stop loss of $90,000.00, and that would represent a bad experience to them, and decided that they are going to price it in a manner that would deter us from renewing. As you can see, their renewal price is about $425,000.00 higher than the expired. So, with that being said, then we go to something that we proceed to be outstanding is that Standard Life has given us renewal terms that represent less than what you are paying right now by almost $60,000.00 with the fixed costs for the specific deductible. So what that means to you is that here on one side I am saying that the eleven people, with 30% of the total claims represent the county, AUL is looking at that, Standard Life is sitting back and looking at the underwriting that is associated with the claims history, and the prognosis is in saying that the great majority of those claims have already, in one or another, terminated. They are not going to go any further. So that their anticipation is for 2006, it would be a good claim year, or at least an open claim year as they go in. You can see that in terms of the aggregate claim issue that we said was going to be favorable for 2005-06, they see it in the same fashion and have reduced not what you might think is real significantly but nevertheless reduced the attachment on the high side for the total aggregate claims that were presented. So we think that is an extremely favorable representation. The next page shows two other proposals that we have received. I think the purpose of this, you know, I am amazed, from our perspective to you, was to show that even though they are not quite favorable as the Standard Life proposal, they are in effect in the ball park. We are not looking at something here that is in a sense totally eschewed and just to buy the business. And I might point out that Standard Life is a positively rated carrier, one that certainly has a market share and reinsurance for health plans. So with that being said, our recommendation for you to consider tonight is to accept the terms as presented by Standard Life and not make any other changes to plan design or terms of specific deductibles or anything of that nature.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation of Standard Life at an annual cost of $317,757.36, Com. Harper seconded,

Com. Evans, “That’s how you do that, Mike. When you charge somebody $375,000 and you don’t want their business, you charge them $800,000.”

Motion carried.

Mr. Anton, “And the other thing is, just as kind of a side note, but anybody, like a former employee of the county or somebody that needed to go on an extended leave and would have to participate in COBRA, when you reduce the cost it goes right back to them at a reduced COBRA cost, too so that becomes a very positive element, too. I’ve got one other thing that Leigh will mention.”


NIOMS PROGRAM CONTRACT DISCUSSION

Ms. Westergren, “We have received, from NIOMS, the current health occupational program, a ___ program contract. We have yet to verify the contents of this, we are just bringing it before you today for your consideration and to discuss it at a later date. They are offering us a fair pricing if we agree to use them exclusively. We are not ready to advise you.”

Com. Harper, “Two weeks, four weeks?”

Mr. Anton, “Two weeks.”

Com. Evans, “Didn’t we just do this?”

Mr. Anton, “Well, I think what you are probably confusing it with is we went through the wellness program with Hoosier Health versus NIOMS and you had presentations. That was limited just to the wellness program. This here is a program that the county is currently involved in. I think you could even ask Al, and the Sheriff’s Department participate in this issue probably more than any other department. For physicals and accidents and what have you that they get emergency care. So, what NIOMS is saying and is asking us to sign a contract that tells we will participate in the WIN Program for one year. I am not sure what is necessarily motivating it, but of course, if you sign the contract it gives them assurances that they will continue to direct those issues that we may have to them, which obviously any business would like.”

Com. Harper, “Do you want a couple weeks to check out the price?”

Com. Evans, “Yes.”

Mr. Anton, “They are trying to present a very attractive addendum. We will be back in about two weeks.”

Com. Harper, “And Mike, I just want to say we appreciate your work at the county building.”

Mr. Anton, “That has been an interesting issue for some of the obvious issues relating to the county building and the fire. I will be back in two weeks to talk about that, too.”


OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS
Approval of Video Tech agreement
Sharon Lippens, ITS Director

Ms. Lippens, “There are actually two separate things here; the stapled portion and then the last page is separate business. This is the contract as presented to the county for the ….. we awarded the Request for Proposal for the video security and this is the contract with the vendor that we awarded that Request for Proposal to.”

Com. Harper, “If I am reading this right, they’ll start two weeks after the acceptance of the contract?”

Ms. Lippens, “We still have to meet with the vendor that worked on the renovation of the court house to identify conduits and things like that. He and I have been playing phone tag for about six weeks. But once we get that identified we will be ready to go ahead.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the contract with Video Tec in the amount of $61,111.77, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Ms. Lippens, “The next single page is a change order to the video conferencing project. Verizon was waiting because the monitors for the room systems were on back order. They finally found out from the company that they are on permanent discontinued. So they originally were going to supply a 29 inch screen, now they are going to supply a 32 inch screen at no cost and they just want us to sign the agreement that says we agree they are going to substitute a different product than what was in the original contract and you can see the revised contract price is zero, so there is no fee to us.”

Com. Evans moved to accept the change order in the contract for zero dollars and zero cents, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Sharon, take a second and tell us what the problem is between the Juvenile Department building, the Highway Department and our county computer system.”

PROBLEM BETWEEN JUVENILE SERVICES AND HIGHWAY WITH REGARD TO WIRELESS CONNECTION
Sharon Lippens, ITS Director

Ms. Lippens, “We currently have a wireless connection between the Juvenile Services Center and the Highway Department and the courthouse, which then subsequently connects to this building. That connection is an unlicensed frequency in the 5.8 range and we get chronic interference from another company that causes that circuit to be very unreliable; it goes up and down all day long, off and on. It could sometimes be down for hours at a time, sometimes it is okay for hours at a time, it is kind of unpredictable. What we have been looking at is an upgrade….we were having that same problem with between the courthouse and North County a couple years ago by the same vendor. At that time is when we chose to upgrade that unlicensed frequency to a licensed frequency, therefore nobody could cause interference with us because through the FCC we would have exclusive rights to that frequency. At that point, we weren’t having a lot of problems with Highway and so we concentrated where the problem was. Well, now that company has decided to go with the other one and so we need to upgrade that to a licensed frequency as well. So we are looking to upgrade that to the same equipment and frequency that we used with the other buildings. The other thing we are looking at doing is right now there is a microwave dish on top of the Highway Department roof and there is one on a small stand outside of the air conditioning unit of the Juvenile Services Center. What we want to do is put one microwave dish at the Juvenile Service Center because we have clear lines to the courthouse and we want to run a fiber optic cable between the Juvenile Services Center and the Highway Department. We want to add the Animal Shelter because right now they only have dial up connectivity and then subsequently run it from there to the cut off point to where the Environmental Building is going to be, where they are going to have all of their utilities come in. So when that building is completed they will be able to tie in as well.”

Com. Harper, “If I understand right, I think I understand the Juvenile Center because they need to get into their case files and so forth. When they are down, they are not able to do that. How does that affect the Highway Department?”

Ms. Lippens, “The Highway Department uses a lot of email to communicate with the state. They get on the internet to get state forms, check on things going on with the state, they might be able to explain it a little better.”

Com. Harper, “And this is a $75,000.00 project?”

Ms. Lippens, “Yes, approximately.”

Com. Evans, “How much of that is the license?”

Ms. Lippens, “The fee would be for purchasing fiber optic cable which is relatively inexpensive, it would be for purchasing the radio equipment, microwave tower, and labor to install it and to actually dig the trench to put the fiber optic cable in. We would be responsible for getting a permit from the Indiana State Highway because we would have to go up under State Road 2 and under Salt Creek. There is already a conduit underneath that for Verizon, so we don’t see any problems getting approval. The other road we would have to go under would be Heavelin Road between the highway and the Animal Shelter, which is a county road.”

Com. Evans, “Are the people that are causing the interference, is theirs a licensed frequency?”

Ms. Lippens, “No. The equipment we have now runs on a single frequency. You can have unlicensed equipment that will scan multiple frequencies so theirs will, its called hopping, it’ll hop from one frequency to another. As soon as it hits ours, then we get an out. So if someone is in the middle of doing something, it might drop out for a minute and then come back. But there are times when they’ll have it cycling so quickly that it hits us so fast that we are down for hours at a time.”

Com. Evans, “What trips the need for the licensing frequency. Obviously we had to do it to get away from them. If they continue to do what they are doing, what are the regulations that would affect their ability to do that. don’t they at some point in time have to become a licensed frequency as well.”

Ms. Lippens, “When you are operating in a 2.4 or the 5.8 frequency level, its completely unlicensed and you are pretty much using (inaudible)… anybody else that is using it anywhere near you could cause interference.”

Com. Evans, “What happens if somebody does something in the line of sight of this new dish?”

Ms. Lippens, “That is a possibility but the angle that we are going at from the Juvenile Center to the courthouse, I don’t think there would be a lot in the way because if you stand there and look the courthouse, setting up as high as it does, I don’t think they will build anything that high unless it was a skyscraper. That was one of the reasons why we chose not to put it on the Highway where there is one now because there are tree issues there.”

Com. Evans, “And where will we get the money?”

Ms. Hartig, “I think I can scrape together enough money from CCD and do a transfer.”

Com. Evans, “Let me think about it, okay?”

Ms. Lippens, “Or if you would like to talk to Juvenile Probation or Magistrate Nemeth, they might be able to explain some of the frustrations they have.”

Com. Evans, “Do they have any money?”

Com. Harper, “The Highway has all kinds of money.”

Mr. James, “We just gave it all away.”

Com. Harper, “Okay, we will talk about it.”

Ms. Lippens, “This has been an on going problem.”

Com. Evans, “Ours doesn’t hop though, ours stays the same.”

Ms. Lippens, “No, ours stays on the single bands. But even if ours hopped, we would run into theirs. We have sent letters to this vendor and they basically said they know they are interfering with us, they are doing it intentionally and they have no plans to stop. And there is nothing we can do.”

Com. Evans, “The issue is they wanted placement on our tower.”

Ms. Lippens, “That is correct, they want a leverage using the county’s towers for their own business use.”

Com. Evans, “Isn’t that Net Nitco?”

Ms. Lippens, “At one point we did entertain their proposal to stop interfering with us and they came to us with a proposal of what they wanted to do and we did listen but the issue we felt was that county towers, if we started letting business companies place their equipment on the towers, then we were opened up for Verizon and SBC and whoever. They would say you let so and so put it on there, now they’re making money, I should be able to put it on there. Then they are going to want to put dishes on buildings in the county. I didn’t feel it was a good precedent to set so, we turned it down and decided to go with a licensed frequency on our own.”

Com. Harper, “Thank you. Lets just talk about it.”


AMENDMENT TO CONTRACT WITH COMPASS GROUP USA
Chief David Lain, Sheriff’s Police

Com. Harper, “The next thing we have is Chief Lain, from the Sheriff’s Department with two issues. We have an amendment to the contract with Compass Group USA and approval of Lease Agreement with RDC Management. The Compass Agreement is for food service?”

Chief Lain, “That’s correct. There was an inadvertent inclusion of an incorrect Section 2.4 on page 2. It just needs to be removed. Compass does not do the cleaning of the equipment, it is actually done by inmate labor. So that would be the only amendment.”

Com. Evans, “They just want to be off the hook in case someone gets ptomaine poisoning.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the amendment with Compass Group USA, Inc., Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Approval of Lease Agreement with RDC Management

Chief Lain, “I am going to ask approval in principle only contingent on the changes. The County Attorney did look over and, and for the life of me I don’t know how she could read it, but she had some concerns about the lease as written. It was kind of the standard boiler plate lease. I did speak to the Lessor today, who was Lockbard, and went over those concerns that were outlines by Ms. Rinkenberger. He had no problem with any of those. I just spoke with Mr. Anton who didn’t see any problem with the insurance issue.”

Com. Harper, “The Sheriff’s Department is paying for this, correct?”

Chief Lain, “Unless you are going to volunteer that.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “What do you get for $1,800.00 a year? It seems like it is so little?”

Chief Lain, “Well, it is. I think it’s a civic minded agreement by this corporation. We were wanting to re-establish a north office in the South Haven area and I received a call a couple months ago about a vacant office in the South Haven Square shopping complex. It is 800 square feet, its four rooms and they made the offer of the nominal fee of $150.00 a month for that 800 square feet. They are paying all the utilities.”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “Did you notice they said we were paying the electricity?”

Chief Lain, “That is one of the things I cleared up. Mr. Outpark apologized and said that no, that is not going to be the case.”

Com. Evans, “Phones and radios?”

Chief Lain, “We would be paying for the phones.”

Com. Harper, “Should we put this on the agenda for two weeks?”

Atty. Rinkenberger, “You can approve it conditional upon them making the changes I recommended. Its not that complicated.”

Com. Harper, “All right.”

Com. Evans, “I think it is a very good thing.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the agreement based on the revisions made, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

COMMISSIONERS REPORTS

All districts:

1. 2006 -2008 Bridge Inspection Agreement between Beam, Longest and Neff and Porter County. The cost of the agreement is $112,133.53. This is $1,236.50 less than proposed by Beam Longest and Neff. This was reduced due to INDOT’s review of the cost. Our local cost would be $22,426.71. Recommend approval.

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

Com. Harper, “Dave, is there anything you want to say about this?”

Mr. Schelling, “We need to do it.”

Motion carried.

2. County and state agreement for the 2006-2008 Bridge Inspection. The state would be reimbursing us 80% of this cost or $89,706.82.

Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation, Com. Harper seconded,
motion carried.

Com. Harper, “Dave, do you want to say anything about that?”

Mr. Schelling, “Its required.”

Com. Harper, “Anything else you would like to add?”

COUNTY HOME DEMOLITION DISCUSSION

Mr. Schelling, “Just for the Commissioners’ information I would like to give you, well, its not a change order yet for the County Home, but it will be. It will work out with the removal of everything including the chapel, but the Park Board has decided to keep the chapel. Chemcheck, the contractor, is agreeing to save that building and protect it from damage while he’s removing the building adjacent to it, capped the utilities, and the credit would be $1,250.00. It doesn’t sound like much money, but I think with the work he is going to have to do to work around the structures, it’s probably warranted. This isn’t a change order at this time but I just wanted to give it to you for your information.”

Com. Harper, “I would like to say this, that the contractor that bid on this job, was substantially lower…”

Com. Evans, “About $100,000.00.”

Com. Harper, “And this guy, I have been out there and Dave’s told me about it and it is just amazing the way he is doing it. They are saving everything. They are saving everything for reuse. The floors and the furniture, right Dave? I mean it is sort of amazing the way the guys are saving the material. He seems like a real professional.”

Mr. Schelling, “He is removing the beams on the roof and everything and the pieces that are broken, he’s taking them home and burning in a wood stove to heat his house.”

Com. Evans, “This is the guy we had to hire the engineer to watch to take out the asbestos and I said we didn’t need to do that.”

Mr. Schelling, “We lucked out in getting an excellent contractor.”

Com. Evans, “I think $1,250.00 is really kind of a gift; it would have been a lot easier to just knock it down.”

Com. Harper, “And he is doing some work to save things.”

Center District:

1. Bella Vista Subdivision Road Agreement, located on the east side of CR 500 West, north of Division Road. Offer to contribute $750.00 per lot for a total of $8,250.00. Owner and subdivider are Bella Real Estate, Timothy A. Brust, Manager. Recommend approval.

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

CORRESPONDENCE

Treasurer’s monthly report for February 2006 is on file.

Approval of bond for David James, Assistant Highway Superintendent

Com. Evans moved to approve the bond for David James, Assistant Highway Superintendent, in the amount of $8,500.00, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Approval of bond for Jamie Uzelac, Secretary/Technician for Porter County Engineering

Com. Evans moved to approve the bond for Jamie Uzelac, Secretary/technician for Porter County Engineering in the amount of $100,000.00, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Approval of maintenance agreement with Great Lakes Automatic Door for the entrances at the Administration Center, Courthouse and North County Complex
Charlotte Miller, Maintenance Supervisor

Com. Evans, “Did they install those doors, Char?”

Ms. Miller, “Yes, they did. I think Great Lakes did it, it is kind of before my time, at North County, they put the one in here, they’ve done both of them at North County and they have also done the one here at the Courthouse.”

Com. Evans, “What is the dollar amount of the agreement?”

Ms. Hartig, “The total is $778.00 for all three.”

Com. Evans, “And that is for how many times a year?”

Ms. Miller, “I think they come out once a year to each building and then we pay them, I think in 2005, $1,800.00 for repairs on the doors.”

Com. Harper, “I know we have problems over at North County.”

Com. Evans, “They had talked at one time of changing those doors at North County from a slide operation to an in-out type of thing. Is that still a possibility or is that no longer?”

Ms. Miller, “I don’t know. We talked about it and then we never heard anymore about it. They talked about it; they thought it would be better if we had people that are angry and then they push on that door and knock it off the track. We are able to get it onto the track but it seems like we always have problems with it afterwards. The doors are not made to be jarred like that, with people pushing on them or the one at the courthouse, you know they are to open automatically, not have somebody shove them and knock them off the track, especially that one up there goes off the track an awful lot.”

Com. Evans, “Should we consider changing that one up there as well? There are security issues as well?”

Ms. Miller, “We had that one door also that I think Great Lakes probably put it in where you go into Judge Jent’s courtroom; have you ever noticed how bad a shape that is there. Its is all rotted out there at the bottom.”

Com. Evans, “You want to get an estimate on them and anyone else that wants to bid on that type of thing, at Judge Jent’s door and the changing of sliders to in-out.”

Ms. Miller, “And get a bid from Great Lakes on that?”

Com. Evans, “Yes.”

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

Approval to proclaim April as Indiana Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month and Blue Ribbon Week

Com. Harper, “This is a request by Cheryl Polarek to proclaim April as Indiana Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Month with April 9-16 as Blue Ribbon Week. They would also like to permission to place blue ribbons on the trees at the courthouse and Administration Center during Blue Ribbon Week.”

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

Request for additional appropriation—ITS

Fund 186.30 $22,500 acct 0001 enhances access

Annual re-appropriation of funds.

Com. Evans, “Last night we did this at the Council meeting and the dollar amount is over by $10,000.00, it should be $12,500.00. It was wrongly advertised. We can always go lower, but we can’t go higher.”

Com. Evans moved to approve $12,500.00 for the additional appropriation, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.


PLAN COMMISSION

Development Plan, Porter County Plan Commission, Petitioner
Robert Thompson, Plan Commission Director

Mr. Thompson, “This is a proposal from the Porter County Plan Commission, excuse me, I don’t have the number in front of me. Porter County Plan Commission recommended approval of this proposed ordinance by 5-1 vote at their March 8 hearing. What this does is it just changes some procedure items for commercial, industrial, multi family, and institutional uses. Institutional uses being schools and churches. Currently those uses, all they have to do is go in front of the Development Advisory Committee for a review prior to getting the improvement location permit. What this proposal is proposing is that these items will have to in front of the Plan Commission for a public hearing for the approval, keeping the Development Advisory Committee solely as an advisory committee to the Plan Commission. So these uses I am referring to will have to go through the Plan Commission at public hearing, on a public agenda, public notification for the review and approval on these types of uses. Essentially what it is, it is more of a house cleaning type situation where we are sending these cases on from the Development Advisory Committee onto the Plan Commission for their approval at a public hearing versus the Development Advisory Committee reviewing these and approving these. They are keeping what was formally TAC as a totally advisory committee to the Plan Commission.”

Com. Harper, “This has gone over as Bob said it passed 5-1 to the Plan Commission level.”

Com. Evans, “My only problem is that people take a lot of time and spend a lot of money to develop these plans and ideas and then they come and go through a body and then they have to turn around and do the same thing again. Then they were sent back to TAC and were given notions and ideas and most of the time they assumed that was the way things were to be and then they went out and carried out their project. So I think that portion of it needs to come first anyway.”

Mr. Thompson, “The Advisory Committee is still going to be reviewing these items prior to going to the Plan Commission.”

Com. Evans, “But many times they were given an okay by the Plan Commission and then at TAC things were changed back to how ever it was.”

Com. Harper, “Now, final determination is by Plan Commission. And you are right that was the problem. Now this should solve that.”

Mr. Thompson, “The way it is set up now with the review procedures now to what I am proposing is it’s a predictable process. Okay? A developer or developer representative no longer comes running in Tuesday at 4:00, files a check with us and a plan and everything is scheduled to TAC and then they go through a number of hearings and stuff and in this situation approved or eventually forwarded and then a new application to Plan Commission. What they have to do now is bring it in as a sit down meeting with me essentially or have me go through the submittal that they have and make sure everything is in proper order with a very simple little checklist. And make sure they have everything and then I can deem it as a complete application and say okay, you will know be on to the Plan Commission on this date and in that time, I have to get it to the Advisory Committee for two hearings for them to review it and then forward a report and a comment for the Advisory Committee. So I mean in this situation it is developing a predictable process also.”

Com. Evans, “Shouldn’t we just take TAC out of the picture? I mean, obviously whatever they do or decide comes before the Plan Commission and you guys can do or decide at the Plan Commission level whatever changes need to be done. My problem is the developer of the person who is trying to get a project through has got this extra layer to get through before he gets to the Plan Commission. Whatever you decide in your sit down meeting with them is going to be the same things they are talking about at TAC, same things talked about in Plan Commission and the same things that are talked about here when it finally gets here, so why do we have that if its not going to be a vine of heart of what is going to be done.”

Mr. Thompson, “We are not talking about rezonings. So they will never get here. All I am doing is a simple checklist of do they have drainage calculations to start the review, do they have a site plan showing certain set backs, check, do they have the certain details on it, check. I am not going to sit there and find out if they meet the code; all I am saying is are they there in the position for the Advisory Committee to start reviewing. All right. And then the engineers who are on it or the other departments, whoever sits on it can start discussing the certain part and then the report will be forwarded to the Plan Commission for their final determination in that situation. We are going to be reviewing do they meet parking standards, okay, yeah, do they have the proper setback, yes, and then forward it on. We are just basically looking at seeing whether or not they meet the code and then forwarding on.”

Com. Evans, “I understand.”

Com. Harper, “Do I hear a motion?”

Com. Evans, “Is this in the form of an ordinance?”

Mr. Thompson, “Yes.”

Com. Evans, “And there are no numbers until the second reading?”

Mr. Thompson, “Correct.”

Com. Evans moved to approve the Porter County Development Plan on first reading, Com. Harper seconded, motion carried.

Mr. Thompson, “I do need to mention one thing just in case if anybody is here for the purposes of there was an article in the newspaper saying we were going to review the Unified Development Ordinance, the big thick document. That wasn’t the intention of tonight’s meeting. The document is available on line. There is a workshop tomorrow night.”

Com. Harper, “Anything else?”

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

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


BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA


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



Attest: Sandra K. Vuko, Auditor