Porter County Government - April 30, 2007

PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
SPECIAL MEETING
MONDAY, APRIL 30, 2007
8:00 A.M.

   The special meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, April 30, 2007 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.

CALL TO ORDER/PLEDGE

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

E-911 and EMA GRANT
Dave Sheibles, E-911 Director
Phil Griffith, EMA Director

   Com. Harper, “We called this special meeting because of this grant that has been going on and could someone tell me where we are at? Dave, why don’t you give us a report.”

   Dave Sheibels, “Good morning, thank you for having this special meeting. Hopefully we can use this meeting to ….. As Commissioner Harper eluded to, this Homeland Security Grant has been the topic of discussion in public safety in Porter County for the last several months. It’s been through various drafts, trials and tribulations to get to the point which we are at today. We developed what we are calling a task force group that met on occasion since this grant became available last year and all those members, most of those members are in the group behind me. Jeff Lundy from Portage could not make it. But I think we are in the vast majority here with you this morning. The project has evolved to be a little bit problematic in respect to the timing of events namely the difference between coming up with a solid sound engineering study for this project called Public Safety Wireless County Wide Area Network. Through various meetings and timetables as you know, Miner Electronics was eventually awarded the engineering job. They were unanimously picked by the task force group some months ago to be the engineering vendor of choice, or the project vendor of choice. That worked out well, we’ve had a long established relationship with Miner Electronics in Porter County for a long time, done many projects with them successfully to our credit and their credit. The $16,800 which was Phase 1 of the grant originally written by parts of the task force and Phil Griffith, then through various circumstances and deadlines was amended by Eric Kurtz, in conjunction with Phil’s directorship I believe. We are working off the second re-write we call it the amended re-write of the original grant which follows foreign expenditure of this grant money to move toward a county wide data wireless system. There are two parts of a system like this, there’s what I call in layman’s terms, the cloud version, the air system. The air system is used by laptops, other types of wireless devices in police cars, fire engines, fire equipment, EMS, ambulances, and various rescue equipment. These are all users such as a system in a mobile capacity. Then there’s the ground system. The ground system connects all the various public safety networks, servers, data bases, those types of things to build a complete system. This is mostly dealing with the cloud site of that environment. Unfortunately the grant is limited to it’s dollar amount and it’s been determined through lots of discussions with our vendor that unfortunately we cannot build a complete system in Porter County for the $379,184 that’s available in this grant. Taking out the $16,800 that’s already been awarded to Miner Electronics for engineering. That’s been pretty well established so the question is how do we not use such a valuable amount of money but still be within the scope of the grant and do something on this project here in Porter County. This morning just before this meeting the majority of the task force members met in this room and reviewed the latest agreement that Miner Electronics had presented to Porter County and that you have before you. This agreement is basically the cart before the horse. Unfortunately a normal type, in my opinion, of technology project is you have good engineering, sound equipment lists, a good plan before you go ahead and sign an actual bill construction type of agreement. But as I mentioned, that did not particularly materialize so we’re trying to do something creatively I believe, before the sound engineering gets done taking in respect that sound engineering is coming and that this very open ended agreement. You’ve all had a chance to read it probably, is all contingent on a lot of approval of the amendments in this agreement which now are basically blank, and simply says when they arrive from Miner Electronics, when they finish the engineering study. And it’s acceptable to Porter County and basically reviewed by the task force and then presented back to the Board of Commissioners. There’s a payment schedule in here which is fairly standard of what I have seen in previous projects with Miner Electronics. No problem there. But I did want to make it clear that in my correspondence with the board and a letter I wrote the board on the 20th this month, that just understand that this is building a partial system and that’s fine and good as long as we have the same understanding. Number two, that the sound engineering is not particularly behind this document, this document is being produced because today as you know, is the grant deadline and we have to either approve this document or not approve the document, in other words, approve the document, we have the possibility of at least partial project of moving forward using all of the grant money, if again this has to go back to the Department of Homeland Security for their review even if the Board today approves this, this document, there’s a probability that the Department of Homeland Security may not approve the project yet. There’s the possibility as spelled out in this very open ended document that any part of the amendment for a list or engineering study that we don’t like or we know it is not going to work here in Porter County in some capacity or another, then the task force is not going to fully, probably fully, recommend going forward. We just had a meeting on this. I think we are unanimous that it’s a county wide type system or it’s not a system, but at least at this point, by having the Board approve this document we’re okay in the respect that at least we’ve met the grant deadline, we have a possibility of using the grant money but I still want to make it clear that there is still a lot of open ends to this whole project. We may or may not yet even have a county wide wireless project. The task force including myself and including key people like this Portage Police Chief, Cliff Burge, Portage Fire Chief, Bill Lundy, Sheriff Dave Lain, myself, and Phil Griffith unanimously approve this particular agreement this morning clearly understanding all the open endedness that I just described and ask the Board of Commissioners to concur. Let’s just go ahead and do this agreement. All it is is an agreement. At least we’ve met today’s deadline for the grant agreement to be processed and leave it up to very capable task force members and Eric Kurtz is on board in his capacity as a coordinator with us. Let’s see where it goes. At least we are not saying we’re not going to give it a dog gone good shot and see where it leads us and we have Miner on board already. Bob is here from Miner, in the audience if you care to ask any questions of Bob, he’s the lead sales rep with us on this project and he was instrumental in creating the language for this particular document.”

   Com. Harper, “Let me ask you a couple questions. What will this entire project cost? I am asking that you round it off to the nearest dollar.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “We’ve had estimates from Miner and very loosely from some other vendors through a period of time. It could be anywhere from $500-600,000 to a million and a half.”

   Com. Harper, “So if you get this much done, you cannot get another grant for the rest because we are at the end of the road on the grants, correct?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “I personally, Mr. Harper, am not exactly sure. Possibly Phil Griffith could talk about the future of Homeland Security Grants.”

   Com. Harper, “I guess where we’re at, but it seems to me you guys are using your whole grant on something that the money may not be available. So you know that.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Right. It’s not so much, I mean the money of course is available, we have it processed through the Department of Homeland Security preliminarily for this grant.”

   Com. Harper, “What I am saying is what are you going to do with it if you complete $379,000 and there’s no more money to go ahead? What good does it do you? Does it do you any good, I guess that’s what I am asking you.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “I see.”

   Com. Harper, “What you’ve done so far.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Right. In Amendment E there is language about and it is loosely termed Porter County, but it really means all public safety agencies, governments in Porter County. If they want to come up and add funding to various parts and pieces of the project to complete it, let’s say for example that the Miner Engineering Study comes back and says $800,000 or $600,000 or whatever, is above and beyond the amount of money that is available in the grant. Now the idea of the plan is to come back to various cities and towns in county government and say you know, we’re awful darn close, we can do the county wide project for an additional “x” number of dollars. And again, it is written here in this agreement that if it doesn’t become fully funded, and that scenario does happen where we could do a complete cloud project so to speak, as described for $800,000 and we have $379,000 available, if we cannot get some combination of funding whatever that might be from whoever it might be and then you are actually correct, that is very, very questionable. We can’t see how good it might come from right now but that would be the scenario. Or, through various engineering and technology build some resemblance with just this money, at least the start of a backbone as we tend to call it, the cloud backbone, and it would be somewhat countywide except it would have limitations where departments may not join to it immediately because of short comings in coverage or short comings in connecting the gray areas to the right departments and that could happen, too. If that happens, as I mentioned, then the task force is going to say, well, it’s all or nothing, we just said that in our meeting a few moments ago, it’s all or nothing and if those scenarios play out, it can’t be auxiliary funded, the coverage is just not there, for “x” number of dollars of commitments by the various departments, governments they belong to, then unfortunately the project is not going to materialize. We’ll go back to some other plan or some other configuration.”

   Com. Harper, “Let me ask you this. So, you’re telling me that if, let’s say the engineering study comes out and it’s going to cost $2 million. Okay, and you don’t have commitments for that, you’re telling me you are not going to have for this project?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “That’s the general consensus this morning.”

   Com. Harper, “Okay, then what happened? At that point, would you have federal grant money already or would you not have it? Or how would that work?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “We would still have the $379,184. That is not going away unless Phil communicates to the Department of Homeland Security that we just simply are not going to do the project for whatever reasons and we would dismiss that distribution.”

   Com. Harper, “Here’s where I am really going. I assume there is going to be a cost for the engineering study.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Yes, and that cost has been awarded already to Miner for $16,800.”

   Com. Harper, “Who’s awarded it to Miner?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Phil?”

   Com. Harper, “Where did the money come from?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “It came from this grant. It is part of this grant.”

   Com. Harper, “We already have the money?”

   Mr. Sheibles, “Already have the money.”

   Com. Harper, “Okay, so we don’t have to worry about if this project falls apart that we have to search around for $16,000. How much is it?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “$16,800.”

   Com. Harper, “So, we don’t have to worry about searching around for the money for the engineering study if something falls apart.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “No. Already been paid and we discussed that this morning at our meeting to make sure that we had an understanding that if we don’t proceed with the project, Porter County doesn’t owe the Department of Homeland Security $16,800. Phil concurred that it wouldn’t happen, we would have just spent it. Now we have a good sound engineering study and as is indicated in my letter on the 20th we can always use that engineering study for future direction. We finally would have a sound engineering study.”

   Com. Harper, “I think it is important that if we approve this contract today you don’t take that as a commitment on our part to come up with the rest of the money because that is not what we are doing at this point.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “No. There’s no language like that whatsoever in this agreement.”

   Com. Harper, “John?”

   Com. Evans, “This is not new technology, I mean, this technology is being used by Portage and Porter County today, right?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Our wireless users, however, this particular technology in the Miner proposal of the 4.9 gigahertz, nobody is using that particular style communication in Porter County. Portage has an older radio frequency mobile data system and other agencies are using the public cell system for data transfer such as the Sheriff’s Department, Valparaiso, Portage Fire. The, we call them air cards, they slide into the side of a laptop and they go onto the public cellular network. Those air card configurations of course, would go away in favor of a Porter County line wireless system. That’s what we are trying to do.”

   Com. Harper, “Would the volunteer fire departments use it too?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “They would be invited to use it, certainly.”

   Com. Harper, “Do they have to come up with money to use it? You say they would be invited.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “All public safety agencies, police, fire, EMS, would be invited to share, to come join the system but they would have to buy things like their own laptops, their own software, their own data modems, own vehicle mounts, antennas, things like that.”

   Com. Evans, “My question was more to we already have the technology in a little bit older version already going on, why is the engineering study going to be so involved and why hasn’t it been able to be done in conjunction with the deadline for the grant?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Good question. I personally am not sure how we got the cart before the horse so to speak. The grant was written in a Phase I, Phase II re-write to where Phase I was the engineering study and somehow that got set aside a little bit or re-discussed by various people in Porter County and it just never got awarded till just a few months ago.”

   Com. Evans, “This is the same grant that requires the cities of Portage and Valparaiso and Porter County to sign off on before the money can be distributed rightly being described for one purpose.”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Phil could probably describe the sign off.”

   Com. Evans, “So, Portage and Valparaiso and Porter County…”

   Phil Griffith, “(Inaudible)….. it took the Commissioners, the city of Portage, the highest paid and largest paid police department, the largest paid fire department, the county sheriff, and the Commissioners to sign it.”

   Com. Evans, “I think it’s very gracious for those cities especially Portage and the ones that could have just said no, that’s not going to benefit us, we’re already doing that, to do that but I don’t know where the ball got dropped and this is not the first time it happened. Every time we come to one of these grants, we’re also at the 11th hour trying to figure out why we are doing it like we do. That’s the part that needs fixed. I don’t want to see us losing money either, but I think you need to get things….. how long have you known about this? How long has it been in the works?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Probably close to a year.”

   Com. Evans, “Yeah, and here we are if we don’t do it today, the money is out the window. So, I think we need to pay a little bit more attention to the time tables involved and to come up with some more eligible answers for everyone involved. Especially since everybody that is involved has to jump up and give their permission to the user’s.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I have a legal concern about I know we don’t want to lose the money but I also don’t want to be putting us in a position where they’re signing a contract and getting this money knowing we can’t do the project. I mean, I would want to take a close look at this grant to make sure that we are not in a situation where we have to pay it back or that we are violating the terms of the grant. I mean, there is that. $380,000 is a lot of money but if we can’t do the project I just think we should be careful.”

   Com. Knoblock, “And you are talking about an estimated amount of $600,000 to one half million, where would those funds come from?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “We have no idea at this point. That’s only one case scenario that if we were to come back and try to sell to various respective governments that we have a good launching pad with the $379,000 and to do this might mean “x” number of dollars more whether it’s that high or lesser than that. Again, we don’t know. That’s why as I said earlier we are using the cart before the horse scenario, that’s what we have kind of gotten ourselves into but at least with this document today we have a commitment from the Board of Commissioners that we can at least try to use this money and move forward. What the future holds for this project is still yet to be determined. We don’t have the engineering study, we don’t have exact costs but yet we are trying to save the money at the same time and fortunately we have a vendor in this area, Miner Electronics, that is doing everything they can to work with us and be creative and allow us to come up with some kind of agreement so at least at the deadline, which is today, not lose this dollar amount. But, the project may not even happen.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is there language in the grant that addresses that? Is there any language in the grant that says that if this money is not used for the specified purpose that it has to be paid back?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Yes.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, where is that language?”

   Mr. Griffith, “If we don’t use it on the project we have to return it.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Do you have the grant language?”
   Mr. Sheibels, “The termination paragraph right at the end of the … right before the sign off, pretty much covers all the various conditions of what can happen if this project doesn’t move forward. As I was telling the task force earlier, I’ve not personally seen such an open ended grant, I mean it almost covers a grant’s agreement with a vendor. It covers so many outs that almost anybody can say this project can’t move forward and we’re out. Very simply the money would never have been paid to the vendor and Phil, in his capacity, would then return the money. So I don’t think we are in danger of paying Miner anything and say all of a sudden stop the project. We would know before that first actual check leaves Porter County hands to Miner if this project is a go or not. Because there is so many ways to stop the project.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is that the grant? The grant money…”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Oh, the grant money which …”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I know the contracts, I mean, I just …. That occurred multiple amended times to put in this contract language that we need to protect ourselves and giving Miner squat. I mean, I am not worried about Miner, I’m worried about the grant money and paying the federal government back, not Miner.”

   Mr. Griffith, “The way the grant works is that if you guys approve the contract and then we get an invoice, we submit the invoice to the state and the state sends us a check, an electronic check…”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I understand how it works, I know that…”

   Mr. Griffith, “We don’t pay the vendor until we get our product. Then when we get our product, we would then pay the vendor.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I understand that, I was just wondering about the spirit of the grant money, if we are approving a contract for a project that we’re getting $400,000 for that we know we can’t complete, is that in violation of the grant? Would we have to pay the money back? That’s my question, I am not worried about Miner. I know this covers Miner, I am just worried about what the grant says about what the money should be used for and concerns I have about that.”

   Unidentified male, “Addendum E is the language out of our grant proposal and it won’t be submitted to the state for grant approval of the (inaudible)… and if it pays the state one being the engineering which is the $16,800 piece that is underway and because of that dollar amount, it was able to proceed without being going through the Commissioner approval process. Phase II is really the implementation and that last paragraph of Addendum B does clearly state as part of the grant application that this is not a complete project, both the mobile units referred to as traver units in there, the things that go on police cars and fire trucks and the ambulances, are being funded separately by the individual user agencies. And there was an expectation of additional dollars that were going to be needed. The percentage there is 40% and that was really a number that we had talked to some of the design people that they felt was going to be additional.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “So support of this public safety wireless wide area network proposal is demonstrated by law enforcement community committing 100% of the 2005 LETPP funds to this project, is that an indirect that we are committing the $2 million dollars?”

   Com. Harper, “No.”

   Unidentified male, “That’s the cutoff of the grant allocation amount, it was for law enforcement, terrorism, prevention, program money and then the other amount was the Homeland Security Program.”

   Com. Harper, “So they’ve covered themselves by saying that they… they are telling the state that they don’t have all the money. Basically that is what they are telling them.”
   Unidentified male, “The intent would be to not spend any money if the project is dead and not going to be completed. You would have to go back and say we are not proceeding with the project so we are not going to draw down the funds or here’s the funds that we did draw down that we aren’t using.”

   Com. Harper, “She’s more worried about the funds you did draw down.”

   Male, “The Phase I money? Well, we will have a deliverable from Miner, it will be an engineering study.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I was just worried about the whole sum. If we sign it and then spend $387,000 and do not have a county wide area network, would anybody come after us for that grant money back.”

   Male, “I would say if we don’t have a system, within, or a back up system, I think they would come after us.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “And that’s got to be the question, (inaudible)….. from $16,000 to $387,000.”

   Male, “We would draw that money down if we are not going to proceed or have a plan.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Are you sure? Who’s going to be the safety check there? Is it going to be this board? I mean, who’s going to be the safety check that makes a decision whether or not that money’s going to be drawn down and under what circumstances because I guess if we sign the grant, you know, who would pay back the money?”

   Com. Harper, “Phil, how’s the money drawn down?”

   Mr. Griffith, “Once it’s approved we get an invoice.”

   Com. Harper, “Okay, that’s half the answer.”

   Mr. Griffith, “I submit the invoice to the state they electronically send the money to the Auditor’s office.”

   Com. Harper, “Who has to sign, you know, who’s responsible for making that… somebody’s got to tell them that, you know….”

   Mr. Griffith, “I fill out the paperwork, send it down, they send the electronic check to the Auditor, any bill that I would submit has to be approved by the Auditor.”

   Com. Harper, “I think what we are saying is do not draw down any money without Commissioners approval.”

   Com. Evans, “Is there a separate fund, does the Auditor give you a fund number?”

   Mr. Griffith, “Yes, it goes right into a separate fund, it’s the Homeland Security Fund.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “You’re the responsible party if something would go wrong and this money would have to be reimbursed since you work for the Commissioners, it would come from us. I mean, that’s what I am trying to identify.”

   Mr. Griffith, “The pay would have to be through the Auditor and with you guy’s approval.”

   Com. Harper, “What we are telling you is don’t get it started.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Don’t draw down money without….”
   Com. Evans, “Doing a claim from this Board.”

   Mr. Griffith, “I have no problem with that.”

   Sheriff Lain, “I think we don’t want to forget that just by us moving forward doesn’t mean it’s the safest way to get accepted.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “We can only do what we can do, that’s what we’re trying to do without jeopardizing ourselves to being in debt $387,000 for an incomplete project.”

   Male, “And in fact, they see that because it’s written in there, they may see that and say you can’t do it so, we don’t approve it.”

   Com. Harper, “Do you guys get another crack to use this money for something if that happens?”

   Mr. Griffith, “If the state allows.”

   Com. Evans, “What about the future of additional grants?”

   Mr. Griffith, “In the 2006 grant that’s already been allocated out and Porter County will receive, I shouldn’t say Porter County, District 1, which is the district grant, we will receive a mobile community and public which you guys have approved and money towards a district wide exercise and 17 laptops for GIS and that’s it. There is no other money coming.”

   Com. Harper, “But it’s drying up, right?”

   Mr. Griffith, “Right.”

   Com. Harper, “Okay.”

   Mr. Griffith, “Very quickly.”

   Com. Harper, “Motion one way or the other?”

   Com. Evans moved to accept the grant application, Com. Knoblock seconded,

   Com. Harper, “Any further discussion?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “I have one more comment, please. I would also for the Board of Commissioners to have included in this agreement just something, a mere technicality over something we talked about this morning at the meeting. On the very first page under project director, Phil Griffith, we would like to add project managers, Jeff Lundy, Rich Howard and myself if the project actually goes and we do the actual work, it is going to require the three of us more as the IT specialists to actually work with Miner on this particular project. Just change that language please.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Actually the motion we need is a motion to approve the Communications Systems Contract between Porter County and Miner Electronics Laboratory that’s before you, the grant is already been, we already signed that. This is, now we need a motion to approve this contract to proceed with Miner, with the grant money, that’s what this is about.”

   Com. Harper, “Is that right?”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Yes.”

   Com. Harper, “Okay, now does anybody here a problem with that amendment? John, do you want to amend your motion?”

   Com. Evans withdrew his first motion and moved to approve the Communications System Contract with Miner Electric, Com. Knoblock withdrew her second from the previous motion and seconded Com. Evans’ amended motion,

   Com. Harper, “And I assume somebody will get this typed up today so it can be signed today with those names added in there under the paragraph?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “Sure, we’ll get that done.”

   Com. Harper, “Do you need this signed today? Actually signed?”

   Mr. Sheibels, “I believe so.”

   Mr. Griffith, “If you guys approve it today, I am just going to let the state know and I am just going to call them and let them know.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Why don’t we sign it and fax it to them instead of taking a chance like that.”

   Com. Harper, “Well, then somebody better take one of these agreements.”

   Ms. Hartig, “All they would need is the corrected second page.”

   Motion carried.

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Melissa, is there a copy of the grant for this project in our office? Did you give a copy of the grant to Melissa?”

   Mr. Griffith, “There should be a copy up here. But I will get one anyway.”

   Ms. Hartig, “I don’t keep copies of the grants that come through because there is so many.”

   Mr. Griffith, “I know the Auditor has one. I’ll get one.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “We would like one. Then is this money going into a specific line item that we can track?”

   Mr. Griffith, “It goes into a specific fund.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “What’s the number so Melissa can…”

   Mr. Griffith, “I would have to check with the Auditor’s.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “Why don’t you give Melissa a copy of the grant, and the fund line item so we can track expenditures of that fund with having board approval.”

   Mr. Griffith, “It will only be one expenditure.”

   Atty. Rinkenberger, “I don’t want to argue about it, Phil just do it.”

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


BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS
PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

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

Attest: James K. Kopp, Auditor