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PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS REGULAR MEETING TUESDAY, JULY 24, 2007 6:00 P.M. The regular meeting of the Porter County Board of Commissioners convened at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 24, 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. Com. Harper, “If anyone is here for the County Council meeting, it’s been cancelled tonight so there will not be a County Council meeting tonight.” APPROVAL OF PAYROLL Com. Evans moved to approve the payroll of July 23, 2007, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. APPROVAL OF MINUTES Com. Evans moved to approve the minutes of June 19, and July 10, 2007, Com Knoblock seconded, motion carried. APPROVAL OF CLAIMS Com. Evans moved to approve the claims of July 17, and July 24, 2007, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. RELEASE OF DRUG FREE COMMUNITY FUNDS- Sharon Cawood, Director of Porter County Substance Abuse Council Michelle Volk, chairperson Ms. Cawood, “Good evening. I am Sharon Cawood, Director of Porter County Substance Abuse Council. Just to refresh your memory the drug free council is not from tax payers dollars, it comes from drunk drivers just in Porter County. Over the past year from September until October of the coming year. We have met and received our grants and approved our grants in May. These dollars will be given out in October when our fiscal year starts again. The Governor’s Commission is in every county in the state of Indiana and we are going to submit a plan to him, they have approved these dollars and I think you got a letter of approval back from him. With me tonight is Michelle Volk. Michelle is our chairperson this year and she will tell you how the dollars have to be spent, or are being spent.” Ms. Volk, “Good evening. We divide it into three categories, the third one to each. The first one is prevention and education. A third of our dollars go to that, a third of our dollars go to treatment and intervention and then the last third of our dollars go to justice. The total dollars that were funded were $168,849.00.” Com. Evans, “I think in all the years you have been doing this it is fairly well allocated and I know you always get more dollars requested than you get money to go around. I think you do a very, very good job in deciding which programs to benefit.” Com. Harper, “I am glad to see the money in there for Alice’s and the Morraine House. Do I hear a motion?” Com. Evans moved to approve the recommendation, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. OFFICE HOLDERS/DEPARTMENT HEADS Del Johnson, Expo Center Com. Harper, “We have Del Johnson here for John Thorstad on receiving and opening bids for the sign. Where are the bids at? What we will probably do is open them up and announce them and then let you take them back and meet with John and discuss them. Then in two weeks from tonight at our next meeting whichever one of you wants to come back and make your recommendation.” Mr. Johnson, “Okay.” Com. Harper, “Landmark Sign, their bid is for $78,484.00. Next one is from CGI Sign Group from Indianapolis.” Com. Evans, “Landmark is from Chesterton.” Com. Harper, “And their bid is for $89,600.00. Are there only two bids?” Ms. Hartig, “Yes.” Com. Harper, “Is there anybody here that bid on these tonight? If you want to see either of those bids, he’ll have them available for you to look at after the meeting and then you can take them back and discuss them with John and look over the specifications. We will bring them up at our next meeting on August 7th. Thanks, Del.” Approval of contract-IBM Credit LLC Sharon Lippens, IT Director Ms. Lippens, “I actually have two things. If you want, I will start with the IBM contract. What I did was we currently work with an IBM business partner which is the way IBM likes it. I informed IBM that county ordinance says we need to get three quotes and I told them that they could not exempt me from doing that. So I did send out four requests for price quotes on upgrading our AS 400. I received three responses back. One of the responses I would say is considerably lower than, and they are very detailed specifications so that we could make sure we had apples to apples. The contingency was that IBM approves their discount. IBM gives certain business partners a certain percentage off retail and they don’t like their customers to move around partners but I explained to IBM the reason that we needed to get multiple quotes and if we had a significant difference then we would need permission to change. I have not heard back from IBM yet.” Com. Harper, “How much is the difference?” Ms. Lippens, “It’s about $8,000.00. I have not heard what the spender did with they gave me two quotes; one if IBM approved the discount, one if IBM did not. Obviously, if they did not it would be higher than our current business partner.” Com. Harper, “Do you want to hold off until our next meeting?” Ms. Lippens, “Yes. Because I really don’t have any figures to bring forward. We will be going through IBM Credit Corp for financing regarding (inaudible)……” Com. Harper, “Is April 7th going to be enough time? Or do you want to go with the second meeting, what am I saying, April, that would be enough time. I mean August 7th.” Ms. Lippens, “We were hoping to get this settled and get it ordered because we are also beating the clock on the Hamer software getting installed on August 15th. “ Com. Harper, “All right. Let’s put it down for August 7th. What’s project number two?” RECOMMENDATION FROM GIS COMMITTEE FOR WIRING AND HARDWARE Ms. Lippens, “If the Commissioners are ready to hear a recommendation from the GIS Committee that was asked to be formed to talk about wiring and hardware and personnel. If not I can hold off on that.” Com. Harper, “With this report, have you estimated cost and everything?” Ms. Lippens, “Not for personnel. I wasn’t quite sure what my role was for personnel so we just discussed the wiring, hardware and then expected staffing in any department they felt they were going to need to people, we were to get people.” Com. Harper, “I think our main concern was how is this wiring and this thing was put together in such a way that you would feel comfortable and that all the departments could be served. The staffing, really, that answer of whether there is going to be additional staffing is a Council question. Why don’t you give us a report on the wiring? Have you guys worked that out? Go ahead.” Ms. Lippens, “That is actually the last thing is I have an RFP for the wiring. We did meet on Wednesday, the 18th…” Com. Harper, “Why don’t you tell us all who was involved?” Ms. Lippens, “Auditor, Treasurer, County Assessor, all township assessors, Recorder, Building Commission, Planning, Emergency Management, Environmental, Highway, Highway Engineer, Surveyor, 911 and myself were all invited.” Com. Harper, “So we got everybody involved that might be using GIS.” Ms. Lippens, “Yes. Most all departments were represented. The Recorder was not; County Assessor was not; we did have two township assessors that came, but I believe most of the other offices were represented. We had discussions back and forth about the pros and cons of having being on a separate network, having been on the county network. At the end it was agreed that it should be on the county network so it can serve anybody in the county that currently has access, will we be duplicating any wiring, or causing any additional cost to try and bring the two together at a later date.” Com. Harper, “So that’s the consensus?” Ms. Lippens, “Yes. We also came to a consensus that we need to order the equipment as soon as possible so that the Sidwell Company can begin training the Auditor’s personnel and start breaking the date of the completed ___ so that they can start using it and preparing the training of the different offices. That will be done as well. Which leads me to the last thing.” REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL FOR REWIRING FOR GIS Ms. Lippens, “I have a request for proposal that I am asking to be released for rewiring this building. I did an RFP instead of a bid because we do expect it to be under the $75,000 bid amount.” Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation of the RFP, Com. Knoblock, “I just like to have something in front of me before I vote on it.” Com. Evans, “This is a request for proposal, is what it is.” Ms. Lippens, “It’s a request to release the request for proposal to get quotes.” Com. Knoblock, “Okay.” Com. Harper, “We’re not agreeing to anything. We’re just putting this out to ask people to submit bids for it.” Com. Knoblock, “I just like to have some information.” Ms. Lippens, “Here’s a copy.” Com. Harper, “Let me just go over that meeting a little bit. The debate was whether a separate wiring should be set up for the GIS or whether it should be part of a county wiring and Sharon’s concern was that all these departments have to use it, can use it. The Recorder, the Planning Department, the Building Department, Assessors, Auditors, accountants and if it’s all part of the wiring, and 911, everybody would have access to it immediately. So, apparently everyone decided that it was the best way to do it rather than do a separate wiring.” Ms. Lippens, “I think one of the concerns with the current wiring was knowing that it would not really support the amount of data that was going to need to be passed and the concern of whether that wiring could happen in a timely fashion for the GIS to come online. That came up with a discussion of yes, we are getting ready to release the RFP, wanted to get the wiring started as soon as possible, the money is already allocated, and that it would be done in time, they are expecting approximately February.” Com. Harper, “So now you are asking to be able to contact these various vendors and ask them to give us a price and plan for the wiring.” Ms. Lippens, “Yes. We have scheduled a mandatory walk through which most vendors that I think would respond have already come in and gone through the different things so that we can make sure our bid included everything we were going to need. We still wanted to have a mandatory walk through so that all the vendors would be on the same page.” Com. Evans, “Does this also entail the update of the chase ways?” Ms. Lippens, “It will also include adding approximately double the enumerated drops that are here when the building was built there was pretty much one drop per office. And as people moved their desks from one wall to the other or they acquired employees and had to put two employees in the same office we ran into a problem of having no data drop. So, it involves adding extra drops all over the building as well, so if we grow, we won’t have to start adding wire.” Com. Harper, “John, you made a motion?” Com. Evans, “Yes, that we put the RFP out there.” Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Update of tornado watch and warning procedures for county buildings Phil Griffith, EMA Director Mr. Griffith, “I have been going through each one of the facilities that we have. I’ve got the Administration Building is completed, the Memorial Opera House is completed, the North County Complex is completed, the Greg Phillips Emergency Service Building is completed, and the Expo Center I have in draft. I have to finish my tours of the Juvenile Detention, the County Highway and the Courthouse. I’ve got the basics done but I haven’t gotten to figure out exactly what end of the buildings would be best suited for shelter if we would ever have a tornado actually strike. So, those are in draft form which I should have done shortly. The other ones I did have done.” Com. Harper, “I think we have them in our book, right? So what are you asking us?” Mr. Griffith, “Once you approve them I will be contacting each of the offices and actually give them a copy of this and go over with them.” Com. Harper, “You want them approved for everything but the Expo Center?” Mr. Griffith, “No, the Expo Center is done. What I don’t have done is Juvenile Detention Center, I have an appointment to go through there next week, and I have to finish up the Courthouse. I just talked to Al and I have to go through the County Highway which won’t take long. Those are the three facilities I don’t have done at this point. The rest of them I did have done.” Com. Harper, “When are they all going to be done?” Mr. Griffith, “Probably by the end of next week.” Com. Harper, “Why don’t we just have all of them in here and pass on them all at once. We’ll pass them all on August 7th. Okay, and get them all in. Thank you, Phil. Here’s what I think. I agree with Carole that we should have this stuff ahead of time. Melissa, I think you should have an instruction sheet that we don’t want any pass outs; I mean if they want to bring a pass out, that is fine, as long as we have it in our book ahead of time. Would you do that?” Ms. Hartig, “Yes.” COMMISSIONERS REPORTS South District: 1. Prairie Landings Subdivision, Phase 1, Performance Letter of Credit #HACH1101050S, from Harris Bank in the amount of $50,000.00 New expiration date is July 31, 2008. Recommend approval. Com. Knoblock moved to approve, Com. Evans seconded, motion carried. CORRESPONDENCE Request for approval by the Morgan Twp. Fire Dept. to use county roads to detour traffic from St. Rd. 49 during the Malden Labor Day Parade Com. Harper, “I am assuming you talked to the Sheriff’s Department about the local roads?” Unidentified Man, “Yes, I spoke to Sheriff Lain and he promised the support from the Sheriff’s Department as in the past to control traffic not only on State Road 49 but the detour as well.” Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Request for approval by the South County Belles Home Extension Club to use the Courthouse grounds to display their quilt project. The quilt will be raffled for the benefit of Spring Valley. They request the following dates: August 4 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. August 9 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. August 18 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. August 23 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. September 1 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. September 20 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Com. Harper, “Have you done this before?” Lois Curry, “No. We have not. We decided it to be a club project and all the money will be going to Spring Valley Shelter. We just need to permission to start selling the tickets.” Com. Evans, “It’s a quilt?” Ms. Curry, “It’s a quilt, yes.” Com. Evans, “It’s going to be like a raffle?” Ms. Curry, “A raffle, yes, with raffle tickets.” Com. Evans, “What about the insurance, can we waive that?” Atty. Rinkenberger, “You can do whatever you please.” Com. Harper, “I think we should waive it. It will probably cost more for insurance than they will make off the quilt.” Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Request for approval by Zielger’s Window Coverings for the purchase and installation of six (6) shades for the second level rotunda behind the switchboard and the third level rotunda area on the south side. Ms. Hartig, “Charlotte gave this to me. She wants to change out the old blinds behind the switchboard, they are all broken and they are taping them together. And, then also just go ahead and finish off the third floor in the rotunda area. That’s where a lot of the sun comes in and heats up the building.” Com. Harper, “Questions?” Com. Evans, “How much?” Com. Harper, “$2,079 for the third floor and $1,595 for the second.” Com. Evans, “Where is it coming from?” Ms. Hartig, “We can either take it from CEDIT building maintenance…” Com. Harper, “Do we have enough in there?” Ms. Hartig, “Yes.” Com. Harper, “All right, CEDIT Building Maintenance.” Com. Evans moved to approve as recommended, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Request for additional appropriation-Commissioners Fund 233.30 $ 2,000 to 3230 telephone $ 5,000 to 3520 water and sewage $35,000 to 3620 buildings & structures $38,881 to 4540 equipment For additional funds for telephone, water, sewage and buildings and structures will be used to cover typical monthly bills through the end of 2007. The additional request to equipment is to cover SWAT vests that were purchased by the PCSPD. Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. APPOINTMENT TO ANIMAL WELFARE BOARD Com. Harper, “We have one application.” Com. Evans moved to appoint Jocelyn Rogers, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Ms. Hartig, “Is Jocelyn replacing someone?” Com. Evans, “No, there’s a vacancy. Actually there are three vacancies.” Com. Harper, “Who are the other vacancies?” Com. Evans, “They are listed at the bottom of the form. They’ve been vacant for some time.” Ms. Hartig, “So, Katherine Forbes? That’s who she is replacing?” Com. Evans, “Yes.” PROPOSAL FROM JOHNSON CONTROLS FOR NORTH COUNTY Rick Renner Com. Harper, “I understand the chiller is hooked up.” Mr. Renner, “Yes, it is hooked up and ready to go, it is going.” Com. Harper, “Then what are you here to talk about?” Mr. Renner, “This proposal is going to be combined with the other proposals we are going to be looking at tonight from DLZ. They had the three or four bids for the modifications to the HVAC system at North County. Once those modifications are made then the controls have to be put on those the AV boxes to control the environment there. Right now it is running and it is probably too cold in there until you get the proper controls on there then they will moderate the temperatures.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “I spoke with DLZ and Johnson Controls because they handle all the controls for all of our buildings and they agreed that they should submit a proposal for the controls.” Com. Harper, “Do we have bids to open? Was it on our schedule?” Atty. Rinkenberger, “We changed the meeting date or time, so originally the notice said the bids were going to be open at 6:00 then we changed the time until 5:00.” Com. Harper, “So, should we do the bids at the end of the meeting, is that what you are telling me?” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Yes, you can do it at the end of the meeting. I talked to DLZ and the bids anticipate this portion of the controls being met.” Com. Harper, “This is the portion for the controls?” Mr. Renner, “Do you know what the successful…. The contractor who…” Com. Harper, “The bids are going to be separate from this.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Right.” Com. Evans moved to accept the proposal from Johnson Controls, Com. Knoblock seconded, Ms. Hartig, “Where will this be coming from?” Com. Harper, “Where is this entire project coming from?” Ms. Hartig, “Most of it has been paid from property disposal but we are down to $1,100.00 in there.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Is that after taking into account the $350,000.00 we plan on spending for the project?” Ms. Hartig, “The amount that was taken out of property disposal was for the chiller installation and the consulting fees from DLZ.” Com. Harper, “How much was our balance in property disposal when we started this?” Ms. Hartig, “When we started? I am not sure, I would have to go back and check.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Because once we open these bids we are going to have a heck of a big figure that we had to address earlier in the meeting.” Ms. Hartig, “I thought it was coming from CEDIT.” Com. Harper, “No, the Council did not approve it.” Ms. Hartig, “I think they needed a dollar amount.” Com. Harper, “No, the Council did not approve it out of CEDIT, they wanted us to use property disposal first. What do we have right now in CEDIT funds for our building maintenance?” Ms. Hartig, “In building maintenance we have $122,000.00, then if we take the Johnson Controls proposal out of there.” Com. Harper, “Do we have more money coming in there this year?” Ms. Hartig, “We should have another $87,000 coming in.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, I guess we are going to have to open the bids, conditional upon Council approving it from CEDIT money. In property disposal, I thought the balance was much higher than that.” Com. Harper, “I did too, we are going to have to find out what that is about.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Well, let’s open the bids.” Com. Harper, “For the time being, let’s approve this one out of building maintenance.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Maybe we should open the bids and approve this whole bundle.” Com. Evans, “It needs to come out of a CEDIT fund, is where it should come from. That is the proper thing.” Com. Harper, “Well, if we do that, we are going to have to get on their agenda for the 14th. If we were going to, we would have to advertise to amend our CEDIT, right? Okay, so we cannot do that tonight.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “No, we can do that tonight. All I have to do is if you guys make the motion, then I just draft the amendment and ship it off to the Council. That’s simple enough. Let’s do it this way. Let’s open the bids and then how long will it be before you recommend …a week? I think the smartest thing to do is open the bids, have DLZ recommend, combine the two figures and amend our CEDIT plan and take it to the Council with the exact dollar amount.” Com. Evans, “There’s plenty enough money in unallocated CEDIT.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “Then we’ll have the supported documentation, we’ll have it right down to the penny. And we can just do the amendment for the North County Annex.” Com. Harper, “That’s what we will do. So, now where are we at in this motion? I lost track.” Com. Evans moved to accept their proposal based on funding to be secured,, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. CONSERVANCY DISTRICT David Hollenbeck, attorney Atty. Hollenbeck, “Good evening. I have with me this evening Dick Matsinger, who is the chairman of the Board of Directors of the Twin Creeks Conservancy District which was formed a number of years ago to address the long standing drainage issues in the South Haven and both the old and the new South Haven subdivision, Salt Creek Commons subdivisions. We identified a significant drainage problem that also involves the road infrastructure in South Haven and through efforts as I recall are initiated through Commissioner Evans and subsequent conversations between our engineers and the county Highway Department, an agreement has been reached to resolve the drainage problem that exists on LaHonda between Heritage and Juniper and the agreement that we reached and presenting tonight is that the conservancy district will buy the material for the project and the county Highway Department will do the work and provide the equipment and the manpower for the project. This has all been run by the Highway Department and Al is comfortable with it, I believe. I am told by Mr. Matsinger that we are already getting some bills for materials, so the process is going forward and we would like to document that and memorialize that and get your approval for that this evening.” Com. Evans, “I think it is an excellent idea and as long as the Highway has the expertise and you’ve got the checkbook.” Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Com. Harper, “What’s going on with that subdivision, Jackson Heights?” Bob Thompson, “It’s a detention facility. JDC. It’s something to do with the Drainage Board and the developers about not…..” Com. Harper, “What is the problem?” Mr. Thompson, “I believe Kevin said the pond has not been constructed to size. I’ve been hearing from the other side that it is, so, I don’t know. The builders are claiming it is done.” Com. Evans, “It is done?” Al Hoagland, “There’s a little clean up work to be done.” Com. Harper, “Wouldn’t that go in front of the Drainage Board?” Mr. Thompson, “I believe the system is a regular drain.” Com. Harper, “Because what I hear is it keeps going on and on and it’s not getting settled one way or the other. It is just sort of in limbo.” Mr. Thompson, “Last I heard is there is an agreement that is supposed to be going on and they were going to remove some dead trees from the area and drag them out to the woods and let them (inaudible)……” Com. Harper, “Who’s they?” Mr. Thompson, “The developers.” Com. Harper, “No, I mean who is ‘they’ that wanted to go on the site?” Mr. Thompson, “The people that were moving it were Kevin.” Com. Knoblock, “Is that a new addition?” Mr. Thompson, “Yes, it’s the last addition, I think it’s called Unit C.” Com. Harper, “I think it should get on the Drainage Board agenda so it gets resolved. Can you get it on their meeting?” Mr. Thompson, “I can’t.” Com. Evans, “I think it is premature to put it on the Drainage Board’s meeting until it’s been turned over for inspection and asked to be accepted. They’ve still got to bond on what they’re doing. So, I don’t think it has been accepted yet so I think it is premature.” Com. Harper, “How long has this been going on, Bob?” Mr. Thompson, “I’ve been getting phone calls for about a year.” Com. Harper, “I think it’s been going on for two or three years, in limbo. We could take action on the bond.” Com. Evans, “Let’s have Al take a look at it and I think the right course, if it’s not being done, they’re not compliant, we’ll tell them we are going to pull their bond. My question in regard to South Haven is your estimated time for completion.” Mr. Matsinger, “Another week and a half.” Atty. Hollenbeck, “Commissioner, can I just add something regarding your discussion about the amendment to the CEDIT plan? The CEDIT plan for budgeting purposes is deemed a budget, that what that equates to, that’s what the County Council handles it so if you are going to be amending your plan, I believe the state will deem that to require an additional appropriation process which would mean a ten day publication by the County Council before they can consider it at a public meeting.” Com. Harper, “Well, you’ve got the County Council meeting on August 14th.” Atty. Hollenbeck, “Right. Which would mean it would have to be in the paper by the 4th.” Com. Harper, “So if we get it to them tomorrow.” Atty. Hollenbeck, “And I have been out of town and I just learned at noon today that their meeting was cancelled. I’m hearing you say it is going to be re-scheduled on the 14th. I don’t know how they are going to handle those other additional appropriations but if you want one on the 14th, I think it’s got to be published by the 4th.” Com. Harper, “Do we have anything else on Commissioners’ agenda before we go to Plan Commission?” NEUTER SCOOTER ANNOUNCEMENT Com. Harper, “I want to announce that the Neuter Scooter is coming back August 23rd, they are going to try and go every other month but I understand they are already full. They are already signed up for all the people for August 23rd. Do you want to do the bids now, Gwenn, it is a quarter to six?” PLAN COMMISSION Robert Thompson, Director Amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance #07-05, 1st reading Mr. Thompson, “This is Plan Commission Resolution 07-9, the Plan Commission requests to amend the Unified Development Ordinance, in particular, the Light Industrial Section, Chapter 2, Section 2.35, Light Industrial. What we are requesting the amendment to do is within the permitted uses is to remove the sexually oriented businesses from the commercial uses allowed in the Light Industrial District. These uses are still allowed in I2 District. There’s still a section that allows this.” Com. Harper, “They still have the restrictions we had before? Away from schools, and that type of thing?” Mr. Thompson, “Correct. They still have the setbacks from public places.” Com. Knoblock, “And Plan Commission has approved this?” Mr. Thompson, “Yes, they approved this in public hearing at their June 27th hearing, and forwarded to the County Commissioners with a favorable recommendation of a 6-0 vote.” Com. Evans, “Do we have to do this in the form of a public hearing?” Mr. Thompson, “Yes, this is first reading.” Com. Harper, “So I will open the public hearing. Is there anyone here to speak for or against this ordinance? If not, I close the public hearing. Is there any questions or comments?” Com. Evans, “It seems like pretty much of a no brainer.” Com. Evans moved to accept the recommendation, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Approval of Request for Qualifications for the Corridor Plan Study and Construction Standards Project Mr. Thompson, “Commissioner Harper and I were in front of the County Council requesting some CEDIT funding for a corridor study and also for construction standards. The construction standards being following Chapter 8 within the Unified Development Ordinance which will actually get into the engineering standards, pavement widths, right of way widths, depths of asphalt in a number of situations, also for parking, private roads, which we do not have and also public roads. It is also going further into lighting standards, possibly some landscaping standards, and it fits all of the standards that are laid out in the chapter 8. The second item that I am requesting also within the Request for Qualifications is the corridor plan. The Corridor Plan is a study of the major highways within Porter County such as US 30; the 49 By-pass, which includes State Roads 2, 8, 6, a number of the state highways. What it is is the plan to study studied the land use on it and give recommendation on the land use. There are times when we have cases that come in front of the Plan Commission along US 30 and it always come up where we don’t want this on US 30, we’re not really sure what we want on US 30, or where we want it on US 30, so it’s really a study to determine what we want where and why along these highways. And also to get looking into our code to see if it’s tight enough and also give recommendations on how it should develop in these areas.” Com. Harper, “So you’re not asking for a decision on anything tonight other than to put out some proposals so they can send us some proposals and the Commissioners can look them over?” Mr. Thompson, “This is the first step that the Council wanted and it’s a Request for Qualifications and with this, however you want to do this, if you want the Plan Commission to interview these people, they will submit their RFQ’s. Or if you want to interview them then take them down to three and then during this time I will write up a more detailed scope of services for if there is a narrow selection now then hand it out as an RFP based on the very strict guidelines that we want and what we done as far as public hearings, how they want to proceed with it. So that way we can actually get a bid on this. This was what the Council requested in that sense, they wanted some firm numbers coming back to them for the Plan.” Com. Evans moved to approve the request for RFP and the Plan Commission to conduct the interviews, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. APPROVAL OF RFQ’s FOR NORTH COUNTY HIGHWAY GARAGE Atty. Rinkenberger, “Before you go, maybe you could take some board action on the North County Highway Garage to get it off dead center. The determination has been made that you are going to need a proposal from an engineer and to review the bid specs. We need a motion to allow them to release RFQ’s for engineers for the North County Highway Garage.” Com. Evans moved to approve the release of RFQ’s Mr. Thompson, “One of the things we were going to have DLZ do the trainage work on it since we’ve already gone through that process as far as we can have them design it so now it’s just a matter of fact of having an engineer come in and do the development plan so we might want to present it later on to the Plan Commission.” Com. Harper, “Let’s talk about getting the RFQ, I’m getting lost in my motions. You made a motion, right? The motion is to allow Bob to put out these RFQ’s to get proposals in on that Highway Garage. It is in the engineering stage. Do I hear a second?” Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. NORTH COUNTY HIGHWAY GARAGE PROPERTY REZONE DISCUSSION Atty. Rinkenberger, “We have two avenues we can proceed under to have this property zoned for the use that we want it. We can go before the Plan Commission on August 8th or it can go before the BZA if we can get on in August or their September 19th meeting. If the BZA route is available I would prefer that because the Plan Commission route, we would end up voting on our own petition. So, we’re working on getting a petition before the BZA for the zoning, the property is scheduled to close August 15th and when’s the BZA meeting in August?” Mr. Thompson, “Third Wednesday.” Com. Harper, “Who’s the president of the BZA?” Mr. Thompson, “Marvin Brickner.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “The sale is conditional upon the rezone so even if we close technically before the rezone occurs, we’re still safe.” Com. Harper, “When does the BZA meet?” Mr. Thompson, “August 15th. There’s a problem with that. I was going to present this and I am on vacation that week. So, I will have everything ready as far as the packets and that way staff member Fred Siminski can submit it out. There just needs to be somebody there at the BZA to actually present the case to the BZA.” Com. Harper, “Our county attorney will.” Mr. Thompson, “I guess to explain that, too, I will clear it with our attorneys, Scott McClure and Ken Elwood. If you go and do the rezone, yes it will be back in front of this board as far as the rezoning of institutional, but then you have to be back in front of the Plan Commission for the development plan approval on that. If you go the BZA route, I will check with Scott McClure and Ken Elwood is the fact that you can probably get approved by the BZA that night contingent upon the development plan being submitted.” Com. Harper, “So, it will not be back in front of this board?” Mr. Thompson, “It may not be back in front of the Plan Commission. That I have to check, don’t quote me on that. It won’t be in front of the Commissioners.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “This is what I was going to suggest as well and I am more than happy to appear at the BZA but I would like to have Bob Thompson there. I was going to suggest that we also authorize the Highway Department to release the bid while we are working through this so we’re working up the bid process during the same time and if we go to the BZA in September it’s not going to hold up anything anyway. We can do the RFQ’s, get the bid specifications done and out and be reviewing them at the same time that we’re getting our rezone, use variance, approved in September and it won’t make any difference. If you guys would take a board action to authorize releasing the bids. Now, it’s conditional upon funding anyway. So, I don’t know why we can’t do all this simultaneously and do it when Bob’s available in September as well as myself.” Com. Evans moved to approve as stated, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. OPEN BIDS FOR MODIFICATIONS OF EXISTING HVAC SYSTEM AT NORTH COUNTY Com. Harper, “Now let’s open our bids. Circle R Mechanical. Modifications to existing HVAC system in accordance with plans submitted by DLZ: $160,000.00. Is there anyone here tonight that bid on these? The other one is from Mechanical Concepts, their bid is, they had three things in their bid.” Com. Evans, “The first one from Circle R Mechanical, they bid the access door at $940.00, interior finish they do not bid, the electrical they bid at $21,327.00 and the HVAC they bid at $137,733.00 for a total of $160,000.00. They left out the interior finish.” Com. Harper, “And so did this one, apparently.” Steve Kromkowski, “There may not be interior finishes for them…..(inaudible).” Com. Harper, “This one they bid the access door and the electrical and the air conditioner and heating and this one is $145,194.30 and what was the total on that one?” Com. Evans, “$160,000.00. And who was the bidder?” Com. Harper, “Mechanical Concepts.” Com. Evans, “Circle R is Portage, Indiana.” Com. Harper, “This one is on County Line Road, Gary, Indiana. Are you going to take those with you and come back on August 14th?” Com. Evans, “Can we do this in a manner to get it up and running?” Mr. Kromkowski, “The system is working. This work does need to be done, though, so we’ll take these under advisement and take an action, we’ll take those back to them, review them, and refer them to what’s in the package and give you a recommendation and then on the 14th come back and that’s when you would act on them.” Atty. Rinkenberger, “That would be the 7th, our next meeting is August 7th, but then we miss the County Council deadline so if you guys want to have a specific number for this project for a CEDIT amendment for the County Council you are going to have to have a special meeting next week.” Mr. Kromkowski, “The bids are valid for 180 days.” Com. Evans, “How long would it take you to review these? Can you go outside and come back in ten minutes?” Mr. Kromkowksi, “Sure.” Com. Harper, “All right. Let’s take a ten minute break.” (A ten minute break was taken for the review of the bids by DLZ.” Com. Harper, “You talked with our attorney and decided you did not have enough time.” Mr. Kromkowksi, “We need to call and do a confirmation that everything was included. We can set it for two weeks.” Com. Evans, “In conjunction with that, we need to make a motion to amend our CEDIT plan to include this project.” Com. Harper, “And the Johnson Controls project as well.” Com. Evans, “And the highest figure is $160,000.00 and Johnson Controls was $84,000.00 and the amount of $250,000.00.” Com. Evans moved to approve, Com. Knoblock seconded, motion carried. Atty. Rinkenberger, “It’s not $250,000.00. Then why ask for more?” Com. Harper, “Then we can call some of the members and make sure, let me know right away if it looks like we are having any trouble getting that on the agenda.” Mr. Kromkowski, “I guess our recommendation would be that keep it at round figures and there may be other opportunities for it. I don’t know, it’s your money.” 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 |
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July 24, 2007