The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, April 12, 2004. In
attendance were Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. Gaddie, Mr. Kirchoff
and Mr. McPhail.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mr. Brandgard said we have a bid opening this evening for the
Galyan’s Parkway. If somebody has failed to turn their bid in, this is the last opportunity.
Also I think we had scheduled a bid award tonight for the mowing
and landscaping services. I believe those bids were opened last
Thursday but due to the number of the bids we will not make an award
until our next meeting. So, if anybody is here in regards to that, just to let you know that the bid award for the mowing and landscaping services won’t be made until the next meeting. With that we will move to the Consent Agenda.
CONSENT AGENDA
Approval of the minutes of the Special Town Council meeting
of Tuesday, March 16, 2004 and Town Council meeting of
March 22, 2004.
Approval of the minutes of the Town Council Executive
Session of Tuesday, March 16, 2004.
Approval of the third and final reading of Ordinance No.
06-2004: Amendment to the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance
addition of a Park Zoning Classification.
Approval to table the third and final reading of Ordinance
No. 05-2004: Prock Rezoning to the April 26, 2004 Council
meeting.
Approval of the March 2004 monthly reports for the
Plainfield Fire Department; Communications Department;
Department of Planning and Zoning; Department of Public
Works and the Plainfield Town Court.
Approval of the February 2004 monthly report for the
Plainfield Communications Department.
Approval to spend $200.00 from the Plainfield Police
Department Beneficent Fund for sponsorship of the
Plainfield Girls Softball League for Spring 2004 per the
recommendation of Chief Larry Brinker of the Plainfield
Police Department.
Approval to spend an amount not to exceed $4,650.00 for
Teska Associates and Business Districts, Inc. for the
development of a RFP for the White Lick Creek Development
area.
Approval to purchase a utility vehicle for the Plainfield
Parks Department in the amount of $5,378.00 and authority
to allow Councilor Gaddie to sign contracts with AEK, Radio
Disney and Muzak per the recommendation of the Director of
Parks and Recreation dated March 22, 2004.
Approval of the Information Technology Report dated April
9, 2004; Utility Billing Director’s Report dated April 8,
2004 and the Human Resources Director’s Report dated April
8, 2004.
Approval of the selection of Butler Fairman and Seufert
Engineering for professional services associated with
construction engineering for the Dan Jones Road project per
the Town Engineer’s Report dated April 9, 2004.
Preliminary approval of the construction engineering
agreement with Butler Fairman and Seufert Engineering for
Dan Jones Road construction project in the amount of
$440,500.00 per the Town Engineer’s Report dated April 9,
2004.
Approval of the design contract with Butler Fairman and
Seufert Engineering for professional services associated
with the preliminary engineering of the southwest segment
of Perimeter Parkway. And approval to advance design to
field check stage at a cost not to exceed $350,000.00 per
the Town Engineer’s Report dated April 9, 2004.
Approval of a $200,000.00 infrastructure grant from the
Indiana Department of Commerce for the Eli Lilly & Company
distribution center and authorize Council President Robin
Brandgard to sign the agreement.
Mr. Fivecoat said in the minutes of the regular Town Council
meeting of March 22, 2004 under bids awarded it should read that Mr.
Jason Castetter made the recommendation instead of Mr. Isaacs.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as
amended. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent.
PUBLIC HEARING: Duke Building #5
Mr. Brandgard said this evening we have a public hearing for Duke
Building #5. Do we have proper advertising?
Mr. Daniel said yes we do.
Mr. Carlucci said at the last Council meeting the Council approved a Declaratory Resolution for a 10-year real property tax abatement for Duke Reality Limited Partnership to construct a 425,000-distribution center at the northwest corner of Reeves Road and Perry Road on approximately 23 acres. We have here tonight representatives from Duke including Blair Carmosino, Doug Greer and Jay Archer.
Mr. Brandgard said this is a public hearing. Is there anyone in
the audience who would care to speak for or against this project?
Mr. Robert Watkins at 7305 Oak View Dr., Avon, Indiana said I have some questions regarding this. The property that Duke is applying
for the tax abatement on is in a prime area and it is a prize piece of property. The first question is doesn’t this go against the principal of a tax abatement being given to create an economic revitalization? There is already a lot of business in this area. Second, how many other tax abatements have companies, Duke included, that have applied for and/or received a tax abatement in the same area? And if any were received, where is the proof of what they have done with this money?
Mr. Brandgard said to answer your question virtually all of the
businesses in the business park have requested and received tax
abatements.
Mr. Watkins asked, is there any proof of what has been done with
the money?
Mr. Brandgard asked, what money?
Mr. Watkins said the money they are going to keep instead of
giving back to the community and the tax money that they are saving?
Mr. Brandgard said to begin they don’t get money to keep. It is
money that they don’t spend.
Mr. Watkins asked, aren’t they one in the same?
Mr. Brandgard said which in fact has generated a high-assessed
value for the community, which has kept this community’s taxes at an
even level for many years and helped defray the tax increases in the
rest of this County. That’s what happens by giving the tax abatements
and allowing the businesses to build. As the tax abatements build off, that money comes back onto the tax rolls and it defrays tax increases for other services that have to be provided in the rest of the community.
Mr. Watkins said thank you.
Mr. Carlucci said I might add that over a 10-year period the
developer of this project will still pay 50% of their property taxes
because it is still on a sliding scale. Secondly, this is just
basically vacant ground. Most of the ground out here has been
previously farm ground. That ground was generating just a certain value per acre in terms of assessed value. So, if you don’t grab the
abatement, nothing is going to be there except the farm ground. They
still pay personal property taxes on the racking systems and anything
that they own in that building plus the increased value of the land.
So, really it becomes a choice between granting the abatement or just
having vacant ground. We also have estimated right now that we have
close to 5,500 to 6,000 jobs in the industrial park. We also represent probably close to 27-28% of the total assessed value of the County because of our tax abatement program, the job creation. It has kept the tax rates for the Plainfield residents the lowest aggregate rate in the County and has for several years.
Mr. Jay Archer, Sr. Vice President with Duke Realty Corporation
said just to compliment some of the comments the land that we are going to develop and potentially receive tax abatement for about a 425,000 square foot state-of-the-art distribution facility. Last year in 2003 the taxes paid on the property where the building will be developed were $348.03. The average, as Mr. Carlucci said, is a sliding scale on the tax abatement so probably the fully assessed taxes are in the range of sixty-cents per square foot. So, when you say 50% of that on an average, it will average about thirty-cents per year over the 10 year basis. That means we will pay about $120,000.00 per year, on an average, every year through the tax abatement. When it is fully assessed, it will $250,000.00 per year. So, even though it is called tax abatement, you are actually increasing the income and revenue for Plainfield. It is very important that Plainfield offer this to compete with other communities throughout Central Indiana and throughout the Midwest as well. It is an incentive to attract companies but it increases the income immediately and then when it is fully assessed, when you combine that with the jobs that it creates, it is very proactive and I think a beneficial program for everybody in Plainfield.
Mr. Clifford Gardner said I have lived in this County for about
12 years. I have been in Indiana some time before that. I’m a little
curious. You are talking about abatement. Can I get an abatement?
I’ve been a taxpayer for Hendricks County for 12 years. This year or
this present year I was out of work for part of the year and I ended up having to pay taxes. Part of the taxes that you have given abatements to for other companies. I sort of take a little bit offense in that because I don’t know what kind of jobs they are talking about. Are they low-scaled jobs? I mean what is the average pay and where are these people going to live? Are they going to live in Hendricks County? Or can they afford to pay the taxes here? If they have low paying jobs, how in the world are they going to pay taxes? The house just down the street from me went for $350,000.00. The average working man can’t afford that. I can’t afford it. So, I’m a little curious why are we giving these abatements? Don’t they have to pay taxes like the rest of us?
Mr. Brandgard said first of all what is your address please?
Mr. Gardner said I’m at 380 South CR550E, Avon, Indiana and of
course 46123. I’m curious. Why are we giving these people abatements
and what kind of jobs are they really bringing into our area?
Mr. Brandgard said to answer your question a couple of ways for
one you are in Avon so this is not affecting you with what we do here.
Mr. Gardner said it is in Hendricks County.
Mr. Brandgard said it does not affect you. It affects what happens in the Plainfield, Guilford Township area directly. As we just went through and said, what has happened out there, in Indiana when we
abate taxes, we abate taxes for a 10-year period in this case but only abate half of the taxes. It is not 100% abated as it is in some states and it is a sliding scale. Basically the first year you don’t pay any and each year thereafter it builds up until the 10th year they are paying the full amount. But at the same time they are paying on the equipment that is in the building that wouldn’t be there otherwise. As he just said in his case, the land paid $368.00 last year in taxes. He will pay on an average of $120,000.00 a year by building and improving there, which has approved the tax base for Plainfield, Guilford Township and Hendricks County.
Mr. Gardner asked, what kind of jobs are we bringing in?
Mr. Brandgard said we offer the tax abatements to build the
assessed value. We don’t do it to offer jobs. Jobs are a plus but we
are doing it to build the tax base, which helps all of the taxpayers,
which keeps the tax base lower.
Mr. Carlucci said we might point out that the Lilly project,
which we talked about a $200,000.00 infrastructure grant those jobs are substantial jobs, and I’m trying to do this from memory, but on the average they were making at least $50,000.00 a year. That distribution center is under construction right now. April 15 is running up on us pretty quick and I was doing my taxes over the weekend. But I was looking at my tax bill from 2003-2004 and I’m paying less property taxes in Plainfield now. This was before the new assessment came out. I’m paying less property taxes now in 2004 than I was in 2003 and mine went up.
Mr. Brandgard said the difference is in Washington Township you
don’t have the industrial business growth to help offset the cost of
the schools and the cost of the new town. That is the difference.
Mr. Gardner said I see thank you.
Mr. Brandgard said I understand where your concerns are but again
from the Plainfield/Guilford Township and really for Hendricks County
what we have done here has helped everybody. It has helped the people
in Plainfield and Guilford Township most directly but everybody else in the County has benefited by it also because it helps lower the County portion of your real estate taxes.
Mr. Gardner asked, can I get an abatement?
Mr. Brandgard said to answer your question if you have a business
in Plainfield, come and see us and we will see if we can do that.
Mr. McPhail said I would like to add a couple of comments. We
have already testified that when we give these tax abatements and these properties go from being taxes at approximately an assessed valuation of $1,050.00 an acre, which this particular property paid $348.00 some dollars last year. We immediately began collecting whatever the market value of that property is when it becomes industrial. I don’t have last year’s numbers yet because the reassessment and everything is behind but in the year 2002 four out of the 10 top taxpayers in Plainfield were in tax-abated buildings. They were getting their abatement but they were still in the top 10 taxpayers within the Town of Plainfield. I think that is significant because even with the abatement they were paying a lot more taxes than a lot of other areas. Without those abatements we wouldn’t have people like Duke and Opus and these people making investments to build spec buildings that will bring businesses to Plainfield. Without these spec buildings we wouldn’t be competing with the rest of the distribution centers in the country. Because of our tax abatement program we are able to have buildings ready and when tenants are ready to come in, we have a building ready for them. I don’t think Duke has a tenant for 425,000 square feet but once this building is up and going when somebody is looking, it will be available. I think it is very important that we continue our aggressive tax abatement policy.
Mr. Brandgard said at the same time as far as jobs go, it runs a
gamut out there from typical warehouse jobs to management jobs in the
park. So, there is a pretty broad spectrum of what kind of jobs are
out there. It is not all warehouse. There is a lot of manufacturing.
Mr. Carlucci said I might mention that we just approved not too
long ago, Griot’s Garage. They are out of Tacoma, Washington. If you
are a car buff and have ever seen their magazine, they provide high end detailing products for car guys and girls. When the gentleman stood up there and told us that they pay 100% of their employee’s health insurance, that is very impressive. They value those customers. I would suggest if you want to contact me, we will tell you when Griot’s is starting to hire because they are going to look for employees. Everybody here that night were very impressed with the salaries and benefits that they are offering their employees. We have a wide range like Indianapolis does. If you go from one part of Indianapolis to another, you get certain types of jobs at certain levels. That is exactly what we have here. We have all different levels of manufacturing, distribution so you pretty much have a choice out there of what you are capable of doing.
Mr. Dale Lucas at 9055 East CR600N, Brownsburg, Indiana said I’ve
lived there currently about six years. I lived in Marion County prior
to that and one question that I want everybody on the board to think
about is I see a large amount of these warehouse type buildings coming in even at my home in Brownsburg. I know that this may help the Plainfield economy and not necessarily the Brownsburg economy but we are still talking about Hendricks County in general. Plainfield is
unique because you have the international airport, which everybody
wants to build around the airport. If they can’t build around the
airport or I-70, they definitely want a main thoroughfare where a
customer that might move into there can ship their product.
Consequently, the north/south corridor dumps right out on my back
doorstep in Brownsburg. So, I will probably be seeing a lot of the
freight that is packed here in Plainfield shipped right past my house
in one way or another. I have seen that the City of Brownsburg offer
tax abatements to have companies come in and do the same type of thing in Brownsburg. Lauth Property Group is one of Duke’s main competitors. Brownsburg is offering the same type of deals to them to build a facility and hopefully have a tenant move in and maybe that building sets vacant until a tenant does move in. I also watched the squabble over the Pittsboro Steel Mill, not in Brownsburg, okay we will put it in Pittsboro. Pittsboro went out on a limb, please build it here, here’s an abatement, please come to our community and allow our community work at that mill. It is not factual but I read a lot in the Hendricks County Flyer how they wish they could get a company come in there and finally start paying some of those taxes that were promised that they would pay. I’m sure that you have went through a lot of the same thing with United, all good paying jobs. Have you received any money from the United situation? Is that in Plainfield’s jurisdiction?
Mr. Brandgard said United is in Indianapolis at the airport, it
is not in Plainfield and Hendricks County.
Mr. Lucas asked, does Plainfield have a problem finding builders
to come to their area and want to locate their business in Plainfield?
Mr. Brandgard said I would defer that to Mr. Archer to answer but
if you came down here and drove through the industrial area out there
and looked at what was out there, all that has happened in the last 10 years.
Mr. Lucas said I’m just saying that I believe not only Plainfield
but Avon and Brownsburg and Hendricks County, as a whole, are selling
themselves short. Please come to our area and build and we will do
whatever it takes to get you to build and bring a company here. Those
people need to come to our area and want to build and put their
corporate headquarters in our area, Hendricks County, because we have a good location. We shouldn’t have to sweeten the pot anymore than it
already is. We have a great location.
Mr. Brandgard said we have a great location here but Memphis has
a great location and there are several other places in the Midwest that have great locations. When a company looks to locate, they are looking at all of these places and they are just like you and I. We go to where we can get the best deal. Do we like giving abatements? Not particularly.
Mr. Lucas said why not? You are going to get $120,000.00 every
year. Mr. Brandgard said like I say we don’t like giving abatements but on the other hand if you don’t give abatements, it is part of the
competition and what you have to do to get the jobs.
Mr. Lucas said I think Duke Realty is a big enough company. They
are building all over the State of Indiana. All over the United
States. They are an international company. I don’t think they are going to have a problem finding somebody to build there even if they don’t get a tax abatement. I’m going to speak at the next Brownsburg
meeting. Lauth Property Group there isn’t one job that they have
brought to Brownsburg, an hourly paying job, that is over $10.00 or
$12.00 an hour. That kind of money right there is not good money.
McDonald’s is offering comparable wages. I just feel like the County
is selling themselves short. Plainfield in general. You have the
airport. You have I-70 and the rest of the County is making extreme
measures to try to make it more an interstate friendly place so that we can get the stuff from I-70; I-74 to I-65. I’m also a farmer and I
just hate to see tillable ground turned into industrial space. They are not making anymore ground. It’s not the taxpayer’s fault that Duke chose to buy the property where they are and they should pay the piper. Why give it to them any cheaper than what is absolutely necessary? You only get to sell it once. That’s all that I have to say.
Mr. McPhail said I would just like to make one additional
comment. Duke or any of the other developers the tax abatement does
not reap benefit for the developer. It reaps benefit for the tenant.
The tenant ends up getting the tax break. It is not the developer.
Whether it is Duke or whether it is Opus or whether that is a local
investor. The tenant is the one that receives the benefit of the tax
abatement and that’s the reason that we are offering tax abatements is to bring those tenants in here. The State of Indiana led the nation in job losses last year. We didn’t do that in Hendricks County. We gained jobs in Hendricks County and especially in Plainfield. Mr. Brandgard said as far as the farmland goes, I don’t think you will find anybody on this Council that disagrees with you but on the other hand we don’t sell the land and we don’t cause it to be sold. The person that owns the land decides when the offer is good enough to sell. We have gone through several areas where housing would like to go but the owners don’t want to sell the land and that is fine but on the other hand if a developer is successful, we will work with the developer to help him to do what he needs to do. I use the term down here because we are different than a lot of communities. When the developer comes in, especially on the industrial side, they come in and they want the Town to take all of the risk. The Town wants them to take all of the risk and we usually come out with an accommodation where we share the risk and we share the results. The infrastructure is not all born by the taxpayer. It is a shared thing because we both share in the results.
Mr. Archer said I just a couple of comments. A lot of what we
have heard is very true. We are competing for these national and
regional distribution-manufacturing companies with the entire Midwest
region, with Memphis and Nashville. Louisville has done a lot of
things to become pro-active so it is not just Plainfield competing with other towns and cities in Central Indiana. That is part of the
competition but you are also competing with the Midwest region and with other distribution spots. One of the key reasons along with location and labor availability and access to airports that companies consider a location is available product and competitive rates and incentives available. It is something right there at the top of the list. I think you need to look at tax abatements, especially the way that it is done in Indiana, as an investment. As you have heard tonight, the Town of Plainfield is reaping a good return on their investment. There is no doubt about it. Unlike Ohio and some other states that just give flat tax abatements for 10 or 15 years it is a win win here when you look at the increased income.
The other thing that I think is critical is something that the
Town of Plainfield has done very well and that is something that Duke
has done historically as a developer is we create a master plan
business partners. The Airwest Industrial complex is a master plan
park with covenants and restrictions. There are class “A” standards in an environment where you get a Class “A” business park without
negatively affecting the rest of the Town of Plainfield. I think you
need to commend the Council in that they have done such a good job in
that master planning up front.
Lastly it is an evolution on the jobs. A good mix of jobs have
happened in the Plainfield development. There are manufacturing jobs,
there are good distribution jobs, there are management jobs and as the airport comes out less, there will continue to be an evolution to more research and office type jobs. Most of these companies when they make a major investment to come to an area like this, they are not only bringing distribution or manufacturing but they are bringing ancillary services such as call centers and offices, etc. that diversifies the job base and continues to grow. I think you will continue to see that as well.
Lastly Duke is like the Town of Plainfield. We have to offer the
abatements to our customers to be competitive in this regional and
national economy. The ultimate customer gets the pass through of the
savings in the tax abatement and then they start paying it as the taxes grow. So, it is something that has to be offered to those clients to attract them to this market, there is no doubt about it.
Mr. Carlucci said it is good because we have had some people from
the other part of the County that maybe didn’t understand how our
program works here. But our abatement program has led to Brightpoint
headquarters in Plainfield. That is a worldwide distribution center of cell phones. Puritan Bennett came to the Town for an abatement on a building to produce a three to four pound breathing system to help
people that have problems breathing. It is a portable system that they can carry with them on their belt. This is state-of-the-art, what they would call life science, that is manufactured in Plainfield. The Council also spent almost two years, and this month it will be opened, to keep Galyan’s, a longtime corporate citizen of our community, in Plainfield. They started in Plainfield. Their corporate headquarters is going to open this month. So, we are proud of that. And the Council, when I first got here, I can’t remember the exact year, Hendricks County put eight million dollars of economic development income tax revenues to help United bring those high paying jobs to Central Indiana. So, we do invest in high paying jobs. But what happened with United I can’t tell you. You can try to analyze that until the dogs come home but we did make an investment in United to bring those jobs here. I have friends of mine who worked there that are out of a job but we did at the time, and it was another Council, I think Mr. Brandgard is the only one that was on it at the time, to prove that to help lure them to Central Indiana. Nobody had any idea that this was going to happen. From Plainfield’s standpoint we have created high paying jobs and we have created the ten-dollar jobs. My son worked out of one of the warehouses for almost a year and a half working a forklift and it helped him get him through school. I think we have a variety of jobs here. We have a good economy in Plainfield.
We had a wage committee meeting last week and I can’t tell off
the top of my head but it was almost a couple of million dollars worth of construction projects. We have a representative from the AFL-CIO and the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor sends someone down and we approved a construction wage for multiple projects, which is basically the AFL-CIO’s union wage. So, all of our wages here for our public projects are basically AFL-CIO wage scale. We have a gentleman who comes from Brownsburg who helps us with that. We say fine. That is what we want. We want those scales in our community. With our proximity those are the scales that we are going to use anyway whether we try to set them or not but those are good scales. They pay high prices for the amount of construction that is going on in this community. We do our part I think.
Mr. Brandgard asked, are there any other comments to come before
us this evening? Being no one coming forward we will close the public
hearing portion of this meeting and deal with the resolution later on
in the meeting.
BID OPENING: Galyan’s Parkway
Mr. Brandgard said we have a bid opening for the Galyan’s
Parkway. Do we have proof of publication?
Mr. Daniel said yes we do.
Mr. Brandgard said the first bid is from Reith-Riley of
Indianapolis.
Mr. Daniel said the bid from Reith-Riley is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the bid from Reith-Riley is $462,864.65. The
second bid is from Crider and Crider, Inc. in Bloomington.
Mr. Daniel said the bid from Crider and Crider is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by
Crider and Crider is $498,704.50. The third bid is submitted by
Calumet Paving Company, Indianapolis.
Mr. Daniel said the Calumet Paving on the contractor’s financial
portion has a reference in here to see enclosed but there is not a
financial statement enclosed with the bid. It does not meet the bid
specifications.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to not accept the Calumet bid for lack
of proper bid documents. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said the fourth bid is submitted by Milestone
Contractors, Indianapolis.
Mr. Daniel said the Milestone bid is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by
Milestone Contractors is $394,421.39. Those are all of the bids
submitted. The engineer’s estimate is $485,615.00. I would like to
ask for a bid review committee made up of Councilman Bill Kirchoff,
Town Engineer Tim Belcher and our consulting engineer for streets, Mr.Don McGillem to review the bids and come back with a recommendation at the next meeting. Thank you to all that submitted a bid.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
Mr. John Reel at 861 Highlander Dr., Plainfield said I’m representing the Plainfield Optimist Club. At one of your previous meetings I submitted a letter through Mr. Gaddie requesting an annual consideration of our donation for our club. Apparently, there was some concern about the additional consideration that we might be looking forward to. That being because of some of the increases in our vending prices and also the additional cost of fuel that we are anticipating. If there is a concern, if the money is not available, then we certainly accept that. If not, do you have any additional comments or questions that you would like to give to me? I could address them at this time.
We still have not received anything so it is opening up time. We
opened up for practice for our complex last Saturday and we are well on our well. I mentioned to Chief Brinker that April 24 is our official opening day and with the construction on Dan Jones Road I think Chief Brinker is going to be aware of what the traffic impact is from about 8:30 in the morning on through the entire day.
Other than that consideration I would like to share with you that
our charge from the President of Cinergy in relocation of our complex
was to find the approximate amount to relocate our facility with the
state-of-the-art complex. That was their challenge and their request,
it was not ours. The figure that we came up with, we have a committee
of seven individuals, Wes Bennett was one of those individuals and he
had to leave for another meeting, but the total figure that we have at this particular time a state-of-the-art complex for six diamonds and approximately 15 soccer fields and three football fields and one
concession stand would be approximately 1.3 million dollars, which is
plus property. Mr. McPhail has been very helpful and Mr. Carlucci has
been very helpful in helping us work with this project. I understand
there is another committee that you have appointed that is going to
work with us on the exact format that we are going to follow. I will
share with the Council that we still do not know where we are going and we don’t know the money that is going to be available on how we are going to get there. Cinergy has said that they will help us. I don’t know what “help” means. The Town says that they are going to help us and I still don’t know what “help” means. We need to know to prepare, not for this year, but for the next year and we are in a bind. I’m going to be quite candid with you. I think we found a possible solution.
I met with the Township trustees regarding Hummel Park. We
thought perhaps that the baseball complex would go there and they
thought different. They said they would cooperate with the possibility of moving the football and soccer there and I can understand with what concept they are looking at. The two fields that are west of the little creek over toward the bandstand area would be ideal for our soccer complex and they said they would work with us on that. There’s very little involved. We would just have to move a little bit of our equipment. We would need some kind of a structure for a concession stand. If that works out, that would be great. And the next item that we have been discussing has been the Mongan property now possibly for baseball and football.
Mr. Banning has been very helpful in laying out the plans and we
are looking at six baseball fields and three football fields. Once
again we don’t know if that land is available. The ideal structure
would be approximately 50 acres with all operations at one facility.
That would be ideal for the club but we are now facing a situation that we are going to have to take whatever we can get and we understand that. Gentlemen, I don’t know where to go from here. I really do not know. I know that there is a strong possibility that soccer will be able to continue uninterrupted for one year. But I think perhaps our baseball program we are going to have to have some help from the Town with the possibility of going back to the Town diamonds for a period of time in working with the Pee Wee group and working with the church league at Hummel Park at their diamonds and whatever we can scuttle up from the Town from the school system from their fields for one year. Because if we start now, it is doubtful that we would be able to play on diamonds this time next year and that is what we are looking at. So, where do we go?
Mr. Kirchoff said I thought that is why we put the task force
together was to work on that and not to try to solve it here tonight.
Mr. Carlucci said I sat down with Mr. Banning and we put together
all of the possible sites. We put together a matrix to rate each site. All of the members have been contacted that are going to be on the committee. We also are putting together from our GIS system the aerial photographs of each site. So, we anticipate meeting sometime early next week, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday of next week to get that committee together. That part of the process won’t take long because if the goal is to have 50 acres and keep it all at one place, then we will look at each site based on that. There are some other options that I have not talked to Mr. Reel about that may be available too.
Mr. Reel said I want to be kind of blunt at this particular
point, which I’m known to do at times. Where does the money come from? Our club cannot do all of this. I’m asking each one of you should we be in the process right now generating our own funds? We are a 100-member club and we have some pretty influential people there and I’m sure after hearing the group from the Duke organization they might even help us with $300,000.00 or $400,000.00. We don’t know and we would like to have some guidance. What would you do if you were me to go back to our club? I got nailed last Saturday. People are starting to talk right now. They know that we have lost our home and who are they going to come to? They are going to come to Ed Gaddie or John Reel or somebody that is involved with the club project right now and I don’t have any answer for them.
Mr. Brandgard said the only answer that I can give at this point
and time is we have put together a task force to deal with the
location. The 1.3 million and 50 acres is a significant start of
finding what we need. It has defined the total site now. Like you say
we may have to break it up in segments because we might not be able to find 50 acres contiguous that will work but I think that is where we have to start. As we work through this, you say it is going to be 1.3 million plus the property so with the context of the task force Cinergy is part of the task force. As we work through this, we will define how much money is available and what we have to go after to get it. Cinergy has said they will assist. The Town will assist and until we have everything put together I can’t answer that.
Mr. Reel said we are looking at grants right now. Cinergy’s grant writer is going to help us a little bit. We have a lot of possibilities. We have been around 50 years, as all of you know, and we are not going to let this program die out. It is going to continue but the transition is going to be a little rough for us right now. Are we going to be able to work with the Town in sharing those diamonds at Franklin, if necessary? I want to tell you all now this thing has generated a lot of interest and to see Cinergy and see the Town and see the Township and see all of these facilities working together is pretty rewarding. All of us know what is at stake. It is our kids and our Town and that is what we are working toward.
Mr. Brandgard said with that I think, as you well know, that is
one thing that this Town can do. We can get behind something and make
it happen.
Mr. Reel asked, do I get money this evening? I want $7,500.00.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, how much did we give you last year?
Mr. Reel said $5,000.00.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, Mr. Prince have you had a chance to look into
the pricing issues?
Mr. Prince said I met with Mr. Reel and Mr. Carlucci in Mr.
Carlucci’s office last week. We looked at Mr. Reel’s problem with his
concession out there. I don’t see what we can really do to help him
out. I don’t think we have any more power for those prices than he
does right now.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, how much of the $2,500.00 difference is the
fuel verses the Pepsi?
Mr. Reel said that is a tough one on the fuel. At one time we
discussed the possibility of purchasing fuel through the Town. That
would probably eliminate probably half. You know what we are
experiencing as far as a fuel increase. It’s probably a 60% increase
in that area. Last year we were right at $900.00 on the cost of our
fuel. Pepsi has gone up considerably and Gold Medal, who we buy our
food from, are on the east side of Indianapolis.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are you also considering a price increase for
that?
Mr. Reel said yes.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, will you pass that onto the ultimate
customer?
Mr. Reel said we already did that one time. We did last year to
match the previous year’s increase. Mr. Carlucci has reported that we
are one of the highest per capita incomes in the State of Indiana. So, we shouldn’t feel guilty about increasing the price for these kids but I do feel that.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, why wouldn’t you increase the price of a
Pepsi if your supplier cost went up?
Mr. Reel said we did last year.
Mr. Kirchoff said if the price went up, why don’t you pass that
that along?
Mr. Reel said last year it went up with the actual Pepsi product
itself. This year it has went up with the cups and we have gone into a Gatorade product. Gatorade has been purchased by Pepsi. We are at a
$1.50. To go another level we could do that but we would rather not.
We would rather get the money from the Town. We think that we are a
very kind organization and as I mentioned earlier, if you don’t give us a dime, we are still going to make it. The problem that I face is I have two of your Town board members that are a member of the club and they are going to say cut my salary.
Mr. Brandgard said at the same time when Mr. Prince tells us
about the price increases, we tell him to pass it on. What is the
pleasure of the Council?
Mr. Gaddie asked, how many kids do you take care of?
Mr. Reel said we have 800 soccer youngsters and we have 327
football anticipated this year plus we are going to exceed 300 baseball this year. We are anticipating going up with the Town and school growth from what they tell us.
Mr. Gaddie said that is a low dollar for that number of kids.
What do we spend at Franklin Park to keep those kids going?
Mr. Carlucci said we don’t pay anything for those leagues.
Mr. Gaddie said you furnish everything.
Mr. Reel said we put a pencil to our activities, this is every
night up there with the amount that you have given us previous years,
it runs about five cents a youngster per activity.
Mr. Carlucci said there have been years in the past that the
standard amount appears to have been $5,000.00 but they wanted a Dixie Chopper or they had too many kids who came in needing extra equipment. Rarely do they come in to ask for more than $5,000.00. We have done some things with brick and gravel, etc.
Mr. Reel said the Town was 100% behind us on our parking lot.
Mr. Kirchoff said you say that you spend $900.00 on fuel.
Mr. Reel said at the present time yes.
Mr. Carlucci said maybe I could suggest to the Council to take
the $5,000.00 out of the regular budget that we take out of every year and the additional $2,500.00 out of the Food and Beverage Tax on a oneyear basis.
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to donate $7,500.00 to the Plainfield
Optimist Club in the operation of Lovell Field for this year. Second by Mr. Gaddie. Motion carried.
Mr. Ray Saxman at 514 Kentucky, Plainfield said if you don’t mind, I’m going to read what I have to say because I’m pushing 70 and I
haven’t been to a Town board meeting before and I’m nervous as heck.
I’ve come with an inquiry that relates to the aquatic center that is
about to open. “You may or may not know that I’ve been a teacher all
my adult life. I’m, therefore, very interested in children and young
people. My inquiry is quite simple. Have you already, or if not, will
you consider a method by which people, particularly children, in this
community who cannot afford the daily admission price be allowed to
visit this new recreational facility. I believe it would be terrible
that such a beautiful facility have a large number of people in this
community excluded based totally on their ability to pay. I think
sometimes we believe in Plainfield there is no one, or at least a very small number, who can’t afford the admission price but in reality they are in hundreds. I believe there should be some way the folks in this community that can’t afford the admission price should be allowed to receive free passes a couple of times a month and be able to enter without anyone knowing that they are free gratis visitors. Dr. Hollifield told me recently, and it surprised me a great deal, that 21% of the students in the Plainfield School system receive free or reduced lunch prices. That surprised me because of the low income of their families. I don’t remember what the amount is, I should remember, I taught down at the high school for 25 years. I think that would certainly be a place to start to talk and I think there should be some kind of a swipe card for those kids to visit. You can’t identify those kids. You just can’t do that. I’ve worked in the cafeteria in the
high school for years and I never knew who was not paying and I never
wanted to know and I had no right to know. I certainly don’t know how
to accomplish all of this but I feel that the community cannot in good conscious ignore that situation. We just can’t. I can’t.” Thank you for your time.
Mr. Brandgard said thank you for bringing that in. We certainly
appreciate it and I don’t know if we have taken that into account
anywhere yet but we certainly will.
Mr. Saxman said it needs to be done. It is not of any great
interest I suppose but I would have been one of those kids who couldn’t afford to go to this place when I was growing up. I could not have gone.
Mr. Brandgard said we have to develop some mechanism where you
can’t tell.
Mr. Saxman said they have to be anonymous. There are a lot of
adults that also need that help but I’m concerned about kids. I spent
my whole life being concerned about kids.
Mr. McPhail said I would like to pass this comment onto you because I have been approached a couple of times. I made a comment that a package of cigarettes a day would pay for a family pass to this aquatic center. So, I have said I would be glad to work as hard as I can to help those who are needy but if the parents elect to live a lifestyle that is neglecting the children, how do you sort that out?
Mr. Saxman said I don’t think in most cases people choose that. This gentleman over here has talked about low paying jobs. If you are
making $10.00 an hour, if you have three kids, you can’t send them down to the new aquatic center. You just can’t do that. Mr. McPhail said those are the kids that I want to help.
Mr. Saxman said in order to get a free or reduced lunch at school
they have to fill out a form that tells what their income is. There are federal guidelines, as I said, I don’t remember what they are but there are federal guidelines that says if your total family income is this and you have this many children, you get a free lunch. If it is this, you get a reduced price. As I said, it really amazed me. My dad
didn’t choose that. My dad smoked. You can say if he would quite
smoking, he could send you down to the aquatic center. I don’t know if you ever smoked, but I did and I quit but it was tough and to tell my dad to quit smoking so that I can go swimming would have been a tough sell. We have a lot of kids in the trailer court. We have a lot of kids in the apartment complexes. It amazed me when he said 21% of the kids in the school corporation are on that. I don’t know how many kids there are in the school corporation but there are 3,000 at least so that is 600 kids that are getting free and reduced lunch prices. Those kids can’t go to the aquatic center and I think in this community we can’t just overlook that. We just can’t. Thank you.
Mr. Brandgard said Mr. Prince you have a challenge to figure that
out on how we can accomplish something.
Mr. Prince said I will work on something for you.
Mr. Scott Butler at 1278 W. U.S. 40 said I bought into Hendricks
County about two years ago with me and my wife and my three sons. No
disrespect to nobody, especially you, that building that you are
talking about building is another pollution hole. I really wish that
you would consider not letting it be built here in Plainfield or
Hendricks County. I lived in Indianapolis for 20 years of my life. You can probably hear it in my voice. I moved out here to Hendricks County. The air is so much cleaner out here. I’m asking you don’t build any more buildings out here with pollution. You can come out to my house next week and drive in the city. You are bringing the city to the country. Leave it in the city. I’m sorry but I just wanted to bring my kids somewhere to raise them in a clean environment, good air to breath. Go in the city and you can smell the difference. I don’t wear a suit and tie. I work 12-15 hours a day. I’m doing the best for my family. I’m doing good to do the taxes on my house that I bought. I love it out here. Don’t bring the city out please. Leave it in the city.
Mr. Brandgard said I think in the industrial area we don’t have
anything that is a pollutant per se. I think most of these are pretty
benign operations. I don’t know any of them that have any smoke stacks or hazardous materials that we are venting out there.
Mr. Butler said again no disrespect but you are talking about
another big warehouse, truck docks, that’s more diesels and more semis coming into Plainfield. It is more pollution that you are pumping into the air. From here west is all corn fields. What are we going to do to grow our food? I mean it is all going up in buildings and subdivisions. What is going to happen when we can’t grow nothing else? Where is our food going to come from? How much food do you think soybean is actually put into the making of the food? Soybean, corn, vegetables that you are not going to get. You are building on top of it. Like I said no disrespect to anybody but I’m sorry I had to say something. If I didn’t, I made a trip for nothing.
Mr. Brandgard said I appreciate you coming forward with your
thoughts. One of the things that we have attempted to do, and we have
done a good job of it so far, is keeping the industrial/retail part on the east side of Town and not letting it come to the west. You may
have some retail but at least there are no plans from this Council to
start opening up industrial development to the west.
Mr. Butler said it is pretty bad when your eight-year old son
asks dad what is that smell when you come into Town? I said I don’t
know. It is not gas fumes. It is pollution in the air. It is getting
bad. I just wanted to bring that to your attention whether you live in Town or live out of Town. If you live out of Town and you come in
Town, it is like night and day. It is like driving into something that you can’t breath. If you don’t believe me, you are more than welcome to stay with me a week and then drive back into Town and you will see what I’m talking about.
Mr. Carlucci asked, do you live west of Town?
Mr. Butler said yes sir I do.
Mr. Carlucci asked, how far out do you live?
Mr. Butler said I live out past SR39 and it is beautiful out
there and the more industrial plants and parks that you are building in Plainfield where is it going to stop? It is going farther and farther out. It’s overtaken our crops. It has overtaken the air. I mean try one weekend and go out of Town and then come back in and you will see what I’m talking about. I would like to grow old and see my kids grow up. Cars put out pollution and whatnot but buildings put out double that. I wanted somewhere to raise my kids healthy and in the city it wasn’t it. You have Diamond Chrysler. You have Rolls Royce. You have General Motors. You have Ford. It is a pollution hole. Drive out west one day about 20 minutes from here and turn around and look back at the city, it looks like downtown Chicago. It’s a haze. It’s unreal. I don’t like coming to city but to work. That’s all I do. I’m sorry to interrupt.
Mr. Brandgard said it is not an interruption. Thank you.
TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT
Mr. Carlucci said most of mine is on the Consent Agenda but I did
receive, and there was no letter attached, a report from the Hendricks County Jail prepared by the National Institute of Corrections. So, I would go ahead and present this to the Council President. I believe Chief Brinker also received a copy of this too.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said since the last meeting Mr. Bill Castetter and I
had the privilege of attending a seminar in Orlando, Florida on broad
base internet service. Basically, what the seminar was it was for
attorneys it turns out. It was a law seminar on the legal aspects of
municipalities getting involved with board band and it was very
informative. It was a good conference to go to because you got the
legal aspect, the lead of it to what we were looking for. That is what we got. I reported back to our committee and brought a lot of material back with it and a lot of contacts. So, that is proceeding.
Mr. Brandgard said I think the value is what you get outside of
the session and that is where your contacts come in so that is good.
Thank’s for going down there.
Mr. McPhail said just a quick follow-up from Mr. Fivecoat’s
report they certainly brought back a lot of information. Enough to get me more confused but I will report that we have a task force working on the high-speed internet service. We have some people from the private sector. We have a representative from the library. We will have a representative from the school corporation plus Mr. Fivecoat and I and Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Bill Castetter from the Staff and I think we are making some progress. I don’t have anything to report except I think we are making progress. There is a lot of technology and options for us out there. I think we will be able to make some recommendations in a few months.
Mr. Brandgard said there is enough happening and a lot of aspects
so a quick decision is not going to be a good decision in this case.
Mr. McPhail said we have a lot of work to do from a technical
standpoint.
The other quick report is I would tell you that we are making
significant progress at the recreation center. The major steel
component for the entryway has been erected and you can finally see
where the entrance of the building is supposed to be. We started
moving some topsoil the last couple of days so the site preparation is beginning to move forward. I think in a couple of weeks it will begin to look a lot different.
Mr. Brandgard said I was by there over the weekend and I was
gratified to finally see the north wall being enclosed. I thought
finally it is going to start looking like a building down there.
Mr. McPhail said we need to continue with some relatively dry
weather to get the site work done but it is moving along well.
Mr. Kirchoff said at the last meeting we got to talking about
streetlights on U.S. 40. I had raised a question about whether our
contract expired or not. I contacted Kerry Vestal. He feels by and
large they are past the 10-year limit. Perhaps out on U.S. 40 on the
west side they might not be but I think you had made a comment that we probably wouldn’t do it all at the same time anyway. His feeling was he did not think it would be a problem even if they had not expired because of the age of all of the others so I think we are okay.
The other thing last week we met with MPO to talk with them. I
think the Town of Avon was here and Mr. Carlucci, Mr. McGillem and I
met with representatives from MPO about the rapid transit. I thought
Mr. Carlucci very well reiterated our position. If you take it to the
airport, you are not that far from Plainfield and it needs to come the rest of the way.
Mr. Carlucci said they have a meeting tomorrow at 1:30, a joint
meeting, the regional transportation council and the technical
committee. It is going to be at the Department of Public Works on
Sherman Drive. I was planning on attending that. I have a meeting
downtown tomorrow morning at the City County Building and then that
meeting. They are allowing two hours for this meeting, which is
unusual for them. So, we will stick to our guns.
Mr. Kirchoff said the staff represented to us that the six
corridors that are for consideration they want to narrow down to
possibly two or three, which I think Mr. Isaacs talked about the last
time. They had maps, which we have if anybody would like to see that
and what we are looking at. I thought it was time well spent and it was a chance for us to reiterate our position.
Mr. Daniel said the day after our last Council meeting the last
week in March we closed the Orr property across the street, one of our Town Center projects. That closed and has been purchased.
Last but not least you may recall the James and Karen Bear
property on Vestal Road. They were in Louisiana that we had some
difficulty finding and getting noticed. We finally did find them and
they got noticed and I have a signed deed for that small strip. Mr.
Isaacs just brought me a check today so that is the last little piece
on Vestal Road. We had the right of entry to do the road anyway but we acquired that little piece of right-of-way and we will be all set.
Mr. Isaacs said I just want to mention that the contract with
MUNIS for our software package has been signed and we are moving
forward. I appreciate your willingness to help us with that. It was a
lot of hard work putting that together. It will be very beneficial to
move forward.
Mr. Brandgard said I’m looking forward seeing that up and
running.
Mr. Gaddie said I don’t have too much but I wanted to tell this
gentleman farmer that I just talked to a friend of mine that just got
back from Florida who is looking at some more farmland. It only went
for $4,200.00 an acre heading west to Stilesville. Can you farm that
and make money?
Gentleman from audience said I don’t know. I was looking to pay
$2,200.00 an acre and that is a long drive with a tractor down Dan
Jones Road.
Mr. Prince said I don’t have anything additional other than the
last paragraph in my report. I hope everybody received that. I have
been working with the police department and they have provided us with a liaison and his name is Mr. Parks. We are meeting periodically to discuss types of crimes that happen in recreation facilities. They
mention that they were having some struggles on their bike control
unit. It is outgrowing its area. I said why don’t you come here with
us at the recreation center and that started off a series of
discussions. The more we discussed it the more great sense that it
made. We all say when, and I think sometimes we wonder about that but
in this situation our police department has a wonderful bike patrol
unit that they need space. In the recreation business we love
uniformed police officers and police cars. They tend to help us with
problems that we wouldn’t be able to deal with ourselves. With your
permission to continue moving forward we have offered Chief Brinker
some space in the recreation center for his officers to operate the
bike control unit out of. We have some lockable storage space that they can keep their bikes and they have some took kits, etc. that I think are in some officer’s garages at this point and time. We can allow them a place to keep that whereas on our end we are going to have a police presence at the recreation center throughout the day. That certainly makes us feel better as we go about our business out there. I was really happy about the situation and I hope you are too so I would like your permission to move forward with that and make that a reality in a few months.
Mr. Brandgard said in my view absolutely. I look at this as the
first sub-station for the police department. I applaud the both of you for getting that done because I have suggested that several times that we ought to have some sub-stations around where the police may not be there all of the time but they could go in and do their paperwork in the public and go in and talk to them if they have something. I applaud the effort. Thank you.
Mr. Prince said I have room for a big red ambulance too so we
will work on that next.
Chief Brinker said it has been great with what he has done and
how we all have been able to work together on this. It has been a lot
of work from many different standpoints. We spent a couple of days
down there talking with some of the contractors, etc. We are all
looking forward to this and it is really a big boost for the department too.
Mr. Fivecoat said I don’t have your monthly report.
Chief Brinker said that is true. It is available on printed form
tomorrow morning. We had an e-mail disaster so we will have that for
you.
Chief Anderson said speaking of red ambulances Saturday our new
ambulances were delivered so they arrived on time, which is unusual for the last two times that we have bought them. It will take us two to three weeks to get the equipment change over and it gets certified by the State to put them on the street. They look in good shape. There were a few minor problems but just like any other new vehicle there are minor glitches but nothing significant.
In my report I mentioned the grant that came available to us
through the State Emergency Management. To give you a little
background on this three or four weeks ago we were contacted to see if we would be interested in applying for a $50,000.00 grand and we said yes. It is for local hazmat response units. We were invited due to our location and proximity to transportation corridors and critical infrastructure. So, along with other departments around the State we were invited to participate in this. Three weeks later we were notified that we were awarded that grant. I talked to the Town Manager and also Mr. Daniel about the conditions and agreement that we were required to agree to sign as a municipality. It is an extensive agreement. The grant itself is purchasing hazmat equipment off an approved list that the State already has. So, that enhances our capability, as a hazmat response unit. It seems that the key part of the agreement is we are required not to opt out of what is called the statewide mutual aid agreement. I think there was some discussion about whether or not that would affect previous discussions at a different level. I know that Mr. Carlucci had talked to you after I talked to you. Do you have any guidance for us on this?
Mr. Daniel said he sent me an e-mail indicating the Town is
talking about entering into an agreement with the County. I think that was the essence of your end, which really doesn’t affect that one way or another. The Town is entitled to do that. I think the real issue is the grant itself just says we talked about this opt out provision and it is very clear that the Town cannot opt out of that State agreement. On the other hand in going through the State law and provisions and that sort of thing I think there can be some value to you and myself or Mr. Carlucci sitting down and going through it because there is language in there about operational control verses site control, etc. You know a lot more about that than I do. I don’t know how much that would resolve some of the issues the Town has as far as our equipment and who is in charge of our equipment. There are also provisions in there if we are called out and we have emergency needs here and we have to pull our equipment out. Rather than saying we are going to opt in or opt out I think we ought to know exactly what issues there are and if the Town has a serious enough concern. That is where we are. Otherwise, maybe some of those can be answered.
Mr. Brandgard said in looking that over I would certainly like to
have a chance to sit down with Mr. Daniel and probably Chief Brinker
and Mr. Carlucci and go through that. I have never seen such an
extensive agreement for something like this. Eventually when you have
to keep track of expendable stuff, the vast majority that is in there
is stuff that you are going to consume and you have to keep a record of it. I’m not sure the record keeping is not more than what we want to deal with so we need to talk.
Chief Anderson said it seems to be more extensive than the grant
that we received last year through the Assistant Firefighters grant.
But the areas that you were talking about as far as instant command
giving up resources I know in one area it does state that you are not
expected to give up resources that you feel you need to maintain your
own community. Definitely we can get together and go through this.
Mr. Daniel asked, is there a deadline on accepting that grant?
Chief Anderson said I think it is July.
Mr. Daniel said I thought we had quite a bit of lead-time.
Mr. Brandgard said I want to congratulate you in the success of
getting the grant. That is pretty quick.
Chief Anderson said I didn’t realize how quick it was going to
happen. I will get with you after the meeting and set a time and date
to go through this.
OLD BUSINESS
Mr. Kirchoff said I have one item with two parts. Has anything
transpired with our trail system with Glen Haven?
Mr. Carlucci said no. I have the information to go back and talk with the gentleman and really that is basically our entire focus because even though we talked about the new trail that will happen in time and it is probably not going to happen this year. But our focus really has to be in that area.
Mr. Kirchoff said we made the paper for that and I was sure the
gentleman that keeps talking about Glen Haven is going to say you are
going to go do that and not do this. If we can resurrect that, I think that would be good.
Mr. Carlucci said I think he was on spring break.
Mr. Kirchoff said at the last meeting we talked about the
sidewalk up around Carr Road. I checked with Mr. Belcher and he said he was not aware of that. I just want to keep that on the front burner as well that we would have a chance to take a look at what we could do in that area.
Mr. Brandgard said you triggered a thought relative to Glen
Haven. Mr. Belcher and Mr. Castetter if maybe at the next meeting, if
you can put it together, come back and give us an update on where we
are on that punch list down there of what we have been able to
accomplish or not accomplish. I suspect we are still having some
problems with the developer getting things done but we need to keep
abreast of that before they come back in and ask us a question that we don’t know the answer to.
NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Fivecoat said by going to the conference with Mr. Castetter
we drove and had a long time in a car together driving to Orlando. Mr. Castetter and I were talking and I think he needs a mini van to be purchased for him because he is hauling computers in the car and trunk. I think we need to maybe take a look at buying a mini van for Mr. Castetter to haul some equipment around. I would rather see him in a mini van than inside a vehicle. It is awful hard to bend over and pick up some of these computers out of a trunk.
Mr. Brandgard said it is not necessarily a way to carry them. It
is probably a good thought. We can take a look to see if we have
anything available within the growing stock of the Town and if not, we will look at it.
Mr. Fivecoat said basically he said it is like a mini van. He
doesn’t need a full size van but a mini van would be fine.
Mr. Brandgard said it may be something that we can use as a pool
vehicle at the Town Hall when he needs to carry something around or if we need something else too. It is a good idea.
Mr. Kirchoff said the last time we had the partnership here and
it is April so when do we typically vote on their annual request?
Mr. Carlucci said I received the agreements Friday and I will
bring those in at the next meeting.
Mr. Daniel said we negotiated, as you know, an agreed order with
IDEM on the Deer Path utility issue down there. We need the Town to
decide whether they want to approve that agreement or not, if I could
get a decision on that tonight.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the agreed order from IDEM
relative to the Deer Path utility and authorize the Council President
to sign on behalf of the Town. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
RESOLUTIONS
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-11:
Duke Realty LP Confirmatory Resolution for a ten-year real property tax abatement for Duke Building No. 5. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent.
ORDINANCES
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 08-2004 on its
first reading. An ordinance for the Bishop-Duke Realty Limited
Partnership Rezoning. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent.
PROCLAMATION
Mr. Brandgard said we also have a proclamation before us this
evening dealing with the Historic Preservation Week of May 3 to the 9th, 2004. The proclamation reads:
WHEREAS, historic preservation is an effective tool for managing
growth, revitalizing neighborhoods, fostering local pride and
maintaining community character while enhancing livability, and
WHEREAS, historic preservation is relevant for communities across the
nation both urban and rural and for Americans of all ages and all walks of life and all ethnic backgrounds, and
WHEREAS, it is important to celebrate the roll of history in our lives and the contributions made by dedicated individuals in helping to preserve the tangible aspects of the heritage that has shaped us as a people, and
WHEREAS, new frontiers and preservation is the theme for National
Historic Preservation Week 2004 co-sponsored by the Plainfield Guilford Township Public Library and the National Trust for Historic
Preservation, and
WHEREAS, the friends of the Plainfield Guilford Township Public Library are sponsoring a spring history tour of Plainfield homes structures on Saturday, May 1, 2004.
NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved that the Plainfield Town Council does
hereby proclaim May 3rd through the 9th, 2004 as National Preservation Week and call upon the people of Plainfield to join their follow citizens across the United States in recognizing and participating in this special observance.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve said proclamation. Second
by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
OTHER COMMENTS
Gentleman from the audience said I have had an opportunity to sit
over there and kind of calm down. I just wanted to tell you guys that
what I was trying to say earlier was I wasn’t trying to say don’t build but my point that I was trying to get across was the bottom line is when I have something that I’m looking to sell, I’m looking to get the most money I can get out of it, $4,200.00 an acre, as much as the market will bear. After listening to the people that came up here and talked about it earlier I really do think your community here in Plainfield could use all of the extra pennies that the market will bear. I just hope that in the future you guys will consider that you only have so much land and people are going to build. Companies are going to come to this area and build regardless of how much it is an acre to build there. And regardless of interest rates. That may slow things down temporarily but people are going to build on it. People are making large investments to make sure that people build on it. That’s all I’ve got to say.
Mr. Brandgard said I appreciate your comments but when we first
started into the economic development phase, essentially all of the
ground east of Quaker Boulevard or SR267 got caught up with the
expansion of the airport with their noise overlays. Brownsburg and
Avon have not experienced what Plainfield and Guilford Township has,
the airport buying property and buying houses and taking the houses
down because of the noise abatement program. So, we have done a lot to try and work to mitigate that as much as possible. But what happened that land east of SR267 you can’t build houses over there. I think it finally got to the point where there was enough money out there for the property owners or a lot of it they traded ground, an acre for several acres somewhere else in the County or the counties to the west. Again, Plainfield can’t control the whole lot of what the homeowner does or the landowner does. Again, from a development standpoint most of the infrastructure was out there with a combination of the developer and the Town doing it for the overall benefit of the community. So, far it has worked quite well.
But when we first sat down with several of the companies that
were looking to move here, it was interesting to find out a lot of
times the abatement is not the issue. It is the overall in how things
work in the community. Are they going to be welcomed in the community? The attitude of the community toward the business and the abatements somewhat go a long way to show what that is. Is it everything? No it is not everything in the decision but it is certainly a major part of the decision.
I know I work for a company that has expanded several times in
different parts of the country. Certainly we look to the best deal that we can get. We certainly want to move into a community that is going to accept us and want us rather than one that doesn’t. This is where like I say do we want the abatements? Not necessarily but we know that we are in competition with other cities that do. In fact, a lot of them give a lot bigger abatements than what we are allowed to give here. But we have been successful because we have been lucky from the standpoint that we have Duke and we have other nationally recognized developers out there that are building a product and attracting the businesses. It is just not one thing that has made this work. It is a number of things that has happened. It is a case from the Town’s standpoint and the Township’s and the schools that are significantly impacted by the buyout of the homes that happened out in the eastern part of the Township.
Again, we have been able to have schools expanded and libraries
expanded, the Town has expanded but the tax rate has stayed kind of
like this. So, whereas, I know in Washington Township and up in the
Brownsburg area the tax rates have considerably kept going up. Like I
said we were kind of looking at what can enhance the tax base more from a job standpoint. We figure the building is going to be there, the work inside will draw the jobs but even if the business were to leave, the building is still going to be there and somebody is going to pay the taxes on the building ultimately. I know that we have had several businesses that have moved up from their original building to larger buildings. Those buildings have filled up. I thought a 100,000 square foot building was big and we started building a half million square foot and now we are building a million square foot spec buildings out there and it works. It comes back to, as Mr. McPhail said, having the product available and the companies want to make the move. I think Duke can probably speak to that much better than we can because we are kind of bystanders in what happens out there with the development but we do work with them. We work with the State and the Hendricks County Economic Development Partnership. We all work together and we work with Indianapolis. We are looking for Plainfield and Guilford Township, which in turns helps the County but also it helps the Indianapolis region of keeping jobs here and gaining jobs. One could say that the $10.00-11.00-12.00 an hour jobs are low paying but for the most part the businesses out there have more people applying for those jobs than there are jobs available. So, it is meeting a need that is there. We have been somewhat successful at it. Other communities haven’t. I look at it from the standpoint that we manage it and the fact that the abatements are a sliding scale that we keep adding new buildings to the abatement while the older buildings are coming off and it keeps building the taxes available here.
Mr. McPhail said in 1995 I was managing a business in Indianapolis and we needed to expand. I had worked on a business plan for over three years. I had an opportunity to take that business any place around Indianapolis. The friendliness and the assistance that was offered in Plainfield was no more than offered at other places. In
fact, I was almost on a first name basis with Mayor Goldsmith because
he didn’t want me to leave Indianapolis with that business. But I
brought it to Plainfield and without that tax abatement I couldn’t make it work. It just wouldn’t work. The upstart cost of relocating that business was so expensive with new equipment that I couldn’t make the business model work with the assistance. Five years later that company is one of the top 10 taxpayers in this Town. Businesses sometimes need just a little boost to make things work and I can tell you the startup cost is very expensive. And I don’t care what kind of business it is if you are relocating a business, those startup costs are expensive and hard to pay. I can tell you from personal experience without that tax abatement that company would not be here today.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do we need to do anything with this letter
from Liberty Township?
Mr. Carlucci said Chief Brinker and Chief Anderson are familiar
with that letter. The Liberty Township Fire Department has received a
grant for 800 megahertz radios, which we have the only 800 megahertz
system in the County. They are wondering if they could go through our
dispatch center. They are going to start some discussions with them on that.
Chief Brinker said we have had one meeting with them. They wanted
to work out some type of way that we would be able to dispatch for them at a very low cost to them. I believe the letter mentions a couple of different things. There are options that I have been looking at and speaking with Mr. Carlucci on and hopefully we will have something for you very soon that will be lucrative for both Liberty Township and Plainfield.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to sign the necessary documents and
adjourn. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
_____________________________________
Robin G. Brandgard, President
