PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL
October 10, 2011
7:00 p.m.
Mr. Brandgard: Plainfield Town Council meeting for Monday October 10, 2011 is now in session.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mr. Brandgard: I would like to ask everyone to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.
CONSENT AGENDA
Mr. Brandgard: Let the record show that we have four members in attendance, one member Ed Gaddie is absent, also Town Manager Rich Carlucci is absent this evening. We will go to the consent agenda.
1. Approval of minutes of the regularly scheduled Town Council meeting of Monday, September 26, 2011.
2. Second reading of Ordinance No. 11-2011: Wyatt Rezoning I-2 Industrial.
3. Approval of an agreement in the amount of $21,000.00 between the Town and Eagle Ridge Civil Engineering Services, LLC for services required to develop the Milestone I of the ADA Transition Plan per the Transportation Director's report dated October 6, 2011.
4. Approval to release remaining retainage in the amount of $73,196.93 plus any additional interest to the contractor Reith Riley, Inc. for completion of the work done on the S.E. Perimeter Parkway project per the Transportation Director's report dated October 16, 2011.
5. Approval of the Change Order's Number 56 thru 68 to the Gradex contract on US Streetscape Project resulting in a total increase of $406,646.08 per the Transportation Director's report dated October 6, 2011.
6. Approval of supplement to Engineering Agreement between the Town and Butler, Fairman and Seufert, Inc in an amount not to exceed $60,000 for inspection of the US 40 Streetscape project per the Town Engineer's report dated October 6, 2011.
7. Approval of Change Order #2 to the contract with John Hall Construction in the amount of $25,210.26 dollars and including an additional 30 days time extension to complete the work associated with the Main Street Area Drainage Project, per the Town Engineer's report dated October 6, 2011.
8. Approval to renew Poseidon Technologies Maintenance Service contract in the amount of $16,900.00 per year for three years pending legal approval and designating Council member Renea Whicker as the signatory per the Parks and Recreation Director's report dated October 6, 2011.
9. Approval of the Town Engineer's, Parks and Recreation Director's, Transportation Director's, and Plainfield Fire Territory reports dated October 5, 2011 and HR Director's report dated October 10, 2011.
10. Approval of September 2011 monthly reports for Department of Planning and Zoning and Utility Billing.
Are there any changes, additions, or corrections to the consent agenda? If not, I entertain a motion to approve as read.
Ms. Whicker: So move.
Mr. Kirchoff: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: The motion is second to approve the consent agenda as read. If there is no further discussion roll call vote please.
Mr. Bennett: Ms. Whicker- yes
Mr. Kirchoff- yes
Mr. McPhail- yes
Mr. Brandgard- yes
The Plainfield Town Council consent agenda for October 10, 2011 is adopted.
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
Mr. Brandgard: Do we have any business from the floor this evening? Seeing none, we will go to the Town Manager's report.
TOWN MANAGER'S REPORT
Mr. Brandgard: Joe James, Planning Director is going stand in for Rich on this.
Mr. James: Good evening, we had a public hearing, Plan Commission October 3rd, and the motion was made on two petitions and so I have the certifications from the Plan Commission to the Town Council so I am going to read these on behalf of Mr. Carlucci.
I, Richard A. Carlucci, in my capacity as secretary of the Plainfield Plan Commission hereby certify that the Plainfield Plan Commission had a public hearing Monday October 3, 2011 on the petition of Dennison Properties, LLC, and RZ-11-002 for rezoning 48.2 acres to I-2 office warehouse distribution district and approximately 4.4 acres from AG agriculture to GC General commercial. Plainfield Plan Commission voted 6-0 to make a favorable recommendation to the Plainfield Town Council to rezone property described herein the attached exhibit A, dated this 10th day of October 2011.
Mr. Brandgard: Do you have any questions from the Council?
Mr. McPhail: Mr. President, I do believe this rezoning was approved by the Plan Commission subject to MOU concerning the roadways with the County and the developer, and I do believe that we should delay any action on the recommendation of the Plan Commission until those MOU's are presented.
Mr. Brandgard: I think we can accept the certification of what happened at the zoning meeting. The ordinance won't happen until the MOU is in place, but in order to the ordinance this has to be approved.
Mr. Kirchoff: The rezoning does not take effect until such time we would have the MOU and adopt the ordinance.
Mr. McPhail: So accepting the recommendation does not complete the transaction. Mr. President, I move we accept the recommendation of the Plan Commission on this rezone petition RZ-11-002.
Mr. Kirchoff: Accept the certification, I will second that.
Mr. Brandgard: We have a motion and a second to accept the certification from the Plan Commission for the Dennison Property rezoning, referencing RZ-11-002 for zoning 48.2 acres to I-2 office warehouse distribution district and approximately 4.4 acres from AG agriculture to GC general commercial.
Ms. Whicker: We are just confirming this is rezoning and this is no agreement on any design or use of land, just the rezoning.
Mr. James: To clarify this is just a certification; you are not making a motion on a rezoning.
Mr. Brandgard: If there is no further discussion, roll call votes please.
Mr. Bennett: Ms. Whicker- yes
Mr. Kirchoff- yes
Mr. McPhail- yes
Mr. Brandgard- yes
The certification of the Plainfield Plan Commission RZ-11-002 is adopted.
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you.
Mr. James: Then the second certification is for a text amendment to the Plainfield zoning ordinance, in my report I gave you some details on what the text amendments were for, so I will go ahead and read the certification. Be advised that pursuant to Indiana code 36-7-4-600 on Monday October 3, 2011 the Town of Plainfield Plan Commission gave a favorable recommendation to a proposal to amend a section of the Town of Plainfield zoning ordinance TA-11-002, the Plainfield Plan Commission hereby certifies subject to approve to amend the Plainfield zoning ordinance to you for your consideration with a favorable recommendation. A copy of the proposal to amend the Town of Plainfield zoning ordinance is attached to this certification as Exhibit A dated this 10th day of October 2011.
Mr. Kirchoff: I move that we approve the recommendation of the Plainfield Plan Commission.
Mr. McPhail: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: We have a motion and a second to accept the recommendation from the Plainfield Plan Commission regarding TA-11-002 that is an amendment to the Town of Plainfield zoning ordinance, if there is no further discussion, roll call vote.
Mr. Bennett: Ms. Whicker- yes
Mr. Kirchoff- yes
Mr. McPhail- yes
Mr. Brandgard- yes
Acceptance of certification of the Plainfield Plan Commission zoning ordinance TA-11-002 is adopted.
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you.
Mr. James: Thank you.
STAFF REPORTS
Mr. Brandgard: We will go to staff reports, Chief Anderson do you have anything from the Fire Territory? Chief Mitny do you have anything from the Police Department? Joe James do you have anything from the Planning and Zoning? Clay do you have anything from the Parks and Recreation?
Mr. Chafin: Good evening. One thing that I did not get in my report that I wanted to make you aware of was that this Wednesday the 12th, at Friendship Gardens at 4:00 are going to be doing the annual Teacher of the Year tree planting and ceremony. John Hummel with the Rotary Club contacted me late last week and confirmed the date and time. I do not have written down the name of the person, so I can't let that out of the bag, but it will be at 4:00 Wednesday at Friendship Gardens. We are going to start a new row of trees on the south end of that garden. We have kind of framed that drive about as far as we can without blocking the view of the gazebo from the road, and so we are going to start where the trail goes from the drive down to 700 there. It will be Wednesday at 4:00 if you are available. I think I put in my report, but we are doing our first ever Daddy Daughter dance at the Rec. Center, and it is one person over capacity and we have had numerous calls, we are pretty excited about doing that, and we are going to schedule another one for Valentine's Day, but it has been very very very well received, so we are happy that it is taking off like it has.
Mr. Brandgard: That's neat, thank you. Bill do you have anything from IT? Jason do you have anything from Public Works?
Mr. J. Castetter: Few items, just a reminder that this past weekend was heavy trash day, but next Saturday is heavy trash day as well. Also leaf collection takes off this week, so if you have a yard full of leaves let's get them out there and get them sucked up early this year. Also I'd like to invite or if there is any interest in having the Council come down and take a look the DPW facility now that we have it finished, operational and we'd like for you to maybe 6:00 before the next Council meeting come down and take a walk through. That's all I have.
Mr. Brandgard: That is a good idea, thank you. Ron do you have anything from the HR world?
Mr. Lydick: Steve Cook of the Hendricks County Communication Center, Executive Director, has requested that we hire two new part time dispatchers, Barbara Walker and Erin Carpenter effective on October 11th at the rate of $14.50 per hour.
Mr. Brandgard: These are to replace openings that we have out there, it is not additional people.
Mr. McPhail: Do you know typically how many hours a part time people work?
Mr. Lydick: 15-20 hours a week.
Mr. Kirchoff: So move.
Ms. Whicker: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: We have a motion and a second to approve the hiring of two new part time employees at the Communication Center per the Human Resources Director's report. If there is no further discussion all those in favor signify by aye, opposed, motion carried, and thank you.
Tim do you have anything from Engineering?
Mr. Belcher: I have a couple items, one of which was not on my report, but this would be helping a resident here in Town who would like to improve his property and if you would allow me to bring it forward it is an encroachment agreement, standard form that Mel developed for us. This gentleman's name is Mike Rogers and the reason I got this late and didn't get it in my report, the reports were due a little early, and this came in just a tad after that, so I am trying to help this gentleman out and try to get his permit processed. He has a deck he'd like to build on the back of his residence. It is at 10935 Parker Drive, in Brentwood Subdivision in Plainfield, it would encroach 4' by 20', that is the total area of encroachment, and it is a 50' wide drainage utility easement, so the easement is extremely wide and he is only 4' into it, he's not doing anything that would block into the drainage or the use of that easement for the purpose that it is there. He has signed the agreement and if the Council would approve it he could get his permit, otherwise he will have to move back out of that easement area. So I would recommend approving it if you are willing to do that and he can go forward with his permit.
Mr. McPhail: What is the subdivision?
Mr. Belcher: Brentwood Subdivision, 10935 Parker Drive, it is a Deck and Michael Rogers is the land owner.
Ms. Whicker: is 50' of the easement on his property or 25'?
Mr. Belcher: Yes, all 50' is on his side, so there is already quite a bit covered with the back part and he's up towards the house.
Mr. Brandgard: Big drainage easement.
Mr. Belcher: Yes, it is drainage and utility, but there is nothing that in terms of utilities that close to the home.
Mr. McPhail: I move that we approve the request from Michael Rogers for the encroachment agreement for 10935 Parker Drive.
Ms. Whicker: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: We have a motion is second to approve the encroachment agreement for Michael Rogers in Brentwood subdivision at 10935 Parker Drive. If there is no further discussion all those in favor signify by aye, opposed, motion carried.
Mr. Belcher: Thank you. Next item, this is the combination of elective study, so I decided to bring it to you tonight. It is a tremendously important study for the Town and one that I am excited about, we've done master plans for trails and sidewalks, or for trails in the past, but we've never done something combined like this that includes the sidewalks and the trails, and so this is something new for us, but I think its proven in the past how the Town has become again a leader in the area of using the trails for recreation also and going back into the downtown area and trying to revitalize and rejuvenate neighborhoods and this plan is really the genus's of it came from when we started doing sidewalk replacements with the PREF program, which again a real successful program, I think that we might have replaced about 3,000 feet of sidewalk in the heart of the downtown, when people saw that happening and it was just a natural reaction when you are living in another part of Town, you would pick up the phone and call and say when are you going to do mine great question and quite frankly we didn't have the answer. What we knew was we had a program right then that the State had labor for us to use and we were doing what we thought was the absolute worst walks that we could find and based on our gut feel and we are using that labor and it got a lot of things done and if you walk down Center Street or East Street it is a tremendous improvement, not only for just those folks living there, but people living in other areas, I walked in the downtown too, but I live further away, so what we did when those questions started coming in, the PREF program went away and we said well what do we need to do to answer those questions for the residents of the Town, and what we really came up with was, lets do a master plan of both the trails all of the pedestrian kind of transportation system that we have and the walks and put it all in one plan so then we can prioritize, get our arms wrapped around how big the problem is, if there is a problem or not just the problems but also the vision of where we want to go with our trails in the areas we haven't built anything yet and lets see what that looks like. So I have good news and bad news about that, we know now what it looks like, it is $30,000,000.00, and we would like to start tomorrow if we can. So that is really the problem that is the only thing I am going to ask tonight is when can we start? Actually we have already started which is great, we never stopped is the real issue, we have trails going on and I am going to have Clay come up in a minute and talk about some of the ones going on right now and kind of where they are at, because the priorities some of which we started back in 93 when we did the master plan for the whole Town, the comp plan, it essentially said that what we want to do as a Town is connect all of the neighborhoods, everybody in Town should have a connection to the trail system. That was the guiding principal in our comp plan in '93 and looking back and think of what's happened since '93 until now, I think 20 miles has been built and we are down to a couple of neighborhoods that aren't connected to the trail system. Now again you can improve connections and things like that, but we only have two neighborhoods that immediately came to the top of the list even before this plan was put together and we were going towards that even before it got to this plan, but now we have it even more defined in terms of what we are going to do. So we are carrying on, I think and getting more helping define the vision more in this plan and Brock Ridgeway is here that is here from Eagle Ridge who did the plan for us and he will certainly answer any questions you have. It is such a large plan and I don't know if you've had a chance to start flipping through it yet, but the executive summary which is two pages does a really good job of pulling it all together and Brock did an excellent job, Clay was involved, Rich was involved, I really wish he was here tonight because he is a huge advocate for the trails and Joe was involved and different departments were involved and we also involved the public obviously, we got several public meetings and invited people out and we had an online survey and we took as much input as we could get people to give us and quite frankly there was some changes that we made in the plan based on input. We got great comments of what they saw in some of the earlier versions and said what about this and we can scratched our head and went back and said you know we've got to make some changes here before we make this thing final, so we did everything we could to make this as good as plan as possible, and I think it is a great plan for the Town of Plainfield, just to continue to push us into the future in terms of the vision we have for our Community being a place if you don't want to get in a car you don't have too, if you want to go somewhere, possibly to work or shop or just for recreation or the Rec Center, this is a vision to get there. So now it is a matter of the old saying is if you want to eat an elephant, how do you do it, well you eat it one bite at a time. So we just got to get started and the high priority projects came to the top and we are going to come up with a way hopefully to present to you budgets that can be realistically dealt with in terms of the income we have to deal with and also we can put high priority projects in place, deal with ADA issues, all the things that have to do with transportation of pedestrians around the Community so with that, I will let Clay come up here, I highlighted a lot of the key points in here and talk about the primary trails first, which one of the great things about the way Brock approached this is, he gave us some terms to use, I will define those quickly, the basics, the primary trials being what everybody thinks of a trail, for multi uses, bicycles, walkers, the whole nine yards, that is a wide trail like Vandalia or the White Lick Creek Trail. Secondary trails was a term that might be a little in both the primary and what we call the area right in front of your house sidewalk, so Buchannan Street, six foot wide walk, that is sort of a secondary kind of a trail or a walk and then you go all the way down to essentially what is in front of the house. Probably a key thing to emphasize right now is that this was never a plan to put sidewalks in front of every home in Plainfield, many areas were developed without sidewalks, and I think if you were to go back and put them in, you would cause more problems for the parking and different things have been developed in front of homes, but we still look at those neighborhoods and we thought about major routes through them that maybe we would put a secondary walk in, for an example, the Harland Street area, a lot of traffic in that area that goes down Harland. The rest of the area is very calm and they don't have a lot of traffic. But if you have something on Harland like we have on Buchannan, you could serve that entire neighborhood and get them to and from US 40, Carr Road, or the trail that is north of them. So every neighborhood was looked at, but not every neighborhood or every house will get a sidewalk in front of their home, so even with that, we still ended up with $30,000,000.00 in improvements to get to the vision of the whole plan that it entails, it sounds like a lot, but certainly we always start and do so much a year and determine what we can afford and go from there. I will let Clay come up, I will pull up a couple of slides, I just brought a few of the maps that I have in the plan, I think Bill put the whole plan out there for you and the maps, but I will just bring a couple of the primaries and we will talk about that and I will that with a couple of others and if you have questions we can answer those.
Mr. Chafin: Thanks Tim, I would echo what Tim said, we really enjoyed working with Brock, he did a really good job and our main advocate like he said is not here, he is also one of our main maintenance revealing personnel, his bike riding endeavors around the Town. A few months ago when we started this process, and we talked about some of the funding that was left in the Trail Bond was getting ready to expire per say, and we needed to use those funds. We looked at the feedback we were getting and the information that Brock was putting together and when you thumb through that you will look at the primary list and you will see that there is ten priorities, well if you look on that list, priority number three is the trail that basically runs from White Lick Creek right down here in through sports complex, due west up behind the Police Station, down Moon Road and into the Forest Creek, Sugar Grove Subdivision, whenever we had the public input sessions, that was the development that showed the most interest as far as coming to those public input sessions and saying hey what about us, what about us? So we had an inkling that the property might become available to get up through there through the old Interurban Line and so we kind of waited and the timing I think played out very very well, so currently that trail is in design, here is the sports complex, basically it shows it from here coming up and so what we are going to do is, we are actually going to start right here where White Lick Creek, where the trail goes to White Lick Creek, come up, put a path along the parking lot curb on that north parking lot that runs east, west, in the sports complex, go up the hill there and then run essentially underneath those power lines till we get up near the Police Station and make a cross over and then come down and tie into this subdivision, Sugar Grove Senior Living has been kind enough that if we want to tie into their path system that they have and then connect into that development back in this area, we will be able to do that, so we are kind of looking at those two options now and then alternatively we might be able to take the path all the way down to the entrance down here. So we are looking both options that would be the best way to do it. If this works out, we might do this and then let this happen eventually as this road were to develop and widen down the road. So that was the first trail and then the second one was one that Rich really had a strong opinion on and we agreed that this Westmere Subdivision up here is probably one of the subdivisions that has been in the Town the longest but it has not had the connectivity we have pretty much everything in place to take this trail up to the new round a bout that is going to be put here, bring it up to the north. There is one parcel here that is we still have some work to do on just south of that subdivision. I know the Adesa land right here is a formality I believe in getting the right of way that we need to get the trail up in through there, but both of these trails are currently under design and it is anticipated to go out to bid on those in December with spring construction, so if you look on that list that Tim presented to you, I think it number three and number ten, we will just go ahead and check those off and take two bites out of the elephant and be on our way and we then we will connect those two subdivisions and get those people connected into the trail system. Do you have any questions on either one of those?
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you.
Mr. Belcher: Probably on this side, one of the things that I thought that if we take the time to step back a moment and think about what we are doing, which this plan gave us that chance too. The middle of the Town, although it was developed through the 50's through 70's, I don't know, maybe earlier, there were some walks and they were spotty here and there, but if you think about Simmons and Stafford. Simmons and Stafford really bisect the heart of our Community. Maybe if you call it the second phase, the downtown phase one, and the second phase is Stafford and Simmons, there is a nice walk along where the library is at, but there really is not much as you continue north, Stafford Road is developed and I give the people who developed it a lot of credit for the forethought of putting a walk there, at the time that was built it had a walk there that was probably quite a stretch because they had to buy off of homeowners there, land and things that was probably quite an invasion at that time for those folks to put up with that but they did and the walk is there, but by today's standards, it is very narrow, it is right up on the curb, and so as we looked at this, again with Brock's help I think it came out that right through the middle through Center Street to 267, which gets you to the tunnel, there is an opportunity here for the Town to develop a primary trail. Now we wouldn't' want to do that by going into folks yards any further, it is pretty far back already, but if you think about the width of the pavement and how much that we already own, as a Town, that we acquired years ago, and how much pavement is there with a three lane road, we think we can make it work for cars, pedestrians and all of it work together, so that goes right through the heart of it again, a large part of our Community and it gets people access to a primary trail, which then allows them to go other places, go west and go to the creek, go east and go under to Metropolis Mall and whatever, but essentially it allows that interconnecting to happen and Simmons to Buchannan and then Buchannan, and then Buchannan to Carr, again if you can just imagine that being in place as a primary trail, Simmons also has the same kind of issue, you drive down Simmons you see gaps and pieces of sidewalk and a very wide pavement, extremely wide, it is not even used for parking hardly ever. We saw that as an opportunity to bisect north to south and east to west and allow people to get to the primary system and go where ever they would like to go. It is essentially a great opportunity use something the Town already owns, it would be rebuilding or recreating a corridor through there that we don't know what it will look like yet, this plan is not meant to do that, but the concept of that route, and we saw how successful Buchannan was, and just putting a six foot walk on Buchannan and the use that got, and how many people seem to enjoy it and use it a lot, but we started looking back in the heart of the Town and I think that is a great thing about this plan is that we will have all these connecting pieces right through the heart of the community to supplement what is already there. This might also be a good point to highlight, I talked about a comment from a resident from some folks that live in the Hardins Creekside Estates called about getting into the primary trail system and we have a primary trail there along Stanley Road, as you go west it sort of drops back down to a 4' walk which was already there so going further west along Stanley Road is a challenge and we initially thought, let's drop the trail, this is Stanley Road here, let's drop it down through these neighborhoods to the south, which we think is a good idea, but if you are going to the Rec Center that doesn't help you at all and that was one of the residents comments, and so we went back and looked at that, and thought that is right, if you are going to the Rec Center you are going from Hardin Court going west, you are not going to go south to go back north. So we thought lets look at what are we going to do if we stayed on Stanley Road and that hill that is so steep coming in that is there, again that is the right place to go, how exactly is still the question, that we have to answer, but the point of this plan is what is the best route, the best idea connecting people and then as we get into the projects, the priority ones is to determine exactly how it is done, but I think that is an example of one of the many comments that came in that I think made a lot of sense. The folks that want to go south through those neighborhoods, that is a good idea and it will help those folks in those neighborhoods, but to continue west and then go north, the ideal situation would be to continue along Stanley Road, so we will be going back to look at that again hopefully in the future too. So again, this is the primary system, I'm going to maybe show you a couple of other things, I will flip through these, maybe I can use the mic there from the table if that is alright with you and go through these slides real quickly and then you can ask questions if you'd like. This is what we call the secondary trails, which could be a wide sidewalk or it could be a trail, it is most likely going to be a wide sidewalk like the one on Buchannan Street, but you can see where I talked about the Harlan route here, that would serve this entire group of residents that are close to Harlan Street, their streets are very calm as far as traffic and things like that, so you can walk through here on most days and not see a lot of traffic, but once you get to Harlan, there is quite a bit of traffic, so we would want to create a corridor through there somehow. We've already talked about Avon Avenue and going north, and Northbrook Woods and that area being connected, these brings the issue of timing up because until the State does something with the railroad, the old railroad bridge, that may not be something we want to tackle. The cost of that bridge it will be so high that we will be better off waiting as a Town till they decide that they don't want to have that bridge there anymore that they take it down and we will get involved in the design and have them build something at very little cost to the Town of Plainfield residents. Another sort of exciting one, the details are tough, but the concept is really good, Butler Drive in this area has no walks and no service. Buchannan Street comes down to I think it is Tarpon, getting across here and down into Butler Drive, takes you down into the flood plain of that creek, then there is a highway bridge on 267 that is quite high and we crossed into US 40, that is how we imagined possibly a trail going north along getting under 267 with no cost other than that crossing, then all we have to do is US 40, which is if you recall right there by Kroger's, there is a bridge there too that is over the same creek. We could put a trail there and then at the other then you are linking very closely up to the Vandalia, then you get up to the Vandalia and have another route down at this area, just to link the trail system and allow people to recreation or businesses or for whatever reason to have different routes to go different places. Again that fell more into a secondary type of a system. These are all potential projects; they could be upgrading an existing walk to a higher level, a 4' to a 6' or could be putting it somewhere where it doesn't exist. All projects that we think would help link our neighborhoods and if we should do them in a different way. Another thing that this plan did that other plans that we had done in the past it's been a second step, is try to prioritize and Clay talked about that already in the primary, but we went further and tried to look down into the different categories, you would have three categories, the primary, secondary and the , we also have three sets of priorities, because at some point when I come to you, is have the Town Council say this is the cost of the top five in each of the categories, do you want to fund these or not, first of all, it can't one of them and then how fast would you want to approach each category because you could say we want to put more money into the sidewalk replacement, then the primary trials, it just depends on how you as the Council feel and what money is available say through a possible grant or something like that, so it could be multiple things going on at once, and all trying to drive all three categories the priorities. I thought that was important because people do ask the question, well how are you going out there and building that trail and I got this walk in front of my house that needs work. That is what we need to be able to answer, I don't think we can with this plan, we can come up with those kinds of answers if you as a Council decide to use X dollars a year to say sidewalks like you did in the past when we were actually actively using the PREF, then we could use that number and say ok with that number we can do this much and we can tell people we are going to be where they are at, which is what the basic questions usually are. Again within all of our plans there is flexibly obviously and opportunities that come up, whether it be through development or something else that we can take advantage of someone else coming in to do the work and leverage the money they are spending with a little bit of our money to get things done. So this map is just a little graphical representation of the priorities of what some of the high priorities are. The final thing I will go to and then let you ask any questions you might have as we talked about putting all this in the Town GIS system before we started it and that was accomplished too as we went along. We are again happy with the way this turned out, to give you an example as I zoom down here. What I turned on this map layer, and this is available on the web, any resident can get to it and look at it, is just out there for anybody that would like to view it, and I am sure we will get the plan on there too once you approve of it. Essentially this gives us condition of our walks and our ramps, sidewalk ramps, the key for this plan was that we didn't want to walk away from doing this much effort and not know where the ramps were going to be upgraded to meet ADA requirements and what are the conditions of the sidewalks so that we can have a logical plan of attack over a certain number of years to address the sidewalk issues, because we want to have nice smooth sidewalks, that is what our goal is but you can't do everything at once, you have to have a plan and this is what our plan is in front of us here. Let me go down just a little bit further and show you, lets turn off the addresses real quick, it is a little easier to see, I will go down here to the older part of Town. I did notice today as I was preparing, there was a couple, the one thing about GIS is you have to be prepared for is you always have to update a layer as you finish things. So we still have some updating to do, because US 40, when this map was done, a lot of them were in really poor condition and now they are all new, so we have to upgrade that as a condition. The red and the blue triangles essentially are ramps. Each ramp was looked at by somebody in the field, this wasn't done from an aerial photography, and they were looked at and assessed. What we can do now from GIS is to make that layer what they call active by clicking that little box there and come over here then click that box right there, that triangle and the condition noted there is our worse condition, so we have a ramp situation there on Mill, we haven't been to Mill Street yet, we haven't got to Mill Street with our PREP program so there are condition issues out there that we know about and again this allows us to document that, the same thing with the links of sidewalk. So we came up with a grading system, Brock was it A through F? So A through F system to try to give us an idea of what is out there. Just to give you a sense of how that helps us, essentially today I got a call from someone who was talking about when are you going to do a walk in my neighborhood, we would still go out and look at it but essentially from sitting in front of a computer, in a couple of minutes I can go and see the condition of what that was graded and give somebody some feedback and say well that walk was graded as a B, so chances are we are going to go through the F's, D's before we get to the B, but at least they would know why, we can't just rush out and do because you call, we have to have a plan. So that is very compressed, even though I have taken your time, I appreciate you giving me the time, version of what this plan was about, essentially to get our arms around sidewalks, trails, where we are going, what we already have that we have to take care of and what that would cost, and again the Executive Summary, a couple of things that jumped out at me, on the second page of the Executive Summary, $30,000,000.00 really jumps out, 46 miles and sidewalk and trail really jumps out. Already having over 17 or nearly 20 miles of primary trails already, to think about the fact that White Lick Trial from Friendship to how far we go to Franklin was the first really primary trail that we built. Then we've got the 20 mile, so 18 miles of new sidewalks and about 5 miles of sidewalk needing replacement or upgrade. So those all calculate into big dollars, but again we can break it down now, or we can come up with priorities for you and present to you and let you determine as a Town leadership how quickly you would like to approach these issues and where you would like to go. With that again, Brock is here, the writer of the plan, and the guy that helped us put it together as a consultant, Joe, me, Clay, Rich I'm sure he'd love to talk about it if he were here tonight and we would be glad to answer your questions. I came here not sure if we should try to get an approval at this point and how you felt about maybe going to another meeting and have an approval that is fine, however you want to approach it, but we are here to take it wherever you would like to go with it.
Mr. Brandgard: A couple of comments, doing this I think should help doing the new ADA transition plan. Because we have got a lot of here you are going to need for it.
Mr. Belcher: I really appreciate you mentioning that because we may be leading the way in that too because there was a method we used here. It fits right into what apparently what apparently is a program the Federal Government doesn't even really know what they want, they said we have to do this in order to maintain our public funding of roadways, or our Federal Funding, we are going to produce a plan for them that we think accomplish goals for our community. We will meet all of the requirements that they placed on us.
Mr. Brandgard: The other thing, the $30 million dollar investment, I remember back several years when you and Don presented a transportation plan that had $100 million dollars on it, and every year we'd do something and we'd add more to do, and I think it is still over I think $100 million dollars, but its been making our way at it, and nothing happens quick, but nothing happens if you don't have a plan, and I think this is a good plan, it gives us a lot of data to make decisions from and guide us.
Mr. McPhail: I think there is an issue I think we need to consider as we move forward with this program, which I totally support, in our newer neighborhoods, our ordinances are pretty well established, home owners are responsible to install the walk and maintain it and I think if we go into these older neighborhoods and replace the walks and upgrade them then we need to have some kind of ordinance that makes them responsible after that point. We can't trace anything in these older neighborhoods, but it certainly, I would think that we would want to put that responsibility back on the property owners in the neighborhood as the newer neighborhoods that we have. I know I have studied some ordinances in a couple of other Cities or Towns and those ordinances are out there and the property owners are responsible to keep them maintained, but certainly we've got some that you can't trace to anyplace, there is no history of anything on it, but I think we ought to consider that as we move forward and then maybe the Councilmen in the future going to get hit with a $30 million tab again.
Mr. Belcher: Very good point.
Mr. Kirchoff: I guess I would like a little time to digest it before you get the final approval, but do you want the draft one back then?
Mr. Belcher: Yes, it would probably be good if we get the drafts back if you have them, and we can print another.
Mr. Brandgard: I would appreciate a DVD.
Mr. Kirchoff: That would be great, I was going to ask for a copy, but the DVD would be fine.
Mr. McPhail: I can get my draft back to you also.
Mr. Belcher: I'm not sure there were a lot of changes but that makes sure that we don't have many stray things out there. If we get the blue ones back we will have some maroon ones that if you want one of or you can have a DVD.
Ms. Whicker: In some of the areas such as Stafford or Stanley, as you talked about the width of the road and accommodating, but yet without intruding or on the property and encroaching there, and you said in the future there would be a more detailed plan laid out.
Mr. Belcher: Yes.
Ms. Whicker: But I know as many people do want to improvements there is some people that do not want to the sidewalk, so I am sure that within that plan then the homeowners would be involved for them to be able to say yes or no, or that they would have some input in that session as well.
Mr. Belcher: Absolutely, in most places it would be required because we would have to be required because we would have to go then because their land is involved, and we can just sit down with them and the neighborhood first and then the individuals after that.
Ms. Whicker: We really don't have space in any roads to do the painted trails or bikeways.
Mr. Belcher: Yes actually we do, and that was part of what some of what Brock looked at for us, we thought about bike paths a lot and I've seen that talked about and the plan does address that a little bit, but the combination of all of those things together gets to be quite a bit of real estate being used is what it amounts too, and what we are finding a lot of experienced bikers, they are going to be on the road anyway, especially in the Plainfield streets as we have. Those are either inexperienced or have children with them don't want to be in those bike lanes, they want to be from a separated sense away from the traffic, so we are sort of headed that way more than towards putting in bike lanes.
Ms. Whicker: Ok.
Mr. Brandgard: Talking about bike lanes, getting a little off the sidewalk part, at the same time they should be using the sidewalks with bicycles and that rather than the road and they should use trails. I know when I grew up; there was always piece in the school, usually at the end of the year reminding everybody to follow the rules of the road with a bicycle. You are supposed to follow the same rules as you do with a car, you see a stop sign, and you stop. Bikers don't stop, I have big concerns over dedicated bike lanes, because I see very few people on bicycles following the rules of the road, and I have concern. I have been in areas where if you don't watch out you are going to get ran over. That is something that we need to come up with some kind of plan, but at the same time, we've got to come up with some way people are educated
Mr. Belcher: I think that is a good point, and you may want to start an education plan, whether through the Rec Center somehow, we have children start teaching, I know when I was in school that was part of what they talked about is safety and the roads and everything like that, so I started pretty young to try to get people to understand that they were co existing the vehicles out there, more today.
Mr. Kirchoff: Didn't Optimist or Kiwanis used to do a bicycle safety and a bicycle video here in Town?
Mr. Belcher: I think I remember that, there was character, I'm dating myself here, there was a different cartoon, and they had a lot of different things that must have stuck in my mind.
Mr. Brandgard: Constantly see bicycles go a step farther, mothers with strollers on the trails and there is a stop sign and because there is a road and they just blast right through they don't even look.
Mr. Belcher: I have found that most of the people in Plainfield are courteous because we walk our dogs and a lot of people coming up from behind will say I am on your left, if you have a dog that is liable to do one of these kinds of things, because ours aren't that well trained yet, it is good to have the knowledge that someone is coming up on you from behind, you can just get to the side and everything is fine, but that is the part of educating people too. It is a courteous thing and safety both. We will come to the next meeting and whenever you are ready essentially.
Ms. Whicker: Thanks to you and Brock and all the hard work that you all have put together for your plan.
Mr. Belcher: I appreciate you support in getting this done it has been an excellent effort; I think it will really help the Town in the future. Thank you.
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you. Don do you have anything from Transportation side?
Mr. McGillem: Just to follow up a little bit on what Tim has presented to you, the ADA transition plan that was submitted and will be working with Brock on also in getting the first milestone in it, as you indicated Robin this sidewalk program, ramp program, inventory that they have just taken is probably 75% of the milestone one that has to be done on this transition. If we hadn't been out in front to do this, I don't know how you would get milestone one in by December of this year, and what they are requiring there. It is also a big part in the milestone two, three, and four in the old ADA transition plan that has been submitted and approved. Milestone four is due June 2013, so this effort on what we had done here and it started early, and not only inventory, but rating and evaluating, adjusting ramps and sidewalks it is a big part of this transition plan and essentially I think when we first started the sidewalk that we studied, discussing with Mel and others gives us a big up on a program that if we ever get taken to task over, are we complying with ADA on ramps on so forth, we got a program to show what we have done, and what we got to do, where we are going and how we are planning on getting to it, which takes a significant bite out of any effort of filing that gets the Town of Plainfield for compliance with ADA on the map program. So I think we are already getting the benefit, I think Plainfield from what I understand is way ahead of most if not all of the other communities of the Indianapolis MPO, with this program what we are doing right now with Brock in the first effort on this ADA transition milestone is trying to get a meeting with the Federal Highway Administration, the Indianapolis MPO, and INDOT to say here is what we got, and here is what we are planning on doing and here is how we looking at formatting and transition plans because when we go to them for questions right now, they can't give us any answers. They don't know where they want us to go on the ADA, all they know is they got to have it turned in that first milestone by December 31st of this year. We will go forward with that and it wouldn't be the first time we lead the way, I don't mind doing that, in fact, I kind of enjoy it. The other thing just to let you all know Township Line Road was closed this morning, the contractor has started the preliminary work on the west bridge doing some skimming of top soil, clearing out and getting ready to move forward on that so that project is underway, also tomorrow they should be doing some scrapping on Dan Jones south at 40 to pick up the second double left turn lanes and modifying the signals and overhead signs in order to turn that into a double left at the intersection which I think will help a lot.
Mr. Brandgard: That is progress, I noticed they had their equipment staged out there Friday, and I don't know if they moved it in Thursday, but I knew it was there Friday, they were ready to go. That is, even though we are six months behind where we thought we would be, none the less. I think I've covered everybody for staff.
OLD BUSINESS
Mr. Brandgard: Go to old business, Kent?
Mr. McPhail: Mr. President I have a few items, first of all, I'd like to on behalf of the Chamber thank the Town staff and the departments, the Fire Department, the Police Department, DPW and the Parks Department for all of their assistance for the parade and the festival. It was a successful weekend and would not have been without all of their participation and their help. Just wanted to acknowledge all of you for all of your support, I think we had a successful weekend and hopefully we will be able to do it again next year. Also, I know you all are aware that I have announced my retirement from the Chamber, and my replacement has been named and he happens to be in the audience tonight and Mr. Brad Dubois, Brad would you stand to be recognized, he started work today, so he is off and running.
Ms. Whicker: Long day.
Mr. Brandgard: And he is still smiling, that's good.
Mr. McPhail: He is an excellent choice and really looking forward to getting him introduced to everybody and going through the transition period.
Mr. Brandgard: I think he would be an asset to the Chamber and the community in that position, going through the process; he is what I call enthusiastic and humble while he is at it. So this should work well within the community and working with the businesses.
Mr. McPhail: That is all I have.
Ms. Whicker: I just wanted to double check with Chief Anderson, congratulations on the Fire House Sub Grant award, and I noticed that you had submitted for approval to accept the grant, but I didn't see anything in our consent agenda and didn't know if you needed or wanted formal approval, I know you would have my consent, acceptance of a grant I think would be a no brainer. I was glad to see I know they are receiving a lot of business here in the community and it is nice to see them giving back. As a memorandum item I just wasn't sure and wanted to make sure that you received what you needed to proceed further with that.
Mr. Anderson: I will take that as a yes. This is the second year that we applied for that, second time around it was successful.
Ms. Whicker: Sometimes it is nice when we read it and it is in the approval of the minutes, but it is nice to have it out in the open being the recipient of those monies, thank you.
Mr. Anderson: They also have a section for Prevention Education that I forwarded to Ken Foster, so he is working on grant applications for prevention grant there too, so we will wait and see how that unfolds.
Ms. Whicker: Good, thank you. That is all.
NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Brandgard: New business.
Mr. Bennett: One item Mr. President and members of the Council one of the items on my report was the request to review, it is time to look at the Ambulance rates for the Town, we are coming on the end of our third year of the current rates, and as I mentioned in my report staff is, and we do have Captain in the audience tonight to help answer any questions along with Chief Anderson and myself. We'd like permission if the Council so desires to move forward with those rates effective January 1, 2012. Captain Wolfe, do you have any highlights that you would like to provide with the Council in that regard or Chief Anderson?
Mr. Wolfe: I do have some bullet points that we can talk about if you would like but if you don't have any questions then we can just forgo the bullet points. We've already talked about some of them that it has been since 2008 since we adjusted our rates, and as you know the cost of business is going up.
Mr. Kirchoff: Looked reasonable to me and pretty much in the ballpark.
Mr. Brandgard: I think this Ambulance service is probably is now the biggest business for the Fire Territory, so we need to make sure we kept the cost in line for or the billing in line for the cost there.
Mr. Wolf: One of the things that if you notice is that with working with the Clerk Treasurers office, he made a point to make sure that the fiscal impact to the residents of the Town of Plainfield and Guilford Township, we primarily serve isn't as drastic as it would be for who our customers who would be that are not supported to the tax base of the territory, we are weighting them with a lesser burden than we would with people who aren't' supporting our services on the tax side.
Mr. McPhail: I do have one question, and I don't know who I should address it too, but I know periodically we end up writing some of these charges off, at what collection rate are we running does anyone know?
Mr. Bennett: 60%, but we are writing off about 40 cents on every dollar, primarily due to Medicare and Medicaid.
Mr. McPhail: Medicare and Medicaid then the limit what they will pay and then private insurance companies typically will pay the billable amount.
Mr. Bennett: That is correct.
Mr. McPhail: 40%, that is significant.
Mr. Bennett: Yes sir, about 30% of that is Medicare and Medicaid, and the other 10% is the uncollectable either through bankruptcies, skips, or inability to pay.
Mr. McPhail: I'm sure there are residents there will be times when there just is no ability to pay, but I can tell you that when you need the service, you are not worried about the rate is.
Mr. Bennett: That is right.
Mr. Kirchoff: Not sure if the Council members are comfortable with it, but I favor we approve it tonight and getting them down the road. With that being the case, I would move that we approve the recommendation from the Clerk Treasurer for the adjustments to the Ambulance billing rates effective January 1, 2012.
Mr. McPhail: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: We have a motion is second to approve the recommendation from the Clerk Treasurer to adjust our billing rates for Ambulance service, effective January 1, 2012, if there is no further discussion, all those in favor signify by aye, opposed, motion carried.
Mr. Bennett: Mr. President that is all I have except to thank Captain Wolfe, my ambulance billing person Allison Marlar, and of course Chief Anderson and for their help in this, good job.
Mr. Brandgard: Likewise, thank you.
Mr. Bennett: That is all I have.
RESOLUTIONS
Mr. Brandgard: No resolutions.
ORDINANCES
Mr. Brandgard: We have one ordinance for the first reading, it is ordinance no. 12-2011 amendment of the Plainfield zoning ordinance.
Mr. Kirchoff: So move.
Ms. Whicker: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: Motion and a second to approve the first reading of ordinance number 12-2011, amendment to Plainfield Zoning ordinance. If there is no further discussion roll call vote please.
Mr. Bennett: Ms. Whicker- yes
Mr. Kirchoff- yes
Mr. McPhail- yes
Mr. Brandgard- yes
First reading of Plainfield Town Council ordinance 12-2011 is approved.
Mr. Brandgard: Thank you.
PROCLAMATIONS
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Mr. Brandgard: Anything else come before the Council? If there is nothing else, I will entertain a motion to adjourn and to sign the documents requiring signature and adjourn.
Ms. Whicker: So move.
Mr. Kirchoff: Second.
Mr. Brandgard: All those in favor signify by aye, opposed, motion carried. Thank you.
