The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, October 25, 2004. In
attendance were Mr. Kirchoff, Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. Gaddie, Mr. McPhail and Mr. Brandgard.
CONSENT AGENDA
The Third and Final Reading of Ordinance No. 24-2004:
Jones/Sutton Rezoning from I-1, Industrial/Research Office
to GC, General Commercial.
Second Reading of Ordinance No. 25-2004: “No Parking” on
Southfield Drive; Ordinance No. 26-2004: Amendments to the
Plainfield Sign Ordinance and Ordinance No. 27-2004:
Amendments to the Official Zoning Map.
Approval of the Transportation Director’s Report dated
October 22, 2004; Human Resources Director’s Report dated
October 22, 2004; Approval of Chief Anderson’s Report dated
October 21, 2004 and the Town Engineer’s Report dated
October 24, 2004.
Approval of the 2005-holiday schedule as prepared by the
Human Resources Director.
Approval to allow Chimney Safety Institute of America at
2155 Commercial Drive to encroach in a drainage easement
per the Town Engineer’s Report dated October 24, 2004.
Approval to accept Garden Place (Quaker Trace) storm and
sanitary sewers, waterlines, sidewalks and streets per the
Town Engineer’s Report dated October 24, 2004.
Consent to vacate Gilbert Road right-of-way to Browning
Investments per the Town Engineer’s Report dated October
24, 2004.
Authorize the Town Attorney to prepare an offer to purchase
the Richard A. Breeding property located at 8757 E. CR300
South based on the average of two appraisals per the Town
Engineer’s Report dated October 24, 2004.
Approval to release all remaining maintenance bonds for
Claymont subdivision per the Town Engineer’s Report dated
October 24, 2004.
Approval to extend Edwards and Kelcy’s preliminary design
effort on Reeves Road (CR550S) and the proposed new
north/south road for the new Plainfield High School site
for ninety (90) days and increase the maximum fee for this
extension from $50,000.00 to $80,000.00 per the Town
Engineer’s Report dated October 24, 2004.
Mr. McPhail said on item one for the third and final reading of
Ordinance No. 24-2004 we received confirmation from the petitioner that he would limit that rezoning to a new full service dealership only. I just want to make sure that we included that in the approval when we approve that ordinance.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda with the
suggested revision. 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. Motion carried.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
Mr. Jerald Helser at 1728 Ramsey Lane, Plainfield said I would
like to make the board aware of a situation that is occurring in the
last 10 days. I have had two representatives, I will call them
solicitors, at my door. One was for Bright House Cable and one for
SBC, Indiana. They were wanting to change my cable or change my phone
service. The man from the phone company basically could not call us
any more and change the phone service because of the “no call” list
because they would be fined. So, I respectfully request that the Town
Council and the Town attorney review the Solicitation Ordinance and see if we can stop this.
Mr. Brandgard said I think every time you put a roadblock up
somebody finds a way around it. I don’t know if our Solicitation
Ordinance covers this or not but we need to take a look at it.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said this evening before I got here I had a phone
call from a citizen wanting to know about the trailer park behind
Chili’s Restaurant in their parking lot. It has been there for three
weeks and Mr. Carlucci and I had talked about it last week. I got
another phone call on it today from another citizen and wanting to know why it is there and people are living in it.
Mr. Brandgard said when I went by there 5:00 a.m. I wasn’t sure whether it was a mobile home sitting there or a trailer but it looked like there was a truck parked in front of it and one beside it. At first I thought somebody had just parked it there but I suspect that somebody is living in it.
Mr. Carlucci said I went by there today also about 11:30 and
there is a blue truck parked to the south side of that trailer. It has been there for at least 10 days now so from a zoning standpoint we are going to put them on notice to vacate the property.
Mr. Brandgard said I’m surprised that the developer hasn’t said something.
Mr. McPhail said I don’t know if anybody besides myself was
contacted by the County but the County is proposing to amend their
zoning ordinance to change their RA, residential zoning. Which
apparently most of the counties zone RA, which means if a developer
wants to go in and develop a subdivision, they can do that without any zoning or without much review or anything. Because unlike our zoning when we bring something in, it is Agricultural. The whole County is zoned RA. Their RA designation currently is a certain size lot, which I believe you could actually put a full subdivision in without any zoning.
Mr. Brandgard said if you bring something in that meets that
zoning, you can do it without having to get any more approvals.
Mr. McPhail said they are proposing to change that and I just
wanted to let you know that they are working on that. It looks like
their proposal is to limit that to single-family in RA and then they
put another designation for a subdivision and that type thing. So,
apparently there is some attempt by the County to clean that problem up a little bit. If anybody would like a copy of that and their proposal, I have that. I think that is important because anything else outside our boundaries is pretty wide open right now in terms of residential development and not much control over it.
Mr. Brandgard said I was thinking about bringing that up at the
Plan Commission meeting next week and the Plan Commission make a
statement back to the County.
Mr. Carlucci said both Mr. Higbee and I received that late last
week from the County through an e-mail.
Mr. McPhail said I attended the police commissioners meeting last
week and our new police commissioner is functioning in his duties very well and blended in. I think we made an excellent selection and that board is functioning with three full members and they are doing a good job.
I have one other thing that I would like to report on but I need
the assistance of our technical people. I have asked Mr. Castetter and Mr. Belcher to help me with a little situation. I had the opportunity on September 29 to attend the Associated Builders and Contractors of Indiana, their annual award program. The Plainfield recreation center was recognized and they did such a great job that I wanted everybody to see this short video. (Video shown at this time). I thought they did an excellent job of putting that presentation together. Contractors from all over the State of Indiana attended and the place was full. This is the award that we received and I will let our Town Manager do something with that. Also, this one is a little bit late but last spring we were presented this original drawing of the interurban building by Laura Ashley. I got all of you a copy of that. This copy was never officially given to the Town. It is a penciled drawing and original and I think it is great. I have had this last spring and failed to properly present it so I’m going to present this to our Town Manager so that he can have it framed and placed properly.
Mr. Daniel said today we set a closing on the north Vine Street
parking lot for this Friday at 9:30. It looks like everything will
come together on that and we will get that done on Friday morning.
Mr. Higbee said I want to put an appointment on your agenda if
you wish to do this. We got a date from Butler Fairman and Seufert on
the streetscape work session that we have talked about doing. If you
are available, we would like to do it November 9 at 6:30 p.m.
I didn’t have a chance to talk to Mr. Carlucci about this but I
did send you a memo so you can tell me whether you think it is
something that we should act on tonight. It came from HNTB and it was
regarding a contract to add onto the original comp plan project. Their original contract with us took us up through everything that we have done now plus one additional meeting that they were going to attend. But it did not include the additional work that they are going to be doing on the draft that they are working on right now. So, they sent us a memo estimating the cost on a one-page contract that I can pass out to the Council at the end of the meeting, if you wish. It basically is estimating that the completion of the draft, which came out of the last Plan Commission meeting, will be delivered this week and would cost an additional $4,700.00. That would take us through the adoption at the Town Council meeting. I will hand this to Mr. Daniel and then if you need my assistance at the end of the meeting, we can work on it.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the increase of $4,700.00
to HNTB for the additional edits to the Comprehensive Plan. That will
revise the total cost from $123,000.00 to $127,700.00. Second by Mr.
McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Jason Castetter said here are some pictures of the Buchanan
Street combination sewer rehab job. It started Friday at approximately 3:00 when we started slip-lining this. It completed around 2:00 Saturday. They introduced this into the hose pipe kind of like taking your sock off. They started it off inside and they fed it inside itself and at the same time they started adding water to it, which forces the sock to go down to the other end of the pipe. We were doing a 1,000-foot of combination sewer. Once the pipe is full of water we also send in another pipe with heated water in it. On the one truck you can see the burner that is on the front end of that. They heat the water up to 130 degrees and it takes about three hours to do that. They have to heat all of the water up. Once it reaches 130 degrees they have to bake it for five to six hours. So, once it bakes they have to introduce cold water in order to bring it down slowly. By doing that it cures it. It takes another three to four hours for that to happen so it is about a 12-hour process. We had American Water and they are very professional. This is what it looked like as it went into the pipe. That is just a section of it. It is a 24-inch sock.
Mr. Brandgard asked, does it go in like this, this whole
thickness?
Mr. Castetter said the whole thing. This is where the epoxy and
resin sets in. Once they heat it up it leads into the other fabric and that is what gives you your thickness. It’s not as pliable as that but by cutting that section out you can see it come apart. I hope to see more of this because it is a real neat process. We had a problem with the subcontractor for that company with getting the right structure on the job and postponed it a week. By doing that we hit it on fall break, which was great because Thursday, Friday and today the kids were out of school. So, we are wrapping it up and hopefully tomorrow they will have the street patched back up and have all of the barricades completely gone.
Mr. Brandgard asked, did Mr. Mahan have an opportunity seeing
this being done?
Mr. Castetter said he was outside working on his house most of
the weekend and he saw it being done and he commented several times as I was walking by and mostly just smiling. He was happy to see something getting done and I’m sure there are a lot of people happy tonight. With it raining Saturday I didn’t know if we were going to get it done but we were ready to go. Mr. Belcher and I were concerned with the bypass on this because it is a heavy demand sewer and they had two huge pumps sitting up there capable of five million gallons a day. So, they were more than prepared to do this. It is a very good company and they did a great job and were very professional.
The exterior ground maintenance contract, after the results of
the bids last year and the rains, we felt like it would be in our best interest to go out and take quotes. We believe they will fall
underneath our bid package. We took some things out. Mr. Prince has hired part-time people to do his mowing so we took the
Franklin/Swinford parks out and we added the sewer plant, water plant and the Swinford water plant. We added a few things since we added sewer and water back in house. With your approval we would like to move forward on quotes on this and get it prepared for the next year’s mowing season.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given.
Mr. Castetter said with bringing water and sewer back in house we
found that we are a truck vehicle short. When we privatized, we had
some trucks go over there but due to aging they were sold in the
auction. United Water replaced them with their own and we had one that was totaled out by a wreck and was never replaced. With the Council’s approval, I would like to move forward with purchasing three vehicles. One of them is for water distribution and one of them would be for a Project Coordinator. Our Project Coordinator is something that he would be working with Mr. Belcher and I with reviewing plans and hold pre-construction meetings and follow subdivisions all the way through the project as well as some planning and zoning tasks for Mr. Higbee, compliance issues, etc. So, she needs to get out and visit these sites because of the compliance issues. She needs a vehicle to get from point “A” to point “B”. Also by bringing it back in house we have a Utility Manager now, which was here at the last meeting, Mr. Worth. I’m having him drive a vehicle that is out of the Street Department. I need to put that back into the Street Department. I don’t have a pickup in the Street Department so I need to put that back and with doing that I need to purchase a vehicle for him to move around and to be able to get to our facilities. So, with the Council’s approval I would like to move forward and go ahead and get quotes. I will get quotes from all of them and we will see who has the best product.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what kind of vehicles are you thinking about?
Mr. Castetter said F-150, two-wheel drives for the distribution
and the Project Coordinator and then a F-150 extended cab. With S-10s
for us you can’t put a sheet of plywood in the back of one and you are limited with what you can do with the smaller trucks. So, I want to at least go to a two-wheel drive, full size truck. I don’t think we need 4x4s in these trucks. We have our snow trucks and you tear up those trucks more than anything if you are pushing snow. Full size trucks are what I’m looking at.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent to go out for quotes?
Consent given.
Chief Brinker said I sent an e-mail Friday to both Mr. Carlucci
and Mr. Kirchoff and 5:30 tonight it came back and told me that it did not get delivered. I’m here to request that you consider approval for $150.00 to the Plainfield High School yearbook, the program that we have done for the last 10 years where we support the yearbook program and this be spent out of the Beneficent Fund.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the police department’s
request to use $150.00 from the Police Beneficent Fund to support the
Plainfield High School yearbook. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion
carried.
Chief Brinker said I think most of you know that one of the cars
was involved in an accident out in Saratoga. The officer spotted a car going the opposite direction at a high rate of speed and went to turn around and go the opposite direction after him. Unfortunately, as the car was coming through the curb behind him and he was very slowly and very carefully making the turn, the timing was just erfect that he didn’t see him and he got hit right in the side of the car. We have it at one of the body shops right now and the insurance company is probably going to total that car out. The officer missed three days of work and is back now. It was Officer Elston, the canine officer. Officer Elston is in great shape and back to work but it was a pretty scary incident for us. Then we had another car that was wrecked that was going along U.S. 40 and a car came up to Perry Road and apparently a brake failure occurred and as the police car went down, the other car tee boned the police car on the side. Officer Ritter was the driver and she is doing fine and hasn’t missed any work. You might see some of the cars in the body shop and hopefully we will get them out and going.
Mr. Brandgard said since nobody was hurt terribly bad at least
these Dodges are holding up better than the last ones that we had in
that type of situation.
Chief Brinker said especially with the wreck at Saratoga they
called me to the scene and normally even for a bad accident they don’t bother to call the police chief. Well they were really worried. At first they just looked at the car. When we got there, it was amazing how that held up because that was my first thought. We did our emergency vehicle course training out at the police academy a couple of weeks ago. We found out that the officers needed a crash course in driving front wheel cars. There is a difference and these particular cars do a quick speed but the problem is the faster that you go the longer it takes to slow down and they didn’t want to grasp that concept. I think after being out there that day that will help us out.
Mr. Brandgard said I had a couple of people mention it to me and
after it was mentioned I started looking and I have to say those new
light bars on those cars make those cars virtually impossible to tell
that they are police cars when you look at them in the front. That is
pretty slick.
Mr. McGillem said Dan Jones, as was indicated in the report, was
closed this morning. I was out there about 1:30 and there were two
separate crews working on the crossing and they were making good
progress and hopefully it will be back opened tomorrow afternoon.
OLD BUSINESS
None.
NEW BUSINESS
Mr. McPhail said I have received a couple of phone calls from
citizens the last couple to three days. Mr. Isaacs put in your packet
our Recycling Ordinance. Apparently in going through the records and
getting ready to convert the utility billing to our system they found
some people that had not been properly billed for recycling. I think
it is my understanding that we have gone back up to five years and
billed for past recycling charges for one dollar a month. The two
residents that called me and checked into that said that it was totally unfair that we had gone back and charged them for something that we failed to bill them. I told them that I would bring that up tonight for discussion and get back to them. I know Mr. Isaacs has received several phone calls so I will ask him to give us an update. I believe this is restricted after a conversation with Mr. Isaacs today to one subdivision.
Mr. Isaacs said yes it is the Westmere Subdivision. There are
about 100 customers that have never had the recycling added to their
water and sewer bill. We sent a letter out indicating this and that we would be willing to work with them over a period of time, up to a year, to collect this. The ordinance says that there will be a dollar charge per residence for the recycling. Some customers say that they have used it and some say that they have not, however, the service was available. In accordance to the ordinance is why we were following up with the bill. I talked to several people about that and most once we discussed it came to an understanding that they would accept that but there have been a couple who have not. There was one today that I talked to for a period of time and then Mr. McPhail had an opportunity to speak to this lady. It kind of stands right now that they feel that it is unfair to do so. So, in order to change what the ordinance says we would need something from the Council to make a reversal or an exception, if you choose to do so.
Mr. McPhail said I explained to both of the individuals who
called me that the Clerk Treasurer did not have the authorization to
waive any charges and that they had found these errors. When I talked
to the first lady, and, of course, it was late today when I talked to
the other lady, I wasn’t aware how many were involved and whether it
was across the system. I don’t know if we have had a policy in the
past if we fail to properly bill somebody, how far we have gone back
and tried to recoup. Have we run into this situation before? We
probably have but I don’t remember.
Mr. Brandgard said I don’t have a memory of anything that has
gone on back that far.
Mr. McPhail said it is the time that bothers me. Obviously, we
have had a deficiency in our system or we wouldn’t have gone five years not knowing that we weren’t billing.
Mr. Kirchoff said I know we are not under the Indiana Utility
Regulatory Commission but their rules would only allow us to go back a year.
Mr. Isaacs said I thought it was two.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think a year from my history at Cinergy. The
other thing is we don’t know if those folks were there five years do
we?
Mr. McPhail said these two were.
Mr. Isaacs said we have record of them being on the water and
sewer for that period of time.
Mr. McPhail said I asked one of the individuals I said do you
have a recycling container? She said yes and I said have you used it
and she said no I store my children’s toys in it. I asked the other
person if they had a recycling container and they said they had one and it had been picked up. She didn’t know if she had another one now and she turned around and asked her husband and they do have a recycling bin. So, I suspect the time one was picked up and the other one returned is when we changed vendors but I don’t know that. Obviously, it is something that I thought was pretty well known throughout the community that we had a small, and I think a very low fee for recycling, but what disappoints me more is people are not using the recycling. It is out there to improve our environment and the people are not using it. I think we need to consider a time period. I would find it very difficult probably going back five years although as Mr. Isaacs explained to some of the people if we over billed them, they would expect a refund and we would give it to them. But they don’t understand that. So, I think it is something for the Council to consider whether we attempt to collect five years back or something less than that.
Mr. Brandgard said it is one of those things that it is a shame
on us for not picking it up sooner but on the other hand I think we
ought to cut off at two years on it to make it fair for everybody. I
don’t know what the statute on it is but I know the State Board of
Accounts would come back and be on our case for not trying to collect
it.
Mr. Fivecoat said I know since I have been on the Town Council
and in working with Ms. Burgner downstairs I found out that I wasn’t
paying it and I wasn’t being billed for recycling. I have caught up
when Ms. Burgner brought it to our attention but I know it is
happening. It was a surprise to me because I kept waiting for a bill
because I knew that we were in the City limits now and that we had the recycling and we had the trash pickup. Ms. Burgner got to checking and I wasn’t even in the system.
Mr. McPhail asked, do we know if we have audited the whole system
now?
Mr. Isaacs said I don’t know if the whole system is completed
yet, however, this one here when it did come up, came up with a
substantial amount of residents that had not been a part of the
recycling billing portion.
Mr. Gaddie asked, was there a charge for trash pickup?
Mr. Isaacs said there is no charge for trash pickup but water and
sewer and then the dollar a month is added extra to the bill.
Mr. Carlucci said the one-dollar should appear on a separate line
on your bill.
Mr. Brandgard said it does.
Mr. Carlucci said the trash comes out of the property taxes and
then there is a water and sewer charge. I think our cost right now we
are already subsidized by 50% anyway except we pay $2.00 a month per
house.
Mr. McPhail said it’s not the dollar amount at this point. It is
an issue that our system is fixed so that it doesn’t happen in the
future because we have some utility customers that are not in the Town limits. It is an audit process that has to go about.
Mr. Brandgard said this is one of the reasons that we are
bringing that back in.
Mr. McPhail said absolutely if something got missed and there was
no audit procedure throughout that five year period to catch anything
up when we are privatized, if we didn’t send them the information, they didn’t bill it is that right? So, here is a subdivision that was
billed and people started moving in and I suppose there are probably some out there with a shorter period of time and five years was the maximum is that correct?
Mr. Isaacs said I think $57.00 was the maximum amount so right at
five years.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, did you talk to the State Board of Accounts?
Mr. Isaacs said no I have not.
Mr. McPhail said I would tend to think that it might be fair
enough to go back the beginning of this year and go back one year.
Mr. Brandgard said I look at it two ways, being fair to them but
also being fair to the rest of the ratepayers.
Mr. Isaacs said that is the reason that we went ahead and billed
because everyone else has been billed for this.
Mr. McPhail said I don’t think you had a choice. You found an
error and you had to bill it correctly.
Mr. Gaddie asked, why did we make this mistake? Was it just poor
records?
Mr. Isaacs said I think it was just an oversight of not getting
that included on the bills when someone new moved in.
Mr. Carlucci said Westmere is the kind of subdivision that built
a lot of houses very quickly. If you didn’t keep up with entering
those numbers or it slipped by, it is conceivable that you could miss a lot of people pretty quickly.
Mr. Isaacs said I think the other thing that we ought to consider
also is as we find more of these, do we need to put together something?
Mr. Brandgard said we are setting a policy so whatever we do
here, is the policy.
Mr. McPhail said because you will probably find some more I would
guess but I don’t know.
Mr. Brandgard said I would suggest going back 24 months.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think the way the commission reads is you can
bill it for the full time or one year, whichever is less.
Mr. Brandgard said that may be on your electric utility side but
I think that works different with what they have done with the public
utilities. Between the Utility Commission and the State Board of
Accounts the State Board of Accounts would tell us to bill for
everything.
Mr. Kirchoff said I can support 24 months.
Mr. Gaddie said I think we need to get some kind of incentive to
set theirs out because it would save everybody money in the long run.
If you go by on trash day, you can see that more and more people are
doing it but to get these other people to do this would be to the
advantage of the Town.
Mr. Brandgard said it is part of the reason that when we took
this on, we split the cost. So, we figured if the homeowner has some
money in it, they would use it.
Mr. Gaddie said I have told people that the Town is paying for
part of it already for incentive to do this. Down the road it’s going
to have to be more.
Mr. Brandgard said the tonnage has gone down going to the
landfills because of the recycling but at the same time we are adding
residents so you may not see the actual tonnage going down.
Mr. Carlucci said we are also keeping most of the yard waste out
of there, which is a huge amount.
Mr. McPhail said I think we probably should maybe in the next
water bill insert, Water Line, write an article again encouraging the
people to recycle. I explained to both of these ladies that over a
five-year period of time I know there has been communication to every
citizen in Town that we have a recycling program. I don’t remember
when it was but I know from time to time we do say that. Of course,
one was very defensive and the other one was not quite as defensive but the one is not going to be satisfied with anything. I do my best to try to explain to them that it is their responsibility to pay and
whatever we end up with I will support and see what happens.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion for any missed recycling billing that we would only go back for a maximum of 24 months to collect. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Castetter said as we bring the billing back in house the
audit procedure that we are going through to try to ensure that our
database is correct turns up some errors. Some of them, and there may
be more, are when the database was passed to the current vendor. So,
that’s five years ago so there could be more of these that are that old where we found the data that was passed was not correct. As it is
coming back, we want to make it correct so you may have more of these
of a different nature but of the same time period.
Mr. Kirchoff said I know we are not under the commission but we
might want to look to see what the commission suggests for water
utilities as a guideline just to be fair.
Mr. McPhail said I can tell you that both of these ladies called
me and told me, I think both of them, that either the husband currently does or has worked for the gas and electric utility and they told me 24 months. I don’t know if they are right or not but that is what they told me. Of course, they didn’t think that was right either. I don’t know but it would be interesting to know what the utilities do. I know that if we found the error in their favor, we would credit them and there would be no question asked.
Mr. Isaacs said we have a situation where I think some meters
were estimated back during the summer sewer rate and now that they are being read that usage is being shown up on what should have been on the month of the summer sewer. What I would like to propose is that we extend the summer sewer rate for one month in order to accommodate those situations.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what do you estimate bills in the summertime?
Mr. Isaacs said that is a good question.
Mr. Brandgard said I would like to know that myself.
Mr. Isaacs said hopefully as we bring this back in house, we
ought to be able to correct that.
Mr. Fivecoat said they didn’t read mine for a year.
Mr. Isaacs said our first attempt this time dealing with some new
people and new readers and a lot of locations and time issues we were
about 71% complete and the anticipation of that should exceed 95% to
98%. There should be a small amount of estimated readings. I can see
some of the winter months when the snow is heavy it could be a problem but that ought to be decreased considerably.
Mr. Brandgard said that is part of the reason that we are
bringing that in house too.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to extend the summer sewer rates for
the estimated billing for one additional month this year. Second by
Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Isaacs said in the billing department right now we are seeing
we think a third of the calls that come in for the water and sewer and anticipate that to increase once we take it on completely in January. With that back in August in Ms. Burgner’s report she had made mention of an additional person to work in this area. When we approved that, Mr. Kirchoff had omitted that from the approval process of having that additional person because we approved the report and Mr. Kirchoff indicated that he wanted to pull that so that was not approved. The time frame on that probably in the next month or two we need to move forward with that, if you would choose. Along with that as well I would like to see us have coverage from the time the doors open in the morning until they close in the evening so they are opened through the lunch hour. I anticipate probably some more walk-ins and business taking place through the day.
Mr. Brandgard asked, can we do that.
Mr. kirchoff asked, didn't we ak her to do some analysis for justification of that?
Mr. Isaacs said Ms. Burgner is on vacation today and we wanted to
get more information today. However, I did want to make you aware that we are probably going to need to move forward at some point with this. We anticipate more phone calls as well as more traffic in the office.
Mr. McPhail said I’m amazed at the amount of people that wait
until they get a shutoff notice to pay their water bill. The shutoff
day is like a circus out there.
Mr. Kirchoff said that is the reason that Mr. Isaacs is going to
spread the billing out so you will have that every week instead of that period of time.
Mr. Castetter said we estimate about 125 turnoffs every month and
that is why I’m asking for another truck. It takes two guys to shut
off 125 because they are coming in droves to pay that bill and we have to try to get it turned back on as soon as we can before the evening. Mr. Kirchoff said with Mr. Isaacs spreading it out that will help you balance your workload.
Mr. Isaacs said the cycle reads will by far help us. I too have
noticed a considerable amount of increase in people that I have talked to in relationship to their bills. I think that will continue to get heavier as we move forward.
Mr. Carlucci said I got down to the dome Saturday to watch the
Plainfield High School Marching Band. I have never been to the State
High School Marching Band contest. If you ever get a chance to do down there, we saw all 10 bands. Plainfield was the smallest Class “B” band out there by far. They took eighth out of 10th but Northview, Jasper and Greenwood had huge bands. I have seen stage plays that didn’t have as much production as Northview had in theirs. They were outstanding but I was real proud of Plainfield’s effort. They took seventh last year. I know they wanted to do better but they sounded real good but they are a small band and they can’t do as much as the other bands can do with a lot more members. Northview had more young ladies in their guard than we had band members. So, that has been a real tradition at Northview and Greenwood for a long time but I was very proud in the way they handed out trophies and everything that they did. It was fun for my wife and I and we stayed and watched the next class a little bit later but I think Plainfield was well represented and represented the Town well. At the end when they are marching off the field, they start with the 10th placed band and they move them off and then they go right to number one so it was very exciting. Avon repeated as champs but I had heard that they had graduated about 100 seniors out of their band and guards last year so it was pretty exciting to see them come back and win with that much changeover. I was real proud of the Plainfield band members realizing that they were about half the size most of the other bands there and they still did well.
Mr. Brandgard said Plainfield for several years have suffered for
being a quote small band for the class that they are in. But even with that they still do quite well. Just getting to State is an
accomplishment in of itself. You have to note that. As Mr. Carlucci
said, when you get to the dome, the sound is not good for that anyway
but a small band gets lost amongst the big ones and they do well.
Mr. McPhail said I attended a celebration with all of the
schoolteachers. All of the Plainfield Schools were award a four star
status this year. They had a little reception for the teachers this
afternoon at Primo’s and served cake and ice cream. Dr. Sue Ellen Reed was due to speak to them and was running a little bit late so I didn’t stay for that. That is a room full of 256 certified staff members I believe. They were celebrating today. Every school in the system was awarded a four star status.
Mr. Carlucci said there were only two school districts in the
State that achieved that. Mr. McPhail said they played football last week, Friday night, Zionsville and Plainfield.
Mr. Brandgard said I have one thing that I will kind of give to
Mr. McGillem at the moment is at the last Ronald Reagan steering
committee meeting I believe we agreed to host the next meeting and I
think the date is coming up the third of November. If you would get a
hold of the County and try to coordinate that and maybe you and Mr.
Belcher and with Mr. Carlucci’s help. My thought is we can do it here
or we can do it at the aquatic center. It might be a good time to show that off too.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what about the interurban?
Mr. Brandgard said that will work too. We just need to be able
to have the electronic and projectors and I think HNTB usually brings a projector. Whatever works and then, if you would, get a notice out to the Council and the Plan Commission that we will be hosting that. I would appreciate it if you would take that on.
OLD BUSINESS
None.
NEW BUSINESS
None.
The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, October 11, 2004. In
attendance were Mr. Kirchoff, Mr. Gaddie, Mr. McPhail, Mr. Fivecoat and Mr. Brandgard.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CONSENT AGENDA
Third and final reading of Ordinance No. 21-2004: MetroAir
Business Park Rezoning from GC, General Commercial to PUD,
Planned Unit Development.
Approval of the minutes for the Plainfield Town Council
meetings of September 13, 2004 and September 27, 2004.
Approval of the August 2004 monthly report for the
Plainfield Communications Department.
Approval of the September 2004 monthly reports for the
Plainfield Police Department; Plainfield Fire Department;
Department of Public Works; Communications; Town Court and
the Department of Planning and Zoning.
Approval of the Human Resources Director’s Report dated
October 1, 2004; the Transportation Director’s Report dated
October 8, 2004 and the IT Director’s Report dated October
9, 2004.
Approval to promote David Baughn, Firefighter/paramedic to
Battalion Chief at an hourly rate of $15.90 and promote
Ashley Stickland, Firefighter/Paramedic to Captain at an
hourly rate of $15.22 per Chief Byron Anderson’s revised
report dated October 11, 2004.
Approval to pay August Mack Environment, Inc. $30,930.00
for soil excavation and investigation of former Department
of Corrections Firing Range at CR700E/Hummel Park per the
recommendation of Michael Hickam, Guilford Township
Trustee.
Second Reading of Ordinance No. 24-2004: Jones/Sutton
Rezoning from I-1, Industrial/Research Office to GC,
General Commercial.
Approval of an agreement for professional services with
Butler Fairman & Seufert for basic design services
including boundary and topographical services and design
construction document and bidding services not to exceed
$42,800.00 for extension of the Vandalia Pedestrian Trail
approximately 1.5 miles west of Saratoga Parkway and
authorize Council President Brandgard to sign the agreement
per the Town Manager’s recommendation.
