The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, February 9, 2004. In attendance were Mr. Brandgard, Mr. McPhail, Mr. Fivecoat and Mr. Gaddie.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
CONSENT AGENDA
Mr. Brandgard said under the Consent Agenda for this evening we will remove item number 6 and have it in the discussion area. We have a couple of Council members that want to understand it better so we will pull it off the Consent Agenda and have it explained a little more and then approve it.
Approval of the minutes of the Town Council meeting of January 26, 2004 and Special Town Council meeting of February 2, 2004.
Approval of the January 2004 monthly reports for the Plainfield Fire Department; Plainfield Police Department; Utility Billing; Department of Planning and Zoning; Department of Public Works and Communications Department.
Approval of the Human Resources Director’s Report dated February 5, 2004; Town Engineer’s Report dated February 5, 2004 and the IT Director’s Reports dated January 28, 2004 and February 2, 2004.
Per Town Engineer’s Report dated February 5, 2004 it is recommended that the following items be approved:
Utility Reimbursement Agreement with SBC for the Dan Jones improvement project.
Utility Reimbursement Agreement with Vectren Energy Delivery for the Dan Jones Road improvement project.
Approval to release $27,259.58 and accrued interest from Natgun’s escrow retainage account for construction of 750,000 gallon ground storage tank for the Southwest Water Treatment Plant project.
Approval to bid Columbia Road water and sewer extensions; Raceway Road sewer extension; Airtech Storm Sewer and Moon Road water main extension for labor and equipment only.
Approval to award a contract to JDH Contracting in the amount of $12,600.00 to replace roof of large gazebo with dimensional shingles per the Park Director’s Report dated February 9, 2004.
Mr. McPhail said on page 6 of the January 26 minutes in the third paragraph, the third sentence it should read “1,000-foot overlay corridor” instead of “the 1,000-foot corridor”. On page 8, the 6th paragraph and the 8th paragraph the name “Robin Wright” should be “Robin White” with the Optimist Club.
Mr. Fivecoat said on page 1 of the minutes the motion for the Consent Agenda was made by Mr. Kirchoff and the second made by Mr. McPhail.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as amended. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said we have a couple of folks that are going to be introduced tonight and they may not want to stay for the whole meeting. So, if we have consent for that, we will then have the business from the floor.
Mr. Lydick said I would like to introduce to you two of our latest employees that we have added to our Staff. If Tracy Doyle would come forward. Tracy is going to be the Recreation Facilities Operations Manager.
Ms. Doyle said I just want to tell you a little about myself. I grew up in the Naperville, Illinois area. I’m not sure if any of you are familiar with that. I used to ask people a long time ago and no one ever knew but now it is quite a growing suburb. So, they had a wonderful parks and recreation facility and it kind of influenced me to go into the business. So, I have been in parks and recreation for over 20 years. I have worked at several different agencies throughout my career. Most recently the ones that you would be familiar with was Indy Parks and Recreation. I worked there for five years and that is where I met Mr. Prince and Nate Thorne. At any rate I’m excited to be working here and I can’t imagine the extent of our challenges and our exciting programs and opportunities that we have here to provide for the Town of Plainfield. So, I’m very very excited to be here and want to thank you.
Mr. Lydick said also the Manager of the Aquatics Facilities Operations Manager is going to be Nate Thorne.
Mr. Thorne said good evening and it is a pleasure to meet all of you. I’ve had an opportunity to meet a couple of you throughout the last week. Let me first say that I’m really excited to be here. I’ve received nothing but a very warm welcome from all of the Town Staff. I took a tour of everything last week and I’m really excited.
Just to give you a little bit of background I’m also from Indy Parks and Recreation. Tracy saw me there a couple of years ago. I spent 11 years with Indy Parks and Recreation. I most recently was at Krannert Park, which is in the near west side. You might be familiar with that. I’m a proud graduate of the Indiana University Kelly School Business here at IUPUI. I have a bachelor’s degree in management and human resources management. I also have a graduate certificate in public management from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs also here at IUPUI. Personally I moved to Plainfield about six months ago so I was here long before the position was out. I wanted to make this Town my home. I’m going to be married this June to my fiancée Bridgett who is a lifelong resident of Plainfield. So, I’ve been in and out of Plainfield for about five years now checking out the area. Again, I’m real excited to be here and I’m looking forward to getting some time to talk to each one of you and seek your leadership as we all anxiously await the opening of the center. Thank’s for having me and I’m excited to get going in opening the center up for everybody.
Mr. Brandgard said from the Town Council’s standpoint we are glad to see you both come on board. As was mentioned, there is a lot of opportunity within the Parks Department. We kind of stepped off when we brought Mr. Prince on board. My question was can we keep up with him and I think we are still playing catch up and that is what we hired him for. Again, there are a lot of good things to come and a lot of work. We appreciate you both taking it on. Thank you.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
None.
TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT
Mr. Carlucci said the first item that I have is the Plan Commission Report. The Plan Commission met on February 2. I will go ahead and read this. I, Richard A. Carlucci, in my capacity as Secretary of the Plainfield Plan Commission, hereby certify that a public hearing was held by the Plainfield Plan Commission on Monday, February 2, 2004 on a petition of Duke Realty Limited Partnership for rezoning of 9.47 acres, RZ-04-01 from AG, Agricultural to GC, General Commercial. The Plainfield Plan Commission voted five to zero to make a favorable recommendation to the Plainfield Town Council to rezone said property as described herein on attached Exhibit “A”. I have dated it the 6th day of February 2004.
You might recall from the January report that this is really a related item to that. One of the conditions of that rezoning in January for the larger piece was that they would have to bring this other 9.47 acres in and have it rezoned AG to General Commercial. That was one of the conditions of the rezoning. So, with that they have complied with that requirement of the rezoning. So, that all of the acreage out there, and the acreage that I’m referring to is located east of Clarks Creek Road and south of Hadley Road behind the Primo’s banquet facility and north of Interstate 70. So, they have completed the rezoning request that the Plan Commission asked for. I did not put the ordinance on there tonight because there are other zoning commitments that we have that have not been filed completely yet. So, when those are, we will bring the zoning ordinance in subject to your consent of approval for the rezoning that was forwarded by the Plan Commission.
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to approve the Plan Commission Report as read. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Carlucci said my second item has to do with the proposed 2004 budget, which is what we are in right now. The Hendricks County Assessor and Auditor’s Office have probably had as difficult of a year, the last two years, with the changes in the State law and reassessment and all that goes with that. As a matter of fact, we just recently, not too long ago, received our 2003 budget levy and assessed value figures. What has come up recently was I’m sure an inadvertent omission from the Auditor’s Office of approximately $24,000,000.00 in assessed value. For the entire County I think there was a total of $45,000,000.00 that was not accurately credited for various petitions of appeals and especially the tax abated properties
For Plainfield, when we set our rate, we base that on the assessed value figure the County gives us. We set it high enough to fund the budget. The problem in this situation is the Auditor’s Office credited us with $24,000,000.00 of assessed value that was really in abated properties. So, therefore, we cannot achieve the dollar amount that we would like because the assessed value gets lower and we don’t generate as much money. The net effect of all of that is between our various funds between the General Fund, the MVH Fund, the Park Fund and the CCIF 15-cent levy we will have a shortfall, we will be short $238,590.00.
Because this was discovered so late by the taxing units there was no time to appeal that to the Department of Local Government Finance. I believe according to my report the earliest that we can recover that money is 2004 payable in 2005. At this point I’m not sure of the impact yet on our final 2004 budget but it will have an impact. The one thing that may have saved us is, if you remember a couple of weeks ago, the Council approved quotes for fire equipment and police cars. We only accounted for one payment in 2004; two payments in 2005; two payments in 2006 and one payment in 2007. By only having one payment this year on that equipment we will probably save at least that much money in the budget as a whole. But again even with this information I’m not exactly sure because we don’t have the final numbers yet going into 2004 like I would like.
The only downside to all of this is that the County knew there was a problem. The Auditor’s Office never alerted us and the only reason that this came out was that Mr. Tim Jackson, who is the Assistant Superintendent of Schools, received his Department of Local Government Finance rate and levy report, he noticed that the assessed values were different than what we had advertised and the number that we gave. That is the downside. People do make mistakes. The hardest part for us is just not knowing about it. So, we will talk to Nancy Marsh and encourage them to keep us apprised. I would rather have bad news quickly and straightforward as opposed to finding it out this way. Again, they did struggle for the last couple of years but on the other hand tax abatements are not a big mystery in Plainfield. We seem to do a few of them. So, from that point we may be okay. Again, we will just have to be conservative with the way that we spend our dollars and we will see what the net impact is.
Let me give you just a brief breakdown on the amounts of each fund that will be lost. The General Fund will lose $172,440.00; MVH will lose $5,760.00; the Parks Department will lose $37,890.00; and the CCIF 15-cent levy will lose $22,500.00. Which from that standpoint, the 15-cent levy is money that we accumulate to fund projects. So, having less money there isn’t that critical because we don’t have any projects program for that fund.
I will make one more little codicil. This may yet change again. I don’t think it will but it is still too early and they could still do it. So, I just wanted to make that brief report. I think from the standpoint of the way that we structured the payments on the police and fire vehicles and when those payments are due we may be able to balance that off.
Mr. Brandgard said I could be wrong but it seems to me I remember something like this happening a few years ago that we got caught like
this. Again, as you said, when the County finds it out, they should let everybody know at that point. Having an error and not saying anything about it kind of compounds the error because everybody is going along committing to funds that you think you have. With some good foresight and planning I think maybe we will be all right with it.
Mr. Carlucci said there is a lot of luck involved in budgeting in Indiana.
The third item that I have really relates back to a letter dated January 20, 2004 and it was sent to the Town Council President concerning an Emergency Management Advisory Council. The letter is a little short of detail. It is real short of detail. We were trying to understand why this letter came but it was signed by all three County commissioners. They are having a meeting at the Hendricks County Government Center on February 12 at 7:00 p.m. on a Thursday night. They are going to discuss or get together to talk about establishing an Emergency Management Advisory Council. There is a brief statute, three pages of confusing language for a lot of us. But it does ask the Council president to sign or to delegate someone to go and be part of this meeting. There are specific statutory requirements about who is on that board. There is an interesting one that maybe Mr. Daniel can check on or maybe when they go to the meeting, they will find out about. Number four says, “that an individual representing the legislative bodies of all of the towns located in the County.” So, it doesn’t mean that each town gets a member. I don’t know if you read it that way. The towns will have to decide amongst themselves who their representative is. I may be wrong on that but right above that and the reason that I may be right is it says in number three, “the mayor of the city located in the County.” So, if you had mayors, they would automatically get a spot. But if you have one mayor and 10 towns and all of the 10 towns were bigger than the city, they would get one mayor there and the towns would have to share one. But that is the way that the statutes are. I would suggest to the board that at least at this initial hearing that maybe having Chief Brinker attend and designate Chief Anderson as the alternate and let them both go to the meeting. I don’t think it is all going to get put together that night but I think there will be some discussions as to what this board is going to do. I don’t recall that we have ever had one although the statute allows us to have one. Again, my understanding of this board is that they will direct and elect a chairman to direct the emergency management operations of the County including the Emergency Management Director. The Emergency Management Director would be responsible to that board. That would be my recommendation. I think at the initial hearing there would probably be a lot of discussion on how the board is to be arranged and what the function is and probably distribution of more information at that point.
Mr. Brandgard said with those thoughts if Chief Brinker and Chief Anderson have the time to go do that, it would certainly be appreciated. This has popped up. We don’t have any idea why especially since we already have an emergency management group out there. So, why we need another one I’m not sure. Apparently my guess is there is some tugging going on within the County government area.
Mr. Fivecoat said I think there is a power struggle going on between two individuals. I would hate to see our police chief and our fire chief put in the middle especially when they have to work with one of these individuals and maybe both individuals. I would like to represent the Town at that meeting. That way it keeps them out of the conflict.
Mr. Brandgard said I guess we can do that at this meeting. I guess from my viewpoint until something can be brought back to the Council to explain the need and what it is for they should not be moving off to form this and elect officers. As they say here, the purpose is to organize and elect officers.
Mr. Fivecoat said one of them is trying to get president to run the other one out. That is the reason that I would hate to see our police chief and fire chief to be put in the middle of that. That is the reason that I recommended that I attend this.
Mr. Brandgard asked, Mr. Carlucci have you had any conversations with the other towns?
Mr. Carlucci said no.
Mr. McPhail said I attended a meeting after the flood on Labor Day. How does this relate to that group that we met with Chief Brinker?
Chief Brinker said this would be a very similar set up. That particular group that met was reviewing the procedures that had taken place during that period. It was basically formed of emergency personnel, fire and police chiefs, EMS and the EMA director. The basic plan for this is to establish a board like when we recently had the emergency management plan that was put together for the County. They would actually then have the proper steps by taking it to them and then they approve it and take it to the commissioners as opposed to the group that writes it taking it straight to them. Basically that is all of the information that I have been able to get from the people that I have had an opportunity to speak with.
Mr. Carlucci said I’m also not sure under the statutes, the way that I read them, that the County commissioners don’t retain the appointing authority of the Emergency Management Director anyway. They may report to the board and the Emergency Management Director might but I think the commissioners still retain that appointment authority. I don’t think that will change anything.
Mr. Brandgard said with those thoughts and information why don’t you and I both go up there. If the chiefs could go along, I would certainly appreciate it. Because this gets into their business more than anything but I think if it is a power struggle creating another organization, that is not the way to fix it.
Mr. Fivecoat said I talked to one of the individuals today and it is a power struggle.
Chief Anderson spoke (sound system couldn’t pick up his comments at this point and time).
Mr. Brandgard said if the four of us could go up there, I think that would be the way to go. Mr. Fivecoat thank’s for your insight. It is one of those things that I kind of felt that was the issue.
Mr. Fivecoat said so did I and being in the law enforcement for 23 years I had a little insight so I picked up the phone and made a phone call today.
Mr. Carlucci said the next thing that I have tonight has to do with three tax abatement requests. We are not even halfway through February. We have already had one and now we have three more. Let me briefly go through each of these projects. The first abatement request is from Panattoni Development. They are planning to construct approximately a 500,000 square foot spec building on 28.5 acres located on Perry Road. They estimate the value of the investment at 9.7 million dollars. Let me explain to you where this property is. Brylane is currently right now at the northwest corner of Stafford and Perry Road. As you recall, Prologis had two lots north of that property. This will be on the second lot to the north. It won’t be just directly north but the second lot to the north. So, Panattoni is new to the area here. Certainly they are not new to developing spec warehouse buildings. As you may recall, they also came in and had the Fulkerson property on the north side of Stafford Road rezoned for the same person.
Griot’s Garage is proposing to construct a 100,000 square foot distribution facility on Lot 31 in the Airwest Business Park. This building will be located directly west of the new Clark Products distribution building. The Clark Products building is directly west of Earle M. Jorgensen on Airwest Boulevard. The estimated value of land and building is 4.5 million. They are proposing to hire 23 new jobs to be created with an annual payroll of $604,000.00. This project is located in the SR267 corridor TIF district, which means we will bring that to the Redevelopment Commission. They have to approve the granting of an abatement in that district, which they have done for both Earl M. Jorgensen when they have done their expansions and Clark Products. So, I don’t anticipate this being a problem. Then I gave you the website, which I had fun going through.
The next project is Seven Points Associates. They are planning a new 812,936 square foot spec building on 42.7 acres in the Airtech Business Park. The estimated value of the construction of land and buildings is 15 million dollars. The project is located in the Six Points tax increment financing district, therefore, the Plainfield Redevelopment Commission must approve a resolution to allow the tax abatement.
All of these projects are properly zoned in terms of the industrial classifications and the Tax Abatement Committee recommends that we forward these to you. There are three resolutions later on in the agenda for declaratory resolutions. In those declaratory resolutions it sets up a specific date for the public hearing, which would be at the next Council meeting on the 23rd. At that time, if the Council desires, they can approve the tax abatements after the public hearing for those abatements.
Mr. Gutzwiller said you have the Griot’s Garage catalog in front of you. I wanted to let you know that the owner, Mr. Griot, is in most of those pictures. He is a very hands-on individual. One of the reasons that we wanted the representative of Griot to speak tonight is he took all day to get here from Seattle. With that effort to get here we appreciate the Council’s indulgence in letting him make a presentation to you.
Representative from Griot’s Garage said thank you for your time. My goal here today is to share a little bit about Griot’s Garage, where we started, who we are, what we do and our plans in Plainfield. First Griot’s Garage began in 1990. Richard Griot is the owner and he is an automobile enthusiast to the bone. He got in touch with it when he was younger through his father and uncle and some neighbors where they lived in southern California.
We are a mail order catalog company and internet commerce company and we distribute automobile products such as tools, auto accessories, etc. That is our niche. Auto enthusiasts are our target. There are no bones about it. Many catalogers are like but none are so concentrated in what we do. We have slogans and products for your garage and car care for the perfectionists. For those who strive for perfection. That is what we try to do through our catalog is people that have the desire and love to take care of their car whether it is a Studebaker or Mercedes or VMW, it doesn’t matter. It transcends all ages, the love of the automobile. So, that is what we do. There is a saying that we live by and how we conduct our business and how we conduct ourselves. We try to live by it and it is a saying by Sir Henry Royce, co-founder of Rolls Royce and it says, “strive for perfection in everything. Take the best that exists and make it better. If it doesn’t exist, create it and except nothing nearly right or good enough.” The owner and president, Richard Griot is definitely that type of individual. He tries to impress that down to his management and employees all around the floor level to kind of improve in both business and personally.
With that the last five years he has been looking and planning to build a distribution center somewhere to take the company in the future. We have been fortunate enough and have been out in Indiana for a year and a half now looking around, all around the Greater Indianapolis area and southern Indiana as well. We are excited that we have found a location in Indiana. We are excited about the prospect of it as well.
Kind of being in the perfectionist industry, as we like to term it, our customers tend to be very picky at times, Mr. Griot really takes on that type of perfection in things that he creates. He has a history with his family business of real estate and building buildings. His father has many successful businesses.
With our plans to build this facility in Airwest Boulevard Park we really plan to make it the keystone of the park, if at all possible, and provide a working environment for employees that is going to be the best in the area. We really strive to create the best working environment that we possibly can. We think it is truly important for someone who spends as much time at work as people do. We are looking for people who really want careers as opposed to a job. So, if I could just point out, I’m not an architect, but in this depiction here we plan on putting in high-bay windows to bring in light throughout the whole building on all four sides, not just all three sides. That is a big thing for us is a working environment so the natural light coming in the warehouse for the employees is a real thing as well as the offices. The outside theme is going to be attractive we feel. Also, the inside walls we plan on painting white, again, to enhance the working environment for the workers. It will be a temperature-controlled warehouse, which is nice. That is certainly something in Seattle that we are used to.
But we have been really looking at this site for the last year and half. Mr. Griot has been at Brownsburg and Central Indiana and when we saw Lot 31, the thing that really drew him to it was the retention pond across the street that you can see from the office. And the retention pond behind it, which he plans on putting some picnic tables. As well as the child care/day care center, which is up the block and also a local bank. When he saw that, he said wow this is the place. It’s a little over seven acres. It can fit just over a 100,000 square foot warehouse. Then he set the plans in motion so that is kind of where we are today.
Real briefly I kind of wanted to explain about the benefits that we offer to our employees. I know we will bring new employment to residents of Plainfield. As a company, we have a 100% satisfaction guarantee, which you will find in that catalog. We truly want customers for life. We do not give a 30-day or 60-day or 90-day guarantee. If you buy something from us, it is for life and you can return it anytime you want to. We hold very close to that. We kind of transcend that philosophy to our employees because we want employees for life. As tough as business is to attract employees, we really try to push that down to the ground level. We want people to enjoy their work environment and try to bring them on board and be part of the team and the whole striving for perfection that we talked about motivating employees. But with that we provide 100% health care for employees. Health care, as everybody knows, goes spiraling every year. We decided to absorb 100% of our increase this year to our employees. We have a dental plan, which is a 50/50 plan. We contribute 50% of the premium. Every employee gets a $15,000.00 life insurance policy. We have a profit sharing program for our employees. We have a 401K plan, a 529 college savings plan that is all no fee to them. We recently have given stock grants to our management again to kind of let them have a part of the business, which is important. Little things like barbeque luncheons four times a year. Myself as Vice President of Operations, Richard Griot and Mark Green, the Vice President of Marketing cook and barbeque for our employees four times a year. It may be tough to do in Indiana because we are going to have a kind of remote location but we will have to figure that out.
We are happy to report that three of our management positions in our distribution center are relocating in Indiana. The warehouse manager with three years of service; our warehouse supervisor with seven years of service; and our car care manager with seven years of service. So, we are tickled that they are going to bring their families and themselves here to Plainfield in the Indiana area. Really, we think they are doing that because it is more of a career and that is the type of individuals that we are looking for. Hopefully, we can continue to do that. Really, we are excited to put our roots here in Plainfield, Indiana. We hope that Plainfield feels the same way about Griot’s Garage.
Mr. Brandgard said I appreciate you taking the time to come and visit with us. I for one am very familiar with your business. I’m glad to see you come here.
Petitioner said you have made a purchase then.
Mr. Brandgard said yes. But with that the site that you have picked and the building kind of match so that is a good thing. You basically mail your product out. Individually how do you handle that? With trucks?
Petitioner said it just goes through the U.S. Postal Service. We have a circulation manager that figures all of that out. It is kind of a business within a business. Our product truly is the catalog that we send out. We don’t do any advertisements. We do a bit of public relations and automobile periodicals throughout the country and in the paper but really that catalog is one of our biggest expenses to
produce. That drives our business, our consumers calling us because they get that in the mail and our internet as well. That is a growing business for us as well but once we get all of the orders they will be downloaded and we will shoot it out of here in one location. We do in Tacoma, Washington today.
Mr. Brandgard said thank you for coming in. We will deal with the resolution a little bit later in the meeting.
Mr. Carlucci said I would be remiss if I didn’t express to the gentleman from Griot that if you have those employees contact me personally, they will get a tour to our public schools. We have a great public school system here. I will have our parks director show you our trail system and our new recreation center because we want them to move to Plainfield. We think this is the best community in Central Indiana.
The only other item that I have is later on in the agenda is the Rainy Day Fund. The reason that this came up was if you remember in Hamilton County, the State kept trying to guess on the revenues that would be available and they overpaid Hamilton County by thirty million dollars in COIT funds. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of discontent up in Hamilton County about that. I guess their prognosticators at the State didn’t get it right so they are holding money back now, which has really strained the budget. The net effect of this law was that they were only going to hold enough money in those CAGIT and EDIT funds that they need for distribution next year. So, they are going to keep one years worth and that is it. They are not going to try to guess anymore and they are going to distribute the rest. Plainfield has already received $702,841.00 in economical development income funds. And we received $1,035,734.00 in County adjusted gross income tax funds. As you know, we already have additional CAGIT funds over a million dollars that we still have. The Rainy Day Fund has to be created because that is what the law requires. I would suggest that when we get to the end of passing this ordinance that the EDIT, the CAGIT, and that previous CAGIT amount should all go in that fund. I’m sure at some point with the wish list of buildings and fire stations and other things that money will be spent. It will have to go into that fund for the Rainy Day Fund.
Finally, we received a letter from the Superintendent of Schools wanting to meet with the Township board, the library board, the Town and the schools. I have already made it known that my preference is March 8. That is our meeting night. I think if we have it on our meeting night and if we allow two hours to meet, then we can get to our meeting. Sometimes I think on a Saturday besides being inconvenient having it on a weekend if you don’t have anything scheduled right after that, you might stay longer. In a selfish way having it on the 8th to me makes more sense we will have to say we have to leave at this point to go to our meeting and we used to do that before. But I would take any input that you want me to bring back and I will let Dr. Hollifield know tomorrow.
Mr. Brandgard said I like the March 8 better than the others because I think we have some other things we would like to do on Saturday.
Mr. McPhail said I will be out of Town on the 13th. And on the 20th are we getting into the basketball tournaments and all of that? I suspect that we better get it done on the 8th.
Mr. Gaddie said the 8th would be fine.
Mr. Carlucci said I will let them know that we can only meet on the 8th.
Mr. Brandgard said there are conflicts the other days apparently.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said I had talked to you earlier about the youth counsel and told you about it. I talked with the Indiana Association of Cities and Towns about the program and I sent off for the information. I would like to pass out to the Council and let them look at it and report later because I see that it is a big report. So, I had copies made for the Council.
My next question is I had some people ask me why are we paying somebody to plow the lot out here when we have Town trucks with plows? Pickup trucks, the police department, the fire department, and parks department and the street department and we are paying somebody to plow our parking lot. They said they have seen the fire department plow over here and stop right at the property line and not come across. They are asking why?
Mr. Carlucci said as I recall, and I think this applies to both the police headquarters building and this building here, when Mr. Brown put out the bids for landscaping, he also included plowing in the winter. I’m pretty sure his reasoning was he wanted our plows out on the streets because we have a substantial amount of mileage to plow. And the parking lots typically take awhile to plow because you do a lot of back and forth movement. The smaller plows that we have we use in the cul-de-sacs and especially in the Saratoga development that have those middle islands where it makes it difficult to go around. The cul-de-sacs are always the ones that get the best plowing at the end because they take longer. Yes, it may seem that we have a lot of equipment but you can’t get the big trucks back here at all and the small ones have to go in the cul-de-sacs especially in Saratoga because the middle planting islands in Saratoga are really a problem. The homeowners push their snow on the streets and there is not a lot of space left to move the snow. That is my understanding of why it was done.
Mr. Castetter said I will also note that depending on the snowfall, of course, pulling a vehicle off our public street to get this cleaned up in time for you guys to come in never works in a timely fashion.
Mr. Carlucci said we also contract for bigger trucks to take some of the areas, i.e., Maxwell and others. Like you said they also do the scraping of the snow off the sidewalks and put salt down too. So, I think that is the reason. It is just more efficient to do it that way because our drivers are working on the main streets. And also the other thing that we are getting into is because we have paved a lot of these alleys. Before they were gravel and you could pull out and go out. Now the ice sits on top so Mr. Castetter is now sending the small trucks in there to salt and push a little snow and that is not something that we have done before.
Mr. Brandgard said with that thought in mind the only comment I would make is if the fire department is stopping at the line here, I guess maybe we ought to revisit this whole thing for next winter with what we are doing. It doesn’t make sense to me if we have one lot out here, why we would split it in half.
Mr. McPhail said I guess my question is what equipment are we using at the fire department and are we contracting with somebody there?
Chief Anderson said it is one of our vehicles.
Mr. Fivecoat said my next question is about snow again. I had some people complaining about our park greenway not being plowed.
Mr. Brandgard said first of all the important thing is to get the streets opened. That is a secondary issue. I know last year they did a pretty good job of getting it opened but I don’t know where we are this year.
Mr. Carlucci said I don’t think we have ever plowed the greenways. Our concern is if you push the snow off and then you have black ice and someone falls, you open yourself up with that kind of liability. Someone was going out with a John Deere tractor pushing. They do a real good job at Hummel Park and they may even salt it down there but that is the extent of their trail system. I think they only do it on the front side and not the backside. They do it when they have the time also. But our concern is liability that if you plow it, the assumption is that you want people to walk on it. We can do that and I don’t know if there is that much more liability or not but I’m concerned about people falling.
Mr. McPhail said we had this discussion last year. We made a conscious decision not to try to attempt to clean those because there
are so many areas where the sun shines and it doesn’t shine. We have no assurance that once we clear it off that it will stay clear and that it is safe to be traveling on.
Mr. Brandgard said just like the theory on the streets you don’t plow down on the street but you keep the blade up off the street. Then you salt it and the traffic is what really cleans the street because of the heat from the tires. If you plowed right down on the asphalt on that path, you would be digging that path up. They are good questions but how do you get rid of your snow Chief Brinker?
Chief Brinker said the people that do the landscaping and grass. Another thing that we had talked about in the past is the quality to respond on the paths. A lot of times it is very difficult to get down to them in case someone would fall or have a problem for both the fire and police departments.
Chief Anderson said because of what Mr. Castetter described it the priority is the streets. We just bought a plow a few years ago so we cleared our lots at the stations immediately.
Mr. McPhail said just a quick update on the downtown restoration committee continues to work and I believe making some progress as we are with looking at some of the properties. We are still working on those. The Council has authorized us to try to purchase and we are still working on that and making some progress.
As far as I know since the last meeting we have had no major problems with the recreation center and we are moving along inside there. In fact, I think our Town Manager has toured the building since I have. They were pouring concrete floors in the gym and making a lot of progress inside. Although it looks like from the outside not much is going on there is a lot going on in the inside.
Mr. Isaacs said at the last meeting we talked about the new software. We hope to have a proposal to you at the next meeting on that. Along with that we will be bringing a proposal for a new server. I would like to get approval to purchase another PC for our office, $1,036.00. Right now we are sharing a PC and we need to add one more at this point.
Mr. Brandgard asked, have we discussed this with Bill Castetter?
Mr. Isaacs said yes.
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to authorize the purchase of a new PC in the Clerk/Treasurer’s office. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Prince said it has been another two weeks of department heads helping the parks and recreation department out in one way or another. I would like to thank them. Moving onto some of the topics tonight is the first thing that I would like to discuss with you is the Bob Ward Park. I sent a digital file to you but I don’t know if you could print that off so I have a master plan to share with you. This was the master plan that the Council approved last year for the vision of, at that time the Old Town Park, since renamed the Bob Ward Park. What you see in front of you is from Context Design, which is being called Phase 1 of the development of that park. What Phase 1 would essentially be is getting curbs and gutters and sidewalks and grass in that park in order to clean up the debris from tearing down the buildings. This project is not too dissimilar from the Swinford Park project. What I’m asking you to consider tonight is approving Context Design to move forward with design development and construction documents for that job. There is an estimate for Phase 1 and I asked the design to error on the high side. There you see the $250,000.00 estimate. We had talked that we thought some of this work could be done in house and that is why I would ask the Council tonight to consider moving forward with the design development and construction documents because at least we would have what we need to go out to bid on the project and then revisit the project after we have done that.
Mr. McPhail asked, is this in your budget?
Mr. Prince said this project is not in the budget. I would probably ask to work with Mr. Carlucci on some alternate sources for that.
Mr. Brandgard said I would think that we at least ought to move ahead with the design portion of it. As that planning document comes in, then we can see how we are going to fund it and go from there. I think it is important to get that part going. I still like that design. So, at this point you need $4,000.00?
Mr. Prince said actually not necessarily at this time. Design Development is $6,000.00. The construction documents are $9,600.00 and that is what I would be asking for at this time. I would like to bring the design to the Council and the construction documents at that time. And then I think we need to decide how we want to move forward. I think there is definitely some work that could be done in house. The question is we are all very busy and can we do it in house? I think once we have that part of the project we can revisit it and decide how we want to go about to the next step, which would be bidding, if that would make sense to everybody.
Mr. Brandgard said I think it would. As you mentioned, we have committed to Public Works but Public Works kind of committed themselves and the former superintendent retired and left all of that work that he promised to do to the new superintendent. So, I think we at least need to go through the design development and construction documents and then decide what is the best way to do this. That amount is about $15,600.00.
Mr. Fivecoat said I don’t have a problem with that. We need to get the design and the construction documents. With that I make a motion that we authorize $15,600.00 for the design development and construction documents for the Robert Ward Park Phase I. Second by Mr. Gaddie. Motion carried.
Mr. Prince said over the last several months my department has started to work on our media buy to open up the recreation and aquatic center. It would appear that we will be centering our marketing efforts around Splash Island. That is going to be the first thing that opens up around there. We have been working on a newspaper campaign and a radio campaign. I can tell you that it has been very difficult finding a radio partner. If you don’t believe this, I challenge you to go through the FM dial around Indianapolis. We have to have a partner that we can stand on the same stage with that represents families and has family programming and sends family messages out. We think we have found a radio partner, Radio Disney. Radio Disney markets two to 12 year old kids and their parents. We have been negotiating with Radio Disney for quite awhile. We thought we had a presenting sponsor for Radio Disney and that fell through at the last minute. We are talking with some other entities that will help us with presenting Radio Disney. But this is a large proposal but the main nuts and bolts of this proposal is that Radio Disney will be with us for about seven months. They would provide on site remotes throughout the summer at Splash Island where they would bring their crews in and they would provide entertainment activities on the pool deck. They would also give us 720 radio spots beginning in March that go through August to help introduce the aquatic center to our families on the west side of Town. The price for this was negotiated down already. Radio Disney has agreed to purchase 2,500 passes to Splash Island that they will give out in their remotes that they do all over the Indianapolis area. That is a $10,000.00 investment on their part. If we enter into this arrangement, we at least know that 2,500 people are coming. We estimate that we are going to have 80,000 visitors to Splash Island alone if we can get it opened up in time and we have a nice hot summer. Radio Disney has already decided to trade out quite a bit of their fees with this proposal. I know that it is a lot to digest at this time. If you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.
Mr. Carlucci said I mentioned to Mr. Prince earlier when we talked about this, that more than likely we will need until the next meeting to digest the information. Is this their contract?
Mr. Prince said that is about the extent of these promotional contracts. I assume that Mr. Daniel would want to look it over. Mr. Carlucci and I had a discussion about this today. We thought if the Council could take some time to review this, we could have the Town’s
legal counsel look at this from the prospective of the Town and maybe make some comments. We don’t necessarily need to rush into this but the production for the commercials, which is included in this needs to start happening. You may want to take a week to listen to Radio Disney. It would be my hope that maybe the next time that we convene that we could get your approval to move forward with that. That would satisfy our radio advertising for the rest of the year.
On your agenda I also mentioned that we would have a partnership with a newspaper, media partner. We haven’t reached that yet. It is on its way. That will probably be a trade arrangement where we trade the things that we are good at for the things that they are good at to get some newspaper advertisement as we prepare to open up the building.
Mr. Carlucci said one of your goals is to reduce the amount of out of pocket money by having another business in the County or this says take part of that amount.
Mr. Prince said what we are endeavoring to do is through the sponsorship activities we get our marketing to break even. And then we don’t have to spend our money on that. There is a chance that we could come real close with those activities.
Mr. Carlucci said here is a little known fact. I grew up with the Mickey Mouse Club. The recent addition of the Mickey Mouse Club is some of the graduates are Justin Timberlake, Brittney Spears and Christine Aguilera. There are very few stations anymore that will appeal to a wide variety of people without making someone mad. We are not going to get the rap music and the other stuff. The adult kids won’t care one way or the other. The teenagers won’t care because their interests lie in each other and not what is playing over the PA system.
Mr. Prince said the promotion commitment on that is paid monthly and not paid in full. There are some built in mechanisms to control our investment. We get a DVD of the radio commercials. We approve them before they go on the air. We get pre-approval of all the times that the commercials run. So, we have the upper hand up front. If this is not going the direction that we want, we can get out of this. It is a seven-month chart of activities. And they also handle all of the development of the advertising as well. The tickets that they will receive they are going to print on their own for us that entitle them to access the outdoor aquatic center. The rates that they are paying for those tickets are above the promotional rate that we set. Radio Disney is relative new. They started in our market in July of last year and July through December Radio Disney had generated nearly half a million phone calls to Disney Land in Orlando. That is their goal. That is what they are in business to do. They are in business to generate calls to inquire about vacations. Nearly 20,000 of those came from Plainfield in that amount of time. Our residents are listening to Radio Disney so we thought that would be a great way to get the word out for Splash Island as we move into the fall about what we do indoors as well. Hopefully, you can read through that and we can try to work something out by the next meeting and then we will also have an agreement for the newspaper and we can move forward.
Mr. McPhail said I’m a little bit surprised about this being brought to us because I questioned whether we need radio advertisement to do this. It seems to me, and maybe I got off track someplace, but I thought we were working on a totally combined program to do this. It looks like we are fragmenting off onto tangents. How does this tie into our total package? Our total advertising marketing package for Splash Island? I don’t think I can make a decision on being piecemealed with this stuff coming in. Did we have a professional firm that was working to put all of this together? Are they out of the picture? Where are we on this?
Mr. Prince said I didn’t ask Avatar to do the marketing and the media buys. I have pretty much done this myself and I have individually decided that the west side newspaper and some radio can bring in the guests that we need. I had planned on using Avatar for about a year and that date came and went in February. I really felt that I could do the marketing plan for the recreation center as part of my duties and that I could save the Town the money and the fees.
Mr. Brandgard said at least from my view when we brought Avatar on to represent the Town and work with the Town, I’m with Mr. McPhail I thought that was the road that we were following. This looks good but I think we need to understand the entire picture or if things have changed, things have changed and where are we going? That is not to say this is bad but apparently we have moved in a different direction than I thought and Mr. McPhail thought that we were moving. It is not to say this is bad or good but we just need to understand what is going on.
Mr. McPhail said I’m not making a judgment on this. I just didn’t expect to see something like this without the total package of what we were trying to do. The last report that I had we were trying to put a total package together to market the recreation center.
Mr. Gaddie said I don’t know how many people listen to the radio but if there is, like he said, 20,000 people inquiring from this radio station, it is a big number and we need to advertise. But the cost of this verses the other plan would be a factor.
Mr. Brandgard said I don’t think it is a case that we have another plan. We brought Avatar in to do this. What it is we are doing in total. This is a cost. What other cost will it be as we move on and what is the total package and direction?
Mr. Gaddie said the first year I think will be the most important year. The publicity that we have in the paper people are asking about it. I get inquiries of when it is going to be opened not from this Town but other towns. So, they are interested in it.
Mr. Brandgard said I have been fielding inquiries for a couple of years ever since we started announcing that we were going to do this. In my view I’m not saying anything bad against it. It looks intriguing and I want to get into it more but I think where Mr. McPhail was and where I picked up on too is I thought we were designing a total package and that is what we were going to go with. If we are not, we need to understand that we are not and why we are not and how are we going to do this rather than a chunk here and a chunk there that may not integrate? I’m not taking a big issue with this because it does look interesting. With that thought too if we are going to take this away in your report, remind us that we need to review this in two weeks.
Mr. Prince said lastly you left an item off the Consent Agenda. I have pricing if you couldn’t download that.
Mr. McPhail said in your report I couldn’t find enough detail to understand what you were requesting.
Mr. Prince said for the last several months, as you are aware, we have a lot of community groups that operate in Plainfield. A lot of them have fundraisers. A lot of them wish to give away awards of some type. With the popularity and the buzz about the new recreation and aquatic center I get a lot of phone calls from people who want us to give away passes and memberships.
Back in the 2004 budget meetings I presented the fees and charges, which were approved. One of the columns had a promotional rate in there. I described that oftentimes at Parks and Recreation we discount prices for our sponsorship programs. This is one of those cases. We were anticipating that a lot of little groups would want free passes. I made the case that it is awful tough to give away a lot of this stuff and still bring in the fees that I proposed in the budget that I was going to bring in. I proposed that there was a bottom to what we would do. We have had a lot of people call in but we have one group now that has actually requested something that they can auction off at one of their fundraisers. We talk to these people and we say that we can give you a family pass, for instance, that does have a value of $750.00. We can give that to you at a discounted rate. You can auction that off and hopefully make your money back that you paid us and make money on top of that, which you get to use for your non-profit or community civic group. We have an answer when people call in then. Obviously, free is what they want. But we do need to make some money back on this facility to help offset the costs.
This is what I presented during the budget meeting as a point of reference. We have a group that has asked for that and it would be my
recommendation to go ahead. The fees and charges that we have established and the budget numbers that I put together are certainly a best guest. We haven’t operated the recreation center yet but I can tell you that we budgeted for a certain amount of discounted entries in the facility and a certain amount of discounted memberships anticipating the need for our own community groups. So, doing this is almost expected and it should not hurt our projections of what we are going to bring in.
Mr. Carlucci said in essence I think we are doing this already. For example, the Council could allow community groups, non-for-profits, groups that are based in Plainfield, fraternal groups, to use the interurban building at no cost but then charge private individuals. That is really what you are talking about is a promotional amount even though they are paying nothing. That is a promotional amount to allow those to go in that building but others will pay. Another example would be a promotional amount could be during the day when it is a slower time you might have Cinergy decide that they want to have a party in that building. It is hard to price some of that so what you might want to do is offer them a discount rate for so many people to use the different facilities. So, you give them a promotional rate. It is a one-time thing. It is not every time and then you would have a community group that could be home school groups that want to use it during the day. They would pay a promotional rate, a negotiated rate with them that may be lower but at least you get people in your facility that you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise and it is not an everyday thing. You are not putting them in that building on a weekly or daily basis. You are allowing a promotional rate to do that. I recall that we had some of these discussions during budget time. The promotional rate was really what we were trying to get at. I could think of other groups that might want to be in here. Maybe you could think of some.
Mr. Prince said we have had the Boy Scouts, literally every group. A lot of the library groups want things to give away. We don’t want them to have these things. There has to be a rhyme and reason to it. The promotional rate was a bottom floor. We are not going to go below that. We are going to try to find a way to make this happen. It would be my hope that we could find a sponsor to buy us a bunch of tickets that we could give away to these groups. We have to have some money coming in or we are not going to be able to operate this facility within the budget that has been presented.
Mr. Carlucci said so at least from this aspect you are asking the Council to allow you the promotional rate for these types of groups, for example, the church group that you mentioned in your report, to come in at a discount. And again it could be expanded out to different larger groups. The schools might want to lease out part of the building during the day for some activity. Or a large church group might want to come in for the day. You don’t want to charge them individual rates. You might negotiate a bid rate for the whole group. A promotional rate is a little bit of both things, it is for groups and it is for individuals who want to auction tickets off or a membership off. But it is more than just auctioning off memberships, is that correct?
Mr. Prince said yes.
Mr. Carlucci said you can use promotional rates or you might want to have a promotional rate for people at a certain income level.
Mr. Prince said the promotional rate is for anything less than our formalized pricing.
Mr. Brandgard asked, have we satisfied the question?
Mr. Fivecoat said I have one question. My family has a family reunion each year. We usually get together at our lake property at Raccoon. This year they want to have it here at Plainfield. I was approached the other day what it would cost us to use the aquatic center? Because it will be in August when we have our family reunion and I said I don’t know. What if they will rent it, not rent the whole place, but have a place to have a picnic and then have the family reunion there. I told them I don’t know and I would have to check.
Mr. Prince said we plan on having that availability. That will be considered a group rate. On your sheet it is to be determined. I think it says on there. It has not been established. There is a group rate that you can have an area of the facility with the picnic tables. The facility is still opened to the public. It is an affordable way to have a family event inside the aquatic center but it is cheaper than a private buy out of the facility, which happens at night, which is pretty costly.
Mr. Fivecoat said that is what they were asking.
Mr. Prince said we will make allowances for that.
Mr. Fivecoat said I will get with you.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to allow the park director to begin selling the memberships as described. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. Lydick said as of February 1 we have a new Superintendent of Public Works. So, one day he was asking me about the take home vehicle privilege for the Superintendent of Public Works. As a result of that conversation, he wanted to know where he was going to be able to drive this vehicle on personal business. It is the Town’s policy that employees who live within the Town of Plainfield or Guilford Township that have take home vehicles are permitted to drive those vehicles for personal use. If you are a non-public safety employee, you are taxed on that benefit but the public safety employees are not taxed. I asked around and I couldn’t find a written policy or a definite policy as far as where Town department heads could drive their vehicles for personal use. The police department has a written policy for their police officers. It kind of goes along with the residency requirements for the department and that is they are permitted to drive the vehicles into any contiguous county to Hendricks County for personal use. But at the time, and this is my understanding from talking to the previous chief, when this policy was made, nobody particularly wanted to go to Montgomery County. Montgomery County does have a little bit of area up there that touches Hendricks County so it is considered a contiguous county. Prior to the good shopping that we have here in Plainfield Greenwood was a good place to go so they asked to switch Montgomery County for Johnson County. Then also I think at the time there were some officers, and there still may be, that had relatives in Noblesville so the policy also included that they could go into Hamilton County as far north as Noblesville. That is the policy that the police officers are following and according to Fire Chief Anderson that is the policy that his department is following. But as far as department heads not all department heads have take home vehicles but of the ones that do I think we should have some specific guidelines as to where they can drive. Some municipalities have very restrictive uses. I have heard of several towns that say that they can only drive to and from work. In other words, they can just use them for community purposes only. And there are other municipalities that let them drive it anywhere in the State. Of course, I think one of the big factors that we need to take into consideration is this is a fringe benefit and the Town of Plainfield does pay for the gasoline for wherever these vehicles go whether it is for personal business or Town business. Again, the department heads pay income tax on that benefit but still the gasoline is being paid by the Town of Plainfield. So, I thought it would be appropriate to make a suggestion that maybe the driving privileges for department heads should be a little bit more liberal than what it is for the patrol officers, Town chiefs and things of this type. I made a recommendation to you in my report that we could possibly make it a 75-mile radius from the municipal building providing that the 75-miles does not get you out of the State of Indiana. I don’t know how far away the Illinois line is.
Mr. Fivecoat said it is 50 miles.
Mr. Lydick said I didn’t realize it was that close but I think probably we would want to restrict it to the 75-mile radius, as long as that 75-mile radius stayed within the State of Indiana. I’m interested in hearing your discussion or input as to what you think we should do.
[Tape one concluded at this point and time and resumed as follows with Mr. Brandgard speaking:]
Mr. Brandgard………………good policy to have policy if we have it in other areas. I think the 75-mile radius gets you to at least Bloomington and Lafayette. So, I think it covers most of the area around Central Indiana.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, does that cover the department heads, both chiefs?
Mr. Lydick said that was my intention yes.
Mr. McPhail said the only other government entity I’m familiar with is the Convention Visitors Bureau and we have a 200-mile limit. Anything beyond 200 miles from their home base has to have board approval, which I suppose if there was a special circumstance and the department head requested something beyond whatever policy we set, I supposed that could be addressed. Seventy-five to 100 miles is no issue. We expect these people to be on call 24 hours a day. If they are on personal business in Greenwood or Noblesville or someplace else and they get a call, they have to get back here because we expect them to do that. So, personal use of that vehicle within reason to me is 75 or 100 miles and is not an issue.
Mr. Gaddie said 75 sounds fine because you can’t go out of State because that would be insurance that would become a factor.
Mr. Brandgard said I would suggest looking at 75 and if it begins to see where we need to move that or something, we can move it at that time.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to allow department heads to drive their Town vehicles on personal business within a 75-mile radius of the Town of Plainfield restricting that to miles within the State of Indiana. Second by Mr. Gaddie. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said Mr. Castetter you have been doing a good job with the streets out here. How are we doing with our salt supply?
Mr. Castetter said we are in very good shape. I guess we have probably about 1,400 tons of salt still.
Mr. Belcher said one issue due to technical difficulty didn’t get on your disk. I tried to scan a document. It was Schneider Corporation’s adjustment to their rate schedule for 2004. As I scanned it and tried to get you a copy for some reason the old laptops wouldn’t read them and the new ones will. It didn’t get into the report. You are probably familiar with it. I made carbon copies if you would be willing to look at this item tonight, I would appreciate it because it does affect the billing for them. Basically, it is a reflection of the changes that they are seeing in their corporation just like we do, i.e., insurance increases, etc. I will read the letter. It is pretty brief. It is from Cecil Whitaker. “Attached is our proposed 2004 rate schedule. The proposed adjustments are approximate four-percent. The biggest factor is the adjustment to our medical insurance cost increases over 15%. General insurance cost increased due to industry losses on 911 and then utility increases in the company.” I didn’t bring the old rates but they would reflect approximately a four-percent increase over the previous rate schedule as that is written as an amendment to a contract that has already been approved by the Council. It would just come into effect if you were to approve it. Those people are used at different times with different projects. It affects many of the projects going on in the Town. I really had tried to get it to you ahead of time but this is just one of the ones that didn’t make it on the disk. So, I would appreciate it if you would consider it tonight.
Mr. Brandgard said I think, as mentioned, we last approved this a year ago. I think it is one of those things of being a prudent business of reviewing it every year. It is better to do it yearly than to come back with a big one.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the 2004 billing rates as submitted by the Schneider Corporation. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. Belcher said the second item that I have was not a technical difficulty. I didn’t put it on the Consent Agenda so Mr. Carlucci
couldn’t have seen it. I have a retainage escrow agreement. This is a standard form that we use on almost all of our construction contracts. It basically allows for us to place retainage from each contractor’s payment into an account at Lincoln Bank. It is a three-party agreement so that we can hold that and it can gain interest until the end of the job. When it is completed properly, we would release that money to the contractor. This is something that I will have to work with Mr. Isaacs on. It will be the first one that we have set up since he has become Clerk/Treasurer. So, I thought maybe it would be good to bring it up and request your approval but it is the same form that we have used before with just the names changed to Bowen Engineering Corporation as the contractor and Lincoln Bank is still the bank. I think they were Lincoln Federal for a while but now they are Lincoln Bank. So, I would request your approval of a retainage escrow between the Town of Plainfield and Bowen Engineering Corporation and Lincoln Bank. This is for the South Water Plant contract, which is ongoing.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the escrow agreement between Bowen Engineering Corporation and the Town of Plainfield and Lincoln Bank. Second by Mr. Gaddie. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said as a quick report last week I attended a meeting over at the County on the Ronald Reagan Parkway. It was a joint meeting with the County and the towns and the plan commissions to look at how the overlay should be applied along the various segments of the route. It was fairly well attended. There was a lot of good discussion. I think I had asked to get copies of the presentation on a disk so that we all can get a copy of it. They said they would provide that for that presentation and all of the other ones so that we would have a good record of it.
OLD BUSINESS
None.
NEW BUSINESS
Mr. Carlucci said on your disk is a contract from Butler Fairman and Seufert for the bridge project. I’m not sure if Mr. Daniel said that contract was okay.
Mr. Daniel said I don’t think I have seen it but I may have. On the bridge project did you say?
Mr. Carlucci said yes, the pedestrian bridge. It is on your disk and we will carry that over to the next meeting because I forgot to put it on the agenda for tonight. Two weeks is probably not going to make much difference one way or the other.
Mr. Brandgard said I have had several conversations with David Zoba out of Galyan’s on their new building. Part of it has to do with how they get into it off of Perry Road. I think from an engineering standpoint we have at least the southern cut figured out. Basically, I think the problem that we have there is weather. They have I believe an April 16 move in date. There needs to be a way to get that cut across there.
The other thing I want to bring up tonight is they are asking for an address along that road. What they would like to have is One Galyan’s Parkway. What I’m suggesting at this time is at least for that section in front of their building and if we continue that east to the Ronald Reagan Parkway, maybe continue that name across there. Because I don’t think anything else is going to front on it. But if it goes west from there to Quaker Boulevard, we may come back and visit that again with a different name. I think with the building out there is oriented to the north anyway. It is not oriented to the Perry Road too much. I’m asking for comments and consent that we could do that.
The important thing on the road system out there is to get that road cut on Perry Road done and then as soon as we can, at least get the access in from Perry Road to their north parking lot. They may not get that whole road in all at once but at least let them have access to have an address there. I’m looking for comments.
Mr. McPhail asked, how far east do they need to go to get into the parking lot off of Perry on the north end?
Mr. Belcher said it is about 800 feet.
Mr. McPhail asked, is that what we have designed?
Mr. Belcher said yes.
Mr. McPhail said I have given the name of the road some thought. I’m not too concerned probably in front of their building and maybe going east but certainly going west I’m not sure that I want to name that Galyan’s Way. If we do that at this point and time, I’m not sure that maybe something else may be more appropriate at the time when we build that. But we need to name that stub so that they can have an address.
Mr. Brandgard said what they are after is with their move in date two and a half months away they want to start getting their paperwork changed to their new address. I know from putting an address out on a road that is not there could cause some problems but I think Galyan’s is such that if there is a problem that the police have to respond to or the fire department, they are going to know where Galyan’s is without having a street address for a short while anyway.
Mr. Fivecoat said I don’t have a problem with Galyan’s Way in front of their office building. I think it would be appropriate to give it to them.
Mr. Gaddie said I don’t have any problem with it.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent for One Galyan’s Parkway? Consent given.
The other thing that I want to bring up is something that I had mentioned to Mr. Carlucci some time ago after seeing this in the National League of Cities’ paper a time or two. I think the annual Washington meeting that is in March there was some discussion about it. Several communities have gone out and wired their communities for internet access. I have had discussions with Mr. Carlucci. It would be a neat thing to do. I will make copies for everybody of documents that Mr. Carlucci handed me. It is in Iowa and it is a comparison study between two cities next to each other. The smaller one went ahead and put the internet access in for everybody. All of the development went from the largest city to the smaller one because of it. I guess where my thought is we have been trying to generate an office complex building and offices are usually a large user of computers. The internet access would probably be very important. I know we have had some wiring done and I think there was supposed to be some access made for the Town. What I would like to do is have Mr. Carlucci get that out to everybody. And then depending upon what we all think take a look or study to see if there is any real benefit to do that. This was done there as a community utility but again as I recall they already had an electric utility so they had people there that knew how to put wires in, etc. So, it may not be able to work exactly for us and there is also the wireless end of it. What I know about wireless as far as a computer goes you have a security problem. The other problem is it has a limited distance that it will work. I think it is something worth looking at.
Mr. Carlucci said it was Cedar Falls, Iowa. It was one of those magazines you run across. It was kind of the lead article in the magazine. They also branched out into running their own cable system. But again they were set up because they ran their own electric utility so they didn’t have to hire crews. They could run their own lines. They had their own right-of-way. I will try to track down that article and get it out to everybody.
Mr. McPhail said that is a great deal of interest. Several months ago I got a call from a Plainfield business that still to this day cannot get high speed internet service in our industrial park. So, it is very frustrating. That is Chimney Sweep Institute, which is not very far east off of Perry Road. They cannot get fiber optic. They cannot get DSL. They cannot get cable without an adsorbent cost. They get cable but the cost was like $30,000.00 to get it from whoever it is down to their particular business. To me that is almost in the heart of our industrial area. The business is small enough they couldn’t afford to do it. I think they finally tried to do something wireless
and I don’t know if that is working. But I spent several days trying to help them and set up meetings with cable companies and everything else. It is just frustrating because we have a business there that could not get the service for less than $25,000.00 or $30,000.00.
Mr. Brandgard said from a study standpoint we could see what the need is out there.
Mr. Fivecoat said I’ve been checking on this too and I have been looking into wireless, some of the features of that. By putting antennas on some of the poles around Town, about every fifth pole putting a little antenna on it on the wireless system. I think it is something that we need to look at. I would be very interested in it.
Mr. Carlucci said I will look into it.
RESOLUTIONS
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-04. A Declaratory Resolution for a ten-year real property tax abatement for Seven Points Associates. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Roll call vote called.
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – absent
4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-05. A Declaratory Resolution for a ten-year real property tax abatement for Griot’s Garage. Second by Mr. Gaddie. Roll call vote called.
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – absent
4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-06. A Declaratory Resolution for a ten-year real property tax abatement for Panattoni Development Company. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – absent
4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried.
ORDINANCES
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 02-2004 on its first reading. An ordinance for a Rainy Day Fund. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – absent
4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried.
COUNCIL COMMENTS
Mr. Fivecoat said it was unfortunate that I had to go to one of my cousin’s funeral this week. But while I was there I ran into the gentleman that does, I’m trying to think of the name of the program, Across Indiana. It is on Channel 20. It is a documentary. They go
around the State and we were talking and I told him about an interurban station that we have remodeled. He took one of my business cards and he is going to have the producer get a hold of me and I will have him get a hold of Mr. Carlucci. They want to do a documentary on that building. I told him when you walk into it, you are going to walk back into time and that is what they are looking for. So, they will be in contact with us.
Mr. Brandgard said I’m sorry to hear about the circumstances but I’m glad you were able to make that contact.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. McPhail made a motion to sign the necessary documents and adjourn. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
_______________________________
Robin G. Brandgard, President
[Note from the transcriber: It didn’t sound like Mr. Fivecoat’s mic was on this evening. Also, I can’t always get comments from the Staff when they are speaking from the audience section of the room. If it is important to you, there would be the need for them to use the podium mic. Thank you]
