The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, April 26, 2004. In
attendance were Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. Gaddie, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. McPhail.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mr. Brandgard stated that we have bid awards tonight for the traffic
signal at SR267 by the fire station.
Also, we have a mowing bid to award tonight for various locations
throughout the Town of Plainfield.
CONSENT AGENDA
Approval of the minutes of the Town Council meeting of Monday,
April 12, 2004.
Approval of the third and final reading of Ordinance No. 05-2004:
Prock rezoning.
Approval of the second reading of Ordinance No. 08-2004: Duke-
Bishop rezoning.
Approval of the 2004 contract with Hendricks County Economic
Development Partnership in the amount of $67,595.00 and authorize
Council President Brandgard to sign contracts.
Approval of the agreement with H.J. Umbaugh for arbitrage
calculations for the Plainfield Waterworks Revenue Bonds of 2003
and the Plainfield Parks Facilities Corporation Revenue Bonds of
2003 in the amount not to exceed a total of $4,000.00 and
authorize Town Council President Brandgard to sign the
agreements.
Approval of the Consent Agenda items indicated on the Human
Resources Director’s Report dated April 23, 2004.
Mr. McPhail said that there needed to be some agreements on item #3
before the third and final reading.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda with the
acceptance that there would be further discussion on item #3. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
BID AWARD: Traffic Signal Pre-Emption SR267
Mr. Anderson reported bids were opened and the committee recommended
awarding the project to contractor J. H. Drew as he had the lowest bid of $44,105.45.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the bid award for the traffic
signal pre-emption at SR267 to J. H. Drew as recommended this evening. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
BID AWARD: Landscaping and Mowing Bids
Mr. Kirchoff reported the committee working on this bid had much
discussion about the wide range of bids received. There was about $80,000.00 difference in bids ranging from $40,000.00 to $120,000.00 for the same project. Many contractors indicated they wanted to bid and picked up the necessary forms to submit a bid. However, only a few actually returned the bid. The committee thought there may not have been enough time for most bidders to prepare the form and decided it would be best to continue as we are for this season and re-bid in the fall for next year.
Mr. Fivecoat asked why we wouldn’t take the lowest bidder this time?
Mr. Castetter stated the lowest bid was less than we currently pay and more area to cut had been added.
Mr. Kirchoff said the committee was not comfortable with the lowest bid while more area was added. He and the committee were concerned that the full scope of the project was not understood.
[The tape recorder began at this point and time with Mr. Brandgard
speaking as follows:]
…………we have learned, at least over time, sometimes if you award
the low bid, you end up paying more for it in the long run for the very reasons that were brought up here where somebody didn’t understand it. When that doesn’t work, we end up bearing the brunt. I think, unfortunately, we got this out too late in the season where if we go out and try to re-bid it now, we are already cutting grass. So, if we agree to do this, I want a commitment to put this together and out in the fall for next year.
Mr. Kirchoff said that is part of our recommendation.
Mr. McPhail made a motion in regards to landscaping and mowing to
reject all of the bids and continue with the same program that we used last year. With the commitment to get a new bid package out in the fall for next year’s mowing. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
Mr. Don Roby said I’m representing the Friend’s Church for the Quaker
Day Parade. This is the 25th Annual Quaker Day Parade and we would like to get approval from the Town Council to go with the parade again. I met with the police chief and we made some minor alterations to the parade route to help them with traffic. We are going to end at Franklin Park instead of the high school. We will come down one street farther west and then turn north. That would tie into a little bit with the downtown merchants so we are going to try to get them to do a little something promotional wise. The date that we came up with is September 11, which is the same Saturday that we have always had. Things have changed in the last few years so we are going to, since this is the silver jubilee, so to speak, we are going to try to turn it into a little more patriotic parade and show the world that 9/11 can be something good.
Mr. Brandgard said I appreciate those thoughts. Do we have consent?
Consent given.
TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT
None.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said I received a card in the mail this week from the West Central Solid District. We are having a meeting tomorrow night at 5:30 at the commissioner’s room with all of the Hendricks County board members on the West Central and also with the Citizens Action Commission from Hendricks County. We will be going over what we are going to do when we split from the West Central District setting up the new organization. If anybody would like to attend, it is at 5:30 in the commissioner’s room. We will be meeting with the commissioners in the West Central Solid District board.
The only other thing that I have is I had brought up before on Jane
Hubler on the drainage problems that she is having down on Lawndale. In working with Mr. Belcher we thought we had a solution that would help everybody but today I got a phone call and we got a neighbor of hers to the south that is willing to give us an easement to the back and to the side to come down through there and try to alleviate this problem in that area. He is here tonight.
Mr. Jerry Nadin said the south to the house that he is speaking of
belongs to my parents. They have been there for 45 years and something has definitely changed in the last 10 years because now we have a very significant water problem in that whole quadrant cornered by the Buchanan section and Lawndale and Simmons. My guess is that if it was built today, there would be a drainage problem in the middle of it simply for the runoff. But actually water collects and stands back in the middle of all of the houses. I was talking to Mr. Fivecoat and I talked to my parents who are in Florida and they certainly would agree that we would give an easement. The ideal thing would be to go right through from our home clear out to the middle of that property, all of those properties down to almost between the
property lines and drain all of that into that drainage tile that runs down Lawndale. Be as it may, we are certainly interested in our own property also so we would be glad to do that.
Mr. Fivecoat said Ms. Hubler said that she was having problems getting easements from people that she had talked to. Nobody wanted to give the Town easements on their property. She was willing to put in the pipe herself if the Town would give her permission to hook to the storm sewer. Mr. Belcher and I had talked about it and what we came up with was Mr. Belcher said maybe we can help her a little bit and maybe the Town could buy the pipe for her and her put it in and give her permission to hook to the storm sewers out there. We thought this was the solution but since Mr. Nadin came up I think we need to look at this area again. Mr. Belcher and I talked today and maybe
he needs to get up here and talk to the neighbors and see if we can get an easement back in there to alleviate this problem. I know that his parent’s house has mold so we need to do something for them.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, where is this again?
Mr. Nadin said 336 Lawndale. Do you know where the end of the street
that comes into Section, where the church is? It is the second house coming north on the west side. It is between the second and third house that we are talking about on the west side going north from the Presbyterian Church up Lawndale.
Mr. Brandgard said it sounds like it would be nice if we could get the house on the end so at least we would be coming up in the back yards with a pipe and maybe a catch basin.
Mr. Nadin said that would be ideal.
Mr. Brandgard said if you could run it up that way.
Mr. Belcher said we have designed something similar to what you
described. It didn’t go out to the center but it went back to the back of your parent’s property and Ms. Hubler’s property and then it went north to try to intercept there. We know all of the water is headed that way. It was an attempt to intercept that and this is a break so I appreciate you coming in and offering this.
Mr. Nadin said I didn’t realize it was a stumbling block.
Mr. Belcher said it has been a long time coming but if you are willing to work with us, I think we can come up with something that might help not only Ms. Hubler but your property and some of the other neighbors in that area. It is going to tear up some land initially but this is a big plus. We already had something designed but it was just sitting on the shelf so we aren’t going to start from zero.
Mr. Nadin said my fear is if we did it the other way, we wouldn’t do an adequate job.
Mr. Belcher said you are right. We talked about that very thing. If we help Ms. Hubler, we might help her problem but it might not necessarily do something for everyone. But we couldn’t get on the property so we were limited in what we could do.
Mr. Nadin said when we moved in there 45 years ago, I was sure there
was an alleyway that ran right behind the house up through there.
Mr. Belcher said there is an interesting gap there.
Mr. Nadin said the garden of the gentleman that sits on the corner I’m almost 100% sure that was public access. There were alleyways between all of those streets, Southmore, Wayside, Brookside and at one time that was there but it may not show a utility easement but certainly you can come through ours.
Mr. Belcher said unlike a lot of places in Town there isn’t any storm
sewer here. We have a storm sewer that we can connect to. It is an adequate size and depth to do something but we are really only lacking access rights and things that we actually need to construct something. But we don’t have to go other than to Lawndale or Section to actually get a good storm sewer connection and then we will have drainage.
Mr. Brandgard said it sounds like this time that maybe we can take the initiative and go back out to talk to people and show them what it is especially when you do it when it is raining.
Mr. Nadin said I appreciate the consideration.
Mr. Brandgard said we appreciate you coming in with the offer.
Mr. Fivecoat said Friday I called in to the Town Hall at 4:10; 4:15 and 4:20 and got an operator and the recorder said the operator was busy and leave a message. I couldn’t get a person but I got a recording. This is kind of frustrating. I wasn’t for this automated phone system. I wasn’t on the board then. There is a problem and I know that the people are busy with all of the Town work but we need somebody answering the phone.
Mr. Brandgard said I was one of the major proponents to getting the new system in here but as the group went through it, I wanted to see how it worked. I was wanting to have direct lines to everybody and that is a little more costly than what we have here. I’m not a proponent of the automated systems. Sometimes you can’t get to anybody so I think it is time to revisit that and maybe Mr. Castetter can come back with something better.
Mr. Carlucci said we talked about this at the department head meeting
this past last Tuesday. We thought what we would try to do to solve some of the people going through a long laundry list of people who are on that phone system is to departmentalize them. You can call the engineering department and get a list of those people there as opposed to going one after another waiting until you get to the very end because that list has gotten substantially longer because we have put more people on it. We are looking at departmentalizing that and try to cut down that time. I’m sorry that it happened with the operator because somebody is always supposed to be the operator to answer the phone when someone zeros in. We need to make sure that someone during the day is the operator, whatever department we choose, it is more than likely going to be in the utility billing area or someone in the clerk’s department. So, that someone doesn’t zero in and find that they are busy. That defeats the whole purpose.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, doesn’t the system have the capability if that
person is busy, that it goes to a back up?
Mr. Carlucci said we can build it into the system but there is really
no reason not to have someone in the Town Hall be able to answer the phone when it hits zero. If we departmentalize a little bit where we have the Clerks Office, the Planning and Zoning, building, etc. that may narrow the number of the list that they have to go through. By the time you get through 12-15 people you forgot who you wanted to talk to. We did talk about that and Mr. Castetter is already working on it to make it better. If in the long run those things don’t help, then we need to have someone to answer the phone. We talked about some options for that with Mr. Isaacs at the department head meeting too. Once you assign an employee to do that that employee affectively at that point is not going to get a lot of work done. We have some options to look at there that would be better than hiring a full-time employee but still accomplish the same thing but we are going to look at that.
Mr. McPhail said I had some apprehensions with this system but I have
never had a problem getting somebody to answer the phone. I’m surprised that Mr. Fivecoat ran into that.
Mr. Brandgard said I’ve had it happen a time or two.
Mr. McPhail said I just have not experienced a problem with that.
Whenever whoever I wanted didn’t pick up, I punched zero and I have always gotten somebody.
Mr. Kirchoff said I have more frustration going through all of the
people to get the right name. That is my only frustration. To me the system has been reasonable. Not the best but reasonable.
Mr. Brandgard said I think Mr. Fivecoat is expressing to me that
normally we know who we are calling and what three number sequence to punch in to get them. We don’t listen to the whole menu. I don’t like a menu based system because too many of them are designed to keep you from talking to somebody. So, if we have a menu-based system, we need to keep it simple.
Mr. McPhail said it is pretty early in the conversation that you can
punch zero.
Mr. Fivecoat said and that is what I was doing. As soon as it answers, I push zero because a lot of times I don’t have the extension numbers with me. I tell them who I am and I’m looking for like Mr. Carlucci and that is what I did Friday. I hit zero as soon as it answered and got another recording that the operator was busy so please leave a number.
Mr. Isaacs said one of the things with the system is you can’t pick up from every money when the calls are coming in. So, if you have someone at the window and someone at both windows and if the phone is ringing, then sometimes it is difficult for someone else to get in there and pick it up before it quits ringing. So, I think the walk-in traffic has increased and it may be that we need to look at how we approach this.
Mr. Fivecoat said I know that they are busy because every time I come
in here everybody is very busy and it is a problem.
Mr. Brandgard said it is just a case that you happened to catch it
three times in a row and didn’t get anybody. Once or twice maybe but not three.
Mr. Castetter said something that happens in the way that we answer the phone is since we don’t have a person directing traffic the person answering the phone is directing traffic. So, there is an interview going on as to where that person wants to go and what to do with them. While the interviewing process is going on that person can’t answer the phone. Even if we transfer it somewhere, if that person is doing the same thing, they are not going to pick up the phone. There are certain things that we can do with this system to make it a little bit better. I believe the end result here is that we provide some kind of traffic direction in form of a person that maybe
sits out in front of the doors especially when the utility billing comes back in house. That they greet the person when they come in the door, how can I help you, and tell them which way to go. There are a lot of people that go and see Sandy who really wants to go to the other side. And people that go for permits that need to go to Sandy. They are running around in circles and you can probably find a couple of part timers to split that job. We wouldn’t expect a whole lot of work out of them. We would expect them to give some service to the people coming in the door. A lot of times they aren’t even in the right building. We are sending them to the police department. We are
sending them to Clement Electric so I just think ultimately a person would be the solution. Again, we can certainly do some things with the phone.
Mr. Brandgard said at least I’m getting the feeling that we are looking at it. That is the point I believe.
Mr. Fivecoat said the only other thing that I have is I would like to
have a voice box on the system, if we could, because I have had people call in and I don’t have a voice mail, as a Council. If somebody wants to get a hold of us, there is no way to leave a message for us.
Mr. Brandgard said I think that is a good idea.
Mr. Castetter said if you want to have voice mailboxes, they are easy
enough to handle. I didn’t want to add them at the end of 17 names.
Mr. Brandgard said if you are looking to departmentalize it, that is
just another compartment.
Mr. Castetter said under that would be the Council member voice mail.
Mr. McPhail said as far as I know, we continue to make progress at the recreation center. I don’t know of any major issue that is holding up things except for a little rain last week. I think we are making headway there. Does it still look good to you Mr. Prince?
Mr. Prince said it looks real good.
Mr. McPhail said a lot of things are going to happen all at once. A
lot of things going on right now are not visible but all of a sudden when the blacktop goes down and the topsoil and sod goes in, it is going to look like a different place but there is a lot of activity going on.
The other item that I wanted to give you a quick update on is on the
internet study that we are doing. I have received a proposal from a
consulting firm that would like to come in and spend the day with us to maybe give us direction. The cost of that is somewhere between $1,500.00 and $2,000.00. I would like to have a budget for my committee to work with. I wouldn’t make a recommendation to bring them in today but I do think it is something that I would like to present to the committee and see if this is the right group. I really believe that it would be helpful. I think we are at a point now and far enough along we need some professional assistance to kind of give us direction.
Mr. Brandgard said that is probably a good idea and I don’t think there is a problem. One thing the Business Week magazine that I got last week or the week before had an article about the wireless and where it is going and what we have today but there are some newer ones coming on that are even better. I think I will try to get a copy of that to you to be sure that we are looking at the broad spectrum. There is a system out there that you put one tower up and it has a 30-mile radius that covers you. So, it is an interesting thing that is happening out there. In fact, they are getting to the point now that we are going to start transmitting pictures.
Mr. Fivecoat said the gentleman that he is talking about, the
consultant, he spoke at that the conference that Mr. Castetter and I went toand he is very good and very knowledgeable.
Mr. McPhail said their expertise is working with municipalities.
Mr. Daniel said tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. there is going to be a
hearing on the West Central Conservancy District, construction permit for the settlement. I will be attending that along with Mr. Carlucci and Cecil Whitaker and attorneys from Lewis and Kappes. I would like the Town Council to approve Mr. Carlucci, Mr. Whitaker and myself, if necessary, to testify and represent the Town’s position on sewage treatment and sewage planning and the West Central Conservancy District’s construction permit.
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to allow the Town Manager, Mr. Carlucci and Town Attorney, Mr. Daniel and Mr. Cecil Whitaker, representing our Engineering Department, to testify on the Town’s behalf relative to matters that pertain to the wastewater treatment and the movement in the hearing with the West Central Conservancy District permitting. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Prince said there are a couple of things that I would like to
discuss with you tonight. We are prepared to move forward on a couple of concession/vendor opportunities that we have for Splash Island. I have been working with Mr. Carlucci for quite a while and we had a meeting with Mr. Daniel and Councilor Gaddie just earlier this evening to get some approval of a direction that we are wanting to go. As you may know, the outdoor concession at Splash Island will be operated in house. We have a few vendors that we would like to work with. RFPs were sent out to many local restaurants to provide some food for resale. We are recommending that we go with Sal’s Pizza in Plainfield to provide pizza that we will purchase from Sal’s and then we will resale it at Splash Island this summer. As I was reading through this, I have misled you a little bit. It says that opportunities were offered to four vendors. That is really nottrue. We offered many restaurants in Plainfield an opportunity to participate but we only had one response from a pizza vendor. Then speaking with Mr. Carlucci we thought we would double up our efforts and try to get some other pizza vendors to respond. We did not receive any response. The situation that we worked out with Sal’s Pizza is very favorable from our prospective and they seem to be very comfortable with it as well. With your approval I would like to move forward with this. Sal’s Pizza would have to purchase some equipment
that is pretty expensive at his own expensive and they would need to order that as soon as they possibly could so that we would be ready on opening day. But I would seek your approval tonight to work with Mr. Daniel to come up with a document that outlines our agreement for the Council tonight. I t would allow Sal’s Pizza to get the equipment ordered.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do you know the estimated annual value of that?
Mr. Prince said we estimate with Sal’s Pizza that half of our
attendance will make a purchase of pizza. I think if you wanted to, you could take expectation to that but that is their belief. They have put that in writing. If we have a good summer, we are expecting 80,000 people so I don’t understand why no one wanted to respond to work with us. Sal’s Pizza saw the value in it. We will purchase the pizza from them and resale it. It is the large size cut into eight slices. They will sell us that pizza and we will mark it up and resale it. We are not trying to extract money from our residents but we are trying to help lessen the cost of operating the recreation center and it is going to be a real good item for us we think.
Mr. McPhail asked, are they going to make them on site?
Mr. Prince said no. I think Sal’s Pizza would like for us to provide
them half cooked and cook them on site but we don’t want to do that yet. He is going to make them in his own restaurant. Mr. Carlucci brought up a good point that we wanted to make sure that Sal’s Pizza had the capacity in his existing restaurant to do this. He has assured me that he only uses half of his equipment in his current restaurant. He also assured me that if it started to exceed that, that he would start a temporary location. We are going to try to have the pizza delivered and sale it and maintain product quality that way. Sal’s Pizza is very concerned about his product and they
want it to taste just the same way that it tastes in the restaurant. If we have a problem with that, there is a way that he can cook them half way and freeze them and we can bake them the rest of the way at the water park. We were not going to do that unless we have to. We want to start off with a simpler way to deliver the food and I think it will work.
Mr. McPhail asked, his investment and equipment will be at his site?
Mr. Prince said he will provide us with warming ovens that we will put on site. When they come out of his delivery vehicle, we will put them right into the warming ovens. We have actually worked out with Sal’s Pizza that we need to move those in about 30 minutes and if we don’t, they are wasted and not at our expense.
Mr. Carlucci said the warming ovens are at his expense.
Mr. Prince said those are at his expense and if you will read through
there, we are trying to work out a contract that takes that into
consideration. He has to spend several thousand dollars to make this happen. I spoke with Mr. Daniel earlier and we are trying to work on a situation where Sal’s Pizza would have the first right of refusal in the second year for whatever arrangement the Town decides to make. They are favorable with that. That gives us both an opportunity to bow out or to continue on after the first season.
Mr. Gaddie made a motion to offer Sal’s Pizza a one-year contract with the first right of refusal for a second year subject to the contract being put together with our Town Attorney, Mr. Daniel. And authorization for myself being the signatory on the contract on behalf of the Town. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Prince said the second and last item on my report deals with a
beverage vendor for the department. Actually, I was explaining earlier this evening our decision on this is actually not a decision. It is a decision not to enter into a contractual agreement with a soft drink vendor and use our current vendor through the end of the year. This will allow us to measure our volume at the recreation center. Working with somebody who we have a pretty good relationship with through the end of the year after we realize our sales and stay the volume it is my recommendation that we try to get a multi-year contract with a beverage vendor for the 2005 operating season. With your consent I would move forward in that direction.
Ms. Burgner said we talked a few meetings ago about raising the
customer deposit for rental properties. I sent Mr. Daniel information to put it in the ordinance to change those fees. I attended a workshop that Charlie Pride from the State Board of Accounts was in charge of and our bad check charge is not correct. The maximum allowed is $27.50 so I’m recommending that we change that. And he also said, and I didn’t know this, that if you are not under the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, which we are not, you don’t have to go by those penalties on your water and sewer. The penalty
for sewer and everything but water is 10% and you can go to 10% on water now and I’m recommending that.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to make the changes per the ecommendations to change the bad check charge to $27.50; and increase the water penalty to a straight 10% and the renter’s deposit to $75.00. Second by Mr. Fivecoat.
Mr. McPhail asked, what was that in there about a transfer fee on a
renter deposit?
Ms. Burgner said there is a one-dollar transfer fee.
Mr. McPhail asked, what does that mean?
Ms. Burgner said it is just like a reading fee. It is just there when
they transfer it from one customer to another. They have to go out and read it.
Mr. McPhail asked, is that fee enough?
Ms. Burgner said probably not. It involves setting up a new account.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do we read a meter or do we do estimating?
Ms. Burgner said we read the meters.
Mr. Brandgard asked, what do we do at our residences on a regular
house?
Ms. Burgner said we read the meters. If somebody discontinues service, we read the meter out and when someone comes in, then we charge the onedollar transfer fee and the deposit to put it in their name. If you want to change that, it is up to you because I didn’t even think of that.
Mr. Kirchoff said let’s vote on this and then perhaps we can discuss a study.
Mr. Brandgard said we can come back and look at the transfer fee.
Ms. Burgner said we can see what other utilities charge as well because I have no idea on that.
Mr. Brandgard said we have a motion and a second. All those in favor
signify by aye. None opposed. Motion carried.
Ms. Burgner said I will find out about that transfer fee.
Mr. Lydick said insurance companies are always coming in at the last
minute with their quotes so I have not been able to share this with the department heads or anyone else except for Mr. Carlucci and the Council. But both of our insurance policies, our dental insurance and our health insurance, has a renewal date of June 1. Our current insurance carrier on the dental plan is with ECIT. It is the Employers Cooperatives Industry Trust. They are proposing almost a 19% increase in our premiums for this year. As a result of that, we did go out and seek quotes from other companies. Group Link was one of the companies that quoted. They are the ones that bought Hoosier Dental who used to have our insurance. We also checked with Delta Dental and Anthem and Humana. Comp Benefits came back with the best proposal. In your report we gave you some samples of the usual customary rates that these insurance companies are paying. Of course, the first column is what ECIT reimburses on usual and customary and then Comp Benefits has two different programs. One is where they pay 80% and one where they pay 90th percentile. You will notice on almost every situation Comp Benefits is reimbursing at a higher rate than ECIT was. Then also the premium that Comp Benefits is proposing is less than what we are currently paying with ECIT let alone with what the increase would have been. I say in my report that the premium rates for the 90th percentile were verbal. They have now been placed in writing. In fact, they are a little bit less than what you have on your sheet of paper. So, it turned out that the employee only is $19.27. The employee and spouse is $39.90. The employee and children is $42.86 and the family $69.84. So, each one of them is less than
what they verbally quoted. So, it appears that the payout to the provider will be greater with Comp Benefits and the premium will be less. There is one caveat though Comp Benefits is a DPO. In other words, they do have the network on dental providers. If you go in their network, for example, on the periodic oral examination, it tells you how much there they will pay. If you go to a network dentist, you owe nothing. In other words, they will pay that $31.09 and then there is no balance due. If you go out of the network, they
will still pay the $31.09, you just pay the difference of the balance due of the invoice. So, you do have out of network benefits but they will be larger than what the network benefits are.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do you have a list of who is on the network?
Mr. Lydick said that is one bad thing. There is only one dentist in
Hendricks County that is in the network. There are several, bviously, in Marion County. That is the Gentle Dentist in Avon.
Mr. Brandgard said from my viewpoint, this is a personal thing but
sometimes personal goes over to other decisions also, one of the things that I don’t like about the HMO type system is the fact, at least the company that I work for, that most of what I would need to use I have to go someplace other than local to get it. That is not convenient. Although the numbers shown here are very good from a convenience standpoint to the employee it is not very good.
Mr. Lydick said let me reemphasize and make sure that you understand
the concept here. Let’s give an example of a dentist charges you $45.00 to clean your teeth. If you go to a network dentist, the dental insurance company will pay let’s say $30.00 and you don’t owe them anything, if you go to the network dentist. You can go to your own dentist and the insurance company will still pay the $30.00. They won’t pay any less. They will still pay the same $30.00. The only difference is you owe the balance due, the difference between $30.00 and $45.00 so you would owe them $15.00.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, isn’t that the way ECIT works?
Mr. Lydick said no. ECIT does not have any network at all. They have
an amount that they will pay and if your doctor charges above that the usual and customary, you pay the difference.
Mr. Brandgard said actually Comp Benefits is paying more than what ECIT is.
Mr. Lydick said yes.
Mr. Brandgard said so maybe looking at it from that standpoint it isn’t a bad deal.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what about Delta? Do they have any local people?
Mr. Lydick said I do not have a copy of their providers I don’t think.
Mr. McPhail said but the current plan we have is ECIT.
Mr. Lydick said that is correct.
Mr. McPhail said and they pay these benefits regardless what the
dentist charges.
Mr. Lydick said right. I mean this is all that they will pay.
Mr. McPhail said it doesn’t make any difference, they don’t have a
network.
Mr. Lydick said right. They have a usual/customary. Right now our
percentage for preventive work is 100% so if the cleaning is $45.00 and the usual/customary is $30.00, they will pay the $30.00 and you pay the other $15.00. Then on the basic car and the examination they pay 80%. Let’s say to get a tooth filled costs $75.00 and let’s say that the amount that they say they will pay for a filling is $60.00, they will pay 80% of the $60.00, which is $48.00 and you pay the difference between the $48.00 and $75.00 under ECIT.
Mr. McPhail said so you are saying that you see no difference in the
benefit package except if you had a dentist in the network.
Mr. Lydick said it would be a big advantage if you had a dentist in the network but I don’t really think there is any disadvantage if you go out of the network.
Mr. Carlucci said compared to what we are already doing.
Mr. Lydick said correct.
Mr. Brandgard asked, are they willing to enter into more than a oneyear agreement?
Mr. Lydick said yes. I’m glad you brought that up. I forgot to mention that. Comp Benefits is willing to hold this premium for two years.
Mr. Brandgard said you made the decision for me.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are you recommending the 90th percentile?
Mr. Lydick said yes I would because even going with the 90th percentile our premiums are still less than what we are currently paying now. That is going to give you another 10% paid that you don’t have to pay each time that you go to the dentist. I do have a Delta network here. There is one in Pittsboro and there is one in Plainfield and one in Danville and three in Brownsburg and about five in Avon. So, Delta does have a larger Hendricks County network.
Mr. Brandgard said I think what I heard the network is not that
important. This is a better deal than what we have today.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion that beginning June 1st that we go with Comp Benefits at the 90th percentile plan. And that we do it for two years. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Lydick said the health insurance is a little bit different. I gave you the historical data on the increases that Anthem has given us since 1999. That has coincided with when I came to the Town of Plainfield. Last year due to two major changes in benefits, in other words, we eliminated the HMO and came up with a new PPO that decreased the life time maximum from five million down to one million and it also increased the office co-pay from $10.00 to $15.00, we were able to keep the same rates for two years in a row. So, for
next year Anthem is proposing approximately a 6.67% increase for the next year. We did get quotes from Humana and United Health Car and M-Plan. United Health Care and Humana saved us a little money. One of them is just less than $50,000.00 and the other one is less than $100,000.00 a year that would have been saved. The M-Plan has a lot lower premium than any of them but there is also some disadvantages to M-Plan compared to what we have now. M-Plan desires to be strictly an HMO. As far as hospital goes, there is no problem. All of the major hospitals are in the M-Plan but as far as providers go, primary care physicians, they will not be the same as what we have now. So, several of our employees would have to change doctors. So, they have come up with a plan that will provide us with some out of network
benefits but with a very large deductible. In other words, right now if you go in the network, you pay $15.00. If you go out of network you pay the first $500.00 per person just on primary care physicians only.
Also, you will notice that the prescription plan is considerably
different between the two. M-Plan’s generic drugs are 100% higher than what we are paying now. M-Plan’s brand name drugs are 67% higher than what we are paying now. And M-Plan’s non-formulary brand or generic drug are 127% higher than what we are currently paying. It may save the Town several thousands of dollars in premiums but, obviously, our prescription for the employee is going to increase considerably. Basically, just about double.
But M-Plan seems to be very aggressive in seeking new business. I have not actually talked to their representative yet. They are willing to come out and talk with me, if there is any interest.
Mr. Carlucci said we have been with Anthem for a long time. One thing
that we have always seemed to get out of Anthem is good service to our employees. What I always get concerned about is it is one thing that the Town is trying to balance off its cost of insurance, which we basically ended up with a zero increase last year and a 6.67% this year. So, it looks like over two years it wasn’t bad but then if you start adding the two years before that, it gets worse. I’m just looking at those out-of-pocket costs for the employee. On one hand the Town saves a premium and then you have a work force that is not happy with paying so much more out-of-pocket. So, the cost of the employees to themselves goes from this amount to a substantially
larger amount because of the way that they have their prescriptions set up. So, it is a real balancing act. And then there is also that transition to a new plan and educating everybody on that. Again, it is a real balancing act and what I’m concerned about is we still have to compete with other cities and towns in Central Indiana for employees. Even though I may be a lifer we have other people who aren’t. The younger employees to keep them from going up to Carmel or Fishers you have to be a little bit competitive. I think this makes us less competitive with the M-Plan from what little I read about it
and what it will mean out of their pocket and their cost. We struggle with this every year.
Mr. Kirchoff said Mr. Lydick you threw out a couple of numbers earlier about there were plans out there that could save us 50,000.00 or $100,000.00. What were they? I’m not interested in the M-Plan. Mr. Lydick said we told the insurance companies what to quote on. Of course, if they don’t want to sell that product, they don’t quote on it. Obviously, we asked for the $5-12-22 on the prescription card. Humana went with the $10-20-40. So, again it is considerably higher. On the Humana plan we would save about $2,000.00 a month, which is $24,000.00 a year. So, I really don’t think that is a viable option. I don’t think you would want to change for $24,000.00 a year.
United Health Care is the other one and theirs is about $6,000.00
difference per month compared to Anthem’s increased amount, not what we are paying but it is the increased amount. So, if we were to go with United Health Care as compared to Anthem, the Town would save about $75,000.00 a year. But again United Health Care has a $7-25-40. Again, we have $5-12-22 and they have a $7-25-40. Forty is quite a bit more than $22.00 and that is the popular expensive drugs that everyone takes. Also, in order to get that savings it goes to a $1,000.00 out-of-pocket maximum whereas now it is $750.00 out-of-pocket maximum. Although the United Health Care on the one
plan takes the doctor’s co-pay down to $10.00, which is what we were before. One of their proposals leaves it at $15.00.
Mr. McPhail said they have their own network too.
Mr. Lydick said United Health Care would have a preferred provider.
Mr. Brandgard said I think from what I have heard really we have always tried to take the employee into consideration verses the cost. I guess a six to seven percent increase is pretty reasonable for health care cost maintaining the same program. If we went back to Anthem, even looking at what they have here, they are quoting a better plan than what the others are quoting for not a whole lot more. I think the fact that we are not having problems that we have had in the past with the paybacks I think we need to stay with what we have. The stability is important and it is important to the employee.
Mr. Kirchoff said for that percent I agree. I move that we stay with
Anthem beginning June 1 through May 31, 2005 as proposed. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said Mr. Lydick you are doing a good job getting to where you need to go with it. Thank you.
Mr. Jason Castetter said I wanted to let you know that April 17 and
April 24 was again our heavy trash weekend. It was very successful. Once again we filled up 12 dumpsters in those two-day periods. They are 30-yard dumpsters. They are already requesting when it will be in the fall because they are ready for their fall clean up as well.
Mr. Brandgard said we have the specified heavy trash weekends in the
spring and in the fall. Is there any benefit to having a dumpster available for people to put stuff in.
Mr. Castetter said we probably have a location for that. If you
recall, a few years back we had recycling bins there so we have the pin available for that. I think there would be a benefit to that and people would enjoy that. Again, what we have to be careful about is somehow we have to police that and make sure that it is Plainfield residents. We unfortunately had a mistake in our paper, I don’t know if you caught it, but in the Flyer it said building materials and appliances but no hazardous chemicals instead of no building supplies and no appliances and hazardous chemicals. We had some disgruntled people wanting to know why they couldn’t bring refrigerators, etc. but we don’t accept that with the Freon. So, last week we did have some come in and, of course, we will have to get the Freon taken out of those and dispose of those refrigerators because of what was written in the paper. Overall it was very successful.
Mr. Kirchoff said there is a firm in Town that will take those.
Mr. Castetter said yes there is but there is a cost to the residences.
Mr. Brandgard said I guess what I’m proposing is that we have a dumpster available and I would post what can go in it and what shouldn’t go in it and try self-policing. While you are down there you can check periodically and you can see what is going on. And see how that works and if self-policing doesn’t work, then maybe we will have to curtail it and do something else. I don’t want to have somebody there all of the time deciding you can put that in or not. That is self-defeating.
Mr. Castetter said it caused a little confusion when in the paper it
said building supplies and we are saying no building supplies but yet people are bringing down replacement windows. My guy assumes that as being building supplies because it is a window but a replacement window is something that we will take so it is clarification on our part. But if we publicize that in the paper that we are having a dumpster available to them, that takes my guy out of any misleading to feel free to dump it. It is a good idea so I will look into that.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, do you have any requests for toxic materials?
Mr. Castetter said occasionally people come in and say that they have
paint to get rid of and we lead them to Danville to the Solid Waste District.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, I just wondered why we didn’t have it here?
Mr. Castetter said usually they would come by on Wednesday and they
would stay for a half-day and it was frequently visited but I don’t know why that went away.
Mr. Brandgard said as a thought in this regard knowing that the
landfill won’t accept paint and tires, etc. in talking with the Solid Waste District maybe we could have another container down there for people to put that in there so you can keep it separate. Odds are if you don’t police it, the wrong stuff is going to get in there and contaminate the whole load. I think the concept is good.
Mr. Castetter said it is a good idea because what we are going to have is people come to the dumpster that we set out for them and everything is going to be thrown in there. A lot of people are going to leave paint that they are trying to get rid of. It may not be hazardous. It may be latex but we could have a certain area for paint where latex and enamels can all go in there.
Mr. Carlucci said the real problem is if they contaminate that whole
load, we have a big problem. As you recall, when we did the bids for the recycling and the trash collections, those dumpsters were part of that contract at no additional cost. If we put a dumpster down there, we will face that cost. I’m concerned because that experience with recycling was horrid. The stuff that we got in there was unbelievable. We have people dumping stuff in this dumpster back here because they can and we can’t watch it. We go back there and ask where all did this come from? We know it’s not ours. We didn’t throw tires back there.
Mr. Brandgard said I know any place that there is a dumpster if you
have something to get rid of, it will end up in somebody’s dumpster. So, if we can provide a service to get it done right, that is good. If it doesn’t work, then we won’t do it anymore.
Mr. Castetter said we have areas in the Country roads that are annexed that we are going out once every two or three weeks to pick up a couch, a door, stuff that somebody has thrown out. So, if we have a place to put this, we will save some time.
Mr. Belcher said I was talking to Mr. Castetter today but something
that the Council might consider is you could possibly negotiate that in the contract with the hauler to once a month or once every two months allowing somebody to put heavy trash at their curb. You know that it is a resident of the Town then. I think they do that in Indianapolis I’m not sure.
Mr. Brandgard said that may be something to look at. That may work
better than the other.
Mr. Belcher said you know it is coming from our residents and then it
is once a month or once every three months. It is just a thought. I’m sure it is part of their contract or something.
I have two items that I would like to talk to you about tonight. One is the establishment of a storm water utility. I would like to have some time, if you would be willing, to bring H. J. Umbaugh and Butler Fairman and Seufert in to help explain to us how that might happen and explain the ins and outs of that. They have been through it with some other communities I think of our size with similar issues as far as the storm water regulations that we are going to have to deal with. I think it is wise that we look at it now. We need to decide if we want to implement that as a strategy. Obviously, having Ms. Burgner on Staff is great because billing will be a big issue and we would want her input and Mr. Isaacs and everybody’s. I would like to have at least a couple of dates in mid to late May or even in June
and not rush it but basically get some time for the Council to spend an evening here and have a presentation, if you want to go that way.
Mr. Brandgard said I think it is probably a good idea. I would ask that you look at H. J. Umbaugh and whoever and see when they are available and throw those dates out to us and have us back with something that works.
Mr. Belcher said I would be glad to do that. I know we have budget
coming up too so I will try to give a lot of lead-time into May or June so that everybody can be there. I was thinking about this tonight and when they started a water utility in Plainfield and they started a sewer utility, that has been a long time ago and this is a new thing but it is something that I think we are going to have to do. It is something with the new regulations and what we are going to have to deal with. We have to have the funds to deal with these regulations and I don’t know how else to establish something to
create that.
Mr. Brandgard said from what I read, as you say, we are being pushed
into this whether we want it or not. I think it is worthwhile and by the way you still owe us an update on the waste treatment and water utility, much like we did with the roads.
Mr. Belcher asked, like the capital improvements type meeting? That
had slipped my mind. I will get back on that and we will try to get that going.
Mr. Brandgard said it could be something that we could throw into one
work session.
Mr. Belcher said yes because a lot of it is similar. To start a
utility you would do the same thing that we have done in water and sewer. You have a master plan first. You would have some idea of the capital improvements that you would need just like we have done in the water and sewer. And you begin to implement that in the most logical fashion that you could fund it. You have to maintain and operate at the same time so it would be a similar structure with the water and sewer so maybe we can go through that quickly and combine both of those efforts. I would be glad to do that.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, can we add the Hendricks County Board of Health to the work session to talk about it?
Mr. Brandgard said I’m a little disappointed in that letter but yes.
Mr. Belcher said the second item is regarding a potential agreement or moving toward an agreement with Hendricks County on a sewer along the north/south corridor, Ronald Reagan Parkway that has been proposed. They are acquiring right-of-way and at least four parcels that need sewer service in order for them not to acquire the entire parcel. It boils down to them hitting a septic system or hitting an existing treatment plan at the mobile home park near U.S. 40. So, they are taking some service out of an existing property. They only have two options either create a sewer or buy the entire property. So, what we are really dealing with here is the cost of building a
sewer verses the cost of replacing or entirely buying a parcel. We proposed from the beginning that building a sewer is the best solution. Many of these parcels would be millions of dollars I think especially the mobile home park would be the most difficult one to recover the cost from. But we propose that they build a sewer along with the roadway project. Again, it is something that we do all of the time when the developers come up with an agreement where we might share costs and recover the costs maybe the developer built that serves other than his property, those kinds of things. That is the concept that we have been proposing. I didn’t want to bring this
to the Council until I at least had the County thinking the same way that we are. That if we can develop a plan and a contract agreement, whereby any funds that they would put into the sewer, we would allow them to recover those costs as development occurs along the parkway and connects onto that sewer. They are committing to and have in writing already to the lion share of this cost, being over a half million dollars probably worth of sewer cost that would be part of that road project. What they propose is that we would do the design and we would fund that. I know that we would want to be in control of the design anyway for the benefit of our master plan, etc. My only proposal back to them was that anything that we put in we would want to recover also as development occurred along the parkway. I guess I have them thinking that way. If you agree with that concept, I would like to move forward on a more formal agreement with the County commissioners or the regional sewer district, whoever is appropriate. I think it might be the commissioners. They are one in the same I know but basically I think the commissioners are building the road so that may be who we have an agreement with. The bottom line is if the agreement goes as planned, there would be a sewer from roughly U.S. 40 south all the way to Airtech Parkway that comes out and connects onto the new roadway. The existing lift station built right there would be moved downstream as we do in master planning. So, that would
be part of what we would provide as part of this deal is the existing system would be relocated. That investment has already been made by somebody else so the mechanics of it are worked out. It is just putting it in writing and again coming up with a way to recover those costs. I don’t think there is much doubt that we know development is going to occur. We don’t know how fast maybe along the parkway but I think any money the Town would put in and any money the commissioners would have to put in I think could be recovered over time. But again I just want to bring that forward. I think we are at a pretty pivotal point. If we reach an agreement, we may be the first one ever where we have agreed on something with the County commissioners on sewer but it would be a good thing. We have floated these ideas before and never really have been too well received but I think this time we are getting the cooperation that we want.
Mr. Brandgard said I think it is a good way to go.
Mr. McPhail asked, do you think they need us more than we need them?
Mr. Belcher said I think that may be the motivating factor I’m not
sure.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent to move forward? Consent given.
Mr. Belcher said I will do that and I will get with Mr. Daniel and I’m sure Mr. Daniel and Greg will work together on that.
The only other quick thing is I wanted to let you know that the clocks are off on the tower. We have been struggling with that clock system for a year or better now. I called the company and we had two working for a long time and one would not be and then they would switch. There are some relays in there that we are having problems with. I called the company back and they were basically saying if you will take the control system out of the box and send it to us, we will fix it. They have a new way of doing it now with more solid-state advices and they will send it back with no cost to us. So, that is where it is. I don’t have a date of it coming back yet but I will keep you posted on it. So, if anybody asks, it is out temporarily.
Mr. Brandgard asked, where are with the music that was supposed to go
with that?
Mr. Belcher said the system that we have out there has it built in. The only thing that we don’t have is a speaker system that would be installed in the tower. I have a plan from Sebree now that would require some masonry work to be done on the tower to open up some vents in the peaks of those roofs. I don’t have that priced. I can go ahead and have that done, if you would like, in anticipation of this coming back and working. The last thing I wanted was not having the clocks working and get one thing started and take it all out again. It has headphones and I have listened to it. It has the different kind of bells that you can program into it. It is a computerized
system but we have never fired it up because we didn’t have the speakers and the clock is not working.
Mr. Brandgard said I guess my thought is while we have this thing out
it might be a good time to do this when we go to put it back in there.
Mr. Belcher said we have a good contractor working on the building
right now. I might just give him that plan and have him give us a price and see what he says. They are a very good company and they could help us get it done.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, what did we ever decide to do with the park out
here?
Mr. Kirchoff said we decided to wait until the Town Center Plan was put together. It was too expensive.
Mr. Brandgard asked, how is the Vestal Road project coming and when
will it be opened?
Mr. Belcher said I haven’t talked to them lately. They had some delays with the under drains on the piece of roadway that we closed right now from the roundabout to CR350. It is all cut down to grade. The under drains need to go in and the stone and curb and it will come up relatively quick. I think there have been a few rains that have slowed them down. They are still on schedule to be done before the recreation center is done. That was our commission to them that we don’t want to be in the way. We don’t even want to be noticed when the thing opens and that is the goal. I think they are still on track to do that.
Mr. McGillem said I was out there today and, of course, they got slowed down by the rain last week. The under drain were supposed to go in last Tuesday. The curbs were supposed to go in last Friday. You have about a day or a day and a half on each one of those items. So, essentially we have lost about a week. They have everything ready to go. The way that it looked today they will start putting under drains in tomorrow.
Mr. Belcher asked, what was the date on the signal?
Mr. McGillem said it was supposed to start the first week of May, next week on getting the signal poles up. We have indicated to INDOT and they have agreed that we would want the signals to go on flash for about a week before they go fully operational. We have indicated to them that we want them fully operational at least a week before Memorial Day weekend. That is the kind of schedule that we are working on.
OLD BUSINESS
Mr. McPhail said we were talking about a storm water utility but we
still need to address the issue of what we are going to do when our contract expires in September on the operations, the two utilities that we have privatized at this time. We probably need to add that to our work session and plan for a whole day.
Mr. Kirchoff said, which says to me that we need to do that sooner than later. We may be behind time already.
Mr. Brandgard said let’s coordinate that with Mr. Belcher. We need to
pull something together sooner than later.
Mr. Belcher said I will shoot for the early part of May or the middle
of May.
Mr. Gaddie said I mentioned to Mr. Jason Castetter that there have been a few accidents and close calls out on Buchanan and Carr. They assume that it is a four-way stop. He put up some signs. If they see the stop sign, they may stop. There have been a couple of accidents in the last two or three months. So, Mr. Castetter had some signs put up. I think sometimes they go down Simmons and Carr and that is a four-way stop. Carr is pretty heavily traveled there with all of the Cinergy people cutting up through there. I hope it helps.
Mr. Isaacs said I noticed the tree there at that one property. It
makes it very difficult.
Mr. Gaddie said you have to pull out a little bit but the people that I have talked with and people that aren’t familiar with that pull out and then they realize that it wasn’t a four-way stop. If you look to the west south on Carr the tree or evergreen sticks out and it kind of hides it a little bit. But I hope that the sign helps.
NEW BUSINESS
None.
RESOLUTIONS
Mr. Daniel said the resolution that was in your materials I’m sure you are aware of the fact that a term sheet was approved some time ago on the Belleville Conservancy District. After that time they did revise the term sheet as far as how they intend to allocate any cash that they have left after that, which was different than what was in our term sheet. So, rather than having an amendment to the term sheet Glen and I talked about it and suggested that we just convert it into a contract and make that one change. You may recall that there were some deadlines in there, most of them I think were running March 31. And because of the efforts to try to get all of that put together we changed all of those to May 31 in the contract. Other than that it is the same the original term sheet was. But since we were doing it
on a contract basis I thought it was appropriate as an attachment to a resolution. If you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve Resolution No. 2004-12: Approval of Contract for Transfer of Belleville Conservancy District Assets to Plainfield. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Daniel said I would add one comment. You probably noticed on your
documents in your materials that Belleville has already approved that. They also drafted a petition to go before the Hendricks Circuit Court. There is a percentage requirement on users to file that. I think it is 30% based on their size. I believe right now they have over 30% of their users that have already approved that petition to dissolve the district so they have had a lot of support there.
ORDINANCES
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 09-2004 on its first reading. An ordinance for the Sierra Gateway Park PUD. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said I would entertain a motion to suspend the rules to
allow the third reading and adoption of Ordinance No. 09-2004.
The petitioner said I would like for that third reading not to happen. You mentioned earlier about a clarification of some commitments. We have to make the Council aware that the owner is not consenting to a lot of those commitments. However, what we would like to do is continue with the second reading that happened today and delay the third until the 23rd of May or the 24th meeting and that will allow us time to resolve some of the issues and make all of those commitments. The only other option is add a commitment that allows it to refer back to AG zoning but I understand that is llegal.
So, if we may, we will just accept the second reading tonight and delay the third reading. A lot has happened since the original consent letter by the owner.
Mr. Brandgard said with that I think we have come to the end of the
agenda this evening.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to sign the necessary documents and adjourn. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
__________________________________
Robin G. Brandgard, President
