The Plainfield Town Council met on March 8, 2004. In attendance were Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. Gaddie, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. McPhail.
Mr. Brandgard said we have a bid opening tonight. If you have not turned in your bid yet, this is the last opportunity. With nobody coming forward we will go on with the meeting.
PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE
Mr. Brandgard said we have a scout with us tonight, Kyle Satterthwaite and he has agreed to lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you for attending the meeting and agreeing to lead us in the pledge. We appreciate that and I’m going to make an assumption that you are working on a merit badge. If you have any questions, please ask. Sometimes the meetings last longer than you can stay so feel free to get up and leave. We enjoy having you here.
CONSENT AGENDA
Approval of the minutes of the Town Council meeting of February 23, 2004.
Approval of the third reading and adoption of Ordinance No. 02-2004: Rainy Day Fund.
Approval of the 2003 Annual Reports for Parks and Recreation Department; Human Resources; Plainfield Police Department and the Department of Engineering.
Second reading of Ordinance No 03-2004: Abandoned Vehicles and Ordinance No. 04-2004: No Parking on the Airtech Parkway.
Approval of the January 2004 monthly report for the Plainfield Town Court.
Approval of Schneider Engineering to conduct a Phase I Environmental Study of the former Shouse Landfill in the amount of $1,650.00 and authorize Council President Robin G. Brandgard to sign the contract documents per the Town Manager’s Report dated March 8, 2004.
Approval to waive two (2) residential connection fees for future water and sewer connections for 4243 East CR500 East and 4349 East CR500 East in exchange for donation of former Vandalia/Penn Central Railroad right-of-way from Clay Clifton Farms, Inc. per the Town Manager’s Report dated March 8, 2004.
Approval to disburse from the Plainfield Police Department Beneficent Fund $100.00 for the Plainfield High School Post Prom; $100.00 for the Plainfield Optimist Baseball and $200.00 for the Plainfield Teenage Baseball per Chief Larry Brinker’s request dated March 5, 2004.
Approval of the following per the Town Engineer’s Report dated March 5, 2004:
Approval of the settlement agreement regarding sewer connection charges between the Town and Cedar Mill LLC for Ryland’s Cedar Mill Subdivision.
Approval of 14,500 gallons per day sewer capacity for groundwater remediation system at the CVS site located at 1700 E. Main Street.
Approval of change orders for Building Crafts, Inc. for the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant project:
Change Order #2 in the amount of $9,785.00 for increased material costs for Spencer Turbine Equipment.
Change Order #3 in the amount of $4,735.00 for additional culvert piping along entry road.
Change Order #4 in the amount of $130,370.00 for multiple items related to delayed start of construction described in Schneider Corporation request for change summary.
Approval of the Human Resources Director’s Report dated March 5, 2004.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Gaddie – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
BID OPENING – Moon Road/Hadley Road Water Main Extension (Labor Only)
Mr. Brandgard asked, do we have proof of publication?
Mr. Daniel said yes we do.
Mr. Brandgard said the first bid is from Eagle Valley, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Mr. Daniel said the Eagle Valley bid is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by Eagle Valley is $374,556.50. The second bid is from Fleetwood Contracting Corporation, Indianapolis, Indiana.
Mr. Daniel said the Fleetwood Contracting Corporation is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by Fleetwood Contracting is in the amount of $328,422.00. The third bid is from Robinson Electric, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.
Mr. Daniel said the Robinson Electric bid is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by Robinson Electric is in the amount of $420,238.69. The fourth bid is from Poindexter Excavating, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana.
Mr. Daniel said the Poindexter Excavating bid is in proper form.
Mr. Brandgard said the total amount of the bid submitted by Poindexter Excavating, Inc. is in the amount of $303,998.60. The fifth bid is submitted by Bradshaw Excavating, Mooresville, Indiana.
Mr. Daniel said the Bradshaw Excavating bid, the form 96, the non-collusion affidavit, has not been executed. The base bid form where the bid was set forth has not been signed. And there is no financial statement with the bid. I don’t believe the bid meets the specifications of those items.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to reject the bid submitted from Bradshaw Excavating for the lack of proper documentation. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is that the last bid?
Mr. Isaacs said that is the last bid.
Mr. Brandgard said I would like to thank everyone who turned in a bid this evening. The engineer’s estimate was $402,000.00. I would like to ask a bid review committee made up of myself, Town Engineer, Tim Belcher and Dave Lahey from Butler, Fairman and Seufert to review the bids and come back with a recommendation at our next meeting.
BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR
Mr. Ben Comer with offices at 71 W. Marion St., Danville said I’m happy to be here tonight on behalf of the Walter Bud Martin family. Bud’s wife Brenda and two sons are in the audience tonight. They have responded to a request from the Town to donate some former railroad right-of-way. It is along the old; I believe what they refer to, as the Vandalia former right-of-way. It extends westerly from the current Town limits. We expect sometime in the near future that their remaining farm would become part of the Town. They donate this ground for a couple of reasons. One to enhance the quality of life for the current Town citizens and also this ground will certainly one day become a residential development within the Town and will enhance those citizens. Bud’s family, his parents lived on this farm for many years. They have lived on this farm for 35 years. They are good people and they present to you this evening the deed prepared by our legal Town counsel.
Mr. Carlucci said right to the right of Saratoga Boulevard is where our current trail is and the trees along the south side were donated to the Town by Mac McNaught. The trees go along the railroad right-of-way and Mr. McNaught had given us a full right-of-way roughly to the end of the trees.
Mr. Belcher said to the end of the development basically.
Mr. Carlucci said and then we had a half right-of-way out to Martin Road or CR500E.
Mr. Belcher said that abuts the Martin farm that we are speaking of.
Mr. Carlucci said what I asked back in September of last year is I was talking to Bud to see if they would consider donating the other half of the right-of-way and extending that past to Martin Road all the way down to probably the end of the woods, the tree line there. If you start back at Saratoga Boulevard all the way out to that tree line, that is 5,400 feet, which we would be able to extend the Town trail system farther to that direction. It would then be available to whatever development would happen on the Martin farm and then the property to the Saratoga development to the north.
The other thing that you might notice on this is you can see the old interurban that goes through there. And then as you go down the County Road, there is a bridge there. That goes to the back of Cartersburg so you can see how close we are now to Cartersburg with the trail. The old Vandalia railroad right-of-way bridge is gone but the interurban bridge is still there. It is not a very well traveled road back there but it is a beautifully poured arch concrete bridge. So, maybe some day we will be able to finish this out and connect up to Cartersburg, which would make all of us pretty happy.
I want to thank Brenda and her sons and Bud for donating this right-of-way. It will be a real enhancement to the Town of Plainfield and I appreciate it and I’m sure the Council does too.
Mr. Brandgard said yes absolutely and again we do appreciate the donation of land and as you can see, we will put it to good use in extending the greenway system out there. Again, we certainly appreciate it. Thank you very much.
Ms. Phyllis Palmer said I’m here on behalf of Plainfield Plus. Did you all receive a copy of Scott Flood’s letter and have a chance to read it? If so, I’m not going to bore you with reading it. I have Jean Davis with me who is a member of the garden committee. We also have Beth Chambers and Judy Jackson and they could not be here tonight. As you know, Plainfield Plus has invested a lot of time and effort in Friendship Gardens. We have enjoyed the support of the Plainfield Town Council. Just the last couple of years we have been working with Mr. Prince and we work quite well with him. I think we are all headed in the same direction. We all have the same goals and values for that park down there. I have an opportunity to talk to a lot of people around the County and we are the envy of the entire County as far as Plainfield’s parks and recreation and trail and everything. Once you get that aquatic center finished I would guess that we are going to have an influx of people moving from Brownsburg, Avon and Danville just because of the amenities that we have. I’m proud to say that I’m from Plainfield because of that.
We have often people who want to donate things to make the gardens better or in memory of someone. Right now we have been working with the Ruby Creech family that says that they have a significant amount of money that they want to create or do something in her memory at the gardens. We have worked with Mr. Prince and we feel like if we are not careful, we could have a hodgepodge of things down there. You have somebody that may have a lesser amount of money but they feel that they should be treated just as special as somebody with a large amount of money and couldn’t do say a building or a garden or a tree or something. So, I guess why I’m here tonight is Mr. Flood has drafted this letter to you that we feel that it is time for a conceptual plan for the gardens down there as a prelude to maybe having a master plan of the gardens. We have told this family that we don’t feel that we can do anything with their money until we have some kind of design or some kind of plan for Friendship Gardens. At that time then we will decide how we can best use that money. So, we have drafted an agreement with this family that we will keep their money in our account for a specified term. If we don’t have something from you, we will return it to them or they can give it to a non-profit organization of their choice. We would like for you to perhaps take action fairly soon so we will know what we can do and not do. Mr. Flood did an excellent job of preparing this letter of request and I’m just here as an official representative of Plainfield Plus.
Mr. Brandgard said we appreciate you coming in. I think that is probably something that we need to move on. The park is developed pretty well under the care of everybody so I think between Mr. Gaddie and Mr. Prince they can come back with a recommendation at the next meeting with whom we ought to work and what kind of committee or group we ought to have working on it.
Mr. Kyle Satterthwaite said I’m a scout from Troop #304. I have earned 25 merit badges and am well on my way of becoming an Eagle Scout. I’m proposing my service project for my Eagle requirements. The proposal is to improve the trail that runs from the bike trail back to the bird blind on the greenway that runs through Plainfield. I will have around 27 workers, 10 of them are adults. Three of the boys and one adult will stay with the truck to load and unload the materials. The rest of the workers will be at the site spreading the material with shovels, rakes and wheelbarrows. I have made sure that at all times there will be adult supervision. There is going to be a first aid kit and cell phones in case of injury. Also, one of our leaders is a paramedic from the Plainfield Fire Department. The truck that we will be using is a pickup truck with a dump bed on it so it is not heavy enough to crack the path. It will be about six truckloads of material and it should take around a whole Saturday to do.
Mr. Brandgard said it sounds like a good project. Mr. Prince have you been involved with it?
Mr. Prince said yes. I have worked with Mr. Satterthwaite on this. I think it is a good project especially because he is teamed with another Eagle Scout that built the bird blind. If you have read his proposal, I think they make a good case. The path back to the bird blind has really turned into kind of a muddy path. I have explained to them that we can’t take on every project that is proposed but I thought they came up with a good project that compliments it. I know that Michael Burkhart had envisioned that somebody might be able to build a woodchip trail. This is kind of a more primitive type trail that they are going to put some woodchips down several inches going from our asphalt trail back to the bird blind. I know several Council members know exactly what I’m talking about. I have looked over his plans and I think he has a solid plan. I want to work with them to make sure that our trail is not damaged with the truck going over that edge. You know how that is. It could be damaged. I want to make sure that we are going to have a day that they can do this and advertise it to the public that there would be a motor vehicle coming down the path that day. I think we can get some park and recreation guys to help him out. I will help him and we will make sure that we get it done quickly and let our residents know what is going on. If the Council approves of this project, I would say that the Parks and Recreation Department has looked it over and we have no problem with it whatsoever.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given. You have permission to move forward coordinating it with Mr. Prince. We congratulate you on your initiate and your efforts to do that. I think it will be a real benefit to the Town and to those who want to get over to the bird blind. Thank you.
TOWN MANAGER’S REPORT
Mr. Carlucci said I have the Plan Commission report for March 1, 2004. I have two certifications. The first certification I will go ahead and read. It states 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, March 1, 2004 on the petition of Richard Prock for rezoning 2.39 acres, RZ-04-002 from AG Agricultural to GC General Commercial. The Plainfield Plan Commission voted seven to zero to make a favorable recommendation to the Plainfield Town Council to rezone said property as described herein and attached on Exhibit A. I have dated this the 4th day of March 2004 and have signed it as Secretary of the Plainfield Plan Commission.
The Richard Prock property is located on Moon Road south of U.S. 40. It is on the west side of the road. It was part of an annexation that we did in late 1999. That acreage was zoned Agricultural and they have come back and asked that it be rezoned. Any development that would take place there, because it is a Gateway Corridor, would have to come back through the Town Council for development plan approval for any additional construction on that site.
Mr. Higbee said to give you a little bit better bearings if you all know where the self-storage warehouse facility is on Moon Road, this would be immediately south of that. It’s just a couple of acres. I advised the petitioner that I thought the rezoning was the preferred way to go on this site rather than a variance. We anticipate with our Comprehensive Plan update that is likely to be adopted in maybe two to three months from now that the whole area somewhat south of this parcel all the way up to Main Street would be recommended for commercial development. So, this rezoning would be compatible with what we think will happen in the long term as well as the fact that we know there is a mix of uses out there already today. So, we thought it made sense.
Mr. Carlucci said so the recommendation of the Plan Commission to the Town Council is to rezone that property. At this point you would have to approve or deny the recommendation.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the recommendation from the Plainfield Plan Commission to rezone 2.29 acres from AG Agricultural to GC General Commercial known as the Prock property. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Carlucci said the second certification that I have I will go ahead and read too. 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 March 1, 2004 on a petition of the Plainfield Plan Commission for an amendment to the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance. The Plainfield Plan Commission voted seven to zero to make a favorable recommendation to the Plainfield Town Council to the proposed amendment to the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance described here on Exhibit A. I dated this the 4th day of March 2004. I’m hoping that you got Exhibit A, which was an amendment to the text of the ordinance to add a parks zoning. We didn’t have a parks zoning and it becomes increasingly difficult to have a public hearing on every item that comes up in every park in the community. We had some items that needed to be resolved in terms of banners and signs and items along that line also. So, the Plan Commission is recommending a park zoning that will enable us to cut down on the amount of time that is involved. For example, the Guilford Township Parks have brought their entire comprehensive plan for Hummel Park into the Board of Zoning Appeals and had that adopted. So, as long as they construct items that are in that plan, in accordance with that plan, they don’t have to come back to either the Plan Commission or to the Town Council. So, it is our hope that will clarify those and make it a little bit easier because we have a lot of parks. Friendships Gardens may be another good example tonight. If we have a comprehensive plan and the Council adopts that plan, then we you can go ahead and build what is in that plan in those parks without having to come back to the BZA every time to do it. So, that is the recommendation of the Plan Commission to add a parks component.
Mr. Higbee said if you have any questions on anything that you have received, I would be happy to answer them but I’m not going to belabor the text with you unless you ask me to. I would just say this is just the tip of the iceberg because the ordinance committee has been working on a huge update, the biggest one that we have had since the ordinance was created five years ago. You will be seeing that in the coming months. We are hoping to have a Plan Commission meeting in April to spend a couple of hours going over all of the other parts of the ordinance. So, this was the one little piece that we brought to you first because we thought the timing was important.
Mr. McPhail said correct me if I’m wrong, but if the situation with Plainfield Plus that was brought in this evening, if we had a parks master plan, according to this new ordinance it would be taken care of. They could just go in and do things in the plan.
Mr. Higbee said that is correct anything in the master plan can be done administratively through my office without it going to a public hearing.
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the recommendation from the Plainfield Plan Commission to amend the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance to add the addition of a parks district. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. Carlucci said I have also put on the agenda an ordinance for first readings for both of those items.
One last item I saw Jason Castetter before the meeting. He did not feel well but he asked me to request the Town Council permission to bid out lawn mowing and landscaping for 2004. The lawn mowing has grown pretty substantially over the last couple of years. We inherited a lot of right-of-way. We have a lot of right-of-way now that we have to maintain such as Perry Road north of Stafford Road and Stafford Road. We will continue to have more situations like that where it makes more sense to have a private contractor do it with their employees and the wear and tear on their equipment and allow our employees to do other work. This bid would not only include that but it would also include the maintenance of the Town Hall mowing and landscaping and the police headquarters building mowing and landscaping. I think they do mowing of the fire headquarters building and the fire department site on Hadley Road. They also do Friendships Gardens Park. We have already started work on preparing those bids but we need your permission to bid it out. With our new GIS system we were able to do some measurements on the amount of acreage. We are not ready to put those bids out right yet but we want to be ready to go when the weather turns. We can give them the bid documents and let them look at what they have to mow. But I would need the Council’s approval to do that.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given.
REPORTS
Mr. Fivecoat said Wednesday night I had the pleasure of being invited to the Plainfield Fire Department to have supper with the “B” shift at Clarks Creek Road. Just as we sat down to a beautiful meal, a run came in. I got to ride along with battalion chief Weathers to a personal injury accident at Brookside and Stafford Road and got to see our paramedics first hand take care of the injured. It is very satisfying and rewarding to know we have people this dedicated working for the City of Plainfield. They are truly a dedicated group and it is a privilege to say that I’m a citizen of Plainfield and I’m in good hands. I think if you haven’t, you ought to go down and have a meal with them. It was a fantastic meal of homemade noodles, chicken, mashed potatoes, corn and hot rolls and it was delicious and one of the gentlemen is sitting out here in the audience. I would say that you need to do it if you haven’t. It is an experience.
Mr. McPhail said a quick update on the recreation center. The weather has begun to break a little bit and things are moving. Construction continues. I don’t think we have had any hitches since the last meeting. Things are moving along very well. Preparations are being made to start the Vestal Road construction I believe the 15th to complete that. That will certainly make a big difference when we get that road completed. We will close the road when we start construction so there will be a short period of time. The contractor has made preparations to route traffic around that but we will close that short section and get in and get it done rather than try to keep it open and delay the progress. We pray for good weather to get that finished.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is there any indication that it will be done before the opening?
Mr. McPhail said yes it will be done before the opening.
I did get a chance to see our new motorcycle today. It has been on the street three or four days. Chief Brinker may want to talk a little bit about that. I think somebody mentioned earlier today that they saw it. At the meeting we saw it. It was sitting by the pool.
Mr. Brandgard said I had an opportunity to see it Monday.
Mr. McPhail said so it is on the road. We have a few minor things to change but it is out and working.
Mr. Kirchoff said I will turn my time over to Mr. Belcher when it is appropriate because in the back of the room I see our overhead for the Crystal Bay area. So, I will let him handle that at the appropriate time.
The other thing that I wanted to do is when I read Mr. Lydick’s annual report, I felt that there was an oversight in there that I felt that he should take credit for and we should say thanks for. That is for all of his efforts on the health care plan. He was too modest to say much about that but that was a lot of effort and saved us some money for the Town. I felt like it was an oversight in the annual report and I wanted us Council members to remember how much he did for us and I appreciated that Mr. Lydick.
Mr. Gaddie said I had a couple people ask me on the parks if we were going to update the two to five year old equipment. I have talked to Mr. Prince about that and he said that is in the plans to get some of that improved. Older kids probably come in there and the stuff has been in there for a long time. But I had a couple of people come in there and make comments and said that the area with everything else looked nice that it would be an area that we could improve on. Mr. Prince said that is in the master plan.
Mr. Carlucci said I was adding up the acreage of the right-of-way plus the trees that we have out there and we have basically from Saratoga west including the land on the south side that adds an additional 18 acres plus to our parks system.
Mr. Prince said it wasn’t necessarily acknowledged earlier but there was an attachment to the report that I turned in that dealt with how we plan to operate the recreation center. I think we called it the general facility operations that outlines the hours and times and when the office would be opened, etc. Unless there are any comments we are going to be moving forward with that.
Mr. Kirchoff said on the swimming pool hours you indicate that you are going to close like at 5:00 or 6:00 on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. I thought those were two holidays that you might want to stay opened later with the outdoor swimming.
Mr. Prince said you would really be surprised on those holidays people come all through the day but like the Fourth of July they are getting out so that they can get to the fireworks.
Mr. Kirchoff said you are the expert but I would expect people would be there.
Mr. Prince said they are big days there is no doubt about that but people are generally leaving in the evening to get to their evening plans. But if there are no other questions about that, we will go ahead and move forward with it.
There is a contract that Mr. Daniel has prepared for Radio Disney. He mentioned that we might want to go ahead and get a formal approval for that contract and then we will fill in the blanks. We will have a signatory for that.
Mr. Daniel said you may recall that Mr. Prince brought in I think maybe at the last meeting a Splash Island contract. What we have actually done is we have added a couple of pages to the front and the back with some conditions that should be in there on trademarks, etc. And then attached what actually had been brought in as an exhibit. So, other than adding some provisions in addition to what they had in their document that is what we have done to that.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the contract between the Town of Plainfield and Disney Radio to advertise for Splash Island and that Council member Gaddie sign the contract on behalf of the Town. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Motion carried.
Mr. Prince said lastly an item for your consideration that hopefully we can discuss is to determine what a resident and non-resident is. We will be starting our computer training and a part of our computer training is to load this information into our computer system of what constitutes a resident and a non-resident of the Town of Plainfield. I will be needing some input from the Council on that and I thought I would forewarn you that I would want to bring that up at the next Council meeting to try to get something approved to define what that means.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, help me understand why that is difficult?
Mr. Prince said you can own property in the Town of Plainfield and not live in the Town of Plainfield. You can live in the Town of Plainfield and not pay property taxes. When it comes time to approve your residency, you can have a Plainfield water bill and not be a Plainfield resident. But you can live in Plainfield and not have a Plainfield water bill. We have to have our residents approved the same way that they qualify as a resident and then we have to determine how we qualify you as a resident. Is it that you own property? Does that make you a resident? If you live in an apartment, obviously, you are one of our residents and we are going to have to find a way to define that clearly for our record staff. It is really a Council policy. We will enforce whatever the Council decides is a resident but we also have to make it as easy as possible on the resident to prove his residency requirement so that they can receive a discounted rate to use the recreation center. It is a little problematic sometimes.
Mr. Carlucci said probably the hardest part is making sure their staff knows where the Town limits of the Town are. Because we have people outside the Town, the Highlands. We have two subdivisions north of Hidden Valley.
Mr. Kirchoff said they have Plainfield addresses but they don’t live in Town.
Mr. Prince said we are entertaining a lot of calls these days. It has been this way everywhere I have been in recreation, who is a resident and who is not, but I get a couple of calls a day. You are telling me that the people on the south side of the road are residents and the people on the north are not. So, we have to define what makes you a resident. We have had some people say well I own property in Plainfield so I’m paying for that so doesn’t that make me a resident? Of course, in my position I have to carry out your wishes. I just wanted you to be aware of it and give it some thought. We need to make up our minds on that because in the coming weeks we are going to start selling memberships and we need to be able to communicate the wishes of the Council in that regard. I don’t think it is anything that we can decide tonight but if you could give it some thought, maybe we could discuss it in two weeks or at the next regular meeting.
Mr. Carlucci said for whatever it is worth if you have someone who has a pretty substantial business in Plainfield and pays a huge amount of property taxes, more than a single-family house does and they live outside the Town, my feeling is that they ought to be considered a resident. That is probably the fairest thing to do but those are the types of issues I think Mr. Prince is trying to get resolved.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, would GIS help us?
Mr. Belcher said we won’t have the accuracy on the addressing until maybe the fall and they need something right away. For the next season’s billing I think we will be in good shape.
Mr. McPhail said I have an excellent map. There wouldn’t be too many areas where you wouldn’t know whether the address was in Town or not. All of the roads and subdivisions are in that map. It is probably as good of a map that we could get. I could make sure one is hanging downstairs.
Mr. Prince said at the next meeting I can bring you a recommendation as a way to start this discussion. In our opinion in Parks and Recreation that is really a decision that has to be made by the Town fathers and then we have to carry your wishes out. I just wanted you to be prepared.
Mr. Fivecoat said I asked Chief Brinker the other day about an emergency plan for the Town of Plainfield. If an emergency happened here in Plainfield, what were my duties as a Council member? Chief Brinker and I talked about it and I know what I do now but up until that time I didn’t know what to do. The Chief and I talked and he gave me the plan. I think that is something that we need to go over. Chief Brinker and I were talking about it and I think maybe we ought to have a drill some weekend of a mock disaster so that the new Council members could know what is going on in case of an emergency. When it happens, you don’t have time to train when it is going down. So, I would like to see some kind of training for all of us, not just the Town Council but for all City employees and do a mock disaster of some type in Plainfield on a Saturday. Let’s go through the motion.
Mr. Brandgard said I agree.
Mr. Carlucci said we have a committee set up that is rewriting that plan and we are not too far off from bringing it back to the Council for approval. We have been working on that starting in late 2003. So, we are getting pretty close in bringing that back.
Mr. Brandgard said at the same time let’s set up a date to do that.
Chief Brinker said Sgt. Kinman the SWAT commander has a date in May that it is set for. As we get a little closer, we will make sure that your schedules are cleared for that day. He has the scenario already planned out and the victims, etc. ready to go so it will be a realistic situation. It will involve everyone from Public Works to the fire, police, the Council, etc. It is something that is required and is a great exercise.
Ms. Burgner said I don’t know if in your packets you could see the proposal for the new utility billing department. They want to put a wall from the Town Manager’s office over to the Engineering Department. And move the door that goes into the Engineering Department over by the sliding window and then we would have a secure area for the billing department with a sliding window and door. They would close up the outside door. They would leave it but they would close it up. Mr. Nick Quintana from Sebree Architects got bids for us. I hope that you will consider those for us tonight.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, does this truly give you enough room to operate the utility billing?
Ms. Burgner said yes. I called the post office even about a mailing service about what was required and I looked at equipment to do the mailing and sorting. The equipment is expensive and a gentleman from Avon told me that he has 24 of those machines and he pays one person full-time to keep half of them running. So, that made me a little nervous but we have a mailing service right across the street from the Town Hall. He gave me a price to print, mail, sort the bills and we would use their postage permit. They would keep the cash certification for the post office bar coding up-to-date. So, we wouldn’t have any of those expenses. Consequently, we don’t need this big of space, which we don’t have. I think this will work out real well.
Mr. Fivecoat said I’m familiar with mail order and sorting machines and postage machines and what she is saying is true. I did that for about three years and it is a big headache. To keep up on the permits for the postal service is a full-time job. To do it outside I think you are smarter.
Mr. Kirchoff said plus you would get the benefit of bulk mail and all of those decisions.
Ms. Burgner said we would have to do that in order to get the best postage rate. It will only cost 28 cents a bill with all of that
and they are printed in postal route order, etc. So, we don’t need as much room.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, who did you talk to for that? Did you talk to Faris?
Ms. Burgner said yes and they weren’t as responsive as DCM across the street. They were just a little big and I had to call them twice to get prices and the pricing was pretty close but DCM is really handy.
Mr. Kirchoff said and it was reasonably priced.
Ms. Burgner said yes.
Mr. McPhail said he does a great deal of bank work. There’s a good chance your bank statement comes out of there. They are very efficient in what they do. I didn’t realize that they do water bills but that is good.
Ms. Burgner said he was really excited about it. When I first called, the lady that I talked to said I don’t know because all we do is bank statements but I will say something to him. He called me back and he was very interested in doing it. That solves a lot of problems.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, did you make provisions for a receptionist out front?
Ms. Burgner said no.
Mr. Belcher said the waiting area is up front where the sliding window is now. And then it turns into a hall as you turn the corner.
Mr. McPhail said but Ms. Burgner will have someone attending the window and Mr. Belcher has someone attending a window.
Mr. Belcher said occasionally. That has been a problem. Where they have the window now there will always be somebody at her window and at my window they are out a lot. So, they turn to our window and there is nobody there and it is a bad thing to happen for a customer. So, it will be good having somebody there to walk right to.
Ms. Burgner said our billing window would be right in front of the doors where you come into that area. Really it will keep people from kind of wandering over into the other hallway into the offices. It is kind of hard to control traffic the way that it is now. Mr. Quintana’s proposal includes using the existing counter space. They are going to cut it differently.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, Mr. Isaacs on your side does that walk-up window get used anymore?
Mr. Isaacs said yes. There are several people that come into that.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, what is it used for?
Mr. Isaacs said people pick up permits and a lot of questions come up to that window.
Mr. Kirchoff said so later in the year when we think about the organizational structure, does it stay this way?
Mr. McPhail said I still think that is the place to have it.
Mr. Kirchoff said as long as we get people educated as to which side to go to.
Mr. Isaacs said I think we probably need to work on some signage as well. It is not a real warm entrance to pay the water bill so when we are designing that; we need to approach that as well.
Mr. McPhail said I’ve heard nothing but really praises on the architect and the people at the bank on how good of job he has done and how well he has moved along.
Mr. Fivecoat said Mr. Huff built a building for me over in Danville where the Super 7 and my cleaners is now. Mr. Huff built that building and I have nothing but praise for the main. He builds a good building and he stands behind his product.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, there is an alternate bid in here what is it?
Ms. Burgner said I don’t know. I think it is to allow for things.
Mr. Kirchoff said he has the alternate bid and then he has the 20% contingency. I didn’t know what the alternate was for.
Ms. Burgner said his architectural estimate was $28,000.00. Due to the nature of demolition and renovation type of projects Sebree & Associates would recommend including the 20%. I don’t know. He really didn’t say what that was for. I was hoping that Mr. Quintana was going to come in Friday instead of e-mailing.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would like to know.
Mr. Brandgard said let’s get a better clarification with what the bid breakdown is and then we will act on it at the next meeting.
Ms. Burgner said we have the summer sewer rate agreements ready for people to fill out and sign.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, do we need to extend the ordinance?
Mr. Carlucci said we are going to go ahead and start accepting it. We will bring back a new ordinance at the next meeting. We didn’t realize there was an expiration date on that. We have to update it to the new sewer rates too.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, about raising the water deposit can you give me a sense of what that average bill is?
Ms. Burgner said the average water bill is $40.00 to $50.00, water and sewer together. The water does not begin to cover what we get left with when people move out. It would also help the landlords to charge renters a higher deposit.
Mr. McPhail asked, what is our current deposit?
Ms. Burgner said $25.00.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would think you would want at least a 60-day or a 90-day bill. I think typically that is what you see in the utility world.
Ms. Burgner said at least.
Mr. Kirchoff said that is why I was asking what an average bill would be.
Ms. Burgner said $75.00.
Mr. Kirchoff said to me that would be more like a 90-day bill. I would think an average water bill would be $20.00 to $25.00, the water portion. So, I would be comfortable with the $75.00. That gets you a 90-day. You are always running a month behind so that would probably cover you.
Mr. Carlucci said you would have to amend the Water Rate Ordinance.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would recommend that we do that.
Ms. Burgner said with a property owner it is different than a rental property.
Mr. Kirchoff said on water you can’t file liens but on sewer you can.
Ms. Burgner said no we have to turn them over to the collection agency.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, for water?
Ms. Burgner said yes.
Mr. Kirchoff said I recommend that you look at $75.00.
Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, on the mailing does she need authorization now or do we wait for the contract?
Ms. Burgner said we can wait probably closer to the time.
Mr. Brandgard said we will need a contract for that.
Ms. Burgner said it was all part of the consideration with the business.
Mr. Carlucci said the reason that we didn’t want to go forward right now with that is because we may not be ready for a couple of months yet. We don’t want to enter into a contract just to have them raise it because something happened at the post office and it will cost more to send them. So, we thought we would wait. Our feeling is to go with someone who is just right across the street. It is a Plainfield business and it is a lot easier for us to take the letters and envelopes that we have to provide as opposed to taking them to the airport. But we didn’t want any action on that tonight.
Mr. Higbee said I didn’t get my monthly report to you in time because I was on vacation when I normally prepare it, however, I will get it to you at the next meeting. I wanted to report to you because I think there was a request at a recent meeting here about scheduling to complete the Comprehensive Plan. I have the schedule and I can e-mail it to any of you who may want it. Essentially, where I’m headed is May 10 or May 24 would be the adoption meeting at the Town Council. So, we will take several steps between here and there to have steering committee meetings, a public meeting, the Plan Commission will see it and then it will come here. So, that is the schedule that we are working toward. Staff is actively looking at some of the components right now and will have a draft actually of the whole plan this week. So, we will take that draft and work on it and get it to adoption in May.
Mr. Brandgard said if you could distribute that, it would be great.
Mr. Belcher said I wanted to start tonight by thanking the Council for allowing those consent agenda items to go through. There were a lot of them and I appreciate you trusting me and recommending those to go through approval.
Tonight the main thing I wanted to talk to you about is the meeting that we had on February 26. There were four projects that I wanted to give you a real brief synopsis of them. I know you are all familiar with it but there may be some here tonight that may not be. We had four different design firms working for us and four projects converged basically at the same time in a similar area. We decided to have a public meeting to present that to the folks who cared enough to come out. First of all the fact that we had so many come out was tremendous in my opinion. I don’t think I made it one foot from the door because of so many questions. That is exactly why we were there. I needed everybody who came, all of the Council members and Staff and consultants who manned the four different stations. I know Mr. Daniel was there, everybody that I could think of was there to answer questions about what we were doing because the public had a lot of questions. If they hadn’t of come, it would have been a wasted night and they all came. I don’t know how many were there. I know we had 75 or better sign the sheet but I know there were more there than that, maybe twice that many or more possibly who came out through the night.
In the hour to two hours that we were there it was very successful in terms of the input that we got. We got a few things that I would consider a consensus from the folks that came. The projects were the Crystal Bay lift station, which included moving that station south of Hadley Road. One reason to do that is to get that away from the tight residential area. The corner that we are moving it to is away from homes. There are still some homes there and we had some residents come in who were concerned about that. It is farther away from any home that we have down there now. It also gets us south of the intersection so that if there is any need to move that station farther south some day, it is in a position to do that without closing the road. Just this evening I was talking to the school. There are sites being considered for high schools, etc. that could effect this area. So, that station might need to be moved. If it were not moved now, that intersection would have to be closed possibly in the future. So, we really think that is important.
Obviously, the intersection itself is in need of an upgrade and efficiency and a signal or roundabout were the two options that we were looking at. We thought the roundabout was the safest solution for a growing residential area and the growing pedestrian demand in that area. That is the one that we presented to get the comments on.
The third project was the South Center Street pedestrian crossing study that we had done, roughly where the skate park is on down to Hadley Road in that area. We had some concerns and we also had some residents voice those concerns along with the police department talking about the things that they have seen happen out there, the near misses.
The fourth project is the federal aid project that we have going for the Phase 2 of our trail. One major link of that is down at that intersection at Hadley going west at that intersection and crossing the creek. That was a great time to get input from people who were obviously interested in that area.
I was very pleased with our consultants. Parsons Cunningham & Shartle did our roundabout. Schneider has done the Crystal Bay sewer design. Traffic Engineering group did the Center Street study and Butler Fairman is doing the trail. It was tremendous to see them work together. I challenged them before the meeting about three or four weeks ahead of that I said we need to have this coordinated on a piece of paper so that everybody can understand what we are doing. That document back there is really the result of a whole lot of sharing of information between different consultants. That is sometimes difficult to do but I had no problem whatsoever with the people that we work with. I think that says a lot about the kind of firms that we work with. All four of those have done a great job.
Back to the consensus, the things that we got in our survey, some of the key things that we talked about was the issue of closing the intersection for construction. Do people like to be inconvenienced for a long period of time and leave the road opened or a shorter period of time and close the road? This question has come up before. I think there was a pretty high response that we would rather that you close it and get it done fast and get out, that kind of thing. I think we all would prefer that verses a year or two years, the delays in the same area all of the time when you go down there. So, that was something pretty strong that came out of there on the intersection project.
On the pedestrian trail project there weren’t as many things on the survey to bring you tonight. The one that came through pretty strong was extending trails on the other side of Center Street. That does a couple of things. It cuts down on the number of pedestrian crossings tremendously, just the need to cross. If you are going from say the recreation center to Hummel Park, if you have a trail on the south side of Center Street and crosses say where the DPW building is, you don’t need to cross twice with your child or the person that you are walking with to get to Hummel Park. It is something that we have talked about but it was confirmed pretty strongly that would be a good thing for the Town to look at out of the trailside.
There was not so much of a mandate or any kind of consensus about should we put any more roundabouts at Stanley or at Reeves. There wasn’t a lot of discussion that I heard. Maybe you heard some but the idea of putting pedestrian islands we have heard some positive comments on those. Where you would have a refuge island where you are crossing say at Reeves Road you can walk halfway across our 12-foot lane and look one direction and not have to worry about making two directional decisions maybe with a young child or something like that. That is something that I think we would like to pursue to the next level on the South Center Street study.
It looks like after that we got into really the issue of the drive with Crystal Bay, the idea of closing a drive on the Crystal Bay west drive that hits Hadley Road. Being so close to the intersection we proposed on the engineering side recommending closing that drive. We actually heard a lot of positive comments on that. I was shocked actually that anybody would agree with us on that but usually there was obviously another side to that. They wanted the Town to take the private road, the Crystal Bay east drive, if they were going to close the access for the public drive, to go out to the public street. That is something that we can talk about tonight. I would like to hear what you felt about that as far as what you heard. In general I did hear a positive response to that proposal because I think people realize even though now you might be able to get out there during the day as traffic continues to grow that is going to be harder and harder to do. If we decide to go with the roundabout method, cars are going to be moving through there constantly and could be an issue. Probably the only real negative I have heard is some people don’t like roundabouts at all. We heard from them. They had some legitimate concerns from some folks on Deborah Court. I’ve got some responses that came in after the meeting. I can understand their concern. It is one that we have had since we started this is how will that react in a peak hour? Somebody trying to get out of Deborah Court has no other way to get out of there. There is no other drive like in Hadley Acres where you have two or three more drives to check with but at Deborah Court people have a fear of being trapped in there. We certainly had that concern too. We have that issue a little bit now with cars backing up so far. They are backing up across some of those drives and people are really rolling the intersection now. When you get to the point that you are being delayed so much and you finally get to that stop, what we saw early on in the video tapes at that intersection was being rolled through most of the time. I think a roundabout would help to create some spaces possibly. But that is something that we can’t give a guarantee on. It may be more difficult at certain times of the day but we don’t know that yet. What we do know is a roundabout would be more efficient for the whole day, not just the peak hour but the middle of the day and at the peak hour both as compared to a signal that stop people all day long when it is not needed. We also know that the roundabout will decrease the conflict points. It absolutely lowers the number of places that you can have an accident. You still have accidents, there is no doubt about it, but you are typically going in the same direction as the other car instead of a t-bone type of intersection, something that could be very serious. Those factors in my opinion make me believe that the better solution for that intersection would be a roundabout. It won’t be the perfect solution. I don’t think there is one but I think that is a good one for that particular intersection. Even somebody that I heard from who drives bigger vehicles, trucks, asked mainly about the dual lane. That they were really not concerned about it as long as it was wide enough. I think this one is a lot different than the roundabout at the recreation center because of the width and the dual lane is up front.
In Mr. McGillem’s report based on the comments received on the proposed roundabout there were eight out of the 51 that were totally against. Seven had some questions on using roundabouts and 36 either voiced no concerns or were supportive of the proposal. So, it is pretty positive in terms of using the roundabout at that location.
I wanted to bring this forward to discuss tonight and get your feedback on it because we are in a position where the Crystal Bay lift station relocation involving the sewer and the storm sewer and the road right-of-way acquisitions are at the point where they could go forward, if you approve the roundabout and that is the way that you want to go for sure. We have not sent anybody out to buy any land because we wanted to make sure we had the public meeting and that we talked to the Council and we had time to absorb what came out of the public meeting. But we are at a point if we want to go forward, we would need some direction from you to continue this design and finish it and get the right-of-way access and the acquisition process started and see how it goes. We still have major hurdles to overcome if we want to do this project this year, obviously. We would get back to you with those as they become more clear. Right-of-way acquisition can be a difficult phase of the project and we would prefer to get started on it as soon as we can.
Mr. McGillem said the only thing that I would add is a key question comes up on the closing of the Crystal Bay drive on CR600. Our feeling was, as Mr. Belcher indicated, from the comments and the 14
individuals yes they felt that was the thing to do from the safety standpoint was to close it. When you do, the question comes up from the standpoint of the Town’s responsibility for the East Bay Drive, not only from the standpoint of the East Bay Drive up to the access onto Center Street, the south access, but the entire East Bay Drive all the way to the north end. I think if we had a consensus, that is the direction that we need to go. Then we need to also be pursing I guess some type of memorandum of understanding because if we are going to take over that east drive, then we are going to have to have a means by conveying the right-of-way to the Town. And also we have some additional right-of-way in the roundabout area from the association that is needed for the construction. So, we need to be advancing the memorandum of understanding or some kind of document to pursue those elements of conveyance of the responsibilities on the east drive.
Mr. McPhail said I certainly think we have studied and re-studied and gave the public an opportunity to have input. I think their input has been very positive in terms of going with the roundabout and relocating the lift station and closing the road. And taking responsibility for the east drive, which I think it is a total package that I think we ought to move forward rapidly. I guess I’m prepared to make a motion if that is required to move forward.
Mr. Kirchoff said the only thing Mr. Belcher that you didn’t cover was the trail at the bridge.
Mr. Belcher said the connector as the trail crossed. I will take total responsibility. I actually had them add that because that would be something that the folks at Crystal Bay West Drive would like. It would be an easier way to get to the trail. It is a small connector to the public street but they absolutely did not like that and the folks that came out made it clear that it would be easier to take off right now as it was to put on. So, I got the message loud and clear on that one that it was not a positive thing as far as their view for the neighborhood. So, taking the 20-30-foot length off of there is not a problem.
Mr. Carlucci said I agree if that is what they want although that is a public street but it makes it difficult because how do they get out there?
Mr. Kirchoff said you just go down to the stub where we are closing it. They will just go over the bridge. It is not very far.
Mr. Carlucci asked, would we leave an opening so they could walk through there closed.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think you are going to call it a hammerhead. You could just have a little connecter from the hammerhead to the trail.
Mr. Belcher said we could use existing pavement.
Mr. Kirchoff said what we heard in the comments is they really had a concern that is inviting people to a private lake.
Mr. Don Sanders at 5565 Crystal Bay East Drive, Plainfield said I’m President of the Cross Bridge Homeowners Association. As I said earlier, we were concerned that because of the additional pedestrian traffic there that could cause some problems with just potential accidents that would occur. We have no problem at all going down to the hammerhead and connecting into the pathway that way. I have spoken to many of the homeowners there and they concur with that.
Mr. Belcher said this shows it a little bit better. This is where it had a small connector because our bridge comes in here and crosses basically at a right angle but you can’t get off of it. Once you are on the bridge you can’t jump off so coming around this corner is really what they would have to do.
Mr. Brandgard said I think this is something that we need to move forward with but we have to watch what happens with Deborah Court and as we move forward, make contingences of plans if we do have a problem, how do we handle it?
Mr. Belcher said there could be possible additional lanes. Right now there are only two lanes. If we stretch out the lanes coming around the roundabout, it could give somebody some room to merge.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, are they concerned about backup westbound or people going too fast eastbound?
Mr. Belcher said I think it is a constant flow; the no gap that they would have no gaps to get in would be my impression that I got. It is designed to move traffic at a constant pace and not real fast.
Mr. Mike Bennett at 6012 Deborah Court said what we deal with now is my wife works with the school corporation and drives the school bus and she takes it home. During the peak hours from 6:00 a.m. to about 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning and then rush hour from about 4:00 in the afternoon to 5:00 to 6:00 in the evening…………
[Tape concluded at this point and time and resumed as follows:]
………………stop down at Oak Hill so generally speaking getting out and heading west to the intersection is generally not a problem. Heading east during these time periods, heading eastbound they come off that intersection so fast and there is so much traffic that it is backed up coming from Saratoga, etc. in every direction and it is all that we can do to get out. Mr. Belcher said something about handling the entire day and not just the peak hours in the morning and the evening but a roundabout verses a signal light, if you will, really doesn’t matter either way. It is the issue at the peak hours in the morning and the afternoon that we have the biggest problem with getting off of Deborah Court. I for one did not go through and talk to all of the residents on Deborah Court but when we sent our survey in, ours specifically was not one of the three as far as it being a good idea. But out of the three we felt a traffic light and possibly a mile per hour change in that area would be best over this roundabout. I don’t drive them. The only two that I have driven is Vestal Road and in Westmere. They are the only two that I have ever been on in my life. Even if it is 17 mph in the roundabout and coming off that intersection, as soon as they get off that intersection they are going to hammer down up to speed. It is like Mr. Belcher had said they roll through it. As a matter of fact, this morning I got up and I can look out my kitchen window and they are backed up coming from Saratoga as far as the eye can see westbound, west of the intersection, traffic going to work. That is what we put in our survey and like I said I hadn’t gone around and talked to everybody on Deborah Court but I truly believe and my wife believes that the roundabout is not the way to go. We would rather see a signal light placed there and the speed zone changed than dealing with trying to get off by putting a roundabout in.
Mr. Belcher said something that we have thought about too as far as the concern that we have had is it really comes down to again we felt from the beginning that we could put a lower speed limit or something on there but we know that traffic corridor is not going to change as far as volume. We would have to close Moon Road and close Hadley Road to make that go down. We know people are going to find that north and west side of Town. There are certain things that might be better. I think the way that a lot of people drive signals is yellow means speed up and I’m already going 45 mph when I’m headed for that signal so why don’t I go 55 mph and make the signal. Now somebody comes out of Deborah Court is facing a left turn against a high-speed vehicle verses maybe somebody going 20 mph or 25 mph or maybe they are accelerating. It is a tough balance between those two things. I felt like from the beginning that the speed is the biggest concern so getting your speed down in a way that a roundabout would force I think is our best bet. Like I said there may be some things that we need to look at as a contingency to try to make that movement easier. Short of bringing another drive out of Deborah Court to Center Street somewhere I’m not sure how else to solve the problem right now. I just don’t have the answer for you but it doesn’t mean that we can’t try if you decide to go with the roundabout.
Mr. McGillem said I think the point that Mr. Belcher is pointing out is it has been our biggest concern on the signal at that location or a roundabout. We have checked on some roundabouts that have a very similar situation as Deborah Court in distance up in Carmel. One of those situations is a fairly significant shopping area going in and out during peak hours. The distance in a roundabout is not a whole lot different than Deborah Court. Through the roundabout you are designing to slow the traffic down. As Mr. Belcher indicated, through the signal you speed traffic up. The signal does not slow traffic down. A signal speeds traffic up when it is going through especially at speeds much higher than the posted speed limit. The severity of the accidents that occur from that is some of the worst accidents that you get at an intersection at a signalized intersection. That has been our concern in trying to evaluate this. We agree that Deborah Court is not a good situation right now. We take the opposite view from the standpoint of the signal because we think it is going to be more of a hazardous situation. We don’t feel it would be any worse. Our feeling is it will be better with the roundabout but we don’t know for sure. It is something that we just don’t know but we do know what we have experienced. We know what the police department experiences with signals and that particular location a signal is going to create a lot higher speed with the traffic through there than the approaches in that area.
Mr. Bennett said if the roundabout is put in and is not the best thing that has ever been done and it makes quite a bit worse, what kind of contingency plans could be made, if any? If that would happen and it turns out to be worse than what it is currently right now, what do we need to do if it is put in shy of calling the police department every day and trying to get out of that road? Or contacting our liaison and Council? What are we supposed to do if this is put in and it becomes worse than what we are dealing with now?
Mr. Brandgard said this is part of what I was talking about is if we do this and things become worse, we have to be watching it. We have to be watching it and figure out what it is that we need to do. I think from your standpoint you don’t have to do anything because we should be watching it and coming up with a plan to fix it. You shouldn’t have to come back and ask us to do that. That is what my intent was when I said what I said.
Mr. Kirchoff said we are not discouraging you from sharing your feelings with us as we go forward.
Mr. McGillem said Hadley Road is eventually going to be a five-lane facility all the way from SR267 to Moon Road. We may need to do that quicker than what we thought but Hadley Road will be a five-lane section because it is part of our Thoroughfare Plan. It is the only main route that directs traffic to I-70 from the west side of Plainfield. It has been on the Thoroughfare Plan to accomplish this for over 10 years now and it is going to come about. It would create a situation where if you are pulling out to turn left, you have only the eastbound traffic that you have to cross over to get into the center lane. Then you have a refuge. In that center lane, which is a reversible left turn lane, double left turn lane, it may be that we need to extend that five-lane section quicker to the east to get at least beyond Deborah Court where it gives the additional lane a refuge out there. But we are not going to see less traffic on Hadley Road. We are going to see more traffic on Hadley Road as the Town continues to grow and we are going to eventually see a five-lane section all the way through there.
Mr. Kirchoff said I would share the same concerns that you have if I lived on Oak Hill because it is the same distance from the intersection, is that correct?
Mr. Bennett said yes.
Mr. Kirchoff said so we want to monitor that completely.
Mr. Bennett said Oak Hill west drive and Angela Court and Deborah Court, there are three or four of those that run up and down Hadley Road right there even as far up as Hunters Ridge could be affected. Oak Hill, Williams, Angela, Deborah, all of those that are fairly close and obviously Deborah and Oak Hill being the closest.
Mr. Kirchoff said these were questions that we were asking really from day one. I think at least part of our plan takes away one of our concerns and that was the Crystal Bay Drive. That is so close that the logical thing there is to close that. So, at least we have addressed one of the potential problems. That is going to go away and now I think we are going to have to monitor Oak Hill and Deborah.
Mr. Belcher said one thing that Mr. McGillem mentioned that we could look at, as we go forward, is if we were to create the center refuge island, a little like a pedestrian refuge island, now, we would be buying the right-of-way for the future full expansions. So, we won’t be bothering people again some day in the future. We are going to have all that we need for the future road so that would be something that we probably could do now and take a look at. At least these folks here have two other options if they get stopped here where Deborah is the most critical to keep an eye on.
Mr. Brandgard said I’m glad you brought that up because as Mr. McGillem was saying, if we were to extend a bubble back there and at least put a three-lane section in, past the Deborah Court so that you do have that refuge, it would make it a little bit easier to get across. The same way if you are trying to turn in.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, that wouldn’t necessarily slow that project down that much would it?
Mr. Belcher said I don’t think so.
Mr. Kirchoff said the other response is we always have the option even if you put a roundabout in, to go back and make it signalized. That is not what we want to do but we always have that as a fall back position.
Mr. Belcher said we have heard that there is a limiting capacity of 25,000 cars a day. I hope we never reach that there but there are some limiting capacities on roundabouts. That’s a long ways off I hope for that intersection.
Mr. Kirchoff said I think you have recommended the right solution. I’m comfortable enough that we would go forward as well. I think your suggestion of perhaps continuing that past that intersection to give us an extra lane probably makes sense even on the original design.
Mr. Belcher said I agree. I think rather than waiting for something to happen now we could do it with much less cost than if the road is opened and we have a problem with Deborah Court.
Mr. McPhail said when we first started looking at this, if my memory serves me correct, we saw some films of timing of traffic and all of that moving through there. The indication from the consultants was we wouldn’t help that situation but we probably wouldn’t hurt it. I don’t think a signal will help that because people are going to be turning fast. If they are going straight through, they are coming from the north and making a left turn. The left turn signal is going to be constant. So, I really don’t believe that the roundabout would make it any worse than it is today. If they are having difficulty getting out now, maybe that extra lane would help.
Mr. Kirchoff said it can’t hurt because we are going to eventually do it anyway. I would move that we accept the Town Engineer’s recommendation to move forward with the roundabout, the lift station project and the trail system. And that we add the third lane on Hadley Road east of the intersection past Deborah Court. And that we would negotiate a memorandum of understanding with Crystal Bay and the Cross Bridge Homeowners Association concerning the dedication of the Crystal Bay East Drive. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said last Tuesday evening the Ronald Reagan Parkway the joint meeting with all of the town councils and the steering committee and the plan commissions was held. There were only three members of the steering committee there and not too many people from the surrounding towns or plan commissions. But it was a good meeting. Partially because it went quick. It went well and I also brought two disks back with all of the presentations that they have had. Mr. Kirchoff has it and we will get it around so that everybody has a chance to download it so that you have the presentations that they have had.
OLD BUSINESS
Mr. McPhail said I have an old sewer issue that I have been working on for some time and had some consultation with Mr. Fivecoat in the last couple of weeks. In 1994 or 1996 the Town put sewers in Windsor Heights section on the west side of Town. One of those residents out there has come to us and apparently at the time there was a cost to hook up to the sewers. This particular individual signed up his home and had a vacant lot and had a lateral put in at that time. From all indications in talking with Mr. Belcher and everybody there was not any conversations with him about paying for that extra lot at that time. Our ordinance says that the cost to hook up to that accumulates at a six-percent interest rate every year. So, that hook up fee has now gone from like $7,800.00 to $13,500.00 or something, a large number. We believe in discussing with Mr. Fivecoat and Mr. Belcher and Mr. Whitaker, our consultant that it might be wise for us to take a look at this particular situation and see if there are more potential customers that didn’t sign up and maybe make an effort to adjust that in some way to give them one more shot to hook that thing up rather than this thing to keep accumulating over the years. The reason that I guess that it was brought up is that he does have a buildable lot there. He is getting up in age where he may sell the property and this looks like a hindrance to him. I think had he known it this particular person would probably have paid the $7,800.00 at that time. We believe that there are four or five more people out there that didn’t hook up.
Mr. Belcher said I’m not sure. I recall about a 100 lots to start with and we got about 60% pretty quick. Over the years I couldn’t tell you how many came in after that but it is a pretty high percentage. That is a pretty unique situation with the one that you are talking about because it was a lot that didn’t have a home on it. It didn’t even show up on the counted lots. I think that is where the confusion started. We counted all of the platted lots and all of the lots with homes on them and anybody who at that time brought it up to us. It is a little unique.
Mr. McPhail said we probably have another one at Clover Drive because I think we did it the same way. That cost is going to get so high nobody is going to hook on probably. I’m not suggesting that they be able to hook on at $7,500.00 or whatever it was at that time but we thought that maybe a solution would be to charge whatever that fee was at that time plus our current hook up charge, which is $2,290.00 or something like that and maybe put that in place. I guess I would recommend that we take a look at that and evaluate that whole situation and see if we can come back and make some kind of recommendation to the Council rather than let that ordinance keep going on and on and on. I think it is going to get to the point that it doesn’t make sense especially if a new property owner comes along and buys a piece of property, and you tell him it is going to cost him $25,000.00 to hook up to sewer because it is going to keep going up like that. I would just like to see an evaluation of that and a recommendation to bring back to the Council in some way.
Mr. Brandgard said I think it is a good move to look at that and come back with a plan.
Mr. McPhail said I talked to Ms. Burgner briefly and I think with the right information she can tell us who is hooked up and who isn’t. The fact is I think there are probably a couple of other homes up there that the board of health needs to check out. We had one a couple of years ago and finally got it hooked up where there was raw sewage. I think that problem still exist so there is a need for some of those people to hook up to the septics that are not working. If they have to pay $13,500.00 or $14,000.00, I’m not sure that we will get them hooked up. They might just walk away I don’t know. But I would like to take a look at that.
Mr. Brandgard said I think we should. As I was leaving work today, I had a gentleman stop me that lives at the Medallion Meadows area where we put water in. They said they are beginning to get in need of sewers. He thought there were probably enough people to sign a petition. I said that is one step. I said I will let the Town Engineer know and that you need to contact him so be prepared.
Mr. Fivecoat asked, did you check into the one on Hunt Street?
Mr. Belcher said Mr. Fivecoat had called me on one at Hunt and Campbell. There is a little gap of homes in the Town, about 45 lots. We went through the exercise several years ago and now it has come back. Septic calls are going to be coming in. But that is another area. We are working on Mares Meadow and Glen Ellen too but a lot of those projects are coming to the surface.
Mr. Fivecoat said one of the owners approached me about hooking up and what it would take to get sewers in that area because his is failing. The next door neighbors’ is failing so that is the reason that I asked Mr. Belcher to look into it and see what he can come up with.
Mr. Kirchoff said just a reminder that on the 18th we have our transportation work session. We will be getting information to you for that.
Is there anything new on the Concrete Ready Mix? I was up there today and the road is still pretty messy.
Mr. Belcher said I have been up there a lot but we had a meeting with the owner. It was called by him through a mediator, a friend of his, Ken Barker who is a gentleman in Town that does a lot of concrete work who knew Mr. Hartman and convinced him to come in the Town and talk to us. So, we did have that meeting. Mr. Fivecoat was there and Mr. McPhail and myself and Mr. Higbee was there. We talked about the different options that he has to try to clean up his site. As I recall, he made a commitment to get an engineer, which I thought was his first step. He is thinking about doing something at that site, be it either some concrete in the front part right now to try to cut down on some tracking or maybe develop the whole site at some point. But he needs an engineering plan in order to address his drainage before he does anything. So, I think we convinced him through that meeting to at least do that much. I think that is almost the starting point for that. I haven’t heard anything since then.
Mr. Fivecoat said he has filled the gravel back in.
Mr. Kirchoff said I drove by it today and Carr Road is a mess.
Mr. McPhail said he made a commitment to hire an engineer to study his drainage.
Mr. Kirchoff said that’s a start.
Mr. McPhail said he wanted to just start pouring concrete but he didn’t have any idea where the drainage was going.
Mr. Kirchoff said so I think we would have been from one problem to another, flooding out a neighbor. I think we convinced him of that much.
Is there anything new on the Hobbs’ house?
Mr. Higbee said no. Mr. Carlucci had a suggestion the last time that we talked about it. If it happens relatively soon the developer that owns that site out there at Raceway Road the building is sitting on and he comes for a development plan approval, that is a point where we will be able to start talking to him again and maybe have some leverage over what happens with the structure.
Mr. Kirchoff asked, is there anything new from the research point to validate that it is or isn’t?
Mr. Higbee said no. I used a summer intern to do the research that I was able to complete and I haven’t had time to do anymore with it.
Mr. Daniel said last week Mr. Kirchoff, Mr. Belcher and I met on the Grundy situation. You may recall that we had one issue hanging out there and trying to get resolved on North Perry Road. There was discussion out there for a period of time about where the lines were and about how much was under pavement and how those calculations were made based on what was under pavement, etc. To make a long story short our last calculation, which was some time ago was that we still owed them about $1,915.36. In the mean time Dennis Grundy did some more investigating and looked into it. He satisfied himself where the
property line was. He believes it is different than where we thought it was. Mr. Belcher has looked at it and I have looked at it and Mr. Kirchoff looked at it. He came up with $5,798.58, which is a difference of $3,883.22. I talked to him after Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. Belcher and I had met and asked him if we recommended that we pay that amount whether that would once and for all conclude the Grundy matter, and he said yes. I don’t think it is unfair to go ahead and pay him the $5,798.58 and complete the Grundy acquisitions and issues. I will answer any questions that anybody has.
Mr. McPhail made a motion to settle with the Grundy’s based on the attorney’s recommendation of $5,798.58. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried.
Mr. Brandgard said maybe at the next meeting or the first meeting of April come in with an update or let us know what is going on with the new water plant.
Have you had a chance to research the legislation on the emergency management?
Mr. Daniel said I have gone over that and I will be glad to put together a short memo on that. There is no question as far as the Town issues are concerned that there are some issues there for the Town and the control and who has control of those assets on a response like that. And there are provisions to opt out of those. We have to have our own plan.
Mr. Fivecoat said we have people capable of doing it.
Mr. Brandgard said we really had a plan before the overall plan came in but we just need to update it.
Mr. Daniel said I will get you a short memo on that.
NEW BUSINESS
None.
ORDINANCES
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 05-2004 on its first rezoning. An ordinance on the Prock rezoning. Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Mcphail – yes
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
Mr. Fivecoat made a motion to approve Ordinance No. 06-2004 on its first reading. An ordinance to amend the Plainfield Zoning Ordinance for the addition of a park district. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called.
Mr. Kirchoff – yes
Mr. Fivecoat – yes
Mr. Gabbie – yes
Mr. McPhail – yes
Mr. Brandgard – yes
5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried.
ADJOURNMENT
Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to sign the necessary documents and adjourn. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried.
Meeting adjourned.
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Robin G. Brandgard, President
