PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL. January 28, 2002

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1 PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL January 28, 2002 The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, January 28, attendance were Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Young, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. McPhail. In PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mr. Brandgard said before we get started I would like to recognize the scouts that we have in the audience this evening who are here for their Citizenship and Community Merit Badge. As we like to do when you visit us, I would like to recognize the fact that you are here and invite you back at any time. And to also let you know that this is an open meeting and you can come and go as you please. We like for you to stay as long as you can but we understand the school night so when you have to leave, feel free and don=t worry about it. Again, thank you for coming and I would like to give everyone a certificate of recognition for coming here. So, when I read your name, you can come forward. Michael Burkhart, Tyler Heck, Tanner Heck, Matt Schover and Chris O=Neil. Those who didn=t get a certificate give Ms. Mitchell the names and we will get a certificate to you to show that you were here. We got them for those who we knew were coming. Again, we appreciate you coming and hope to see you back. CONSENT AGENDA Plan 1. Approval of the minutes of the regular Town Council meeting of Monday, January 14, Second Reading of Ordinance No : Regarding Removal of Weeds and Rank Vegetation. 3. Approval of the Request for Qualifications for the Comprehensive Project. Mr. Brandgard said the above ordinance should read instead of Mr. Young made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as amended. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried. BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR None. TOWN MANAGER=S REPORT Mr. Carlucci said I have a certification from a Plan Commission meeting for September 6. 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 Thursday, September 6, 2001 on the application of Saratoga Associates, LLC to rezone acres from AAG@ Agricultural to APUD@ Planned Unit Development, RZ The Plainfield Plan Commission voted six to zero to make a favorable recommendation to the Plainfield Town Council on the proposed amendment subject to the attached zoning commitments. I have dated this January 24, 2002 and signed it as the Secretary of the Plainfield Plan Commission. I gave a copy of the Staff Report to Mr. Kirchoff and to Mr. Young for their review. As you can see, the zoning commitments were pretty substantial on this. The acreage that we are talking about is an area that we have annexed into the Town. Mr. McNaught from Saratoga and Associates brought it to the Plan Commission to add it onto the Saratoga Planned Unit Development. Originally, that development was 250 acres and, of course, this is adding an additional 64 acres onto that development. To give you an idea where this is located it is located south of the old railroad right-of-way and north of U.S. 40. The part that is north of U.S. 40 is out by the Fraternal Order of Eagles and west of Kensington Estates. It runs north and south almost up to the old railroad right-of-way. The Plan Commission approved the rezoning based on those commitments. The developer has not yet brought projects in to be platted by the Plan! 1

2 Commission. So, we don=t have a specific project but any project that will come in will have to be based on the zoning commitments that were approved by the Plan Commission. And then if you give your consent tonight for approval of the Plan Commission=s recommendation, then we will record this document at the Hendricks County Recorders Office. I would like for Mr. Higbee to come up for a brief minute and talk about this project. Mr. Higbee said I have a graphic here of the area that Mr. Carlucci was just describing. As you will see, U.S. 40 runs along the south here. The parcel in question would be outlined in yellow and it was around 64 acres. There is a 62 acre portion here and about two acres here, a little finger dropping down to U.S. 40. Adjacent to it you will see a couple of parcels outlined in pink. You might recall that you recently had this come through the Council for approval. We were referring to that as the PUD down-zoning. The reason being, through the process of commitments being offered for this parcel, the petitioner was requesting some multi-family on this parcel. That was causing some concern with the Town and specifically on the southern third, approximately, about 24 acres of this large area here to the west that is outlined in yellow, they wanted multi-family. What they did to make that more closely fit the Comprehensive Plan recommendations for the Town of Plainfield is they took two other parcels, which had been part of an area approved around 1994 or 1995 as part of the original Saratoga PUD. Those had been approved for a mix of uses that could have included multi-family up to 12 units per acres. What they said is we will take these two parcels, which are greater in total acreage than the piece that we are asking for over here, and we will down-zone them to no more than five units per acre. Just so you know, on February 4 you will see the plats for these two parcels come through. It will actually be developed even lower than that at around between three to three and a half units per acre with single-family development. So, that is a substantial downward change from what could have been put there. Not only that but they offered on this southern third here where they would put multi-family, to cap it at 10 units per acre. So, that is lower than what they could have had there. In addition, they offered to make that portion meet our current standards for development, which are a higher standard than we had back in 1994 or So, we got a number of benefits by exchanging essentially this for that. The remaining portion to the north in the 62 acre area, the majority of it, would be single-family, no more than five units per acre. I believe it could also include single and two-family. This portion down here, the little two-acre finger dropping down to U.S. 40, could include multi- Family because it is contiguous with the area that was previously approved back in the mid 1990 s or it could include commercial. As you wee made aware earlier, there was substantial commitments. Those are presumedly in your packets and those explain the things tht I was just alluding to. Mr. Brandgard said that was an area where we thought we did a pretty good trade-off in the Plan Commission. It benefits the Town and follows the basic policy that we are trying to establish. With that I would entertain a motion to approve the Plan Commission recommendation. Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve the Plan commission recommendation to reazone acres from AG Agricultural to PUD Planned Unit Development referencing RZ Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried. Mr. Carlucci said I have listed as the second item on my portion of the agenda concerns of Lakeside Apartments. I have put down recycling grant application. There is a gentleman out there who is a resident of Lakeside Apartments. His name is Don Lawson. I would say about three months ago he contacted me about coming out for a meeting. First he wanted to know our rules about recycling. We provide curb side recycling for all single-family residential for no more than three units. So, anything above four units and above we don=t provide recycling services. Mr. Lawson understood that because that is typical of what most communities do with their recycling programs. I would say that Mr. Lawson has stuck with this because he had set up meetings where he had the people from DNR and IDEM coming out and West Central Solid Waste District and something would happen and they couldn=t get altogether but he stuck with this. We have been meeting pretty heavily over the last three or four weeks. The people that have been at these meetings have included the West Central Solid Waste District and IDEM, in terms of their recycling grant program. Of course, we have a lot of apartment complexes. Typically, starting a recycling program in apartment complexes has not been real! 2

3 successful and that is why you don=t see many of them because it is hard to do. People take all of their trash down and throw it away. That is one reason and the other reason is you have a lot of turnover so it is hard to get continuity in a program like this. So, you don=t see too many programs like that. Also, Ray=s Trash Service has been involved. Mr. Lawson has been pretty instrumental in getting everybody together. What the apartment people have to be convinced of is, not only educate people to recycle, but they are even discussing that you really can=t give them a bin to set out so what else can you give them because there is not a lot of room. Typically, people who live in apartments probably tend to throw more things away than a typical homeowner would because homeowners find places to store it. They don=t have places to store it so the trash per capita in an apartment complex per person is probably a little bit higher than homeowners because they have no where to put it and have to get rid of it. So, we have been working on trying to put this grant together. Everybody in the apartment complex seems to be in favor of it. What they want to recycle is they are trying to reduce the overall weight of what goes in the landfill. So, what is not going to be recycled at first would be aluminum cans and the plastic bottles and glass because the real weight is in cardboard and newspapers. That is really the heavy items so they are going to start with the cardboard and the newspaper. Because in terms of volume and weight when they weigh their dumpster and take it out, that is really where most of their cost is. They asked me to get permission to sign what they call a preliminary application. It is not committing the Town to anything but it is the first step in terms of submitting the application and getting approval to submit a final application. I said I would approach the Council about that. In terms of what we may commit to do here, one source of funding that we are going to meet with the commissioners about is, they have a landfill fee. They have told us in the past that there is money there and if we had something that we could use that for, that is what we might use as the matching grant. What we are hoping to prove if this is successful, is to try to then convince other apartment owners, not only in Plainfield, but County-wide that it did work here. You can do this and everybody can benefit from it, the people who live there, stuff not going to the landfill and especially the apartment complex owner who has that cost that he has to work into his rent for his people that are living there. If it doesn=t work, at least we tried. Lakeside is not, by any stretch of the imagination, one of the bigger apartment complexes. The group that is running and owns Lakeside has done a nice job down there. It is very clean and very nice and I think there was a time that it wasn=t that nice. I think it really has improved down there. Of course, when he called me, he said will you come to a meeting? Our first answer to anything like that is always yes because you never know when there is an opportunity there. I went down there and talked to them and I think this may have some possibilities. If I could get your permission to at least sign the preliminary application, then if I have a final application, I will bring Mr. Lawson to the Council meeting. We can then show you what kind of things that we will purchase for each of the tenants to carry their recyclables out and how this is going to work and will give you a more detailed presentation at that point. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given. Mr. Carlucci said one last item that I have is the final of the Newby Lake and White Lick master plans. We have this also on CD Rom and we are going to get this on our web site. If you need one that has all colored pictures, they gave us one copy. In there is a link so that people can go into the web site and take a look at it. That was part of our contract that we put together that they provide us with that kind of information. REPORTS Mr. Kirchoff said I wanted to thank Council Members and Staff for our work session last week on the transportation. I thought it was time well spent. I wanted to thank Mr. Belcher and Mr. McGillem on all of the hard work and appreciate everybody taking the time to participate. Mr. Young said on January 17 our police department, in cooperation with the federal agency, the Hendricks County=s Prosecutor=s Office and Staff put together an identity theft seminar for this community. There was a Afor profit@ company that cooperated, called Shred-It that also participated and provided free cross-shredding services for residents. I would have to say that it was good to see Plainfield taking that type of initiative for public! 3

4 education. Seeing the line of cars with box loads of personal documents getting shredded was good. We received media support, both print and electronic media. I want to thank the department for hosting a very successful program on that night. The second item is I gave each of you before the meeting some graphics. This is to alert you to some activity that is sponsored and is promoted by your police commission. Technology has made it so that traffic surveillance and traffic observances can be made relative inexpensive. I know that over the years we have looked at pull-behind trailers to monitor traffic. Now they have them where they can take advantage of in-car radar. The expense is the radar equipment. These come in a modular form where you can add modules that say the speed limit near the school zone is 35, you are going 45. There are modules that you can add should they feel that it is important. So, you can get a traffic count saying a 1,000 cars went by Van Buren Elementary and of the 1,000 of them 800 were over the speed limit. At the last police commissioner=s meeting there were three vendors identified. The one I just showed you I downloaded from the Internet. It is not the one that is particularly being elected. It is just one representative that is there. These can be placed unmanned in various locations. It is just to assist safe traffic control. So, when you drive around Town possibly in the year 2002 and see these things, I want you to know that this has been in the planning now for possibly six months but now it is getting serious. So, I thought I would advise you of what is going on. This will not require any budgetary appropriations. This can be operated out of normal funds so I just wanted to give you a heads up on that. The last issue is I have been receiving some very much appreciated correspondence from the Hendricks County Economic Development on some of the traffic issues in Avon and some of the County initiatives to help Avon=s traffic. Even though that is not our community I appreciate being kept advised. Mr. Higbee said you had the RFQ on your Consent Agenda tonight. And this was another thought I had related to that project. It is not part of the RFQ itself. Looking at how we are going to wrap up for that and be able to work with whatever consultant we select for the project in the future I had an idea that would benefit us in several ways. It would be to hire an extra summer intern this year, 2002 and have that person help do research as preparation for the Comprehensive Plan. The thought would be that for substantially lower cost we can get some research done as opposed to including that in with what the project manager would be doing for us. Then the intern, at my direction, would generate that research and hand it over to the consultant for input to the plan. Not only would that benefit the Comprehensive Plan and save us some money but it would also ultimately benefit our geographic information system, which Mr. Belcher has been working on the needs analysis for. Because, for instance, we could have that intern go out there and gather parcel numbers and addresses and some other things for some of those very same parcels we need for the Comprehensive Plan. We will build a little data base and hold it over for input into the geographic system as well. I=m sure that ultimately the Town is going to go in that direction. I don=t know the timing on that but I wanted to also let you know that if that meets with your approval, I can utilize existing funds in my budget. There was enough of a cushion in the funds that were allocated that could have been used for the Planning Consultant, Gene Valanzano. As you know, the past three years we have been cutting his hours every year as we have been trying to take on more and more of the high level support in my office. We have cut his hours substantially but we still have enough of a buffer because every year we have come in below what I have budgeted for Mr. Valanzano and I think we could pay for that extra intern. So, I would have one intern this summer for the normal purposes that I have had an intern for but this would be an additional intern specifically to help us get some research done for the Comprehensive Plan. Mr. Brandgard said I think we have benefited a lot over the years by using the interns and I think it is a good proposal as long as you stay within your budget. Mr. Prince said back at budget time we had presented in the budget some money to go toward communication within the parks department. Communication with the men in the field is non-existent at this time. I don=t need any! 4

5 action on the document tonight but this document explores the options available to us and also provides an analysis of the cost. If you could read that, I will ask you your comments at the next meeting. Another thing that I happened to copy for you today is on this article that I thought backed up some of the claims I made at the last meeting in regards to the skate park. I did not sight the source on this. This comes from a journal called Parks and Recreation. It is a journal of the Illinois Park and Recreation Association. Just today they dedicated their whole journal to skate park issues. What I thought was interesting in here is we talked about a skate park dollar for dollar being one of the best play value items that we could add to a park system. Most importantly in this brief article you will find that this group that is most interested in this skate park, which is your pre-teens, teens and young adults, is the hardest group to program for. We try and try to bring excitement to bring them benefits of recreation and what we can do for them. And this is a very difficult area but we find that they flock to a facility like this. But this is just for your review. Lastly, at the last meeting we handed out the skate park feasibility study and it was of my opinion that the Council desired that we explore using Swinford Park as the site for the skate park. If I understood you correctly, you asked me at this meeting to present to you a plan of a skate park for Swinford Park. I have done that for you. Knowing that we were going to be down here we didn=t make a large poster board but I will go through this with you and answer any questions that you might have about that. This is an idea of what a skate park could look like in Swinford Park. The skate park that we proposed was, after all three phases were built, a 30,000 square foot skate park. You are seeing that on this picture now, in scale, how it would relate to the existing ball diamonds in the park. Obviously, we have put in a lot of bells and whistles there. That is, obviously, how we would like the park to look some day. If you recall, we asked for a small center that would house the electrical panels and beverage machines and a phone and possibly a small message center for the skaters to post notes and notices. That was really Phase 1 with the others added as we grew the program and found ways to sustain it and make sure that the interest was still there. As you see right across the street, obviously, is the entrance to Anderson Park. Mr. Young said we saw a proposal with the skate park being put in Anderson where it is basically unapproved and we see this where it is sort of wedged between the existing activities. Would there be interference between the two competing venues?! 5

6 Mr. Prince said I met with the department heads, as you requested. I have actually spent a lot of time with the engineer trading back and forth Awhat if=s?@ And we really don=t feel the park is jammed in there. It may appear to be so but this park will be a flat slab of concrete and what you see there, obviously, looks intrusive into the park. But I think once the park is built it won=t seem that way. Our long-term vision, if we build the park there, would be to start putting some pine trees and some nice green trees along the trails in there and provide a buffer between the softball fields and the skate park. I=m sure you have read the feasibility study and we had some goals for any site. One of them was that it was easy to get to by the children and another one was that it was easily supervised. Another one is that we would not disrespect any of our citizens with noise. In the research that I have done so far it is not as big of a concern as we probably believe that it is. We looked around Town and this site seemed to make good sense. I don=t think that is going to encroach upon those spaces. That would concern me if I thought it did and I honestly don=t think that it will. We have put in some ideas for the path system within the park. You can, obviously, see that we are going to have to take out a small section of a path that is going to be in need of repair in a few years anyway. This gives us the opportunity to start putting a loop, so to speak, through the park instead of going around it. Mr. Young asked, would you prefer this over Anderson even though you have 10 to 17-year old young males doing their skating and bike activities right next to a very successful and highly active girls softball team, which surrounds the park? Mr. Prince said my first selection for this park was, obviously, Anderson Park but we have found there are some limitations to Anderson Park. One being that there is a possibility we may never be able to build a restroom facility there. We may never be able to develop this park into what I truly feel is going to be needed. This sport is growing like you cannot believe. After putting the mix together I really think that I would prefer to have it at Swinford Park. The location of this park is very important to me. I think I was a little bit hesitant but after speaking with everybody and actually spending some time out in that park over the last few days and looking at the potential to bring our paths around it I think I=m very excited about this park at Swinford. Mr. Carlucci said I had a daughter who played down there and friends of my daughter who played down there and I have ridden out at night during the summer and gone down there. One thing about what girls of all ages attract and that is boys of all ages. I notice that there are a lot of boys down there at night watching the girls. Secondly, there is a refreshment stand there. That is another attraction for the boys. Even if they are not playing out there, they will go there for refreshments. But I do notice that there are a lot of boys down there and at times they have been trouble down there, which happens when you get a lot of boys with other boys. So, if we have a facility like this, I think maybe they can go down there and watch the girls for awhile and then go over to the ramps and do something a little more constructive. Mr. Kirchoff said I was one of the people who had reservations about Anderson because of the location. I think one negative that you might want to consider here is the area that we are going to be taking up is used for a warm-up area for the girls softball teams. You will see! 6

7 5-6 teams out there taking batting practice throughout that whole green space. I think there is a way to work around it and I support this strongly over the other. Mr. Prince said with that in mind that is a very good point. On this drawing you can still see the sand volleyball courts. It is our plans to eliminate that next year. We have identified that as being an amenity that no one is using and while it continues to deteriorate it is reflecting poorly on the park. There are some other pieces of park equipment that we want to relocate because we asked money for this year for a new playground in Swinford Park and we are going to consolidate some playground equipment. There is still quite a bit of open green space down there. Obviously, if anybody thought it was going to be a concern, I would definitely want to discuss it with them. I would want to get the softball team=s input on what we are proposing on here. Mr. Brandgard said my concern is, with it being there, is it a distraction to the games? Mr. Prince said that is why we are putting in the white pines along there. Mr. Young said I agree with getting input from the softball team. Five years ago they could have used more facilities because of the success of their program. The Town had cooperated in a number of different ways at that time. And I guess I would need a more detailed explanation, off the record, as to why less than 50 yards from our treatment plant we couldn=t put in a restroom. Mr. Brandgard asked, is the reason for that our well field? We have two wells in the ground and then there is another one that is not in use yet. That is the problem with that location. Anderson Park looks like a nice location because it is big and flat but the proximity to the well fields is where the problem is. Mr. Prince said I visited a skate park last weekend, the one over in Illinois. It was probably 12,000 to 13,000 square foot of surface area. What I witnessed inside was about kids with about 15 spectators on the outside. You might expect a rough rowdy place but it was not rowdy at all. If these kids were talking to one another, they were talking about the move that they just made or if you do this, I think you will make it. They were a bunch of very well behaved kids that were concentrating so hard on what they were doing that I don=t think they had any indication of what was going on around about them. There were parents bringing their kids out to allow them to use the skate park and they are over here with their motorized car running around the park. And then the other kids are on the playground equipment. There were little kids walking down the street when I left with a skate board under their arm walking toward their skate park. There were very few cars required for parking as most of the kids had ridden over there on their bikes. Issues were brought up of noise. If you buy the appropriate equipment, there is no noise on the ramps that are disturbing to other people. I expected it to be a little more rowdy but I sat there for about 30 minutes on a picnic table and totally enjoyed myself watching all of the good behavior so I thought I would share that with you. Council Member Ward who is in charge of the parks is not here but I would take any advice from you on how you would like for me to proceed from here and I will continue to work on it. Mr. Brandgard said we need to run it by Mr. Ward and we need to get with the girl softball people. My concern! 7

8 is, from the player standpoint, would this be a distraction? I think this is something that we want to do but we have to get the proper location. From a site and security standpoint I think Swinford is probably better due to all the people around it. Mr. Carlucci said I might mention that this will have to go through the Board of Zoning Appeals for a variance. Our parks are zoned R-1, Single-family residential. The purpose of that is if you do something that could interfere with some of the neighbors, you would want the BZA to take a look at it. Which means they will look at the landscaping and the lighting. We are going to have to be very well prepared to, not only bring this back to you for your consent, but then bring it to the BZA for approval. We have a lot of issues to deal with. Mr. Kirchoff asked, can that be done by this summer? Mr. Carlucci said yes. this at the March meeting. We were hoping to file for Mr. Higbee said it could be done if they got it in by the middle of February. Mr. Carlucci said so I think that is what our plans are. We will sit down with Mr. Ward when he gets back and go through everything with him and go forward from there. I might mention too that Mr. Prince mentioned this today that he was in Chicago at a parks seminar but he mentioned that he got a contact from Danville who wanted a copy of the report. And Mooresville as well. So, you can see the popularity so maybe we will have a group of young men and interested parents in Danville that will want to move forward. I know Mr. McPhail has been talking with them around the square. Mr. McPhail said I saw about five kids today in a subdivision and they were trying to build ramps and I thought if there was a park someplace, they would probably be safer. Mr. Young said I was in Danville and I saw a group of middle school children in the street during rush hour. So, supporting a venue that would be safer, especially after the Brownsburg horrific accident, I think is worth consideration. Mr. Brandgard said also on the 17th Council Member Young was at the identity meeting, which after the reports on it, I certainly would have liked to have been there. But myself, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. McPhail went to the north/south corridor meeting that evening, which was supposed to be a meeting where all of the towns in the County were invited to hear the commissioners review. Also there was a gentleman from Purdue there talking about the wheel tax for the County. Again, as we all know, we don=t want to impose any more taxes then we have to. But we have been blessed with extra money for the last three or four years for the roads. That is going away and if we are going to keep the roads up, we have to replace it with something and that is where the wheel tax comes in. Even at the maximum amount you can get from the wheel tax you won=t come close to replacing the additional amount that we were getting from the State. You have that issue and the other issue is they keep talking about raising the gas tax and there appears that there is going to be an addendum to that where if you don=t have a wheel tax, you don=t get any gas tax from the County. So, there is a little arm twisting that goes back to the fact that every time you go to the State and ask for additional funds they come back and say you aren=t doing everything that you are! 8

9 allowed to do. On that basis we said that we would support the County in their efforts so far as looking at the wheel tax. I think the County Council is the one that enacts it, if there is one, and they are going to schedule a public hearing on it at some point and time. OLD BUSINESS None. NEW BUSINESS Mr. Daniel said we have an agreement in here to deal with our police dog. I think everybody on the Town Council is familiar with the situation. Mr. Young made a very good suggestion before this was finalized. Both the Town and the police department and Mr. Van Wagner will be a party to this. So, if you have had an opportunity to review that, I will answer any questions that you have. Mr. McPhail said it looks like to me that it addressed all of our issues. With that I move to approve the agreement to allow Mr. Van Wagner to purchase Kinta (retired canine dog) for one dollar. And with authorization given to Mr. Young to sign the agreement on behalf of the Town Council. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried. Ms. Mitchell said I gave the Council a copy of a preliminary agreement to enhance our computer system. We need to do some upgrades and add a couple of PC=s to the system. The software license and hardware agreement that I gave you is just for review, hopefully, to be addressed at the next Council meeting. Also, I learned today that the current PC that I have needs a hard drive. I knew it needed memory but that was not any major issue. Now it needs a hard drive update also. The total that they are telling me to install and to purchase is 256 memory and 20 gig of hard drive, which would be approximately $ I would like the Council=s permission to proceed on that before I have a problem. Mr. Brandgard asked, is that the installed costs? Ms. Mitchell said it=s tentative. I just found out today. I didn=t have a chance to give it to anybody. They took things off the computer to free up space so that I could continue to work this week. Mr. Kirchoff asked, how old is the PC? Ms. Mitchell said Mr. Carlucci said that is one that is connected to our server. Ms. Mitchell said that is correct. It has Indianapolis Water=s software on it. It is taking up a lot of space. Mr. Carlucci said this is a minor upgrade of the PC. I don=t know if she really needs Council approval. Mr. McPhail said I think that is well within your responsibility to take care of your equipment. Mr. Young said over the weekend I took the time to go through the Town Hall project and look at the construction update. Just as a report, I would say that they are making very good progress. I=m very pleased with! 9

10 the quality of the workmanship. It appears that things are moving along at a faster rate than I had anticipated. That prompted my proposal and that is one of the purposes of spending the large figure in renovating the Town Hall is to make our Town Government more accessible to citizens and to people doing business with the Town. One of the limitations right now that I perceive is our communication system. So, I would appreciate the Town Manager being given the authority to initiate a study and prepare a proposal that would be coincident with the opening of the renovated space. So, that we would have a modern up-todate direct dial telephone system that would access department heads and access individuals without tying up valuable switchboard people. Mr. Kirchoff asked, does that also include computer networking? Mr. Young said I thought the LAN was already a part of it but if it is not, certainly we would want to have a LAN. But to put fiber in now and to get it modernized so that we are not going through six hands to make one phone call. I think that is a little out-of-date and it is timely and consistent with what we did when we built this building. We looked at globally how we were serving the community and it was more than just bricks and mortar. It was how we serve so I would then make this a motion that I would like to see a project initiated to investigate and come back and present to the Town Council a recommendation on improving our communications system in the Town Hall and in Town Government. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried. Mr. Carlucci said I wanted to give a brief report that Council Member Kirchoff, Mr. Belcher, Mr. McGillem and I met with one of the commissioners of the Indiana Department of Transportation last week. We talked specifically about SR267 and what are concerns are. I won=t go into it in too much detail on that. We also met on the Six Points Road Interchange and the connection up to Stafford Road. We had major concerns about continuity with our local traffic and street and road system in what the Six Points Interchange will do. Not the interchange itself but the extension of that improvement up to Stafford Road. Representative Bob Behning arranged the meeting and we appreciate him doing this especially during a session and give us an hour of his time. In terms of SR267 with some of the issues I think it may take a good long time to work them out if we can work them out at all. But that is one of our Gateway Corridors. He was very impressed with how we feel about how that should look and understanding what their role is in terms of maintaining pavement and our desire to have something more when people come into our community. So, it was a very good meeting. I appreciate Mr. Belcher, Mr. McGillem and Mr. Kirchoff going down and I think we already have reaction from INDOT so I wanted to report on that. Mr. McPhail said I have some real concerns about our schedule for a recreation center and how we are going to meet the objectives that we have set forth. I believe that we need to seriously consider hiring a construction manager and get them on board right away to help move this project along. I think we have a situation where we have really three major projects there, one is site, the other is the building and the other is a pool. I think it is beyond the expertise of our Staff to be able to handle that. I have had some real good success with construction managers and I have had some real bad experiences with construction managers. But I believe we need to prequalify a list of people that we would feel comfortable with to bring them in to take a look at this project. I! 10

11 think it is going to be necessary for us to get the project done and to get it done timely and to get a quality job done. Mr. Brandgard said I tend to agree with you and I don=t think it is as much the ability of Staff as it is the time consumption of doing it. Mr. McPhail said I don=t know what legal parameters that we have to work within but I would want to make sure that there is some ownership of this by the construction manager and not just a paper pusher. There are projects where construction managers, as far as I=m concerned, are paper pushers and we need somebody that buys into this project that can help us with engineering and to move some of these things along quickly. I don=t know what our next move is, whether we should have a work session, or how we would approach that. But I think we ought to get together a list and invite them to make a proposal to us or something. I=ve never been involved in hiring one for a public project so I don=t know what our legal requirements are but it seems to me that it wouldn=t be much different than selecting an engineer or a consultant to help us with a project. Mr. Brandgard said I think we probably need to come up with what we are wanting them to do and then qualifications. Mr. McPhail said if we had some help, we could move forward as soon as the financing is set up on the site while some of the other things are being prepared. Mr. Daniel said other than complying with the normal requirements the Town, as a public entity, is the only difference. And a public project verses anything else is the public bidding laws, etc. But my experience has been, as Council Member McPhail has indicated, you cannot hardly get one of those retained too early because if you get the right one, they can really help you all the way through from preparing all of the documents, analyzing the engineering, analyzing the bids and really get your monies worth out the construction people. And it also gives them an opportunity to provide the services that they are being hired to provide. Most of them work on a percentage of the project. With it being a public entity, that is different than a private entity but it can be worked out. Mr. McPhail said when we start talking about qualifications, I think the construction manager should also be a general contractor and have the ability to do that rather than strictly a construction management company. I=m not comfortable with those people that just do that because I think they are nothing but paper pushers. There are several excellent general contractors in our area that provide construction management services. Mr. Young said we will possibly be doing some improvements on Vestal Road coincident with that so it would be a full-time job just running between four projects. I think this could possibly be a model for our new South Wastewater Treatment Plant where there is so much activity going on that it almost needs a full-time person overseeing millions of dollars worth of apparatus and construction. I think if we learned anything from our last large work to our wastewater treatment plant was having someone on site all of the time would have saved us years of legal wrangling with contractors. Paying up front rather than paying after the fact would certainly make the project go better for our community. I would certainly consent with proceeding.! 11

12 RESOLUTIONS Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Mr. Carlucci said I want to point out that both of these properties are south of Pike Lane. Mr. Young made a motion to approve Resolution No A resolution for the intention to purchase the Collins property. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called. Mr. Kirchoff - yes Mr. McPhail - yes Mr. Young - yes Mr. Brandgard - yes Mr. Ward - absent 4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried. Mr. McPhail made a motion to approve Resolution No A resolution for the intention to purchase the Ross property. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Roll call vote called. Mr. Kirchoff - yes Mr. McPhail - yes Mr. Young - yes Mr. Brandgard - yes Mr. Ward - absent 4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried. ORDINANCES Mr. Young made a motion to approve Ordinance No on its first reading. An ordinance rezoning from AAG@ Agricultural to APUD@ Planned Unit Development for Saratoga Associates. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called. Mr. Kirchoff - yes Mr. McPhail - yes Mr. Young - yes Mr. Brandgard - yes Mr. Ward - absent 4-ayes, 0-opposed, 1-absent. Motion carried. COUNCIL COMMENTS None. 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! 12

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