TOWN OF PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL. May 23, 2005

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1 TOWN OF PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL May 23, 2005 The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, May 23, In attendance were Mr. Gaddie, Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. McPhail and Mr. Kirchoff. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE CONSENT AGENDA 1. Approval of the minutes of the regularly scheduled Town Council meeting of Monday, May 9, Second reading of Ordinance No : Duke Rezoning to I-1, Office Research District and I-3 Office/Warehouse Distribution District and Ordinance No : BW Partners, LLC from R-4, Medium-Density Residential to OD, Office District. 3. Approval of the IT Director s Report dated May 23, 2005, Human Resources Director s Report dated May 21, 2005; Transportation Director s Report dated May 20, 2005 and the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Approval of the April 2005 monthly report for the Plainfield Fire Department. 5. Approval to release retainage in the amount of $5, and accrued interest to Harco Asphalt Paving for the Harlan Street Storm Sewer project per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Approval of Change Order #1 to the contract with Hunt Paving Company in the amount of $2, for the final measured quantity adjustments for the Southfield Drive extension project per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Approval to release retainage in the amount of $10, plus accrued interest for Hunt Paving Company for the Southfield Drive extension project per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Acceptance of sanitary sewer easement from the Indianapolis Airport Authority across Lot 14 in the Stanley Cove Subdivision per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Acceptance of sanitary sewer easement from Ryan S. Morgan crossing Lot 25 in the Mares Meadow Subdivision per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Approval of the quotation from JDH Contracting in the amount of $19, for construction of a sewer connection to Ryan S. Morgan property per the Town Engineer s Report dated May 21, Approval of renewal agreement between the Town of Plainfield and Midwestern Electric, Inc. that has been modified to reflect current labor and equipment costs per the Transportation Director s Report dated May 20, Re-approval of Change Order #1, Dan Jones Road project in the amount of $80, to the contract of Atlas Excavating including authorizing Councilor Kirchoff to sign the change order per the Transportation Director s Report dated May 20, Rescind the third and final reading of Ordinance No : Duke/Brunswick Park Annexation that was inadvertently included on the Consent Agenda for the May 9, 2005 Town Council meeting per the Town Manager s recommendation. Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as read. Second by Mr. McPhail. Roll call vote called. Mr. Kirchoff yes Mr. McPhail yes Mr. Fivecoat yes Mr. Gaddie yes Mr. Brandgard yes 5-ayes, 0-opposed, 0-absent. Motion carried. PUBLIC HEARING: Becton Dickinson Real Property Tax Abatement! 1

2 Mr. Brandgard said we have two public hearings this evening. Do we have proof of publication? Mr. Daniel said yes we do. Mr. Brandgard said the first public hearing is the Becton Dickinson Real Property Tax Abatement. Mr. Carlucci said I will just briefly go over some of the numbers on the Becton Dickinson project. Becton Dickinson is a Fortune 500 company. They are going to locate a new distribution/warehouse facility on the north side of Reeves Road. It will include Sections 1; 2 and 3 on the former Brunswick Park Subdivision. The initial building will be 653,000 square feet. It has an expansion capability to 965,000 square feet. It is located on approximately 63.5 acres. Becton Dickinson will invest 20 million dollars in the land and the building and an additional 20 million dollars invested in machinery and equipment. Becton Dickinson will retain 94 employees and add 70 employees by the year At the last meeting I went over, at length, the strategic benefits for the Town. I actually will talk a little about that later under my report on the Indiana Department of Commerce infrastructure grant. We have here tonight Blaine Paul from Duke. He might want to briefly show the building. Some of you have seen it at the Plan Commission meeting. Also with me is Brian Haynes who is the Operational Manager for BD. I know he had a couple of words he wanted to say. Mr. Brian Haynes said first of all I would like to thank the entire Town of Plainfield. I started in on this project about a year and a half ago. We looked at a lot of sites and Plainfield was our top choice all along. It is the best place for distribution. I think you guys have done a wonderful job of really promoting your community and promoting the benefits that your community as for business as well as the general population. From BD we are very happy to say Plainfield is going to be our home for the next several years. So, thank you on behalf of BD. We are really looking forward to this project getting underway. We have 94 people at BD right now that work for a thirdparty logistics provider. We are hoping we can move the majority of those people here so that we don t lose any jobs as well as create 70 new jobs, which is very important to us. We wanted to stay around Central Indiana. When we did our network study, there were three main areas. There was Columbus, OH; Indianapolis and Boling Green, Kentucky. Obviously, BD is a type of company that likes to take care of its own. We try to stay near the place so that we can take care of the people that work for us. So, again on behalf of BD we like to thank you for everything that you have done. Mr. Brandgard said thank you. We appreciate your comments. We also welcome you to Town. Mr. Carlucci said a lot of you have already seen the building. They are on a very short fuse to get this done. This project requires everybody moving very quickly. We are running multiple planning and zoning issues, vacation of streets and rights-of-ways, variances, annexations all parallel with each other to try to get this done. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the Council relative to this public hearing? Being no one coming forward we will close this portion of the meeting tonight and go to the next public hearing. PUBLIC HEARING: Additional Appropriations Town Road Fund Mr. Carlucci said the next item has to do with an additional appropriation. This came about because the Town of Plainfield went through the Department of Local Government Finance for approval of a bond issue. We agreed to do this in concert with the Plainfield Community School Corporation to construct the road around their facility. We have to spend money in a way that the State requires us to do an additional appropriation. That is why we are here. We are doing this to meet the statutory and administrative requirements of the State to do this. There are other steps that we have yet to do. One of them is to sell the bonds. We anticipate within the next 10 days to get a notice from the Department of Local Government Finance approving the bond issue. Then everything will kick into high gear. The notice has been given and it has been in the paper.! 2

3 Mr. Brandgard asked, is there anyone in the audience who would care to address the Council relative to this public hearing, which is the additional appropriations for the Town road fund? Mr. Carlucci said it was 3.1 million for the additional appropriation. I believe that is actually in the resolution. Mr. Daniel said it is. Mr. Brandgard said being no one coming forward we will close the public hearing and move to the next item on the agenda. BUSIENSS FROM THE FLOOR Mr. Jeff Kanable said I m here representing Premier Properties at 5252 E. 82 nd St., Indianapolis. I m here to talk about the future east/ west road running from SR267 to Six Points Road that is a primary access point for our development, Metropolis. We would like to see that future road named Metropolis Parkway. We feel that the road is an extremely important southern access point for Metropolis to pull people off of SR267 and Six Points Road. We feel naming this road Metropolis Parkway is pretty critical for identification purposes. Our study shows that the shoppers will come from beyond Plainfield and Avon but from all around the region. We think providing these people with clear and simple directions is the best way for Metropolis to be successful. We feel that Metropolis Parkway is a name that gives people an indication that they are moving in the right direction and that they will reach our project. Mr. David Flaherty with Flaherty and Collins Properties said we are the owner and developer of the 264-unit apartment complex out at Metropolis, which would be the central park at Metropolis. We understand there is some issue regarding the naming of the road. I just wanted to appear tonight and express our support for having Metropolis Parkway as the name of the road as the branding of ours as well as the retailers. Getting the name recognition is very important as well as directing prospective tenants and retail buyers to the area. It sounds like it isn t a big deal but it really is. There is a real special development going on here and I think we are all fortunate to be part of it. But we really want to create the image of a spectacular development and not just a development, it is the area. So, the more that we can incorporate the name of Metropolis in with the road system as well as the different developments then we think we would all benefit. I m not sure what the down side would be to allow the name. I know it would hurt us not to have it. Would our deal go bankrupt? No but it would definitely have a financial impact on us as well as it would the retailers and we think others in the area. It is very important to us and I did want to take the opportunity to appear before you tonight and express our concern and support for including Metropolis as the name of the road. I would be happy to answer any questions. Mr. Brandgard said you mentioned that it would have a financial impact. Explain that please? Mr. Flaherty said with us it is all about getting people to the property. Can we say okay we are going to lose out on not getting x number of residents? It is hard to quantify but the easier it is to get people to the property the more recognition we can have with the name of our property in the area then the more marketable the property becomes and the easier it is to lease our units. We are going to have some very high-end units so we just want to create that image. If a couple of tenants walk out the door, they are not going to say I m not leasing here because of the name of the road. It is not a conscious decision like that. It is more of the impression or the image that they get when they walk in and they come down Metropolis Parkway, pull into our property with Metropolis in the name and pass the Metropolis retail center. It creates an image. There really isn t hardly anywhere in Central Indiana that as we travel around the country and see these planned developments that, have a lot of different pieces to it and they are very well thought out, we see the names incorporated into those developments. It would definitely be a negative. Can I tell you how much it would cost us? I can t quantify that. I apologize. Mr. Kirchoff asked, how much money are you willing to put up to help us build that road?! 3

4 Mr. Flaherty said we have been through that whole situation. What we are doing that we would not normally do is the cost of our development is probably 20% more than other developments that we have done. That is to create a standard and an image to get it at this level more than the typical apartment complex. If there is a financial contribution, I would like to think that is our financial contribution. Mr. Ben Comer said on the second reading of Ordinance No on the Consent Agenda did the Council do the second and third reading or just the second? Mr. Brandgard said just the second. Mr. Comer asked, is that later in the agenda tonight? Mr. Carlucci said yes. TOWN MANAGER S REPORT Mr. Carlucci said I want to report on the Becton Dickinson project. I had mentioned earlier that the Indiana Department of Commerce, which is now the Indiana Economic Development Corporation has an infrastructure grant program. Here tonight is Harold Gutzwiller, with the Hendricks County Economic Development Partnership. As we went through this project, we were very involved with probably one of the first projects the State did under the new governor and the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. The State has agreed to provide the Town of Plainfield with a $400, infrastructure grant. The Town of Plainfield has agreed to put in $473, Let me go into what that will involve. It s dollar for dollar. If we only spent $400,000.00, the State would spend $400, and hopefully we would save $73, somewhere. It s dollar for dollar, it s reimbursable to the Town. We spend the money up front and then they reimburse us for those costs. We have done several of these before. I ve already talked about the jobs and also one thing I did want to mention is the Indianapolis Airport Authority is the owner of the land. They are selling the land to Duke Realty. That land will now go back on the tax rolls. But this money, the main part of it, will primarily pay for reconstructing Reeves Road from approximately SR267 to Duke building number five, which is probably a little over threequarters of a mile of roadway. It will be reconstructed into a wide two-lane road with curb and gutter. This will give us, with the addition of improving Reeves Road from SR267 west to Center Street, any improvements on Reeves Road from Perry to Columbia Road. It will give us a complete new and/or reconstructed roadway from Center Street all the way to Columbia Road. That is critical for the Town to have another east/west road, which basically mirrors Stafford Road and U.S. 40 across our community. This will also have a benefit to the school system. Their buses can go on Reeves Road east to SR267 to Whitaker Road and go north on Whitaker Road to their bus garage. That will cut their time down. It will give them a safe road to travel on. The area to the south of Becton Dickinson site is currently being marketed by the property owner. By having this roadway constructed to a Town standard urban section road we think development will come quicker on the south side of that road. So, there have been many pluses to having that road rebuilt. Another issue that we have right now is a lot of the vehicles that take the perimeter road or Perry Road on the east side of Town a lot of those trucks end up all at the Hadley Road/SR267 intersection. Sometimes it is very busy down there. Sometimes it s not but when it is busy, it is very irritating to our residents. By having this road redone and by having a new signal at SR267 and Reeves Road that will be part of the SR267 project and that will allow the truck traffic to have another way to get to SR267 without having to go through the Hadley Road intersection. We think a lot of trucks will chose that direction or they can go to Columbia Road and go out that way. But we think it will defuse a lot of that truck traffic and make it a lot safer and move the traffic a lot quicker. Part of that money is also to go for extension of water and sewer lines. Water is already out there. We don t believe those extensions will be very long but we will then move that line from SR267 and connect it up to the Duke building five line, which will give us a loop in that line. Sewer is there. It is just a matter of making it more accessible to the developer for that project. With that we get an! 4

5 almost 50% grant. We have been pretty good about using other people s money to further our goals for the Town. But I will have to ask you tonight for permission on a couple of things. One is to authorize the Council President, the Clerk/Treasurer, Mr. Isaacs, myself and Mr. Daniel to sign the grant application. And also authorize Council member Brandgard to sign a letter to the Department of Commerce to request early approval to expend funds as opposed to waiting for the grant to come back fully signed. So, I would need Town Council approval for that. Mr. Gutzwiller will make sure we sign everything properly and then he will hand deliver it to the State or get it to the Department of Commerce so that they can get it executed. Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the infrastructure grant and authorize Mr. Brandgard, Mr. Carlucci, Mr. Isaacs and Mr. Daniel to sign the agreement. Second by Mr. McPhail. Motion carried. Mr. McPhail made a motion to authorize the Council President to sign a letter for authorization to expend funds prior to the receipt of the grant. Second by Mr. Kirchoff. Motion carried. Mr. Carlucci said at the last Council meeting we approved a contract with Fararr Garvey to do the redesign of that roadway. We were going to hold off until we got the grant application. We didn t have the application in hand. Now that we do I would ask for permission to have the Town Engineer to authorize Fararr Garvey to begin the actual design of the reconstruction of Reeves Road. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent to issue a notice to proceed? Consent given. Mr. Carlucci said later in the evening there are two tax abatement resolutions. The first one is for Panattoni Development Company, building two. As you know, Panattoni has an existing distribution center. It is directly north of the Brylane building. They have another lot just south of their existing building on Perry Road and they are on the west side of Perry Road. They have 28.5 acres. They are proposing to construct a 500,000 square foot speculatively warehouse distribution facility. The value of the investment and land and building is estimated at 9.7 million dollars. I just wanted to give you those facts prior to that coming up in the resolution. The other item I have is Panattoni Development Corporation, if you know where the Fulkerson property is on Stafford Road, on the north side, at one time there was going to be a residential development there. That project they are proposing to construct a 750,820 square foot building on that property. It is expandable to 1,221,380 square feet. It is going to be constructed on 82.4 acres. It is just directly west of the Bridgefield Subdivision. There is a potential company that is going to relocate there. Their board of directors have not given final approval. So, at this point it will remain unnamed. They are going to retain 377 full-time jobs and add an additional 130 jobs. The total investment in land and building is $29,748, That is a pretty substantial building. The company would like to occupy that building in January. The reason that I bring that up is they are going through the Plan Commission in June for approvals. You may recall that the Fulkerson property had a sewer line that went diagonal through that property. They have to relocate the sewer. If you see some work, it s not as much as saying we will do what we want out there but it is saying they have to do something but we won t meet their deadline. We are concerned that the Plan Commission would be upset but we don t see any choice but to let them try to move some dirt and move that sewer line. Mr. Kirchoff said no matter what is developed it will probably have to be done anyway. Mr. Carlucci said that sewer line will have to be done because it is zoned I-2. It is no longer residential. At some point the sewer line is going to have to be moved. Mr. Belcher said no matter what develops there that line would have to be moved. It is a good chance it will be started before all the approvals are granted. But the sewer would be approved ahead as far as the plans go and that wouldn t change. The only other thing is, and you may be aware, that they are going to relocate the creek that! 5

6 also runs diagonal across there. That is something that they have been working on for a year or better to get the permits in place. So, that also may be going on all at the same time, a lot of earth moving involved with that to create a channel that is, I think, a couple hundred feet wide actually. It has a lot of wetlands planning. It is a unique project. I think it will be quite a good project for the Town too but because of the amount of effort that has to go through there it will have to start soon to meet the schedules that they want to meet. Mr. Kirchoff said you talked about the main adjacent property owner. Are there any other property owners in the area? Mr. Belcher said that is one reason we wanted to bring this up tonight. The abutting property owners to the east in the residential area would get noticed on the public hearing coming up in June, if they haven t already gotten noticed. I think Panattoni was going above and beyond trying to let them know about what was going on there. Drainage is being dealt with as it would have been in the prior approval back when it was Rambling Brook Farms. A lot of the concepts that were approved there by the Plan Commission are also in this project as far as making sure the drainage works. The original primary approval on the Fulkerson Farm was Rambling Brook Farms. So, I don t think anybody would be surprised. The zoning is already I-2 out there so those homeowners would all have been notified during that. Mr. Carlucci said they have spent a lot of time and effort on that piece of property with fish and wildlife, the Corps of Engineers, DNR and another federal agency that has to do with relocating the stream. But to the extent of the work that we would allow them to do has to do with the sewer line and relocating that creek and that would be it. There is no reason to let them do anything else prior to the Plan Commission approval. Typically, if somebody already has those approvals, we will give them a foundation release early, if they really need it. But in this case we won t do that because they don t have Plan Commission approval for a building yet. But we should know shortly in regards to the company that will be there. It is a company that is already in Central Indiana. REPORTS Mr. Fivecoat said I ve been working with the Hendricks County Solid Waste District along with Mr. Gaddie. We thought we had a private individual going to take over the waste site treatment facility down here. That fell through. Knowing we are going to be building a trail in that area I think maybe we need to start looking at moving that facility. They are running out of space down there because we moved them from the back up towards the front and it is costing the district about $2, about every two weeks to have that ground up and moved out of there so we can have more people drop off yard waste. So, I think we need to start looking at moving that facility. Mr. Brandgard asked, do you have any idea what size? Mr. Fivecoat said not right off hand. I thought I would get with Mr. Castetter and maybe tour some places to see where we have some property we could put it. I know pretty soon they will be coming in with a lease agreement between the Town and the district because we are getting them put together now. I thought we would get this on the table now and start looking. They are running out of room. On Saturdays they are backed up down Vine Street waiting to get in. Mr. Brandgard said the fact that it is right in the middle of the trail system it was going to have to be moved anyway. I think we need to move on that. Mr. Castetter said I have an idea for it. Mr. McPhail said at the recreation center we have instructed the contractor to start the design and move forward on a chiller enclosure. It is moving forward. We have a date set of Wednesday afternoon to do a final punch list. There are still a few minor items that need to be taken care of. All in all I don t think it will delay any openings but there are a few minor issues of things that we need to get cleaned up. Mr. Kirchoff said at the last Council meeting I committed that I would get with Staff and get a policy to you and get it drafted for the location and installation of lighted street signs. Other matters have intervened and I haven t had the opportunity to do that. I will get! 6

7 that done and because of some discussions that we are having with Metropolis and street lighting we need to get the street lighting committee together. So, maybe after the meeting we can pick a date for the four of us to meet. I would like Mr. McGillem to come in and share some of the things going on at the Metropolis. Those are the only two items that I had, just meetings that I need to get set up. Mr. Castetter said I want to thank the Council for allowing me to move forward with the new utility truck. It is going to used for a good purpose for our sewer collection. OLD BUSINESS Mr. Brandgard said I would like to deal with the Wincher Heights sanitary sewers and then we will come back to the reports. Mr. Fivecoat said I met with Mr. Daniel and Mr. Belcher the other day. We came up with an agreement that we can all live with. We want to be fair to everybody out there. The Council has a copy of the memorandum that Mr. Daniel sent laying out what we have come up with. Mr. Daniel said all of these properties are obviously within 300 feet of a sewer. Under State law, and because of the letter that we got from the County, the Town believes that they must require all of those properties to become connected. To do that and to enforce that the statute requires that they be given 90 days notice via certified mail. So, part of the reason that you see the timing in the memorandum it relates to making sure we have the 90 days in place, etc. and gives everybody a real opportunity to position themselves to connect. In the event there will be a 90 day notice go out, if this is approved by the Council, then anybody who fails to connect after that 90 day notice expires, the statute gives the Town the authority to go to the Hendricks County courts and require the connection and also requires the property owner to pay the costs and the reasonable attorney fees for the Town in pursuing that connection. Based upon the requirements of notice and to make sure that the Town gets everyone notified that needs to be notified it has been suggested that we engage a title company to do a title search on the remaining properties. We think we know who they are. We will give the title company the information that we have, which we think will expedite things. Then we would suggest that the notice be out prior to July 1, which will give time for the title company to do its work and for the Town to get the notice prepared and sent out, which then would make the 90 day notice expire on September 30, Which means the property owners by September 30, 2005 would have to agree to connect or be connected one way or the other. The amount that has been arrived at, based on the calculations, can be paid in three different ways. The amount is $10, That can be obviously paid in cash. It can be paid in installments. The prior agreement that was used before was a 10-year agreement with 120 payments. It would be suggested that it also be a 10-year, 120 payment installment contract. The only thing that would change that installment amount would be the interest rate that is applied to that. Mr. Belcher put together a table in his report showing the different monthly report that would result starting at two-percent and going to six-percent. You may recall that the earlier agreement had a sixpercent fee in it, which was appropriate at the time. Our bonding now is probably somewhat less than six-percent and that is how that was arrived at before. At that time our bonding cost was about sixpercent. We had been told that there may be some parcels that are owned by persons that just absolutely cannot either make a cash payment or make the monthly payments. The suggestion was that they provide some reliable information of the hardship that they have in paying that and if that is satisfactory with the Town, we have some ideas along those lines dealing with tax returns. We would ask them to sign a lien that would be applied against their property that would be placed on the property and would only be enforced in the event the ownership of the property is transferred. So, there would be a lien with interest accruing but they would be allowed to connect and not be required to pay either through the installment contract or the cash at this time. The only other item was the inspection fee. The inspection fee right now is $ The inspection fee when we last contracted, was $ You may recall connection fees are absorbed in the $10, The thought in mind in trying to make it as even as it can be is it has been suggested that the inspection fee for this project be $25.00 rather than the current $ That is the result of the meetings! 7

8 that we had and the proposal and the memorandum. questions, we would be glad to answer those. If you have any Mr. Kirchoff said the only question that I had was the interest rate in the draft was artificially low. I thought we ought to have some discussion around that. What is our current rate? Mr. Belcher said I just looked at the current bond issue. The littlest bond issue in 2003 and the interest rate ranges from 3.5% to 4.75% in terms of what our current costs are. Mr. Kirchoff said I m not a financier but I ran some numbers and it seems to me in one of our earlier conversations when we took the $7,800.00, if we applied the 6% for the 10 years, that really comes out to almost $14, at 6% per year. So, the $10, equates to about a 3.3% reduced rate. So, I think we are reducing our true costs there. I just think to be fair to the other ratepayers in the Town we should not have a subsidized rate but it be something reasonable and comparable to what we are paying. I don t think we should make money on our interest rate but I don t think we should lose money. Mr. Gaddie said I think in the $10, we already have 6% figured in there. Mr. Kirchoff said $7,800.00, if we had applied 6% for 10 years, we would have charged $14, We are only charging $10, So, the $7, really has only been added at 3.3% is all we are asking at the $10, rate. So, we have already reduced the carrying charges once. I m not opposed to that. I m very comfortable with the $10, number. I m just saying I don t think we should have a large subsidy as we go forward because we have already subsidized some of the interest. Mr. McPhail said that s about half of the interest, about half of the 6% interest. Mr. Kirchoff said I think we did the right thing there. we did it with some of the other fees that we had. I think Mr. McPhail asked, what did you say the current bond rates were? Mr. Isaacs said we are getting about 3.5%-4%. Mr. Kirchoff said I don t think we should be making money on this but I also don t think we should be overly subsidizing. I like the plan. I think it makes sense. I just think we need to be fair to the other ratepayers and not ask them to subsidize it anymore than they already have. Mr. Fivecoat said our legal counsel found out that we had talked about at one time about a sewer lien against the property, if they didn t pay. We found out in the State law with the sewer liens once we place a sewer lien on property the next year the taxes come out that sewer lien is on there and they have 90 days to pay it or foreclosure happens. We said we wanted to stay away from that completely. That is the reason that we came up with this lien instead of a sewer lien because it wouldn t be fair to the people out there because the State law is very specific what a tax lien is on sewers. Mr. McPhail made a motion to accept the recommendation of the committee to charge $10, and to offer a 10-year payment on a 4% interest rate and that we extend our offer for a lien agreement for those who are able to proof that they are unable to participate in the program as stated. And that we reduce the inspection fee to $ Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Mr. Daniel said before we take any action there is one thing I failed to mention. I believe it is in the memo but I failed to mention it. One other thing that we looked at, and Mr. Belcher had talked about the dates of the contracts as far as when they start, it was suggested that all contracts, all payments start January 1, So, that we don t have somebody trying to keep track of different commencement dates. In addition that gives the property owner essentially from tonight s meeting by the time paperwork is finished and the notices go out, etc. to January 1 to get their arrangements made to get their own work done and get connected. That allows a couple more months without any payments.! 8

9 Mr. McPhail amended his motion to allow for the contract payments to commence January 1, Second by Mr. Fivecoat. Mr. Gaddie - no. Mr. Fivecoat, Mr. McPhail, Mr. Kirchoff and Mr. Brandgard aye. Motion carried. Mr. Mike Williams at 345 Meadow Lane said I didn t hear anything in there about is there going to be any kind of penalty if we pay it off early? If we pay on this a couple of months and then come up with the money, do we have to pay for the 10 year in-term or what? There was nothing mentioned about that. Mr. Daniel said there will be an installment schedule that will be prepared showing how much goes to principal and interest. So, that any time someone wants to pay that off, we had one of those in the last one, if he pays 13 months of 25 months, you can come in and they can tell you what your payoff balance is. That would basically cancel out the interest for the rest of the term. Mr. Kirchoff said there is no prepayment penalty. Mr. Daniel said I will start preparing the documents. Mr. Al Smith at 725 Henley said one thing that I really didn t grasp for sure in here is you didn t specifically address the unimproved lots. Mr. Daniel said no. Mr. Smith asked, is there still no decision regarding that? Mr. Fivecoat said what we looked at there is they are not hooked to the sewers. We just left them like they are. They are vacant lots. Mr. Smith said if it became a building lot then what? Mr. Fivecoat said they would have to come in and go through the process. REPORTS Mr. Ron Lydick said I want to give you a little historical prospective as far as to how our health rates have happened over the last few years. Our claims experience each year by Anthem is judged on February 1 st through January 31 st. So, starting with February 1 st of 2000 to January 31 st of 2001 our claims were 89% of the premiums. With the other costs that Anthem has they actually had about a 10% on our account. The next year we really had a bad year in We had a loss ratio of 102% and then with the other expenses we had a total loss of 20% by Anthem. But one year they gave us an 18.96% increase. The next year they gave us a 28.82% increase. So, I think they got their money back by increasing our premiums. Then in 2003 our claims experiences started coming down. We only had 85% of our premiums that were paid out in claims and they had a loss of 3.5%. But they made a big change in our policy in They did away with our HMO and went to PPOs and when we did away with the HMOs, they did away with a five million dollar maximum and changed it to a one million maximum. By doing that they were able to hold our rate. In other words they did not increase in the year In 2004 our claims went down again. They are down to 76.84% of the premium and Anthem, for the first time, actually had a profit of 6.54% on our account. Then this year claims went down again. Our claims are only 68% of the premiums. So, I think this is a testament to our employees as being wise medical consumers by doing a lot of the preventative care and also using the mail-in prescriptions in order to save money. As a result, Anthem had a gain this year of almost 15%. As usual, Anthem likes to come in with a rate increase so we decided to do some shopping around for insurances and Lee Hunt is our insurance broker and he went to five different insurance companies. Two of them refused to give us a quote. They said they were not competitive with what we were paying for our benefits. We got two other quotes and the one that was most viable with M-Plan. I don t know how familiar each of you are with the M-Plan but it is strictly an HMO. The benefits for the out of network are considerably less. M-Plan came in with a rate that is less than what we are paying now. In fact, based upon the current census of our employees the M-Plan s annual cost would be about $130, less than what we are currently paying with Anthem. The employees pay about $28, of that $130, and the rest of it is born by the Town. It would be a little over $100, Anthem knew that we were! 9

10 talking to M-Plan and because each time that I communicated with them I said we had not made a decision yet. The Council is kind of ignoring your proposal and that we are seriously considering the M-Plan. I actually wrote a letter to our broker encouraging him to do some work for us. I had a conference last week and when I got to the office on Friday afternoon, I received a letter stating that Anthem will not increase our rate the third year in a row. Even though back in 2001 and 2002 we had a lot of claims we have not had an increase in the last three years. Anthem will not increase our rates and they are not changing the benefits at all. They are not decreasing our benefits. It is the same policy we have right now except it is going to be at the same price as it was this year and last year and the year before. Mr. McPhail said it was a good job. Mr. Kirchoff said well done. Mr. Brandgard said I want to make note that the letter you sent to Mr. Hunt was a very well written letter. It was to the point and I want to make mention of the fact that I appreciate it. Mr. Carlucci said Mr. Lydick asked me to look at that letter before he sent it. Normally in the Staff we check each other s letters. I gave it back and said just send it and see what happens. Mr. Fivecoat said it got some results. Mr. McPhail said I think it is fair to say that our employees, with our direction, have certainly reduced the cost of health care, reducing those claims and taking care of themselves better and better utilizing the services. It took a little effort but I think Anthem recognized our efforts and I appreciate that. Mr. Kirchoff said I would agree that it is a yeoman s job. I read through that and we have had iterations of that and one thing that hit me, and I m sure you are doing this but I just want to double-check with you, we are down to where we don t have a lot of options. Is there something that we could be doing, as a customer, to begin to give ourselves more options? It s like it is Anthem or it is M-Plan. That doesn t make me feel real good that we can t seem to have other people interested in our business. Mr. Lydick said the comments that I have heard is some people are not real fond of self-insured. As you will review these figures, if Anthem loses money one year, the next year the premium is enough to cover the losses from the last year. Back there when we had the 10% loss, they raised our rates 18%. The next year we had a 20% loss and they raised our rates 28%. One thing you can do is to think about doing a self-insured plan. Another option, and it is a relatively new one, and that is the health savings account. That is different than the flexible spending account. The health savings account is a plan where you buy insurance with a high deductible and the minimum deductible is $1, per year. But then an employee can set aside money to fund that deductible. And, of course, the Town could also contribute to that deductible. Mr. Kirchoff said the only reason that I m bringing it up now we are buying ourselves a year here. We are going to take this offer with no increase. We bought ourselves some time where I think we ought to be thinking about other options because it seems like we get down to the wire. We got to the point where we had two choices. In today s world that doesn t make me feel very good. Mr. Brandgard said on the other hand the way that I read what we had the reason that we didn t is because we are already under what they would charge. Mr. Lydick said our plan is very rich and lot of insurance companies don t want to quote on that. I don t know if you remember but on our prescription plan we have $5.00 for generic; $12.00 for a brand name and $22.00 for the non-formulary drugs. The M-Plan came back with a four-tier drugs. The third-tier that we are paying $22.00 for they want $ When we mail ours in, we can get a 60-day price and 60 days worth of drugs for a 30-day price so we can get 60 days for $ They want $ for a 90-day supply. So, there is a huge difference so I think because of our prescription plan is one reason why a lot of insurance companies don t want to quote on it because it is so rich and they know it is going to be expensive. I would have to! 10

11 look it up but I think a fourth of our total claims are in prescriptions. Mr. McPhail said one issue that I had several discussions with the chamber members over the last couple of years is this particular issue and the fact that there are so many companies withdrawing from the health care insurance. So, the options are going to continue to be limited. Mr. Kirchoff said which is all the more reason we need to be thinking down the road. Mr. Lydick said over a year ago Anthem was said to have about 40% of the business in the State of Indiana. With the M-Plan I don t know what their percentage is but they would be the two major carriers in the State of Indiana. Mr. Brandgard said my comment wasn t disagreeing that we ought to look but I m just saying that probably the reason we are not getting more is because we are already under what others would charge. Mr. Kirchoff said three weeks ago we were talking about a $200, difference and my comment to you was help me justify to the taxpayers why we should pay $200, more. All I m saying is it is a job well done but let s make sure we think about where we may be headed down the road. Mr. Fivecoat said I ve been talking with the County Council, Mr. Hursel Disney because we are going through the insurance thing with this board. It looks like the board of Hendricks County Solid Waste is going to be able to hook onto the County s insurance plan. He said they are willing now to look at bringing towns on too, onto their selfinsurance. Mr. McPhail said just a year ago they took the opposite position. Mr. Fivecoat said he said that but now they have an insurance board over there that is made up of the employees instead of elected officials. They are taking a broader look at different things so it might be one avenue to look at. Mr. Carlucci said the only concern that I have always had with self-insurance is if you have two or three catastrophic losses, it drains the system. Not too long ago, as I recall, in the paper they were having some problems over there with their self-insured plan and having to make some adjustments. Mr. Brandgard said I was going to bring up the same point. wasn t that long ago that they were in trouble with it. It Mr. Fivecoat said what they found out was the County itself was paying all of the insurance and the other departments, the highway department, etc. wasn t paying a dime of it. So, they were trying to make it up all by the County. Mr. Disney said they were slowly but surely getting it turned around where all the departments are paying their fair share of the insurance so they are getting it turned around over there. Mr. Carlucci said the other problem with trying to match up plans besides self-insurance, of course, we take the view never say never in looking at it, but they don t have the same benefits that we have here, which is another issue too. If I was the County, I would try to do the same thing because they can spread my risk out to a larger base. The reason that this can get done is because Mr. Lydick understands the insurance and he can talk their language and they can t pull the wool over his eyes. When he goes into those meetings and he says you did this this year and you did that this year and you did this over here so what is the difference now? He was upset that one day and he brought in that letter and I thought I would read it and that is the letter that I want to send but it is his knowledge that helps. Because if they think you don t know what you are talking about, they will run over the top and convince you that apples are oranges. Mr. Prince said I see that Bob Ward Park is later on the agenda. I wanted to discuss that tonight. Maintenance had the pool ready to go about three weeks ago. I wanted Nate to open it on Thursday and he said his labor pool is still be educated down the street here so we! 11

12 can t open it until school gets out. Saturday the pool will open and we will be all ready to go. That is all that I had until later. Mr. Belcher said as a quick history, and the Council has been involved with this from the beginning, a few years we have been working on the downtown Town Center plan. That has been moved into sort of a streetscape plan along U.S. 40. We have been working on that for at least year and a half. I think it was a wise move in looking at the whole corridor and not just the downtown center. We hired Butler, Fairman and Seufert and they had another firm work with them, actually two other firms to look at, not only the streetscape and downtown, but the buildings and the downtown. And then also as you go out of the downtown of Plainfield, all the way to the Marion/Hendricks County line, which is Plainfield to what we consider the west side right now, Moon Road and Saratoga Parkway where it hits U.S. 40. So, tonight we would like to bring you up-to-speed on how the comments came back from our public meeting on April 21 st at the recreation center. The one major change that I didn t note in my report from our plans that we drafted at that time was one-way streets were proposed on East and Vine south of U.S. 40. That was, to put it lightly, not well received. I think they were polite about it but I think several people didn t like that idea at all and made it known to us. We went back and changed things. That is why we had the meeting. We really took efforts and a lot of time to try to get people to make comments and sometimes it s not what you think they like so we change it. I would like to introduce Carl and Alan and give you a summary of the plan. It s not the whole plan. You have a copy of the whole thing but we would like to seek your approval of this conceptual master plan for the U.S. 40 streetscape. Mr. Brandgard said I want to thank you for giving us an electronic version rather than a paper version. Mr. Alan Hamersley said I m with Butler, Fairman and Seufert. We are the civil engineering firm on the project. Our partners are Rundell Ernstberger Associates, landscape architects represented by Carl Kincaid Axis Architects represented by Kevin Cooper. We would like to go through a summary, a Readers Digest version, of the master plan. We have a schedule starting back in March of We have had several meetings since then with DNR, a second meeting with INDOT. Basically, we are down at the bottom of the schedule showing we are making a presentation here tonight or the final plan and also you can see that we have had several meetings that were advertised, two specifically public meetings, that provided public input. At that time we showed what we had and asked for opinions and comments and got those and as Mr. Belcher mentioned, the most recent one here was April 21 st where we made some major changes to some things that we had in the plan at that time. This is our overall plan that shows the separate districts from Saratoga Parkway to Raceway Road. We essentially split into the character of each district suburban to the west, historic downtown and historic residential and then the commercial district, which takes the majority of the route. Our goal was to enhance, not only the pedestrian access and movements, but also traffic enhancements. Very briefly we have some bullet points that shows how we believe we did both changing the lane widths, eliminating parking on U.S. 40 and putting the parking at the rear of the facade and widening sidewalks. And improving the rear faces or suggesting improvements to the rear facades of the buildings to make them a second door to businesses, trail connections along the way, proposed improved street lighting, unifying that street lighting, timing the stoplights to improve, not only pedestrian movements, but also the vehicular movement along U.S. 40. This is the downtown historic area plan. With that I m going to hand things over to Carl and let him walk you through the rest of the slides. Mr. Carl Kincaid said I m with Rundell Ernstberger Associates. The downtown overall plan covers to White Lick Creek to Avon Avenue. I wanted to point out that the design of the master plan really covered design guidelines, if you will, for the entire corridor. We didn t break down the entire corridor in a plan for each individual case but we did typical cross-sections and typical plans that could be applied anywhere along the corridor. However, we did focus the majority of our time from Vestal Road to Carr Road, which was the oversight committee! 12

13 area in which we felt Phase 1 would initially come out of. We felt time would be well spent in the downtown area. As Mr. Hamersley mentioned, we had a public meeting and originally proposed that East Street become one-way and Vine Street also become one-way. Vine would be one-way south and East would have been one-way north. Due to public comment we felt it was appropriate to not do that to either street. However, we are still proposing parking on both streets at this point as well as along East Street a trail connection to connect to the future Buchanan Street trail onto Dan Jones Road and connecting into Vandalia. This is a slightly enlarged area, again, White Lick Creek. This is the new proposed pedestrian bridge over White Lick Creek making a connection into the new proposed development area. As mentioned, we are proposing wider sidewalks and what we are calling amenity zones in which areas we can put plantings along here with street trees, low shrub plantings in areas which benches and trash receptacles can be placed. This is the increased width at Center Street, which accommodated a turn lane, which currently you don t have. As Mr. Hamersley mentioned earlier, we had several meetings with INDOT and that is very important because obviously it is controlled by INDOT. We wanted to make sure all the way through this master plan process that we were proposing things that INDOT was going to approve once we get construction documents and get final approval. We didn t want to propose something that we were going to have to stop and go back and rethink. So, we have done all of the early coordination that could be done to this point, not only with INDOT, but with DNR with the bridge location as well. As mentioned, Axis Architecture looked at the facades on, not only the front facades, but the rear facades of the north and south from roughly Mill Street to East Street in that area, give or take a block or so. The above is the proposed location of the existing facades that you see below. They looked at it from, not just an historic standpoint, but also an economic standpoint as to what can be done economically to make it as historic as they can without completely blowing people s budgets. That was the front facade of the north side of the road and the rear facade of the north side of the road. Again, parking facilities at the rear facades. So, just looking simply at cleaning up those rear facades and creating the alleyway that is existing there and making it a pedestrian access point to get to the front doors. We are not suggesting that all of these businesses along here are now going to have to have two doors, a front door and a back door, but suggesting that we give pedestrians access points to the front doors and also dress up the facades where the majority of the parking is going to be. Again, the south side facade and the existing below and then the rear facade of the south side. You can see simply dressing that up with, not only some tree plantings, but vines and really trying to make that attractive as well. I m going to briefly talk about Saratoga and Moon Road. This was one of, what we call, the gateway intersections into Plainfield. It is kind of the western border at this point. We are looking at a major pavement change in that area to signify that you are entering someplace different, some place special with median treatment along through here with a potential gateway structure. We have a suggestion of what it possibly might be but again it is a master plan quite a ways from needing refinement. It would be a typical median treatment and this says retail plan but this is also the suburban area as well. Both would fall under kind of the same guideline standards because of the right-of-way width, the access points and all of those features, trying to make something fairly standard that would work for both. And then Raceway Road, being the other anchor point, there would be a potential pavement change. We took a little bit of liberties here and actually relined the roadways potentially making this roadway go on but trying to clean this intersection up a little bit and making that a gateway center treatment itself. And then we have a phasing plan. The phasing plan is just colors on the map. It is a recommendation at this point. It, obviously, depends on funding but we saw Phase 1 of the construction documents coming out of the downtown area, which is roughly White Lick Creek to SR267 or Avon Avenue with a few key points along the way that would also be Phase 1. We know Moon Road and Saratoga Parkway is under construction documents right now and SR267 or Quaker Boulevard as well as the Ronald Reagan Parkway and we don t want to miss that opportunity to include some of these design standards within those projects. So, we have indicated those here as part of Phase 1 potentially as well.! 13