PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL. October 27, 2003

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1 PLAINFIELD TOWN COUNCIL October 27, 2003 The Plainfield Town Council met on Monday, October 27, In attendance were Mr. Young, Mr. Kirchoff, Mr. Ward, Mr. McPhail. and Mr. Brandgard. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE CONSENT AGENDA 1. Approval of the minutes of the Town Council meeting of Monday, October 13, Second Reading of Ordinance : Fulkerson/Panatoni rezoning. 3. Approval of the Human Resources Director s Report dated October 27, Approval of the September 2003 monthly report for the Communications Department. 5. Approval of Change Order No. 1 for Natgun Corporation in the amount of $19, for removal of poor soils under water tank foundation at the Southwest Water Treatment Plant per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval to establish an escrow retainage account at Lincoln Bank between the Town of Plainfield and Building Crafts, Inc. for the Southwest Wastewater Treatment Plant per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval of the preliminary design and environmental engineering service agreement between the Town of Plainfield and Butler Fairman Seufert Engineering in the amount of $288, for the northeast segment of perimeter parkway per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval of the sanitary sewer recoupment agreement (15 years) between the Town of Plainfield and Bentwood Development LLC per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval to release a letter of credit # for curb replacement in the amount of $7, for the Augusta Woods Development per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval to release the letter of credit # for asphalt repair in the amount of $17, for the Augusta Woods Subdivision per the Town Engineer s Report dated October 24, 2003 per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Approval of a professional services agreement with Banning Engineering in the amount of $27, to conduct a drainage study for the drainage basin crossing near the Plainfield Healthcare Center per the Town Engineer s recommendation dated October 24, Accept the resignation of firefighter/paramedic Micky Wilkins effective October 27, Mr. Young made a motion to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. Second by Mr. Ward. Motion carried. Mr. McPhail abstained on item 1 because he was not present at that meeting. PUBLIC HEARING: Opus Real Property Tax Abatement Mr. Brandgard said we have a public hearing for this evening for the Opus real property tax abatement. Do we have proof of publication? Mr. Daniel said yes we do. Mr. Carlucci said tonight we have a public hearing to consider a confirmatory resolution concerning a request for a 10-year real property tax abatement from Opus Corporation. The project is located on Reeves Road on the southeast side. Currently there is a new Brylane warehouse being constructed. The walls, as you can see from I-70, have gone up. This project will be directly south of that building. I believe that it is on Lots 35 and 36 of the Airwest Business Park.! 1

2 Tonight John Cumming from Opus Corporation is here. If he would like to come up and say a couple of words, that would be great. This would be their spec building number six in Plainfield. Mr. John Cumming from Opus North Corporation at 8425 Woodfield Crossing, Indianapolis, Indiana said as Mr. Carlucci mentioned, this abatement is to apply for our sixth spec building at Airwest Business Park. It is planned to be a 425,000 square foot approximate warehouse distribution building. It would be very similar in look and dimensions to our existing projects at Airwest. Phase I is a 425,000 square foot building. Phase II would be an expansion of that building that would accommodate a total building of 830,000 square feet approximately. So, our plan would be to start construction this fall and finish the first phase of 425,000 feet late April/early May time frame. If we are able to find a tenant to take a larger building than that during that time frame, we will go ahead and expand that first phase into a Phase II and have a total building of up to 830,000 square feet. If we don t do that, we will finish that building and then plan to either expand it at a later date or build a separate building adjacent to the first building on Lot 36. As far as features of the building, it is a cross-docked facility with the same amount of car parking and trailer parking as you would typically see in the park. As far as aesthetics go, it will be a very similar design to what you will see in our fifth spec building, which is where Indy Logistics/Bristol Meyers is located. It is similar to the Brylane facility as well although we are using a different color scheme than what we are using on the Brylane building. With that I would be happy to take any questions that you might have regarding the projects. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there anyone in the audience who would like to address the Council relative to the Opus Real Property Tax Abatement? Being no one coming forward we will close the public portion of this hearing and take care of the real property tax abatement at the appropriate time in the meeting. BUSINESS FROM THE FLOOR Mr. Harold Gutzwiller with the Hendricks County Economic Development Partnership at 5201 E. U.S. Highway 36, Suite 501, Avon said I appreciate the opportunity to be here again this evening. Congratulations on what has been a successful 2003 for Plainfield and based on the public hearing that you just had you are going to continue to add to that success this year. I just wanted to tell you what we have been up to since the last time that we were here and also to answer any questions that you might have. As a follow-up to the success that you have had, last week we had three journalists in the community to tour the Logistics facility, to tour Airwest, Airtech and also meet with a couple of the tenants in the facility in the business parks. They were national publications and actually one was an international publication. The only Logistics publication is printed in both French and English. We are hoping to see some very positive stories about Plainfield and Hendricks County in the coming months through those visits. I can tell you that the three journalists were extremely impressed with the area and just the phenomenal growth. They were stunned by the growth that has occurred in Plainfield since And not only the amount of growth but the quality and the aesthetics. One of the things that they said that really impressed them, and they think what sets Plainfield apart, is the aesthetics of the Airwest and Airtech. And how they are landscaped and how the buildings look and the impression that those facilities give the community when someone comes in to look at it for the first time. And just the quality of the parks really impresses those folks and they were duely impressed and wanted me to pass that on. We are working on several projects in Plainfield. One is a medium size distribution center. There have been in twice, as recently as last week. We are working on several smaller projects, a couple of them being existing retention projects. They are looking for small lots to expand their current facilities and current operations. We are also assisting the Town of Plainfield with the infrastructure grant with the State of Indiana to support the Lilly project. That is ongoing. We are working with a consultant with Lilly to get that information and get that into the State and hopefully be able to get that grant to help offset some of the infrastructure costs that are related to that project. We are continuing, as you might expect, getting inquiries through not only consultants but the State and Indy! 2

3 Partnership and others, utility companies, about what space is available. And what type of land is available for companies that might be looking. So, we are continuing to respond to those on a regular basis. Actually I sent in some existing buildings in Plainfield today and a request. So, that is an ongoing basis usually no less than once or twice a week that we are sending out information on both land and buildings that are available. One of the real advantages that Plainfield has had in the past is the availability of spec buildings. And with Opus coming in tonight and the construction that you have underway I think it will be well for We are still seeing most people that are looking for bulk distribution space are looking for existing space. And wanting to make those decisions quickly and be able to come and touch and feel and look at buildings that exist. So, that they can see if it fits their needs. We think we are continuing to add value added projects for the Town of Plainfield through the partnership. As you know, in the past year we have provided a specific job fair for a company here in Plainfield as well as offsetting some of the costs for specific training for that company and their employees. We continue to host a roundtable for distribution centers and manufacturers. That is being very well attended. It continues to grow. Every time we have that meeting we are finding that those folks are very interested in sitting down and talking to each other about common problems and common solutions. So, we are very pleased that it continues to be a success. I believe the last time I was here I mentioned the workforce report and the wage and benefit survey that we were having conducted. Those have been completed. They were completed earlier this year. We think those will continue to be assets. We believe that even though we have seen the unemployment increase companies are still concerned about the availability of the workforce. With the successfulness of Airwest and Airtech and the Town of Plainfield in growth some of our competitors are trying to use that sword against us and telling people who are looking that we do not have the workforce here to meet their needs. This one report, the workforce study, provides a quantitated basis. Instead of just taking our word for it we have a quantitated basis to say we have the workforce here to meet your needs and we have the skills available to meet your needs both on a distribution side and on a manufacturing side and a technology side. So, this provides for a quantitated basis for that. We also have a lot of interest in what the wage level is going to be and what benefits are expected? The good thing about this is we are continuing to see an increase in the average wages over the past several years. Those wages are continuing to increase with the skills and the folks that we are bringing in. So, we are seeing a wealth of the people working in those facilities increase also. So, we are very pleased that we are seeing that. We are also working very closely with the Central Indiana Small Business Development Center what used to be the Indianapolis SBDC. They changed their name to reflect their area of responsibility, which is Central Indiana. So, it is now Central Indiana SBDC. As you are aware, we are a major funder of that on behalf of the communities in Hendricks County. They have a new executive director. Actually November 3 she is going to come out and meet with the chamber directors in the County to become more aware of those folks. We also set up a meeting with the area bankers to meet with the new SBDC director. As you know, there is a very close relationship with the banking community and the small business development community in order to provide sources of funding for small businesses in the County. We think that is one area that we will continue to see interest and excitement in the County. The SBDC Hendricks County is the second busiest County in the region and continues to show strong growth. The staff person who works for the SBDC Hendricks County has more successes in Hendricks County for small business development, new businesses opening and getting through the process than any of the other counties in the region. So, the SBDC has shown a lot of success since they have been up and running from the beginning of this year. We are very pleased about that. As an economic developer, we are also sitting on the Region Advisory Committee for the SBDC to provide for oversight and ideas for the SBDC and also some direction. So, we are very pleased to be able to sit on that committee and increase our involvement through the SBDC. Hopefully, you have seen a couple of these cards in the direct marketing and marketing support of Plainfield and the other communities in Hendricks County. There are three postcards there, one that you have not seen before. We have been counting the successes in Hendricks! 3

4 County on these cards. We have a consultant of about 500 consultants in the Midwest and Indiana plus other real estate folks and other individuals. There s a little over 800 people. And so far this year because of the number of successes that we have seen in Hendricks County we have sent about 8,000 of these cards. We originally had 10,000 cards printed thinking that would last us 18 months to two years. I m glad to say that we had to have a new batch of cards printed. This time we had 20,000 cards printed. Since we had new cards printed we had a third one, the one with the road sign that you have seen before. There is the one with the mouse that we had before. But we have what we call the generic one, which is a blend of rail and highway and other transportation modes. That is the third card to the set. What we are trying to do is reinforce the successes in Hendricks County to this very important consultant list. We sent one out just recently on Gatorade. I hope that you saw that one and we will continue as successes occur. We try to time them out not exactly when the announcement is made but try to time them out so that we don t have people receiving three cards in a week but rather maybe one every four weeks or one every six weeks. So, that we can have that constant reinforcement of Hendricks County and Plainfield and the other communities. They have been very well received by the consultants. They like getting something quickly and something easy to read. We can put a paragraph on there about the success. You should all be congratulated on the article that was in the Indianapolis Star a week or so ago. It was a very good article. We have ordered reprints of that article. We will be sending that article out to our consultant list, about 500 folks, 550 to 500 folks, along with the card saying that we hope they enjoy reading this article about the success in Plainfield. Again, trying to reinforce the successes that we have seen. We also had enough copies reprinted that once we get those we will provide copies for the Town of Plainfield and to the Chamber of Commerce as well as the developers who are in the County. We can t give an endless supply but we will give the remainder of what we have to the Town and the chamber for your use. Finally, we continue to advertise in the sight selection magazines trying to create or follow-up on the image and to make people aware of the County and what is going on here. This is the first time that we have tried it in a couple of years. We wanted to see what kind of response that we would get. We are in the process of reviewing that. I m not sure we will do as much advertising in these magazines that we have this year. There are a couple of avenues that we can proceed on and just advertise individual buildings or individual properties. That may be a much better way for us to proceed in these magazines rather than buying a quarter or half page ads. We have noticed that we aren t seeing that much of a result and not that much image making and not that many leads generated. We are going to evaluate that and still see if it is something that we should be involved in or maybe we are just involved in those magazines or those months where there is an Indiana focus or a logistics focus. Or something that is of particular interest to our communities. So, we are going to evaluate that and see if it still makes sense. So, that is what we have been up to. I wanted to try to give you a full update as I possibly could and would be more than happy to answer any questions that you might have. Mr. Brandgard said first of all I would like to thank you for the fine report. I think it is fine because it pretty much covers what is going on in Plainfield and also the County. As you have seen, it is busy. I appreciate your comments relative to the article in the Star. You couldn t buy that kind of advertising. At the same time it is amazing the comments that I have received from people that I would not have thought would have even looked at it. There were some real good comments and I appreciate the fact that you are ordering copies. Mr. Kirchoff said I was in a meeting today with the general manager of WFYI and he brought that. He had seen it and was impressed. He had been out in the area with his daughter for some basketball tournaments and was impressed with what is going on here and what we have done. Mr. McPhail said I have a couple of questions. In our employment survey, the one previous to this, indicated that we continue to have an underemployed workforce. Is that still the case? Mr. Gutzwiller said actually what I found surprising about the report is because of all of the growth I was concerned that we might! 4

5 see a decrease in the number of available people and the skills. But actually this report shows that there are more people available and underemployed. This report was done when the unemployment rate was 1.7% and it is now roughly 3.5%. So, we were very surprised and pleased that number one the numbers increased in the availability of people but also the skill levels across the board are available. And are available for technology and manufacturing as well as distribution. Mr. McPhail said I know that you and Mr. Brandgard and Mr. Kirchoff and some others that continue to serve on the north/south corridor group that there is a vision about what we want that corridor to be. I m obviously concerned if we are going to be able to do that in a timely manner. I don t have any problem with the vision but I have a problem with getting it done quickly. Do you see the Indianapolis marketing that occupancy rate going up? Is it still very low? Is there still a lot of inventory in Marion and the donut counties for I would say class A office space? Mr. Gutzwiller said I would say that if there was an access of any type of property in the Indianapolis region it is class A office space. There seems to be still quite a bit of available and a lot of that is a function of the economy. If you look at places like InTech Park and what is downtown, there are quite a few vacancies in the 31 corridor in Carmel. So, I would say that the class A office space is probably, if there were a glut, where it exists. And there is plenty of property in those locations for additional class A office space to be built once that is absorbed. I think you will continue to see that class A office space built in those pockets until that property is no longer available. Which will probably be in quite a few years. I have talked to some other folks who are in the business of building class A office space and leasing class A office space. They would anticipate that there will be no shortage of class A office space in the foreseeable future or locations for class A office space. From a bulk distribution point of view the amount of space in Hendricks County that is available is very low right now. We will see those peaks and valleys and often that peak comes at the end of the year as new buildings become available such as the Browning building. If that becomes available at the end of the year and all of a sudden that space is available, that is going to eschew the vacancy rate that we all know is one building. So, sometimes I look at the numbers somewhat skeptically until you look at them in a little more depth and know that one building came on the market and that increased your vacancy rate by five percent or some other number. But right now if you look right now, there is no vacancy in Brownsburg for example. And the vacancy rate in Plainfield is very low for large space. Mr. Richard Beaman, Chairman of the Town Center Steering Committee said we are charged with coordination and assistance in the implementation of the Town Center Plan. As we have drawn together with merchants and residents in the downtown area, we found a wealth of talented people who were interested in the health and atmosphere of our downtown. As a part of that goal, what we would like to do is first thank you for your support. We believe that it is important for the people downtown to begin to see some progress made in that regard. So, our committee determined that one thing that we could do on an immediate basis is to decorate for the season. We have identified a style of post hanger that is very neutral to religions but yet very effective to the season. You have a picture of that below you. We are also in the process of identifying planters and some benches and waste containers that will blend in with our final look of our downtown area. But also give us plenty of opportunity to have open sidewalks and everything else downtown. We are asking that the Town Council authorize an expenditure for the purpose of the purchase of the Christmas decorations in the amount of $10, This will give us about 26 of these hangers of these lanterns, which will fill up the light poles from Avon Avenue to the bridge. And then we are looking at maintaining wreaths at the intersection of Center and Main, therefore, identifying the Town Center itself. We think it will be very effective for the season. Mr. Brandgard asked, about how big is that decoration? Mr. Beaman said I believe that it is about three or four feet tall. We picked it out of a catalog. Mr. McPhail said I believe it is 32 inches.! 5

6 Mr. Brandgard said it looks large in the picture. It has been several years since we have been asked to contribute to the decorations. I know that we have kind of gravitated some of them out of the Center farther to the east. It may be time to revitalize the downtown area especially since we have the steering committee in action down here. I would open that up to any other comments. Mr. McPhail said I know that the chamber has budgeted some money to add decorations at Hadley Road and Quaker Boulevard and Stanley and Quaker Boulevard and Moon Road and U.S. 40. So, we are going to have some increase in those areas from the chamber s contribution. Mr. Young said the last initiative that I recall is the Superintendent of Schools, Jerry Hollifield formed an organization called Community Groups Cog. They looked at what did Plainfield need at that point and time? It was considered that Christmas decorations could take some attention. They came up with a budget, if memory serves me, of $75, They felt that was ambitious and felt over years at least with a plan that they would support this and see how the groups representing the community would support it. So, they felt that over three or four years this could be achieved if the community was behind it. The residents and the organizations of this community came up with that kind of money in less than two years. They undershot that the community support was legitimately behind the kind of activity that Mr. Beaman has requested. The only thing is they devalue the Town Center because of the competition of the decorations with traffic and with lighting of the businesses. So, to say that this is an area that was under served in that most recent activity it has been. So, to say the budget is out of line it is perfectly in line with what we have seen in the past. At that time I think the Town s contribution was a small fraction of the total overall. The rest of it came from individual groups. Mr. Kirchoff said I commend the committee for jumping on this as quickly as they did. As you can see, they now have a chairperson. Mr. Brandgard said congratulations for taking that on. Mr. Kirchoff said I think it is important as you all said that we need to get started and show some results. I think with that said I would also challenge to begin to think about some funds coming from the local businesses. You heard all of the things that the Town has done to kind of help send some messages. I support this but I think as soon as we can, it would be great for the downtown to show a little support in this area from a financial standpoint. Not that I don t support this but I think that is the next logical step to say the Town has been doing their part and now it is time for the businesses to share in the initiative. Mr. McPhail said I received a phone call today and I have two businesses that have stepped up to the plate to fund one decoration each. It is not a hurdle but it is a step. Mr. Kirchoff made a motion to approve the expenditure up to $10, for Christmas decorations, trash receptacles, planters and possible benches for the downtown area. Second by Mr. Ward. Motion carried. Mr. Brandgard said I have one minor request, which is a major undertaking. Several years ago a group of downtown merchants put together a celebration in the downtown area with the tree of lights where you collect money and the lights go on as you collect money. It would be nice to see something like that happen again. I m not saying it should happen this year because it is too late in the year to plan and get that together I think. But it may be something nice to plan in the future. It really helps draw attention to the downtown and it draws the Town together a little bit also. Mr. Beaman said we will look into that and see what kinds of things we can get going even this season. Mr. Kirchoff asked, did you happen to see the Star this morning and the article in Cumberland and the downtown streetscape? Mr. Beaman said yes. real good from end to end. I think the National Road is going to look TOWN MANAGER S REPORT! 6

7 Mr. Carlucci said I have just one quick report. We had applied for money for a Brownsfield grant for the Township. We got a letter rejecting it. It was very nicely written but we still did not get approved. Since we were the applicant through the Township I will give Mr. Hickam a call tomorrow and let him know. I don t know if they got a notice on that or not but the letter came to us so we will go ahead and let him know. I had a request about a month ago from a second grade teacher from Central Elementary. What she wants me to do is speak to the second graders over there. I think they are going to do two classes at a time. I will bring stuff over there to show them what is manufactured in Plainfield. I went over to Puritan Bennett and this is the breathing system they have. They basically just strap this on and the liquid container goes on the bottom and they fill it up at home. This is made over at the Pizzuti building on Airwest Boulevard. I went in there today and it was interesting to talk to them. They have gone from a sixty percent efficiency in their old location to over a 105% efficiency rate. They are very happy about that but the company is also making them go through processes where they are having to free up space in there that they rent. They have 10,000 square feet extra so that they can compete to bring other products to Plainfield. But they are trying to consolidate as much as they can. They are already paying for the space but they want to maximize the space. I will go ahead and pass this around. This is part of our tax abatement program. They receive a personal property tax abatement for the equipment. We gave a manufacturing equipment tax abatement to RXI Plastics, which changed their name to Silgan. Scott McKinney is the manager over there and he was out this week but John took me around. What I found out today is Mooresville doesn t have any storage over there. It is all manufacturing now. Actually, most of their products are stored in three different places than Plainfield. So, they make a kind of generic brand of baby-wipes for Wal-Mart and those kind of companies. So, they are the major producer in the country of babywipes. So, they make these tubs and they make the lids and this is one piece of injected molded product and it comes out like this and it actually flips it up and closes. They also make the caps for WishBone salad dressing. They put this on the inside of the cap like that and then when the company actually screws it on the product and you open it up, the pourer stays in. This would be on a cap for a Tidy Cat and this is a big bottle of oregano that this cap would go on. They make little pourers for the spices. The smaller caps are for the spices also. We are going to pass these around to the kids tomorrow and show them things that are made in Plainfield. They have a German made machine that may be 40-foot long. It is amazing to watch and see that produce and how efficient that is. He made a comment to me, he says anything that seems to be labor intensive anymore is leaving the country. You have to maintain your efficiency and Silgan has five plants they told me in Indiana. So, it is just neat to go over there and see this. Then I went up and saw Jerry Perrill and while I was over there they had just delivered a brand new label-printing machine. It was in four pieces and they were going to have this put together and it will make a five-color label. The five color ones are on barrels of, i.e., hazardous material because they need multiple colors. They make all sorts of labels. One of their products is when you pull down your visor, it says danger airbag read instructions. They make those kind of labels. They are pressure sensitive. They make this kind of label. They make these for the post office so it doesn t cover up the postage and people can print what they want on them and just mail it out. He makes labels for Bright Pointe in the industrial park right now. This is an interesting product. They make these little clear things like this. Actually, this one doesn t have it but they are perforated in the middle and if a company is turning out a really specialized annual report and mailing it, then you bend this over the middle but it doesn t interfere with the product. You can see the color right through it. Of course, we have given and the County has given Jerry a tax abatement for the equipment so these are just some of the types of things that are made in Plainfield. We still have two more injection molding companies in Town and John Anderson makes valves for the health care industry. I don t want to bring too much over to the kids because I don t have the time. Is Precision Sound still opened up on Avon Avenue?! 7

8 Ms. Mitchell said it is Projected Sound. Mr. Carlucci said I still see cars over there so something is still going on. So, we have different manufacturers. Actually, John has some machine tools over in his building because I think they bought out a business over here. We also have Hoosier Aircraft that makes products for Allison. The kids love show and tell so I think I m going to have a blast but I learned a lot today too. One set of equipment came from Germany. Another set of their manufacturing company came from Canada. This is Silgan. And they have this brand new piece of equipment that was all electrical. It had no hydraulics, which means that they save on hydraulic fluid, etc. It is very quiet. It is pretty amazing. I suggested that the Education and Business Steering Committee might want to take the time and go visit some of these places to see what is going on there. The high price paid people in there are the people who maintain the machines. There is a lot of need for people like that. So, I just really learned a lot today and everybody was very cooperative. I just wanted to kind of give you a heads up on what is going on in Plainfield and I think the kids will really enjoy this tomorrow. Mr. Brandgard said I think they will. It is really interesting with what is made in Plainfield because we kind of lose sight of the manufacturing that is here. It is not all distribution. REPORTS Mr. McPhail said I have one quick report on the recreation center. We continue to have some bumps in the road with one of our contractors. It looks like that we have terminated a contract and have other people on board to take up that work. It looks pretty positive now that we are going to get the building enclosed before bad weather and be able to continue the work without any problems. We have spent a great deal of time in Mr. Daniel s office with his staff and our construction manager and our architect and engineers. We felt that it was the best move to bring somebody else in to try to finish part of this steel so we have done that. On the brighter side of that I will be speaking on behalf of the Town tomorrow evening to a group called National Organization of Women in Construction. They have asked me to come and talk about how we put together a plan for the recreation center. So, I m anxiously trying to prepare myself for that but all industries have a great deal of women employees. I was really amazed when I read some of the information about their organization. Over half of their members are either in management or purchasing in the construction industry, which I think speaks well of women in the workplace. So, that will be a challenge for me but it is another area where we get to talk about positive things in Plainfield. Mr. Kirchoff said Mr. Gutzwiller talked about the north/south corridor, which I don t know if you have noticed in the paper or not but it has a new name. I understand that you were the gentleman that suggested that, Ronald Reagan Parkway. So, that has now been named and we do have another work session Thursday night at 7:00 p.m. The other thing is I thought I should report to the Council that if you will remember at the last meeting we took bids for the 2003 street-resurfacing program. Our committee, Mr. Brown, Mr. Castetter, Mr. McGillem and I met on Wednesday immediately after the meeting. We awarded it to the low bidder, which was Milestone for $855, It was underway. They are here working and we are thankful to get that underway. Mr. Daniel said last Wednesday all of our six cases on Dan Jones Road were set by the court. The attorneys met over there. We had no objections filed to the take itself, which was the purpose of the initial hearing. The court appointed appraisers and I ve given them time to come in next week to be sworn and time to return their appraisals to court. So, we are moving on with the Dan Jones project. Ms. Mitchell said we are currently in the middle of our annual audit. In talking to the auditors today we have a very great need for a fixed assets program. Will the Council entertain bringing quotes to you at the next meeting to get that program started? It can have a negative effect on our audit comments this year if we don t have something going.! 8

9 Mr. Kirchoff asked, is there software or what is it? Ms. Mitchell said basically it is software where they will come in and tag everything. They will get you started. They will get everything tagged for you. Then you have to be able to go from there but it is the fact that we really don t know where we are. Mr. O Hair looked at this one program. I talked to the auditors today. They have worked with other towns that have used this one that we have looked at. A month or so ago we thought it was sufficient to get us going. It is less than $10, It is not major but what it would do is enhance our ability to keep good bond rates. We feel it would be a good move to start at least Mr. Carlucci asked, are they doing the 2002 audit and not the Ms. Mitchell said that is right. Mr. Carlucci asked, have they already done 2001? Ms. Mitchell said yes. Mr. Carlucci asked, so it is the 2002 audit? Ms. Mitchell said yes. Mr. Carlucci said you said it would help this year. Ms. Mitchell said it will help this year because they look at what you are doing this year even though they are auditing last year. Mr. McPhail said it seems to me in the last report that we got covering this particular subject they were just as much concerned about sewer lines and water lines and all of those things. Hopefully, this new system that Mr. Belcher is working on will start helping us identifying those things, the GIS System. Does that have a database for assets? Mr. Belcher said it will have. That is part of the structure but it won t be done by the end of this year. It is a two-year program. Mr. Carlucci said that is part of the new GASB requirements. Ms. Mitchell said we did not meet the criteria we had to for GASB 34 this year. That is on hold for next year but next year we will have to have that in place. You can t get through GASB 34. All this program will do is feed the GIS. They work together so it is not doing something that is going to be redundant in GIS. It will just be feeding GIS from a different source. Mr. Brandgard said we have had this discussion several times. We need to get the equipment in the Town tagged. You can t tag water and sewer lines so that is a separate issue from the issue of tagging things. So, I think we need to get that done. The GIS System will ultimately help. I think we have a pretty good idea. It is just getting it in the computer where everything is. As I said, we have had this discussion several times and I think we need to get on with it and get it done. Mr. Kirchoff said I sat in on the exit interview two years ago. Mr. Young said I was on it three years ago and they said the same thing. Mr. McPhail said I was on it last year and it was the same thing. Mr. Kirchoff said I don t think there is any question that there is a need. Ms. Mitchell asked, is it okay to bring quotes? Mr. Brandgard said yes. would. Coordinate with Mr. Carlucci, if you Mr. Kirchoff said you are using the term plural. Are you looking at more than just this one system?! 9

10 Mr. O Hair said I m not aware of any at this point. I ve just looked at one system. Mr. Kirchoff said it would be nice to have more than one option. Ms. Mitchell said I can get that. It just seems to be easier to get information on something that is used in your locality that other people have tried. That s why you tend to end up there. Mr. Brandgard said I think the key is we need to go out and find who does this stuff and then get information from them relying on what the next town over is doing. list. Ms. Mitchell said we will go to IACT and see if we can get a Mr. Brandgard said that is good information but you need to go broader than that. Ms. Mitchell said also I had left with Mr. Kirchoff a request for the document imaging to be brought to the last Council meeting. I don t know if that was discussed. Mr. Kirchoff said no it was not. Ms. Mitchell said I don t know if you want to. I talked to our chief and he is very supportive of us getting document imaging so that the police officers have access to the ordinances. Mr. Kirchoff said my recollection is at the last meeting we talked about having a town-wide approach and not just the police and fire and planning, etc. Have you had a chance to talk about it on a coordinated basis? Mr. McPhail said I have had the opportunity to go out and look at a couple of systems. I m very confident that what we looked at fits one department but I don t have any confidence at this level that if we select that, that it is going to be something that will work for the police department and fire department and everybody else. I think we only need to do this thing once. We need to make sure that we are coordinating all of these things. And once we make a selection we need to know that we have done our very best to select a system that is going to take care of everybody. As far as I know we haven t talked about where it is going to be located and how we are going to share the funding of it and how we are going to operate it and all of those kinds of things. I feel like we need a total package to give our blessing on. What I have seen I know will do what the Clerk Treasurer needs but I don t know if it will do some of the other things. We didn t get to check out any of the big scanners or anything like that. Mr. Belcher said I honestly haven t looked at it in detail. I m curious myself where we would set it up and who would run it. Ms. Mitchell said it was set up basically not necessarily to have the big scanner right now unless Mr. Belcher wants it. Each department would have their own scanner and each department would be able to put into it what they felt was necessary for their department. It can start with just the Clerk Treasurer s office and build from there. Mooresville is using the system that we have looked at. Brownsburg is using it and Avon is buying it so I have a lot of confidence that it is probably the best one around since everyone is going to that in our area. But also we looked at what it could sit on. Chief Brinker said we had some discussions about this a couple of weeks ago. A representative from the group came in and spoke with us. At the moment the best platform that we have in Town would be the server that is down at the police department right now. When we started with his proposal, he was telling us that the minimum specifications for it were more than what we currently have available at the station. The more he talked the more he made it sound like that was going to go ahead and work. We believe it won t run near the speed that he originally was quoting us but he says he can make the system operate with what we have. Then just recently the other day I had the opportunity to speak in the hallway and I did explain that we would love to see the opportunity to have the Town ordinances in an electronic format. So, that the officers could take advantage of actually easily finding and issuing Town ordinance citations as opposed to State ordinance citations. The other thing that I mentioned is at! 10

11 the police department almost all forms that we create are done electronically from the beginning. All of our police reports and everything like that. In actuality I don t believe that having the scanner at the station at this time would be the most prudent for us. I don t think we would be able to have a lot that we could put into that particular system. Being able to retrieve what would come from this building would probably be our best asset. Mr. Carlucci said we probably need to have a department head meeting and sit down and go through this. Part of this is given the level of Staff involvement in other projects each department has its own level of what it has to pursue and do. Unless everybody sits down and goes through this we are not going to get to that point. This time of the year is probably not the best time of year to be trying to go forward on that other than meeting and trying to make a decision. I don t think we are ready as a Staff to come back and recommend anything at this point unless we all go back in the same room and go through the same process. Mr. Brandgard asked, what are we going to use the document imaging for? Ms. Mitchell said the reason that I want it is none of the records that I have to hold, none of the old documents, have any protection from fire. If they are gone, they are gone forever. I have nothing. Mr. Brandgard said that is kind of what I thought. I believe the most efficient way of getting that done is to hire a company that does that kind of thing. The reason that I say that is you don t realize how much time it is going to take to run those documents through that machine and then go back and check them to make sure they are right. Once you have everything up to where you want it and then having the equipment to do it yourself to keep it up makes sense. I know in my business when we converted from blueprints to electronic images, we didn t do it. We hired a company to do it for us. It is much more cost effective. Mr. McPhail said as we were going around looking at these systems, we discussed that in detail. Once we find a system that will do what we want it to do you can search by word or date, etc., once that is selected I agree with you. We need somebody to come in and set it up and get everything in the system but we need to select the system that will carry us forward. I agree if we are going to try to get all of the back stuff in, we need to bring somebody in to do that and get it caught up. But we have to select I think the kind of program that we want to do that with. Believe me I m the last guy to try to be technically in tune with this but to see some of those things that you can do to make everybody s job easier is certainly important. This conversation just keeps leaping back to me to the fact that we need a good IT person on our Staff to put this together. Mr. Brandgard said I was going to say that this is leaning back to the discussion that we had at budget time. Mr. Young said and when we had the work session on GIS and we have even bought copy machines and we find that we have a granny s quilt. We don t use our purchasing power. This is a nice capsulation of everything that has been said year after year after year. We had a specialist that would pull together for the whole Town and have a plan whether that incorporated hardware or software or service. There are merits and there are weaknesses to all of those. Prudent business determines what is the appropriate balance. It is not that the need isn t there for the imaging but it is just that we are not prepared. There is an awful lot of labor involved in actually effecting this into an effective system so that it is available to all of the appropriate parties. I felt that Mr. Lydick s capsulation of the community of thought of the position is, if not timely, overdue. I would say that tabling this request until that person is on board and could analyze it would be my recommendation at this time. And then supporting that person when they come together with a plan. Mr. McPhail said taking that one step farther we got in our packet a report from our police chief and our fire chief. There is no question in my mind that they did their due diligence and everything that they said in that report is probably accurate. Where I don t have a comfortable feeling is how it ties in with everybody else in the! 11

12 Town. I wouldn t expect them to be worried about the other departments but we need somebody to get this thing together. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent to table this issue until we bring somebody on to handle it? Consent given. Mr. Young said I m going to abbreviate my report to just report a thank you. At our regular meeting on October 13 I invited colleagues to attend an awards banquet, which was held the evening of October 20. It was held in the Town Court, a building built for over 100 people. It was represented by the business community, by the public at large, by the police department, the communications department. I want to thank you for the very strong support from this Council for public safety and thank you for your attendance. And for those who were otherwise occupied it was a very positive show of support for the work that we do. And that support was shown every tangible way that support can be shown. It was shown with genuine affection and with money from individuals and from the business community. So, my report is just to say thank you for that demonstration of support. Mr. Brandgard said just to add it was standing room only. It was very gratifying to see that kind of turn out in the community. It was a great night. A lot of awards were given. It wasn t a brief affair and it should not have been. I think it was well over an hour, an hour and half. It was really a good evening. Again, thank you for extending the invitation. Ms. Holland said I have no additional report. I did find that there is an error on my report. I had computer problems when I was working on my report the last two times. The columns should say 2002 and 2003 instead of 2001 and The information is accurate but the column titles are wrong. Chief Brinker said I had submitted to the Council members last week two items and the first one that I would like to start with is the request to let out for bid for the 2004 police package for police vehicles. In an attempt to find not only the best vehicle at the lowest price but potentially to be able to work with a local vendor on this particular project. I would like to answer any questions that you might have about that particular report. Mr. Brandgard asked, is there consent? Consent given. Chief Brinker had asked me about bringing that in this meeting and I said I thought it was appropriate to start the procedure. The expenditure even starting now would not happen until after the new budget year starts. So, there is nothing wrong with getting a head start. Mr. Kirchoff asked, is this your entire fleet? Chief Brinker said yes. Mr. Kirchoff said financially does it make sense to do this all at once or are we better off to doing a third every year? Chief Brinker said what we do with this is in the past we would take the entire amount and it is going to chum right around $900, So, what we generally do is once the bids are taken in we then go to either the Indiana Bond Bank or another institution that provides us with that. And then we make three annual payments, which are equal and it comes out approximately the same. Mr. Young said we think we can buy better than State bid so in the past we have gone to State bid because of the feeling that it was the most attractive. We feel now that might not be the most attractive. It may be the most restrictive. Mr. McPhail said if I read this properly, you are going to take bids from all three major manufacturers, is that correct? Chief Brinker said that is correct. McPhail asked, are there any rear wheel cars left? Chief Brinker said the Crown Victoria in the 2004 version is still available in a rear wheel drive. We have test driven the front wheel vehicles and each vehicle is different. So, the advantage of driving the rear wheel car vehicle has this advantage where the front wheel drive has winter advantage. One of the funny things is some of! 12