18 November 2014 Dearborn County Council Meeting Notes
Present: Dennis Kraus. Sr., President, Dan Lansing, Liz Morris, Randy Lyness, Charlie Keyes, Ryan Brandt, and Bill Ullrich.
Also present: Gayle Pennington, Auditor and Teresa Randall, County Administrator
All three commissioners were present at this meeting for the Annex presentation.
Council had an executive session preceding this meeting and certified that they only discussed items allowed under their executive session notice and there is no further action to be taken.
Baudendistel also said they have a fine schedule for Animal Control Resolution and it was approved to be signed. Previously it had been tabled from the last meeting.
LAWRENCEBURG PUBLIC LIBRARY- Board appointment-Morris motioned to appoint Jerry Hacker. Approved.
SUPERIOR COURT II – Judge Sally Blankenship
Public defenders fees- $10,000 and 5,000 really essential to end of year. Approved $5,000
Law books / general supplies- Copy paper, toner, and already purchase law books.$700 Approved.
Portable recording system- for the addition needed to add to the recording equipment in the county adm building when she holds court over here Approved $5150 to only be spent if needed.
PROSECUTOR – Aaron Negangard
Depositions- Needs no action $16,500 from Sept 4- Nov 6. They have supplemented out of seized money. Bringing this to Council’s attention so they are aware of the significant increase in deposit cost. Testing on blood for drinking and drug driving is now a significant cost also. Can’t use the state dept of toxicology so this goes to a private firm. He went in front of personnel committee and they gave favorable recommendation and Council will look at this. The position will be paid out of seized money. This is a person at the special crimes unit. He wants council to be aware of this as the seized money may not always be there. Council approved the position.
COMMUNICATIONS – Charles Ashley
Replacement training- several weeks ago so that a replacement for Charlie Ashley can trained before he leaves. It is for $1900 to give the person 2 weeks salary. This comes out of Fund 4943. Approved. Brandt said - Good Luck to Charlie.
THE ANNEX PRESENTATION STARTED AT THIS POINT.
Randall did the introductory statements. Eric Ratz the architect from DLZ was there to present. Scott Carnegie was also there. Maxwell and Allissa Pullman were also there.
He said that a lot of the space needs work from 2004 committee were still valid. They tweaked, changed , and revised it. Space needs were run with different designs and working with Maxwell for project costs.
Issues to Improve: security checkpoint with one point of entry.
Superior Court II space needs
Separation of Public and Secure circulation
Develop a master plan for long term space needs
Improve space inefficiencies
Historic structure and 1980’s structure’s architecture
Building code issues including accessibility ADA compliant
Improve building systems- mechanicals, electrical and love cycle cost analysis
Acoustic isolation- conference rooms
OPTIONS CONSIDERED:
Use existing courthouse vacant spaces- not enough space there
Add a 4th floor to ADM Building
Relocate dept to another building or new building for that
Stand alone building
Expansiion with Greek revival entrance
Expansion with glass enclosed entrance
Ratz then debunked several of the options step by step.
Adding a 4th floor would give us 7000 sq ft. They had to look at the structural impacts and the air handlers on the roof that had to move. So many implications.
Dept off campus would decrease inefficiency - so not meeting that goal.
Stand alone building doesn’t meet the efficiency goal and security issues.
So they settled on the building adding and connecting the buildings.
Expansion with space for growth Option E
Option F reduces sq ft by 9,000 ft. Has a Greek revival facade. It loses a few parking spots.There is a grade difference between buildings He went into detail discussing the spaces and accommodations of Option F. The facade of this shows the entrance with tall columns mimicking the greek revival ones of the original courthouse.
It also extends the cornice to the modern arm building to blend it in. They are staining brick to match the old style also.
Option G Expansion with the Glass Entrance- which reduces price due to glass entrance. All else the same as F except for the glass atrium. This was the first option they had originally presented a few months back. This is a more modern architecture.
John Maxwell did the budget and project costs.
Option B- 2 million excluding system upgrades. ( adding 4th floor to adm)
Option D- 9 million
Option E-!2.7 million- 44,000 sq ft
Option F- 11.4 million - 36,000 sq ft
Option G- 11.2 million - 36,000 sq ft
Indiana limestone for entrance facade.
the current adm building is 28,000 sq ft as a point of reference.
Council members asked questions about the space and design and prices. Maxwell said the costs include the fees already paid to bore and design etc. Lansing asked judges how the new video arraignment would affect their clutter and efficiencies and cut down on the traffic. Humphrey said the equipment wasn’t in there. Blankenship said that it would work on initial hearings but after that the defendant has to be present. humphrey said that Ohio County Court has video arraignment because they are in jail in Switzerland County. Families would still be in the courtroom.
They answered questions regarding the glass safety, maintenance, and heating/cooling issues. They answered questions about parking space reduction, the soil being conducive for construction- and they did geo tech work. They answered questions about the floors and levels being different in the buildings. They have elevators at the half level landings. They also have a ramp. The parking analysis will be done on the whole campus. It was suggested to do a stand alone for just the courts and keep the general public away from the court proceedings. The argument was to try to keep the clerk, prosecutor, and courts would cost a lot. There are two old houses across the street that could be purchased and the land used for the stand alone. There were questions about the parking and the distance to the main entrance. Should the main entrance shift to face the jail? There were questions regarding the gambling revenue decreasing now. There was $250,000 fro preliminary design and yet right away had footers sited as if they knew where it was going. We also payed for surveyors but there are surveyors in this building. Randall said that the insurance company wanted outside surveyors to insulate from potential suits on survey problems in the building. [NOTE: Using that argument, why do we let the county highway dept do roads and bridges.] She said they did it to get a firmer price so they had a known site. There were questions about the historical issues raised by the historic society. Maintenance issues on exterior were discussed.
Randall wanted some direction as to what the direction should be. Council did not want to decide a $12million project on an hour of presentation. She said the Commissioners were responsible for space here and they could decide the direction. It was also brought up that the Council has to decide the money and how to pay for it. Council said that at this time council has not even decided if they are going to fund it. The goal for tonight is information only. They will have another meeting in January. Presentation ended here at 8:20 PM
COUNCIL REGULAR MEETING RESUMES
HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT – Tim Greive
Slip / NRCS- this is a 75/25 grant for Johnson Fork- the 25% is in the budget. He just needs the 75% up front ($225,052.50) and it will be reimbursed to the county. Approved.
CORONER – Steve Callahan
Part-time wages- $4500- approved
Autopsies-$7000-approved
Drug testing-$3500- approved
Communications-cell phones- $300 approved
General fund got $4000 back from a refund for coroner from Ohio County so that offsets some of this.
SHERIFF- Mike Kreinhop
7 Items for discussion- $2033.04 on salary changes in his dept.- not additional money- just requiring approval as its a salary change. These two items ok.
Approval to fill a supervisors position for the balance of this year.
Asking to fill a jail position that no longer is a coordinator. (Casebolt’s spot) So lesser salary. This saves $9,000. Approved at budget.
Three new positions were not approved at budget.
Dave Wissman left in July so they picked from within to replace Wissmans supervisory spot. Still staff neutral.
The jist of all of this was trying to stay staff neutral and do what Council wants with salary approvals.
AUDITOR – Gayle Pennington- read a letter from Judge Humphrey. Jury petit account is deficient. He wants to transfer from grand jury fund to cover this. Approved.
Minutes from Sept 23 tabled as some hadn’t read theirs. Council signed off on the Oct 24 Budget adoption.
COMMISSIONERS – Terri Randall
IT Hardware- upgrade and make some immediate changes and Ramsey Nusibeh took over some other things in adm building. They are trying to replace one piece of hardware rather than 7 or 8 every few years. Ramsey has been working for close to 20 years on the courthouse and a few years in the sheriff dept also.
Ramsey said they need to address the aging hardware. He has patched it.
The email system is on one of the 8 servers. They want to upgrade it to Microsoft exchange. The current system is easy to hack. The current system downloads the emails to the individual computer. If the computer goes down the emails are lost. The new system syncs everything and a copy stays on the server. The wi fi used here in the adm bldg is not secure. Then people can use the wi fi with a separate band for them.The new system can block people out from certain areas and see individual usages too. Several licenses are one time expenses for about 5 years or so. This will match the courthouse system. Randall said the tech IT committee recommended this. The commissioners did not really weigh in. Council approved $60,000 for this.
Legal services- Baudendistel needs about another $7000 for him and some other external counsel on some cases. Approved.
Randall - Landscaping in front of justice center and where the monument and flagpole is has been really bad and Eric Hartman pulled her over and said it was really bad and we need to do something. She insisted that the commissioners wanted this done. and that Hartman had approached Commissioners with it. ( Not at a public meeting though) She wants to use the Riverboat money left over from the Shumway Votaw Project. There is $13,000 left. $10,494.57 was the quote from Casey’s Outdoor Solutions. Kraus said it was good that she asked them rather than just sneaking around behind our backs. Sales tax will come off. Suggested to try Highway and Community Corrections for labor source.Some of Council was not in favor of this expense at all. Some wanted to see it cleaned up but wanted it to be it cut in cost. She is to get three quotes and come back in January.
Annex Presentation- done previously see above notes
PUBLIC COMMENT- none
LATE ARRIVAL-
Next meeting is 6 PM Jan 13th- different from the usual time.
Gayle Pennington got Council approval to roll longevity into each paycheck instead of two lump sums twice a year.
Meeting adjourned at 9:45 PM
Christine Brauer Mueller
Lawrenceburg Township
