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COUNCIL

March 13, 2017

7:00 p.m.

1. CALL TO ORDER

The Mayor called the meeting to order.

2. PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

The Mayor led the Pledge of Allegiance

3. ROLL CALL

The Mayor polled the Council. In attendance were Councilman Frank Gugliotta, Councilman Wally Cullen, Councilman Rod Mullins and Councilman Butch Byrer. The Mayor said to let the record show Councilman Johnny Vendes is absent. He said they have four members present and a quorum is present to conduct business. (Vendes showed up to the meeting after the meeting began)

4. REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF PREVIOUS MONTH’S MINUTES

Mullins made a motion to approve the minutes. Gugliotta seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

5. CLERK-TREASURER’S REPORT

5.1 Monthly Report

Clerk-Treasurer Becky McGlone said they received their cable franchise for the fourth quarter of 2016 on February 10th in the amount of $2,454.56. She also said on February 3rd they received $3,000 for the rental of the fire department from Knox County EMS. She told them they are making the last payment for the rescue truck this month. She said they received $71,694.19 from the local road and bridge grant and as soon as it came in she paid the voucher. She said she also received two checks for the blighted properties grant in the amounts of $31,405.36 and $106,811.58. She then told them the car that Officer Kevin Carroll is driving will be paid off in July of this year. The Mayor said the local road and bridge match was the Community Crossings money they did paving with back in the fall.

5.2 Employee of the Month

McGlone said this employee has been with the Bicknell Police Department since May 12, 2016. She said it should say a lot when someone from the community takes the time to nominate them. She said he always looks and does a profession job and has assisted his fellow officers when they are in need of help. She said he is smart and cares about our community. She told them the March 2017 Employee of the Month is Officer Levi Sims.

6. PETITION FOR REZONING – KATIE KOTTER/BRANDY WILLIAMS

The Mayor said at the last meeting they forwarded a request for rezoning by Brandy Williams for consideration to Area Planning and his understanding is Area Planning is a go. Katie Kotter said she is here on behalf of Brandy and Clay Williams for the second and third reading on their petition to rezone from residential to commercial. She said she received a favorable recommendation from Area Planning. The Mayor asked for a motion to approve ordinance 2017-3-1. Vendes made a motion to approve the ordinance. Mullins seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

7. REPORTS FROM DEPARTMENT HEADS

7.1 Water

Water Superintendent Earl Horst gave his monthly report for the water department. He said the filter is at the painters and they are waiting on the weather to break. Cullen asked Horst if he is teaching Sewer Superintendent Willie Soltwedel how to run the plant and Horst said yes.

7.2 Sewer

Soltwedel gave his monthly report for the sewer department. He said he has prepared all of the smoke testing paperwork filled out. He told them he had one complaint at 403 W. 5th St. where they had backup coming in their drains and apparently something was obstructing their main line.

7.3 Police

7.3.1 Monthly Report

Police Chief Terry Stewart gave his monthly report for the police department. He said he spoke with Brian Puckett earlier today and he told him he has all the material in for the decals and is waiting on a couple of warms days where he can get the cars in. He told them he got a call from Southwest Indiana Law Enforcement Training Council and he was told they don’t have to pay for their reserve officers or dispatchers so they went from expecting to pay $1,200 to only having to pay $600.

7.3.2 Officer Training Hours

Gugliotta said he knows they have had issues with training in the past and they have asked that Stewart that he generate a report so they can see where all the officers stand. Stewart said he and Lieutenant Terry Stremming have been talking about possibly assigning classes monthly instead of quarterly.

7.3.3 Departmental Issues

Gugliotta said over the last couple of months he has learned that our police department is not looked upon favorably by the County Sheriff. He said he has also spoke to people there and they said they will go out of their way to not come here because they don’t want their name on Bicknell reports. He said they are leery about up to date SOP’s and people actually following the SOP’s. He said he doesn’t know what they can do to change that attitude that they have in not wanting to cooperate with us. He asked Stewart if he is aware of it. Stewart said not totally but in some sense of that with regards to the SOP’s is they have a lot of that on hand that they have been looking at but they have been busy along the way. Vendes said the Sheriff had him bring the SOP’s up here for them to be used as guidelines and he would like to see them implemented or strongly considered. Byrer said he agrees with everything that Gugliotta has said and they have through a lot over this police training in the last year and he knows the Mayor has stuck by Stewart and has taken a lot of heat for it so once his training is taken he would like for him to get the training, SOP’s and everything he can do to get this department back in order. Stewart said he would have like to have done that long before now but several things have intervened and kept them from that.

7.3.4 Patrol Areas

Gugliotta said he received a complaint that our officers are running county roads and he doesn’t think that is appropriate. The Mayor said he had a conversation with the Sheriff a couple of months ago and he and Stewart put together something that helped redefine their patrol areas in order to address some of those concerns. Edwards said part of the issue is areas that are outside city limits, like Scepter, that still gets patrolled.

7.3.5 Body Cameras

Vendes asked if they are going to disperse the body cameras soon. The Mayor said he and Stewart spoke with Advanced Micro Electronics to talk about the infrastructure for that and they are going to be getting back with them with some proposals and what they think is best for them.

7.4 Fire

Fire Chief Tom Houghland gave his monthly report for the fire department. Cullen said he would like everyone to know that Houghland tries his best with everything he has going on and he has quite a bit going on with his health and he appreciates his effort. Byrer said he was by the fire station and noticed the rope to the flag pole was laying down and there wasn’t a flag up. Houghland said Horst bought a flag for the fire department and apparently it was too big so it snapped the rope and they don’t know where the flag went. Byrer said he will get them another one. Houghland said he appreciates that and they will get a new rope put up.

7.5 Street

Street Superintendent Donnie Lee gave his monthly report for the street department. The Mayor said the brush pile should be beginning to reduce down soon. Lee told them they got a new John Deere mower.

7.6 City Engineer

John Sprague said he got some direction and guidance on the Main St. sidewalks that they are looking at and how they are going to make it work which won’t be easy but he does have ways to go about the design process with confidence knowing that what he does will be compliant with federal standards. He then said he started looking at the manhole lid drainage situation they are looking to make downstream with the Russell Dr. culverts that were put in.

7.7 Mayor

7.7 Traffic Light on Hwy 67 & Sidewalk

The Mayor said he had a discussion with Shane Spears who is acting district commissioner for INDOT reference the flashing light on Hwy 67 and he reiterated with him their desire to return that back to a standard cycle and he felt like they listened to them. He said they were going to do some looking after the questions he asked but right now they want to take the signal down and return it to two stop signs on the Alexander St. side like it was before. The Mayor then said he met with some individuals form RQAW and had some discussions with them to see if they could push INDOT about putting sidewalks on the highway.

8. OLD BUSINESS

8.1 Blighted Properties

City Attorney Michael Edwards said they have seventeen houses down and have reimbursements of $125,000 that they are stilled owed which he expects to receive in the next month and that is done they will still be $125,000 under budget for the first round. He said they have applied for nineteen more properties and were awarded $251,000 and they told him they recommend they use their first round of money because it will expire first so the idea is they use the leftover money to start working this new batch of properties then they would dip into the new money they were awarded. He asked for the Council’s permission to go ahead and add as many properties on as they can to use as much of that money as possible of the remaining money from the first round. The Mayor said he will entertain a motion to that. Byrer made the motion. Vendes seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. Edwards said with the new round of money they are required to come up with a 10% match of the money so he would ask for a motion that they authorize up to $25,100 to demolish further properties. The Mayor said they used Board of Works other the last time. Byrer made the motion. Vendes seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

Lydia Duncan asked why Bicknell is charged for the title searches. The Mayor said it is part of the program. Duncan said its part of his job description and Edwards said that isn’t true. Gugliotta said in regards to Duncan’s question he asked Edwards to explain how he is compensated. Edwards said the City pays him a salary to attend meetings and field questions but for the projects, like doing easements, he isn’t going to do because the Blight Elimination Program in an incredible amount of work and if they don’t want to authorize to pay for that stuff then he doesn’t have to do it. The Mayor and Gugliotta both said they prefer that he does. The Mayor said the City of Vincennes is having SIDC facilitate all of what Edwards is doing and the City is paying a fair amount of money.

8.2 Stormwater Grant

The Mayor said the project is still ongoing. He told them at the Board of Works meeting they did approve a change order of $16,000 for 5th and Mary where a clay pipe that runs down 5th St. from Martha St. has collapsed about 20 ft. into it. He said he didn’t know until the Board of Works meeting that because of some cost savings from the grant it is very likely it will be able to be picked up and they may not have to pay for it on their own. Cullen asked when they should go to the Commissions or the County Council to start the process to have them look at the streams to see if they can help them because if too much water goes in there then it is going to cause problems. Mullins said it is going to have to be a regulated ditch and it will be three years away from doing any work. Sprague said they will be told to go to Dick Vermillion who is on the Drainage Board to set up regulated drains and start funding the process. The Mayor said he is more than willing to start a conversation with the Commissioners. Cullen said they need to start somewhere.

8.3 Main Street Parking

Trey Miller said the papers are all signed and they survey has been approved so they are going to the court house this week. Mullins asked if they have already appropriated the money. The Mayor said they were waiting for all the paperwork to be done so technically they haven’t voted to use the remaining downtown money for that purpose but they can do that at any time. Vendes made a motion. Byrer seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously. McGlone asked if there is a dollar amount. The Mayor said it will be what the proposal is from that Kern’s Excavating gave them which is about 5,200.

8.4 MacAllister’s Industrial Park Property

The Mayor said he has put together a short proposal that he wants to send out to some folks like Knox County Development Corp. and Duke Energy. He said once Edwards reviews that he will get that sent out to hopefully get some more interest.

9. NEW BUSINESS

9.1 Possible Resolution

The Mayor said Ron Ackman called him in reference to the old bank building and for them to consider a resolution in support of a second bank in Bicknell. Ackman said it is priced extremely high but they will take offers to try and get it sold. Edwards asked what the asking price is and Ackman said $850,000. Ackman said what he would like for them to do is pass a resolution favoring the possibility of a bank coming into the bank building and in addition to that he would like to ask that they agree to allow a tax abatement which would be a plus to bring a buyer in. The Mayor said he could draft one for next month’s meeting or they could vote now and he would prepare a letter. Byrer said he would like to read it before they vote on it.

9.2 Additional Appropriation – Rainy Day

The Mayor said last year they moved $20,000 out of Police Pension into Rainy Day to cover change orders with the stormwater project but the appropriation expired at the end of the year because he didn’t ask them to encumber it. Gugliotta said they have around $71,000 in stormwater now so why don’t they use that money if that is what it is for. The Mayor said some of that will depend on how big the change orders are and he would like to use of the stormwater fee money for some of the projects Sprague spoke about as far as culverts. He then said one thing he didn’t mention is there is a comprehensive list of twenty-five corner inlet drains that they would like to repair and possibly have a contractor do half of them. Mullins said they need to keep the stormwater money. He then asked if they know if they need this money yet. The Mayor said he doesn’t know but they still have to do 8th St. and 10th St. Gugliotta asked how quickly they would need the money if they were to have a change order. The Mayor said if they have to have a change order it has to go to the Board of Works for their approval. Byrer said he would like to leave it where it is at for right now and use stormwater and if it gets to a point then they put it back in stormwater.

9.3 Police Dispatch Proposal

The Mayor said Gugliotta had asked him to put together a proposal to remedy the situation with hours with the dispatchers. He said as of this moment they have two people who are classified as full-time and three people who are classified as part-time however they have some part-time who work full-time hours so he approached Stewart about taking one of their part-time and put them as full-time. He said they believe that if they have three full-time and two part-time it will get them the coverage they need. He told them the only thing they need to do to activate what is on the paper is make a motion to amend the salary ordinance to increase the number of full-time dispatchers and them take the amount of $25,490 from part-time wage to full-time wage to cover the necessary amount of money needed. Vendes asked if one of the dispatchers has a lot of hours. Edwards said it was brought to their attention last week about how many hours this guy has been putting in and the rules says if they regularly work forty or more hours than they are full-time. Vendes asked if the guy has compensation coming and Edwards said they have to check all of his hours to see what he worked. Mullins asked what the difference is and Edwards said it is in the $6,000 range. Vendes said he would like to see him compensated. Edwards then said if the second one has the numbers right it is about $1,000. Byrer asked who makes up their schedule and he was told Stewart does. Byrer said with two full-time and three part-time there shouldn’t be any reason the part-time dispatcher would work over. McGlone said she can’t understand why this employee is working over eighty hours because they haven’t had this problem before. Mullins said there are three part-time and it sounds like the one is doing all the hours. McGlone said they are scheduling right. Byrer said they need to settle with the ones they possibly owe money to and from here on out he wants Stewart to have no overtime with the part-time dispatchers. The Mayor asked what they would like to do with the proposal. Mullins said they definitely need to pay them if they owe them money. Gugliotta said there are two different issues here. The Mayor said his preference is to have three full-time and two part-time dispatchers and that’s what he would ask for a motion on. Vendes made the motion. Gugliotta seconded the motion. The motion passes with 4 ayes and 1 nay.

10. COUNCIL COMMENTS

Byrer made a motion to open the floor for comments from the audience. The Mayor said he doesn’t need a motion they can do that. No one chose to speak.

11. ADJOURNMENT

Byrer made a motion to adjourn. Gugliotta seconded the motion. The motion carried unanimously.

____________________________________ Mayor

Attest:

__________________________________________

Clerk-Treasurer

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