NEW WHITELAND TOWN COUNCIL
APRIL 3, 2007
MEETING MINUTES
Town Council President
MINUTES
Member Harris moves to approve the minutes of
the March 20th Executive Session.
Motion seconded by Councilman Noonan.
Vote 4 affirmative. Member Perrin abstains.
Member Noonan moves to approve the minutes of
the March 20th council meeting.
Motion seconded by Councilman Harris.
Vote 5 affirmative.
HARDSHIPS /
ADJUSTMENTS
Amanda Yaryan, 221 Northlane, requests an
adjustment on the sewer portion of her bill resulting from a leak. Council approves a $263.52 sewer adjustment.
Timothy Clark, 122 Bel Aire, requests an
adjustment on the sewer portion of his bill resulting from a toilet running in
a vacant house. The water has been shut
off at the main and Mr. Clark has fixed the toilet but now has a leak at the
outside valve on the house. The water is
turned off until he can get the valve repaired.
Council approves a $575.84 sewer adjustment.
OLD
BUSINESS
Football Equipment
Council President Perrin thanks Park Director
Facemire for the inventory and replacement cost report for the football
equipment. Director Facemire states the
report only covers the helmets; she still needs to inventory the shoulder
pads. Perrin states that he has been
contacted twice by the high school football coach who wants approval to lease
our equipment for $25 / child participating in the program. Coach Fisher has offered to pay the town $25
/ child after sign ups and then an additional $25 / child at the end of the
season. Attorney Robbins notes that if
this lease agreement is not with the actual school corporation, the equipment
would have to be put out for bid. The
replacement value of the helmets alone exceeds $16,000.00. After much discussion it is decided that any
lease / purchase agreement would be for all or none of the equipment. President Perrin will contact the school and
find out why all of the Parks Department’s requests to use the gym or ball
fields at the high school were denied.
The only approved facility requests were at the
Ordinance Revision Update
Councilman Alspach asks about status of the
revision discussed at a previous meeting for requiring identification badges
for all persons going door to door in New Whiteland. Attorney Robbins states he has been
researching this but we need to be careful to not cause a burden on the
solicitor. Attorney Robbins will prepare
a revision for the council to review.
Councilman Alspach asks about the parking in yards issue that has been
discussed on several occasions.
Councilman Spencer states he will have this placed on the Plan
Commission agenda for consideration and a recommendation.
Surplus Dump Trucks
Clerk-Treasurer Alspach presents the bid
results on the 2 surplus dump trucks.
There were a total of eight (8) bids received prior to the 10:00 a.m.
April 2nd advertised deadline.
One bid was received at 11:45 a.m. on April 2nd which was
accepted but has not been opened. Attorney
Robbins advises the council that they can either reject all of the bids and
re-advertise or only consider those bids that met the requirements of the legal
ad. Councilman Harris moves to only
consider the 8 bids that were submitted before the 10:00 a.m. deadline. Councilman Alspach seconds the motion. Vote 5 affirmative. Walter & Tina Miller of
Town Council
Page Two
April 3, 2007
$3,200.00.
Dick Wilkerson of Whiteland submitted the high bid for the 1988 Ford
Super Duty at $2,505.00. Clerk-Treasurer
Alspach will notify the successful bidders tomorrow.
Automated Trash Service
Councilman Spencer asks about comments and/or
complaints on the new system. Office
Manager Yates states most complaints are about the size of the carts. Either they are too big for single users or
that we went from 150 gallons to 96 gallons.
Spencer asks about extra trash the weeks after Thanksgiving &
Christmas. Clerk-Treasurer Alspach
states the first pick up of the month “heavy trash” and those two after holiday
weeks extra trash will be accepted. Trash
can be in trash cans or trash bags – there will be an extra truck with an
employee to hand throw trash into the truck.
During other weeks extra bags will be taken if they have a sticker on
them. Councilman Perrin adds that most
people should be able to get 5 bags of trash in the 96 gallon cart – lid may
not completely close but they have always taken his cart anyway.
Pleasant Ridge Preliminary Plat
Councilman Spencer notes that the Plan
Commission denied the proposed Preliminary Plat for this subdivision because
they refused to add a second entrance, place street lights along 75W, and
install a power source for a future tornado siren as requested by the Technical
Review Committee. There will be another
hearing at the May 22nd Plan Commission meeting. The developer has never attended a meeting
and the person that has presented the plat for them has no authority to approve
anything. The Plan Commission is
awaiting a response from the developer.
Steve Archer
Councilman Alspach updates the council on the
status of the citizen complaint made by Mr. Archer in a previous meeting. Councilmen Alspach and Perrin had scheduled a
meeting with Mr. Archer to discuss his complaint and gather information to
investigate the complaint. Mr. Archer
called Councilman Perrin’s cell phone 15 minutes after the meeting was
scheduled to begin to state that he was tied up and unable to make the
meeting. Mr. Archer was supposed to
contact Mr. Perrin by the end of March to reschedule. Councilman Perrin advised Mr. Archer at that
time that if they didn’t hear from him by the end of March they would consider
the matter closed.
Fire Engine Update
The truck has been ordered and the financing
is in place Fire Chief Hedrick reports.
He thanks Attorney Robbins and Clerk-Treasurer Alspach for their
assistance.
Fire Department
Chief Hedrick reports he has hired nine (9)
new firefighters. Four (4) are already
certified and he would like to send the other five (5) to Central Nine’s
Firefighter I and II classes. The cost
per person will be $500 to $550. Hedrick
has the money in his training budget.
Council approves. Hedrick adds
that beginning in 2008 he will require new recruits to sign a contract. The contract would be similar to those used
by other departments requiring monetary repayment for training or a certain
number of years of service. President
Perrin states he would not be in favor of a pro rated clause in the contract,
if the person leaves a day before they complete the term of service agreed to they
would be required to make the full monetary payment.
Councilman Harris leaves at 7:45 p.m.
NEW
BUSINESS
State Board of Accounts Audit Report
Clerk-Treasurer Alspach states that she,
former Clerk-Treasurer
Town Council
Page Three
April 3, 2007
Stop Signs
President Perrin recommends removing the stop
signs on Delbrook at Deville and also at Pleasant. He believes there are too many stop signs on
Delbrook. The stop sign at Hollybrook
will remain. Council directs Attorney
Robbins to prepare necessary ordinance.
Athlete Recognition Signage
President Perrin asks about the signs
honoring the WCHS State Wrestling Champion.
PW Supt. Lasiter states the signs have been ordered but are not in yet.
Specialty Sign Request
PW Supt. Lasiter states that a resident on
Meter
PW Supt. Lasiter states the meter reading
equipment that was purchased 10 or more years ago has been discontinued and the
company will no longer provide support for our equipment after May. Lasiter has explored options and will need to
replace the meter reading equipment at a cost of approximately $15,000.00. ($13,000.00 for the probes and $2,000.00 for
software program changes.) Lasiter has
the money available but this was not an approved/budgeted line item. President Perrin asks how long the new
equipment will last. Lasiter estimates
10 years. When he needs to replace it
again he will probably recommend replacing with radio read equipment in the
whole town. Currently only 60% of the
meters are touch read and 40% are hand read each month. Council approves the equipment replacement
request.
Disconnect Policy
PW Supt. Lasiter asks for clarification on
the new disconnect policy. He is
concerned about shutting service off on Fridays and wants to know if the
council would prefer that we wait until Mondays? Under the current policy if a customer
receives a bill on the 5th of the month stating their service is due
to be disconnected if the entire bill is not paid by the 21st of
that month. This message is highlighted
in yellow. On the 22nd rather
than disconnect the service we hand write and deliver a reminder door hanger
giving the customer an extra 24 hours to pay.
There is a night deposit box where they can drop off their payment after
hours and the office staff comes in early on disconnect day to work through all
of the payments received up until 8:00 a.m. when the disconnect orders go
out. Because the service should have
been disconnected on Thursday but we gave them an extra day we have not created
an undue hardship. The council does not
want to change the policy.
LEGISLATIVE
OPEN TO THE
PUBLIC
Being no other
business the meeting was adjourned at 8:18 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
____________________________
Maribeth Alspach, Clerk- Treasurer
Approved: _____________________________