Approved May 6, 2002

The Common Council of the City of West Lafayette, Indiana met in the Board of Works Room at City Hall on March 28, 2002 at the hour of 4:35 p.m.

Mayor Margerum called the meeting to order.

PRESENT: COHEN KEEN MILLS O'CALLAGHAN SATTERLY SPARBY

ABSENT: WINDLER

Also present were City Attorney Bauman, Fire Chief Ford, Police Chief Marvin, and Parks Superintendent Payne.

Mayor Margerum said I might just say that the Pre-Council meeting is just to review the Agenda, to see if there is any additional information that's needed or if the Council wants to make some comment or changes. It is the time we can do some amendments to the Agenda. We don't vote on anything at the Pre-Council meeting. It's a little more informal information exchange and we don't go through the Committee Standing Reports or the APC or these. We just go through the ordinances themselves. Then the Department Heads that are affected usually are here to give us some background information.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

Ordinance No. 10-02 An Ordinance Of The City Of West Lafayette, Indiana, Appropriating The Proceeds Of The Sale Of Real Estate To The West Lafayette Building Corporation In Connection With The Financing Of A Police Station (Prepared by the City Attorney) PUBLIC HEARING.

Mayor Margerum said we have an amendment.

Clerk-Treasurer Rhodes said the purpose of the amendment is simply to give the previously generic name "construction fund" a name that can easily be identified in my ledgers as this project fund, as we will have several such funds created over the course of the next several years. Lucy Emison of Ice Miller has said this is fine and I am simply asking for the amendment so that I can get the name established to make it most easy to manage the ledgers.

Councilor Sparby moved to accept Ordinance No. 10-02 (Amended). Motion was seconded by Councilor Keen and the vote was AYE.

Mayor Margerum said this is just to put it on the Agenda in its amended form, that we wish to amend the ordinance. Bob [City Attorney Bauman], do you want to give a little brief summary of what this is?

City Attorney Bauman said under state law, the Building Corporation is required to pay for the real estate it is purchasing from the City for the site for the new police station. The appraisal on that is $650,000. That's the same per square footage cost that was the appraisal for the piece down on the western end that we recently purchased. The money will be appropriated to be used in the project.

Mayor Margerum said we get paid back essentially.

City Attorney Bauman said we get paid back and then turn around and spend it on the project anyway.

Councilor Satterly said from one pocket to the other.

City Attorney Bauman said exactly.

Mayor Margerum said are there any further questions? We'll have a public hearing. Are there any questions or comments?

City Attorney Bauman said I don't know if everyone heard, but you might.

Mayor Margerum said I did tell them that we had gotten approval from the State Board of Tax Commissioners for building the police station. Well, essentially, to go into debt.

There was no further discussion

Ordinance No. 11-02 (Amended) An Ordinance Regarding Approval Of A Lease Between The West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission And the West Lafayette Redevelopment Authority (Prepared by the City Attorney).

City Attorney Bauman said this is the lease that provides the mechanism for financing the construction of the new police station. There will be a lease between the Building Corporation and the City. No, I'm sorry, this is different. I'm mixing them up. This is Joe's [Parks Superintendent Payne]. This would be to approve the lease of facilities between the Redevelopment Authority and Redevelopment Commission for the infrastructure for Purdue Research Park. That would be three streets, storm sewers and sanitary sewers, and sidewalks, as well as a number of trail segments and I thank he gave you a pretty detailed presentation before on those. I'd be happy to answer any questions. Again, this was also approved by the Local Government Tax Control Board this morning.

Mayor Margerum said we invited them all to take a hike on the trails. We didn't invite them to go take a hike.

Councilor O'Callaghan said that's the new name, the Local Government Tax Control? Is that the new name for them?

City Attorney Bauman said oh, its close.

Mayor Margerum said yes.

City Attorney Bauman said I know how to find it, though.

Clerk-Treasurer Rhodes said that actually is an amalgam of the old and new names. I kind of like it better than the new name.

Mayor Margerum said yes, I think that it does have a different name, under the Department of Local Government Finance, I think. It's still a tax control board. Any other questions on that? I will give you [Councilor Cohen] all of the background information and maybe Bob can give you.

City Attorney Bauman said let me make a note. I'll send you a copy of the presentation.

Mayor Margerum said yes, because it has all of the details.

Clerk-Treasurer Rhodes said I think a transcript of that was in the minutes from last Council meeting.

Mayor Margerum said OK. If you would like it in living color, we can do that, PowerPoint presentation. Tom [Gall, T.J. Gall & Associates] did you have anything you wanted to add to either of these projects?

Mr. Gall said well, we've got our bids and we're expecting to accept the low bids on both projects. I don't know that we are planning to do that necessarily Tuesday, possibly the following Tuesday. We are working a few details out with the contractors. We're going to have a few more meetings with them. We don't have any reason not to accept those bids.

Mayor Margerum said OK, good enough. I must say, there's been a lot of work on Tom's part, and especially Joe [Parks Superintendent Payne] and Dan [Police Chief Marvin] and Bob [City Attorney Bauman] and his office, and Josh [Director of Development Andrew] in trying to put all of this together and have it move as quickly as possible, and also our consultants have been very helpful. Any other questions about this lease?

There was no further discussion.

NEW BUSINESS

Ordinance No. 14-02 An Ordinance Amending Chapter __ Of Ordinance No. 32-97 Being The Unified Zoning Ordinance Of Tippecanoe County (UZO Amendment 28) (Submitted by Area Plan Commission).

Councilor Mills said this is an ordinance to amend the definition of integrated center and office building and.

Mayor Margerum said before you start on that, just one thing, the Unified Zoning Ordinance governs all the building in Tippecanoe County and changes to it have to go, first the Commission, and then all of the governmental bodies have to approve it before it becomes law, and there is only one reading. Any other ordinance we have two separate readings, but if it comes from the Area Planning Commission it has had an initial reading so then this is the only time that we see it. And, we cannot amend it. It's either up or down. Why don't you go ahead?

Councilor Mills said the administrative officers and the County have found that they are running into a little bit of difficulty with the way those terms are now defined, "integrated center" and "office building", because there are now strip malls that have insurance businesses and stuff. They are not actually commercial retail business. So, to get rid of the problem of rezoning that has occurred, they just want to change those definitions to more accurately reflect a particular building type. It's really just a re-definition to make it easier to define those in the future.

Mayor Margerum said but they would all have to be owned by a single ownership. That's an integrated center.

Councilor Mills said well, yes, and the idea is, I guess this is where the problem has arisen, is actually the signage of those places because there are different rules for signs depending on the type of business. So, it led to sign problems, variance problems with signs, and square feet of signage.

Mayor Margerum said and the office building?

Councilor Sparby said it's more of a housekeeping thing.

Councilor Mills said yes.

Mayor Margerum said are there any questions about the amendment to the UZO?

Councilor Mills said it's another one of those cleanups from the NUZO. I'm sure we'll see more.

Councilor Satterly said on-going process.

Councilor Mills said on-going process, yes.

Councilor Satterly said and it may be on going for some time.

City Attorney Bauman said although, considering there was so much stuff that was new in NUZO, it really has gone fairly smoothly.

Councilor Mills said amazingly well, yes.

Mayor Margerum said I think those major rezonings, the ones that were done in West Lafayette and in Lafayette were really quite extensive and could have been a real problem with so many people involved, but I thought they went very smoothly.

There was no further discussion.

Resolution No. 10-02 A Resolution Authorizing The Filing Of An Application With The U.S. Department Of Housing And Urban Development, For Community Development Block Grant Funds, As Provided In Title I Of The Community Development Act Of 1974, As Amended (Submitted by Department of Development).

Mayor Margerum said this is the, as you all are aware, to authorize me to file the application. We have been granted $512,000. We've had two meetings of the Advisory Committee on CDBG. All of the social service agencies made their presentation. The ratings are available. Has everybody seen them? This is just the filing. This isn't the budget.

Councilor O'Callaghan said will Buz [Assistant Director of Development Grady] make a presentation on the One-Year Action Plan?

Mayor Margerum said he could.

Councilor Mills said he did that at the second.

Councilor O'Callaghan said he did that on March 19, but I thought he usually presents something to the Council.

Mayor Margerum said yes, sure. I could get him. Either this time or next month will be the actual budget. It doesn't matter which one you would rather have him do it. This just enables me to file it and then there can be some changes. Then, we have the final budget. It isn't broken out nearly as much as this one. Well, why don't we go ahead and have a guest speaker. I'll ask him to do that.

There was no further discussion.

Resolution No. 11-02 A Resolution Requesting The Transfer Of Funds (Engineering, Sanitation, CDBG, EDIT) (Prepared by the Clerk-Treasurer).

Mayor Margerum said the last one is a resolution requesting the transfer of funds. Engineering from vehicles. They are going to buy a chair. From Vehicle Lease/Purchase, for a chair. Sanitation, $12,000 from Salaries into Salaries, Part-time, to meet payroll for part-time employees. Then Development is for Code Enforcement and the Code Revolving Loan Fund into Housing Rehab. This would be to purchase additional properties to rehab them. This seems to be a good time to do that as there are properties that do come on the market, and this will give them an additional $70,000 and, as you know, then once they are rehabbed they can only be used for people who qualify under the low to moderate income. The last is EDIT and this is to transfer from the Land Acquisition account to pay for the additional Tapawingo Park improvements. This is the case where we have borrowed from other accounts in order to make up the difference in what we had counted on from Build Indiana funds, in order to build the ice skating rink. We've gotten the bid and we won't be able to accept it unless we have this transfer. Joe [Parks Superintendent Payne], do you want to talk about that a little bit?

Parks Superintendent Payne said sure, the amount that we're requesting to be transferred actually breaks into three pieces for explanation. One amount is the $300,000 that we'd hoped to receive from Build Indiana, which is not going to happen. Another amount is approximately $183,400, which was recently deposited into the EDIT account, due to reimbursement from DNR of grant funds. It's not appropriated, but is has been put into the unappropriated EDIT funds. The other amount is approximately $100,000, which is about the amount that we come up short after our Foundation authorized last Friday at their meeting a transfer of $410,000 from their accounts to our Park Board Wabash Fund, with the existing funds in the Park Board Wabash Fund and that $410,000, this amount is needed to sign the two contracts for the rink and the one for the pavilion and plaza. Of course, Tom [Gall] referenced those earlier. We have received a couple of bids. We are happy with our bids. Our intent would be, with this transfer completed, to request Park Board to authorize rink contracts on the 15^th of next month and request the Board of Works to authorize contracts the following day at the regular Board of Works meeting, and then proceed with work soon thereafter and be ready, substantially complete, by November 1 so we know how to make the thing work by Thanksgiving. That is our plan. The additional $100,000 or so that is in here will allow us to also get the flooring installed and the lights installed and provides about $50,000 in contingency, hopefully not needed, but it seems like that always occurs.

Mayor Margerum said I have to say though that the account that was burrowed from was the right-of-way acquisition for Tapawingo and that was based earlier on, at an earlier estimate of what we thought that would be, and it looks like we can borrow that money and if we have to postpone that a little bit longer, then that's what we'll have to do.

Councilor Satterly said is this Tapawingo Drive south?

Mayor Margerum said south, yes, for the right-of-way. The amount was set purposely high enough to cover it so we think we can safely do that, but I did want you to know where that came from and that could possibly result in that being delayed but if the right-of-way costs are not out of line, then we can cover them both. Any questions?

Councilor Keen said I guess, on one hand I think the ice rink is a good idea, don't get me wrong here, but I have to play devil's advocate here. In light of the state budget deficit and not knowing what our own reassessment is going to do to the individual taxpaying homeowner, would this be a good time to maybe put this on hold until we get a better forecast of our total financial picture? Because it seems like we are talking about a substantial amount of money here. I feel like the question needs to be asked.

Mayor Margerum said well, this is money that has already been appropriated. These are EDIT dollars that we have. So this isn't really affected by the, I mean, it's affected in the sense that $300,000 additional that we'd hoped to get from Build Indiana will not be available so we're not going to count on that and I think it's appropriate that we take the cuts if they are going to have to come, like everybody else, but this is money that's already been appropriated. So, it's not additional dollars.

Councilor Keen said I understand that.

City Attorney Bauman said it's from the Economic Development Income Tax Fund, and it's not from property taxes.

Mayor Margerum said yes.

Councilor O'Callaghan said and there has been a lot of work already done on it and we do have the bids and if we postponed it just to keep the money in the account for a little bit longer, it might end up costing more in the long run. We've got the surcharging done and we had to wait for that. So, it seems like it is appropriate to proceed.

Mayor Margerum said and we've had substantial private contributions. What are those amounting to now?

Parks Superintendent Payne said $210,000 total at this time, and some additional in kind donations that haven't been included in that valuation, from many people, including some second time donors, and our Committee has recently sent out another 600 plus personalized letters to friends in the community to see if there are other folks interested in being contributors.

Councilor Satterly said these donations amount to what percent of the total cost?

Parks Superintendent Payne said well, including the flooring and the lighting, we are just over $1.3 million and the private donations are over $210,000 including the in kind donations.

Councilor Satterly said a little less than 20%.

Parks Superintendent Payne said yes, as I mentioned earlier, we've returned $183,400 from the state DNR and put it back into the EDIT unappropriated fund just recently. That is a grant contribution from them.

Mayor Margerum said and we do have a pending bid, which you mentioned.

Councilor Cohen said does that $210,000 include the original donation to get it started?

Parks Superintendent Payne said yes, it does. It's still far and away the most significant donation. The second most significant is the Community Foundation. The Greater Lafayette Community Foundation has contributed $50,000 to the project.

Councilor Satterly said how many bids did they submit, on that job?

Mr. Gall said I believe we received two on the rink and one on the ice. The second ice contractor decided not to bid, although our bids came in within our engineering estimates. So, we were terribly satisfied with the ice bid. Actually, they both came in right at the estimates. At the very last minute, several people decided to bid different projects, so as the project was bidding nobody really knew people weren't bidding. There was the illusion that there was a lot of competition and Police bid the same day and several contractors made last minute decisions to shift their energies to bid the police station, but nobody knew who was bidding what.

Mayor Margerum said that's why we have competitive bids and it's a good process.

Parks Superintendent Payne said I might add our rink consultant from Indianapolis said he thinks we probably are 10% better off than we would have been if we'd have been on schedule last year, which is encouraging since we're short anyway.

Councilor Mills said yes, so it may be really a good time to go ahead.

Mayor Margerum said yes. Are there any other questions?

There was no further discussion.

COMMUNICATIONS

Fire Chief Ford said just some information. I received some certificates of appreciation from Marquette Medical for three of our firefighters, Bruce Sigman, Greg Booth, and Terry Jones for saving a persons life. I've requested the Mayor to present these Monday night. The incident occurred actually at MCL, to which the responders found a person in cardiac arrest and with our de-fibs we brought her back and she's at home doing quite well.

Mayor Margerum said great, we'll do that Monday night.

Adjournment

There being no further business at this time, Councilor Sparby moved for adjournment. Motion was seconded by Councilor Keen and the vote was AYE, the time being 5:00 p.m.

Office of the Clerk-Treasurer Judy Rhodes