PORTER COUNTY COUNCIL PORTER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS Special Joint Meeting November 2, 2011

The Porter County Council and Board of Commissioners convened a special meeting on Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 5:30 p.m. in the County Administration Center, 155 Indiana-Suite 205, Valparaiso, Indiana.

Council members present were Jim Polarek, Sylvia Graham, Laura Blaney, Jim Biggs, Jeremy Rivas, and President Dan Whitten. Board of Commissioner members present were Nancy Adams, Carole Knoblock and President John Evans. Also present was Attorney Scott McClure, Auditor Robert Wichlinski and Michelle Lesniewski.

Comm. Evans called the meeting to order with the Pledge of Allegiance.

Strategic Financial Plan discussion

Comm. Evans, Thank you. Again, welcome everyone for coming this evening. We have a couple things on the agenda. Todd Samuelson from Umbaugh & Associates is here to talk to us about our strategic plan going forward and the contingent from Chesterton has the front row and they’re going to talk to us about a really good project. So we’ll let Todd, Todd, if you’ll come up and we’ll let you give us kind of an overview, if you would, of what we’re talking about with the strategic plan and you can inform the Council how that’s going to work and what the process will be and those types of things, so.

Todd Samuelson, Good evening. We’re a little condensed here. Todd Samuelson, I’m a partner with Umbaugh. We, I think most of you are probably familiar with our firm working with the county over the years. I’ve worked in Porter County, oh gosh, for a long time, 20 years or so, on various projects. I’m going to give a little bit of backdrop, if I may. In terms of the capital planning that we have done in Porter County and other counties and how that has kind of morphed into, especially in recent times, a need that we have seen, not only for county units, but also school corporations, cities, towns, all kinds of governmental units, to think more comprehensively in terms of a planning process, strategic planning process. We really, we’ve been providing financial advisory services to governmental units in Indiana for over 60 years and have been doing so for about 10 years in Michigan now. So we’ve done a lot of things in that time frame, but more recently, especially after the legislative changes that were fairly drastic in 2008, to really look at the services that we can provide to our clients, such as Porter County, that really match what the needs are. What I mean by that is with the, I don’t know if I want to use the word overhaul, but it’s been a fairly dramatic change in the property tax system that we have here in Indiana with circuit breaker, other legislative changes, other economic conditions that have come at roughly the same time, have created real challenges for governmental units. So we have concentrated in the last few years of services that we need to provide for folks in the strategic planning arena. We’ve done that for many years, but we really focused on it in the last few years and really in a context of a comprehensive financial planning process. So over the last few years we’ve done many of those throughout Indiana for counties, communities, schools and for various reasons. There are folks that are really challenged right now with resources that have been hit very hard by the circuit breaker and trying to determine how they’re going to continue to provide the services that they need to continue to provide for their constituents with the resources that, quite honestly, don’t look like they’re going to be coming back anytime soon. Now that the circuit breaker is in the Constitution it’s part of the fabric that we all need to deal with. In conjunction with that, the economic conditions have put a challenge on income tax resources and all of these things are happening while the needs of folks, like Porter County, don’t go away. Capital projects are still necessary, often times very expensive, depending on their nature, they’re periodic. So the capital planning process, which we’ve done for years and worked with clients on, is really now woven into a comprehensive financial planning process where the services that we would be working with Porter County on or the outcomes that we’ll be looking for would be a, really a look at all the major funds of the county. It’s not just a capital plan, that’s not what I’m hearing Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 1 and maybe you’ll tell me differently, but it’s an overall strategic plan for the county. We’re not engineers, we’re not architects, we’re not, and I live in Marshall County, so I don’t know the priorities that you all have and I’ll talk about that here in a moment, but we do have, I think, a very effective process that we can assist the county through that will involve a great deal of input, gathering of information from county officials. We’ve done very involved strategic planning processes and we’ve done some that are somewhat short circuited for various reasons, but when I say very involved what I mean by that is our staff will be coming in and working, interviewing key departments, key department heads, key county officials, Commissioners, Council. I’m assuming that’s going to be part of this process. We’re still working through the scope of what this strategic planning process will be, but from what I’m hearing that’s going to be a very key component to get all perspectives of what the priorities are for Porter County. Quite often how do we, the challenge can be, how do we prioritize those and how do we match those needs that Porter County has with the resources that are available. It sounds potentially simple, but it’s not because resources, some of those are very flexible in terms of what they can be used for, some of those resources are very specific, some of those resources are potentially capped going forward. So a lot of those things are yet to be scrubbed through, if you will, through this process, but we’ve gone through it with many units. Quite honestly, how did we get involved or come to be before you here this evening? I read newspapers. I’ve seen the conversations, if you will, that have been reported in terms of how do we move Porter County forward, what are our priorities. So I sent Gwenn, who I’ve worked with for many years, an email saying here are some things we’ve been doing throughout the state that may be of interest or assistance to Porter County. Primarily, I think, when we’ve been in front of the county, it’s been how do we finance a specific project. We can certainly do that, but this is a little different in terms of approach. It’s very different in terms of the outcome. So the process that we would expect to go through would be to work with, very closely, with all the departments gathering information through interviews on what projects are priorities, what resources are available to meet those priorities. Really, if you can envision, I’m an accountant, I know, so I think maybe a little bit differently, but we envision a three or five year plan. Again, that depends on feedback from you all on what your priorities are. Anything beyond that, I think, is more crystal balling then even a three or five year could be. In that three or five year plan we’re going to have historical cash flow analysis, how did we get to where we’re at, what is the current position of Porter County. These are all things that I know that the Auditor’s office provides information, you probably have a pretty good handle on, but it helps to tell the story in terms of how and where Porter County is currently. Then based on our experience of where things are headed, our experience of Porter County, and really, even more importantly, you’re alls experience of where do you want to see Porter County go. Then we’re going to put together a forecast, again, a three or five year, and that’s going to be a cash flow analysis by major funds.

Mr. Biggs, Yeah, Todd, I would hope that your summary on what where this is going to go in three to five years is going to be based on 1% of what your firm thinks and 99% of what this board and the citizens of Porter County think.

Mr. Samuelson, Yeah, I’m sure you don’t really care what I think in terms of…

Mr. Biggs, I got to be honest with you, no. Certainly I care what you think…

Mr. Samuelson, Well, I didn’t say that very well.

Mr. Biggs, I know you know your job very well. I got a lot of respect for you and your firm, but I would hope that before we get into what this report is going to look like that every stakeholder, including everybody at this board, is asked their opinion and then go out into the communities and ask them what they want their government to be instead of what the elected officials think that it needs to be.

Mr. Samuelson, I appreciate those comments and I really do because when I talk about the process, and that’s where we can get into what do you want the scope of this to look like. We’ve been in, and I’ll use an example of the City of Huntington, we went through and they had some major challenges from the circuit breaker and otherwise. So, and one of the Council members there had a quote that I’ve been using over and over, Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 2 “you never want to waste a good crisis.” That doesn’t apply here necessarily, but what is done…

Comm. Evans, I think that quote is attributed to Rahm Emanuel.

Mr. Samuelson, I’m sorry.

Comm. Evans, I think that quote is attributed to Rahm Emanuel.

Mr. Samuelson, Oh, okay.

Mr. Biggs, We’re trying to stay away from that…

Mr. Samuelson, Exactly.

Mr. Biggs, That’s what we’ve been doing up until this point is managing crisis to crisis to crisis.

Mr. Samuelson, Where I was headed with that is we went through a pretty extensive process of interviewing key officials; Council, Mayor. Translating that to a county situation, it would be interviews with, and if you don’t want to talk to us, fine, but we would expect to talk to all Council, Commissioners, department heads, elected officials, Auditor, Assessor, etc. Really, I think what we can help bring to the process is not what you should do, but as a process to gather all of that information in a meaningful way and an understandable way so that, because it really can become a challenge to bring all of those perspectives and how do you prioritize those. We’ve tried many methods in doing so; in how do you score various projects in terms of importance. Do they meet; are they necessary for public safety? Are they necessary for economic development? Are they necessary because of statutes that you need to follow? So there’s different ways that we can help bring a system to help prioritize that list of projects and then a matching of what resources are available. We haven’t been in business here in Indiana a long time on telling people what to do. That’s not going to go very far. It’s really, we’re going to be a part of your team in bringing this process together and ultimately it’s got to be Porter County’s plan.

Mr. Whitten, I think that, candidly, from a philosophical perspective, I think what we’re looking for, at least judging from the conversations we’ve had both amongst the Council members and Commissioners, is as we look forward in Porter County we have clearly some projects that we think are required for health and safety kind of stuff, top priority, how are we going to fund those. Then we kind of go to the next tier and it’s quality of life stuff, economic development stuff. I think that all sort of backdrops to what direction we want the county to go. Then when you look at all those kinds of projects, then we start talking about how are we going to fund those and that has to be part of the strategic plan. Then I think we have to understand that that is a work in progress, that projects tend to come up that maybe move up the tier a little bit that we have to address and make some changes, but at least we have a better picture of what we have to work with and what direction we want to go. Particularly from the Council’s perspective as we get into these budget sessions, so.

Mr. Samuelson, It’s not, what I envision, it’s not just capital, I mean, the county has to continue to operate. So it’s going to be, in the strategic plan, is going to be inclusive of operational dollars, as well, so it’s not just a capital plan, it is a comprehensive financial plan.

Comm. Evans, Questions? Comments?

Mr. Polarek, Before we get too far, I know there’s been some things thrown around on how this is being paid for. Has that been decided as far as is it coming from the Commissioners, Auditor…

Comm. Evans, I thought you were buying it.

Mr. Polarek, Yeah, I’ll write a check now. Sure. I just wanted… Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 3 Comm. Evans, The Commissioners have a consultant item in their budget that we’ll pay for it.

Mr. Polarek, Okay. Nothing against Umbaugh, but it’s been brought to my attention that Valparaiso University can do this for us too. Has that been discussed at all?

Comm. Evans, No. I went to the company that we’ve used for years and years and asked them to do this after they showed an interest in performing the plan. You guys asked that we do it, so I thought it was imperative that we get it rolling as quickly as possible.

Mr. Polarek, Okay. I was just wondering. It’s just a suggestion that if we can keep the tax dollars local and help our local university in the meantime possibly by using their knowledge. Obviously the comprehensive plan or strategic plan also is going to have to include the actuarial on the insurance and compensation analysis for the employees. From my understanding, is it, can all be done by one group. Do you guys do analysis on actuarial service for insurance?

Mr. Samuelson, We are not actuaries, no.

Mr. Biggs, Todd, in your experience, how long can we expect a comprehensive strategic plan to take, to be written?

Mr. Samuelson, The sense that I’m getting in terms of the process, in terms of interviews, etc. a lot of that depends on folks schedules. We have 70 folks in our office so we are going to have the resources available. Some of that sometimes get challenged on when are you all available. So it’s hard for me to say here’s a day by day schedule. What I would expect is that, and I know it seems like a large range, but within 30 or 60 days we should be able to come back with here’s the, when I say the first cut, what I mean by that is this financial plan, as any plan where you’re looking at the future, is going to be based on certain assumptions in certain areas. I appreciate the comments about Valpo, there are other universities that, but I’m not shy about saying that I think that, maybe I shouldn’t say it this way, but I don’t know of a firm that has more resources than we do, more experiences than we do in understanding what is going on with the property tax system, income tax system, here in Indiana. We live and breathe it every day. So maybe that provides some level of comfort, maybe it doesn’t.

Mr. Polarek, You know, like I said, it’s nothing against your organization. You guys do great work…

Mr. Samuelson, I mean, there are things that, yeah.

Mr. Polarek, I just wanted to throw that question out there.

Mr. Samuelson, Right. I appreciate it. I didn’t take that as a sly, but I’m confident in our abilities.

Mr. Biggs, Have you all performed any where you’ve gone out into the community and gathered information?

Mr. Samuelson, I didn’t finish that thought. In Huntington we interviewed department heads, we interview, but part of that process we also did focus group meetings throughout the community. Some of those were better attended than others and we worked with the city officials on identifying certain focus groups of the business community, the industrial community, the citizens of the community, the college, in their case. So that would, I’m assuming, be part of this, as well. The more we add to that, which I think is going to be part of a healthy process that will add some time. Part of, you know, when I say a first cut, that may be mostly financial in terms of here’s what we’re seeing based on input, feedback. We’re going to have some recommendations, whether you take them or not is up to you. I would assume you would want to bring, us to bring some ideas. If we then take that first cut and go into the community and ask for Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 4 feedback, input, in Huntington it was a six month process.

Mr. Biggs, Do you, I would think that you would typically, I mean, we have to have some kind of mission statement here, which we don’t.

Mr. Samuelson, Excuse me.

Mr. Biggs, We have to have some kind of mission statement here, which we do not have in county government. I would think that everything starts from there because you have the revolving door of elected officials coming and going. Those things are going to change even within the plan.

Mr. Samuelson, Sure.

Mr. Biggs, But the general direction in which we want to go, where the citizens believe we should go. The elected officials who are here at the time that formed the plan, that shouldn’t change too much.

Mr. Samuelson, I wouldn’t expect that, whether it’s, I have my own personal opinions, I guess, on mission statements and sometimes how effective they can be, but I think what I’m hearing is that it has to have an overall theme in terms of where Porter County is headed. It has to have that substance because officials change and when that happens or department heads change, you know, why are we doing things a certain way, well, here’s our plan. Here’s what went into the plan and here’s why we’re going down the path. So sure, it has to have that feeling to it and it has to have flexibility built into it, as well, I think.

Mr. Biggs, You’ll work with the Auditor because we’ve got a lot of lists floating around of what we, in regard to capital plans…

Mr. Samuelson, Sure.

Mr. Biggs, Do you work with the Auditor to determine what part, if any, of those capital needs that we actually have the ability to address?

Mr. Samuelson, Certainly.

Mr. Biggs, That’s part of the plan?

Mr. Samuelson, Certainly.

Mr. Whitten, Well, it’s got to be part of the fiscal part of the plan so we know where the money is at. So I would say that’s…

Mr. Biggs, Is that including operational expenses?

Mr. Samuelson, Yes.

Mr. Biggs, That are affiliated with…

Mr. Samuelson, Yes, there’s going to be certain projects that are going to have operational components or impacts associated with that.

Mr. Biggs, Right.

Mr. Samuelson, So (inaudible) we don’t want to complete a project and not be able to use it because we can’t afford to operate it.

Mr. Biggs, Right.

Mr. Samuelson, I don’t know specifically what you might be thinking of, but we’ve been around the block a few times not to hopefully let that happen, but that would be unfortunate. When I talk about flexibility because I think you had mentioned that it Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 5 certainly has to be a road map, but every, this is not a shot across the bow, but every time the legislator gets together in Indianapolis the rules can change. Having a comprehensive plan in place allows, I think, affords the opportunity to evaluate those changes much quicker in terms of what do those legislative changes mean to Porter County and then what does it mean to our ability to complete the plan. It may mean that we need to adjust. Five years ago I don’t think anybody could have predicted the level of impact that the circuit breaker has, maybe not so much in Porter County as other counties, but if you had a strategic plan eight years ago in St. Joe County it would have been fairly meaningless after 2008.

Mr. Polarek, I like hearing where you’re going to address the O&M of it because there’s been a lot of discussion about needing new buildings built or purchasing buildings. Right now, if we just look at what’s hanging out there as far as unfunded liabilities, we’re looking at if after next year if nothing happens with the 911 there’s another $2,000,000, possibly $2,000,000 in insurance costs. So we’re looking down the road at possibly $4,000,000 of unfunded liabilities right there that, I think, need to be incorporated into this plan.

Mr. Biggs, Well, as you know from looking at our financial position we are cash heavy, but what we have to be careful with is any reoccurring expenses that we create due to a decision to either build a building or to increase the size of a building or whatever it is.

Mr. Samuelson, Yes. The plans that we have worked with and we continue to work with communities on, it’s not always for folks that are, don’t have two nickels to rub together. Sometimes, and I can think of three examples that I’ve been involved with directly that these are communities or counties that are doing okay. They want to continue to do okay. We’re going to have recommendations, again, it’s going to be a joint effort, collaboration, but there are certain guidelines for reserve balances and various funds depending on the nature of that fund and the nature of how expenditures can change. Cash reserves, I call it a bottom-up analysis that when you do that three to five year forecast, that number on the lower right hand corner is the amount of reserve that you have left. Is that in line, I don’t even know if you have a written cash reserve policy for Porter County, but if not that’s going to be a goal, I think, of this process because that can be a guiding factor in terms, if you talk about a mission statement, and that’s a guiding factor in terms of, I would assume, a consensus that we would come to that as a county unit we will maintain a cash reserve balance of x-percent of what that fund is going to spend. If we can’t maintain that we need to adjust either the inputs, in terms of what resources are coming into that fund, or the outputs, what we’re spending out of that fund, in order to maintain or stay within the confines of a policy.

Mr. Whitten, I think, again, generally I think it’s a question of it’s a roadmap to get to our priorities. We have a big picture here of what we want to see happen; fund 911, fund drainage, perhaps the animal shelter is in that, the animal contract or the ambulance contract that was an issue, development of corridors, acquisitions of buildings, all of these things go into the picture. We prioritize those things that are must do things and then we start looking at how do we get there. I just think that’s what it comes down to; understanding that those priorities shift. I mean, four years ago drainage might not have been one of the big ticket items. Now it is. I think that that’s what this all comes down to, having just a generalized goal with some specific priorities in there and how do we get there.

Mr. Rivas, I think, I don’t know if this is what Jim was really trying to allude to, is we have to right now we have to get this actuary in here because really nothing else makes sense. We can put everything in a three to five year plan, but if we don’t address our insurance, which the numbers I see is we’re running about a $2,000,000 deficit annually on insurance. If we don’t figure out those numbers and get those numbers under control and 911, I mean, you can put all the plans out there you want, it won’t do anything for us. Whether this is, we have to get this actuary in here now and it has to be a parallel study with this because I don’t know if you can finish yours without having those numbers in there. I think that’s something that’s going to happen now too and we’ve talked about a salary analysis if we’re sincere about bringing the salaries, a clear vision of our salaries, in this county up and down from every department and having Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 6 some kind of parity and understanding. That would have to be a part, if we’re going to address it in a long-term that would be part of it.

Mr. Samuelson, Yeah, part of the process, we do weave into this a fair amount of bench marking and what are, and I know the associations do a fair amount of that, as well, in terms of what are pay levels for different types of employees etc., but I think that at least most of the folks that we work with want to be accountable to the plan. What I mean by that is having key bench marks can do a couple of things; one identify areas are we out of line in terms of what pay levels are, are we out of line in terms of insurance premiums. Those are some quick things that can certainly highlight areas that may need a little deeper dive. Maybe you already know where those are at. It sounds like it.

Mr. Biggs, Todd, you can tell by the questions that are being asked, we’re expecting a very detailed and comprehensive document in the end, one that hopefully you can take to your, take around to the state of Indiana and use as a model. That’s what we’re really hoping for. We’re not; we’re looking to do something out of the box and…

Mr. Samuelson, Yeah, I didn’t come with a box, here’s what we’re going to do bec ause every county is different and every county is unique.

Mr. Biggs, Right, right.

Mr. Samuelson, You clearly recognize that.

Mr. Whitten, Smaller government, fiscally responsible, accomplish our priorities and stay solvent. There’s your mission statement. Our goal needs to be towards that.

Mr. Biggs, He just charged us $500 for that.

Mr. Samuelson, He can get it done next week, right?

Mr. Biggs, Yep.

Comm. Evans, In reference to the actuary, I thought the Auditor was going to supply the names or do the hiring or, I’m not sure where you, my board have not been involved in that conversation at all. So I don’t know what you’re doing with the actuary. If that’s information that you want Todd to have before he goes forward, I suggest that you get that finalized with whatever you’re doing in that regard.

Mr. Rivas, I think it has to be.

Comm. Evans, In the sake of time, because we do have another presentation, I’d say that the questions that we have from this point forward should be done on the interviews on an individual basis and we can put that all together. If you would like to meet with this body again as a whole or individually, whatever, just give us your desire and we’ll see that it gets done.

Mr. Biggs, Yeah, and Todd, excuse me Commissioner Evans, is that if you could submit to the Council and to the Board of Commissioners some kind of schedule, set schedule. Because, again, I believe for this thing to work for Porter County Government all 10 members of this board sitting here has to be on board with this. I don’t think that you would argue with that.

Mr. Samuelson, Nope.

Mr. Biggs, I think in order for us to do that we’re going to need a set schedule and a clear blueprint as to where…

Mr. Samuelson, Yeah, we operate better under that format anyway…

Mr. Biggs, What’s that?

Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 7 Mr. Samuelson, We operate much better under that format in terms of having a schedule of when things will be accomplished. That’s typically part of our process.

Mr. Whitten, Thank you very much.

Comm. Evans, Thank you, Todd. My mission statement is to bring the best government possible to the citizens of Porter County, period.

Mr. Whitten, You didn’t like my mission statement?

Comm. Evans, No, it’s too long, too many words.

Mr. Polarek, Too lawyerish.

Comm. Evans, Thank you very much and thanks for coming up this evening. We appreciate it.

Mr. Samuelson, Thank you all very much.

49 Corridor discussion – Town of Chesterton

Comm. Evans, Next we’re going to hear from the Town of Chesterton. Jeff Trout and Sharon Darnell are here as board members. Jeff, do you want to introduce your team?

Jeff Trout, Sure. We appreciate the Commissioners and the County Council’s time here this evening. We’ll try to keep ourselves brief here. We brought along our, Bernie Doyle, our Town Manager, Sharon Darnell, she’s our current Town Council President and liaison for the Utility Board, Jeff Ban is with DVG, Inc., a consulting engineer that we’ve hired, Nick Walding is a Council member, here is his wife, Mark O’Dell is our town engineer, and Matt Reardon with CEH, who also is working with us on our RDA grant.

Comm. Evans, If you write this check it’s SEH.

Mr. Trout, Did I use the wrong acronym? I’m sorry. SEH. Sorry, Matt. The, if we could, the reason we’re here, and the Town of Chesterton has been working for quite some time in regards to expanding our sewer, utility and infrastructure services into a fairly newly annexed area south of Route 8, the Toll Road there. As we work on this project, for a number of years, we came to the conclusion that, one, we certainly can do and take care of ourselves pretty nicely there and create a utility corridor within our town boundaries. I think we would be fine, but as we started getting some more information and looking beyond our own borders a little bit we thought, well, this could be a great opportunity if we do what (inaudible) our Phase One project, but certainly it would be an opportunity for a much larger regional project, which we think is incredibly important with the location of the new Porter Hospital at Route 6 and 49. We’ve looked at other examples in the area. Just quickly, in Fort Wayne a hospital in the same, Community Hospital folks built there 11 or 12 years ago, if you take a snapshot of that intersection, a lot of development. There’s (inaudible), restaurants, things like that, there’s higher education facilities, nursing schools. These sorts of things will follow the hospital. The fact that Porter County has the opportunity to take advantage of a $275,000,000 project we think is something, obviously, much bigger than the Town of Chesterton. It is something that if we embrace it and we can come together in a unified fashion, plan for the future development and growth. We think that it could really benefit the county, certainly will benefit the Town of Chesterton, the City of Valparaiso and everybody for the next 30 or 40 years. We like to, we coined the phrase, and I believe it to be absolutely true that Porter Hospital is the largest construction and economic development project to come to Porter County since Bethlehem Steel was built. We’re not bringing smokestack type jobs. We’ve really been working hard in Chesterton to try to gear up to bring medically related projects to the 49 corridor, which would include our utility, sewer service, water service, which we would put (inaudible). Indiana American Water is the water company and fiber optics system we would like to bring down the corridor so that as projects are Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 8 contemplated coming in or enter around the hospital that not only is the Town of Chesterton, are we ready, but there’s a lot of ground that you can see from our maps here, there’s a lot of ground in Porter County that certainly would be prime towards some economic development to bring some nice paying jobs, and bring some tax revenue and things of that nature, which are nothing but, well, I think the gentleman, Todd, that was just here sort of hindered we could all use a little more of that. So this could be an opportunity to help the county, it certainly is going to help the Town of Chesterton. We really are, we believe firmly this whole team has been working on this here for almost three years that we realize we got a hold of something here much bigger than Chesterton. If we do this right, get the infrastructure, get everything in place, I think we’re all going to benefit for many years and that, that’s sort of my schpeel as to why we’re even here to begin with. What I’d like to do at this point, then, if I could turn over the podium to Jeff Ban and Jeff will kind of give you sort of the nuts and bolts of certainly our Phase One and then just to make sure that you understand Phase Two once it leaves the Town of Chesterton. We’ve got some maps, we’ve got some lines and things, but we don’t pretend that that’s what we’re going to tell the county to do. We need to give it to Bob Thompson, we need to give it to county officials and what’s their idea and that’s sort of the threshold we’re at here this evening is we got our Phase One pretty much hammered out, we’re ready to put it out to bid. Then Phase Two, which would go out into the county if you folks are interested, now is the time to start planning and trying to put that project together. So, Jeff…

Jeff Ban, Thanks, Jeff. Again, my name is Jeff Ban and I really want to thank you all, the Commissioners and the Council, for being together in this scenario, this setting to listen to the Town of Chesterton’s project that we’ve been working on for several years and looking at how we can partner with you in a corridor planning process. As Jeff indicated, this is much bigger than the town; it is the entire corridor community which includes a great area of the county. So that is what we are here to do tonight is to begin discussing the partnership that the town wants to create with the county, as well, as we go into the partnership we currently are working through and we’re in investigation, we can talk a little more on a RDA application and we would like to be able to do something jointly with you on that. Again, once again, I want to thank you very much for that. For the last several years our firm, DVG, has been working with the town to help them define and forecast and vision a kind of development growth that’s going to be occurring for the 49 corridor. Several years ago, prior to Porter Hospital selecting the site at 49 and Route 6, there were several (inaudible) annexations of land owners south of the Toll Road, which created the town’s border to the site. So that forced the town to start thinking about how to get utilities to the side of that area. So as we’ve been thinking through the utility service plan, within the 49 corridor, we looked at those (inaudible) annexations how does that impact the cities or the town’s utility service? Secondly, is there continuing development in the corridor of 49 from the Toll Road north all the way to the entering route of 94, Interstate 94, as well. The other couple of things that have really created an impact to the planning process here has been the actual interchanges at 94 and at the Toll Road on 49 and how people move things, goods and services, established office complexes. The last thing, that Jeff alluded to, the hospital, Porter Hospital at 49 and Route 6 is going to create a huge dynamic in terms of its activity generator. Just think about the kinds of things that go along with a hospital; the 1,000 plus employees, the true generations that accrued because of that, the 2 to 300 patients, in-patient stays and travel that goes along with them and their families, the out-patient, the 1,000’s of out- patient services that are provided. The traffic study that was done for the hospital, I’m sure, defined a heavily increase in traffic in that node of 49 and Route 6. So whether you like it or not, economic development and other economic activity will happen within this 49 corridor. As Jeff indicated, we as a town, along with the county, would really like to look at this and really start planning very well on what’s the right kind of growth. Before I get off the planning issues here, is across county line there are three great examples of what happens when new hospitals go on the edge of your community. You look at St. Mary’s on the edge of Hobart, you look at Methodist Hospital in south Merrillville, you look at Munster Community Hospital on the south side of Munster, very similar dynamics. Those were all developed around the middle 70’s and 30 plus years later you look at what’s around Munster Community, it’s wedged between the towns of Munster, Schererville, Dyer and Highland. The kinds of growth that occurred; the office complexes, the restaurants, the hotels, schools, there’s a lot. The hospital creates a lot Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 9 of energy in terms of economic activity. Methodist Hospital, very similar conditions and cases. Look at St. Mary’s, it’s very similar. When you look at the Porter Hospital site it is wedged between Chesterton, Portage and Valparaiso. I would expect that in 30 years plus you are going to see very similar kinds of land uses that kind of will be orbiting around Porter Hospital’s site. It’s very important to start planning, transportation, and utilities and that’s what we’re here tonight to talk about is the utility planning component. Do you want to go to the next slide? What we have up in front of you right now is our planning zone. It kind of defines a little bit of the givens. This is the Toll Road, on the north side, as you see, I-80/90, State Road 49 running north and south just to the right of center. Then there are several shades of color. It’s the darker colors are the areas that are currently defined as unincorporated Porter County areas. They are your constituencies. What’s highlighted in blue is the area that was brought into the Town of Chesterton several years ago through two (inaudible) annexations. What’s highlighted in the brown color, with a little hospital dot, is the location of the Porter Hospital. This brown area is an area that is being served by small residential conservancy districts and they are currently connected to the hospital plan, as well, as the properties to the west of the hospital, are currently connected to this conservancy district so they don’t need utility service. They’re not part of our planning area. As we look at planning areas specifically on what kinds of things can happen what we find in this area as we look at land uses, we thought that the types of land uses which ultimately generated numbers in terms of utility service requirements and demands in terms of water, in terms of sanitary sewer. The areas near the interchange we felt on the west side of 49 because of the transportation and infrastructure that’s there those would be more business parks, more advanced manufacturing kinds of facilities, logistics centers. We thought that’s the kind of land uses that we kind of, we spun off of here. So our utility demands were kind of graded from those kinds of forecasts and land uses. On the east side at the interchange and as you have the existing Calumet Avenue tying into it, this is a link between Valparaiso and Chesterton, we felt that it was more of a retail component. So we looked at water and sewer demands that had more retail on its development. As we got closer to the hospital we looked at some of these areas just to the north side thinking that those might be more of a higher density residential that it can really kind of tune towards assisted living, the senior health care kinds of facilities. The town has actually seen one of those happen specifically because of the hospital location just north on 49. Then as we look a little bit closer towards the hospital to the east and the south area at the southeast or the northeast corner of 6 and 49 we believe that’s more of a business park aspect for medical office buildings and things that will be really supporting the hospital activities specifically. So with that all being said, Jeff, go to the next slide, we started coming up with a plan for utilities. What you see highlighted in green is what we’re doing on the routing that we currently have on the drafting board for the route of the sanitary sewer system. The sanitary sewer system, as we looked at all the different land uses, we think we have a peak (inaudible) of about 1,700,000 gallons per day of capacity to service. That really is a representative of both county and town areas. We have a regional pump station that is in the center of the area because of ground elevations. So that pump station has been designed, so far, to incorporate any flow that comes throughout the entire area, which is within the town and outside of the town in Porter County areas. The next slide. The blue line is somewhat of a parallel line to the sewer line and that is the new 16 inch water main that will connect to an existing water system line, 12 and 16 inch lines in Village Point Roadway and the Lake Erie Land is a development of Coffee Creek. We will extend that south across the Toll Road, west across 49, and then through the 49 corridor to provide water service. Ultimately, Indiana American Water Company will take this and link it to and loop around to Route 6. The next slide. Lastly, one of the key components we incurred in terms of development pressures these days is fiber optics. We’ve done a lot of research in the existing fiber optics systems that are out in the area and we have communicated with Frontier Communications, as well, as a couple other communication lines that are in the Toll Road and the CSX Rail line and AT&T along Route 6. We’re looking at providing some parallel 4 inch conduits around a certain length of our route. We need to have some more dialogue with the county because the utility service providers of fiber optics, part of our plan is also continuing in the same work zone corridor of providing for fiber optics. So with that I’m going to transfer the program to Matt Reardon and Matt will talk a little about what we think our benefits to the county and some financial impacts that are Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 10 associated with this.

Matt Reardon, Thanks, Jeff and thank you Commissioners and Council. It’s a pleasure to be here this evening. As we began working with the town we talked about who to be partnered with and certainly the logical direction was the county. As we began our discussions with the RDA what to do and how to proceed, again, at the partnerships and capitalizing on the existing projects that the county has been involved in. The thought processes that the county’s been discussing, the drive for economic development, the drive for new jobs, the logical locations in order to grow. We set about let’s try to wrap our hands around what this could be, what could it be. So we have in the project area, it’s 950 acres and we look at that as planners and engineers and you have to come up with a formula and you say what could be created, what job creation could occur in this area based on these uses, based on the square footage. So we come up with 4,100 potential new jobs. I look out today, there aren’t any. So whether it’s 4,100 or 100, it’s more than there are today. That’s the approach that we take when we start looking at is it a wise capital investment? Is that something that it’s worthy of consideration. When we also talk about that when we’re developing square footages and Jeff took a look at this and would say what is the capital cost? What is the per square foot investment that has to happen to do the business park, to do this senior housing, to do the (inaudible) manufacturing. We come up with a number of $690,000,000. That’s a big number; it’s a big area, again, based on the uses, based on the square footage. The item I find also of great interest is this; when we looked at this area, looked at every parcel, every parcel owner, within that boundary that generates less than $200,000 in property tax that are distributed to all the overlapping districts (inaudible). If we do this as billed out as planned that same area based on the existing tax rates, without factoring in an impact, which will probably lower them, it generates $8,700,000 in new property tax. It’s based on the, that’s based on the capital cost, we take a 20% discount on that because usually the assessments (inaudible) so we try to be a little conservative on the number, but the numbers are still big. I go back to the area generates $200,000 that goes to the overlapping taxing districts. We start doing growth and development. We don’t have jobs currently there, these are all new jobs that we talk about. We talk about the level of investment and the partnerships that are being discussed here and Chesterton is reaching out trying to continue the cooperative arrangements it had with the county and reaching out to the RDA to create a regional project. I think the RDA has been discussing we would like to see some job creation. We’re talking about an investment that would occur that could be bold. If you can go to the next slide. The total project cost is $5,900,000. That includes hard cost and soft cost. That’s based on the information Jeff provided, that’s based on the size of utilities, that’s based on the entire project through Chesterton all the way down to 6. The proposed discussion here is outlined in a letter that was provided by the town. The Town of Chesterton has made preparations and is committed to $1,200,000 from town funds to do that leg of the project or some portion thereof. That’s representative of 21%. We’re here tonight to talk about a grant through the county of $2,000,000 that represents a 33% of the total project and the balance of the funds, 46% request would be made to the RDA for $2,700,000. That’s really the project summary. The area boundary represents 84% of that area is actually in unincorporated county. So from an economic development standpoint, I looked at it, you have three entities that are pulling resources to put in an infrastructure line to leverage future development. Through the efforts of the county previously you cited a wonderful project and this is the design here is to capitalize off that investment that has happened, that occurred here. As Jeff mentioned, if you look at other communities, and I would urge you to kind of take a look at it, you see what happens around hospitals. You see the type of development you have and those are developments and jobs that are good paying jobs. Those items that are desirous whether you’re in town or out of town to have that opportunity to access. I’ll turn it back over to Jeff, he can give a summary.

Mr. Trout, Just a couple other comments that we found here in Chesterton. We’ve, with our town engineer Mark O’Dell and Bernie and some others looking for grant money and different things, we’ve found we had more success when we can go to Pete Visclosky’s office or downstate if it’s a regional project. In other words, we’ve worked with the Town of Porter, jointly applied for some grant funds and we got them. For years we would apply on our own and you don’t seem to do as well. I think that a lot Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 11 of, particularly with the grant money, the things that are out there now are tighter than ever. I think that a lot of the folks that are looking or have the grant funds available, the regional approach is for more than one municipality collaborated together, I think helps the situation and helps you score the points you need to get up the ladder to get the funding and that’s been our personal experience in Chesterton. Just a couple of things that we’ve seen happen in Chesterton since Porter Hospital has started its project there. There’s a health and rehabilitation center called Addison Pointe that’s going in. We met with those folks months ago; they wanted to be near the new hospital. Quite frankly, they’re not as near as they wanted to be, but we were shovel ready at the site there in Chesterton off Dickenson Road. So they’re investing an $8,500,000 or $10,000,000 project and Sisters of St. Francis, they are putting up an out-patient on Indiana Boundary Road. Again, we are convinced that the hospital is, you know, they are the 800 pound gorilla out there. They are going to attract a lot of other medical services and things that one, I think, will certainly compliment the hospital in a lot of areas and two, it’s going to be something competing. That hospital is a big organization, they can take care of themselves, but we have in Chesterton, in the next 16 months, we will have created 180 new jobs in Chesterton with these two facilities. So as we see ours, our ground is ready and now we’re getting ground ready south of I-80. We had conversations with another organization, a medically related organization that wants to bring a huge project to the area. We’ll be ready soon. If there’s somebody else ready out there sooner they’re going to go there, but, again, they want to be near the hospital. So as we’ve experienced the growth and the things that are happening in our town it’s coming down Route 6 and you folks will have some opportunities with your Plan Commission and folks to really, I think, take advantage of the situation, help create jobs and opportunities for people of the county. So that’s why we believe that us running a smaller sewer and water line and taking care of the Town of Chesterton and circling our wagons and saying, okay we’re done, we can do that, but if we can work on this thing together, jointly and properly size the utility services for the next 20 or 30 years, I really think we’re all going to see some benefit from that and that’s really what we’re here for today. Probably, more specifically, I’ve sat in your positions and there were people, okay, what do you really want? Partnership is what we want. We really don’t, it’s not like, in my mind the $2,000,000 investment the county makes will be spent in the county. It will be outside the Town of Chesterton in general terms. I mean, there is Phase One, we’ve got most of that covered with our own expenses and some of the RDA money so that’s probably, we don’t look at it as you’re giving the Town of Chesterton, loaning us money. We are partnering together and we’re paying for part, you, the RDA and we got a nice project. The other thing is we would ask the county to help us in assistance with putting a joint application together before the RDA because we’re convinced that we, the project is a good project and the RDA, like so many other organizations that have funding out there, they want to see a regional approach before they let go of the money. We really feel that Porter County deserves to get some RDA money back in this county and going to work for us. So we, I don’t think we can do it without you. We can take care of Chesterton without you, we don’t have a problem there, but I think to really do this correctly and really help everybody, we would really ask that you would seriously consider getting together with us and working with our team and we can work with your team to properly plan what we would call Phase Two out in Porter County so it meets the needs of the county and that would come from you folks and the planning people. So I would be happy to open it up for any questions if anybody has any.

Comm. Knoblock, There’s a rumor around that you’re talking about annexing towards the hospital.

Mr. Trout, That’s a good point. There was, what we have found, and I think Jeff eluded to it earlier, part of the areas south of Route 6 that was annexed, (inaudible) annexation. In other words, in Indiana and I’m sure Scott will, your attorney might know a little more about it than I do, but a hospital annexations is darn near impossible in Indiana. If somebody doesn’t want to be annexed, it is very difficult to be annexed. So our goal is to number one, if somebody puts a medical office building up in Porter County 1,500 feet across our town boundaries, which is as close as the hospital is, the Town of Chesterton is going to benefit from that. We don’t need to annex them in to benefit and help our citizens and increase our tax base to buy homes and buy groceries. Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 12 There will be people living there. So we feel that with a regional approach we all gain, we’ll all gain from this thing.

Comm. Knoblock, Thank you.

Mr. Trout, Annexation is not, by any means, mandatory in our minds or necessary for this project.

Comm. Knoblock, Thank you.

Mr. Whitten, Yeah, I think this fits right in line. Sort of historically speaking at the time of the hospital sale there was a great deal of discussion with the hospital with respect to a structured tax abatement, which we all know ended up taking place. In response to that or during those negotiations the hospital substantially increased its commitment in its construction projects, substantially actually. As we were making those decisions I think we were looking at the bigger picture and kind of the stuff you are talking about. What will the hospital bring? What will it do to the area? What sort of residual kind of growth are we going to see because the hospital is there? I think this fits right in line with what we were thinking and what we were planning. So I think it’s a great project, quite frankly.

Comm. Evans, I’ve been enthusiastic about the project since I first heard about it, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask, is there a chance for some return on our investment?

Mr. Trout, Meaning?

Comm. Evans, Tap-on fees…

Mr. Trout, I’m going to have to defer, Matt he probably, we’ve had some discussio ns about how that, how that can be worked out. To be honest with you, we were looking at the county’s investment within the county, but how you get that money back or if you get it back through the tap-on fees. Those are things that, unfortunately attorney Lukmann is laid up in the hospital, but he probably have to be the person to ask that. Let’s put it this way, if it’s a win-win and the project can be successful because of that and we do (inaudible). I think that’s certainly reasonable to look into. We’re not opposed to that. Would that be accurate, Matt?

Mr. Reardon, We had an active discussion about that. We started, you know, looking about what’s the importance? So let’s make sure one that the property taxes that are derived from this process are turning back to the county, the investment was made there, you know, Chesterton gets their additional piece. So you’re in the township so you’re at $1.44 is the rough tax rate there and then the town rate is $2 and whatever, $2.09, something like that. So even when something happens in Chesterton the county reaps the benefit and then what would occur outside in the township. We’re open for discussion about that. I understand that it would be good to get some direct cash back, but also I would say that similar to the approach that we’re going to be taking with the RDA, it’s something that would have to occur over a real long period of time.

Comm. Evans, Sure.

Mr. Reardon, A longer period of time because expecting the growth development to probably logically kind of start somewhere when around Porter Hospital start growing up the corridor and vice versa and kind of meet in the middle.

Comm. Evans, Sure. My only other concern is the capacity; I think you have the ability to add capacity at this point.

Mr. Trout, Yeah, I’d let to have Mark…

Mark O’Dell, Yeah. We’re roughly at about 45% of our plan capacity (inaudible). We looked at the (inaudible).

Mr. Whitten, So your system is designed for growth? Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 13 Mr. O’Dell, Yes.

Mr. Trout, One thing, again, the good folks at Portage that have helped the hospital get to where they’re at now that they, you know, they’ve got service there. Their capacity is quite a bit higher than the Town of Chesterton; the plant is eight miles away instead of 4 miles away. So that gets a little scared because they have some good things going on in Portage that they need to take care of themselves, the Ameriplex is growing and the things there. The worst case scenario would be a few years from now they just simply can’t give this area capacity needed under the situations there now. Boy, we would be, it would be hard for us to do much of anything about it. So we’re looking at getting it down there and I’ve had to learn more about this than I, to the point where the pipe to Chesterton would be smaller because you can’t put the big one in and leave it dry. You got to put the big one in the small one. I learned from these guys, they are amazing. So there is extra money that we’ll spend in Chesterton getting it through, like I said, just simply the Phase One of a much bigger project. We think everybody would benefit, we really do.

Mrs. Graham, You know, pardon me, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I notice right in your literature you’re talking about TIF funds, that this would be creating a TIF district or?

Mr. Trout, Well, we created a TIF district in the Town of Chesterton.

Mrs. Graham, Oh, you’ve already got that.

Mr. Trout, We’ve got a TIF district. Now what the county would do as far as outside of our boundaries in Phase Two, that’s why I said there’s a lot of work that need s to be done here to figure out what’s best way to do that.

Comm. Evans, If we take it a step further and say we get this project completed and it’s successful, what is the possibility of the City of Valparaiso coming up to Highway 6 and bringing the corridor down that way, possibly even extending the fiber optics to Kouts. Is that…

Mr. Ban, It’s all part of the considerations for this. We have looked at serving to Route 6, the town, and City of Valpo had some preliminary conversations. Jeff can speak more to those specifically, if you’d like, but we kind of have a general agreement that we’ll go to Route 6 from the north and (inaudible) to Route 6 from the south.

Mr. Trout, If a project would come up on the south side of Route 6, certainly, and Valpo is nowhere near that area, it would make sense to pipe under it and get the project up and running, but as far as the way it’s been designed in size it’s not designed in size to run two more miles down south to Valparaiso. (Inaudible) to take that 49 corridor from Route 6 north and its surrounding areas and the City of Valpo, your hospital is going to be further north. The whole thing is coming together there anyways, so. So that’s been our plans and our ideas for it to certainly conquer the world there. We think we can help our neck of the woods there in north Porter County.

Mr. Polarek, Back to what Mrs. Graham mentioned on the TIF funds. This is, you’re looking at funding this out of a TIF district that you already have created? You’ll be bonding against that TIF district, you won’t be creating an additional TIF, is that what I understand?

Mr. Ban, Go to the service boundary map. The blue area is the area that’s within the Town of Chesterton. The town’s Redevelopment Commission extended its TIF district to encompass entirely this 145 acre area. So now the town can use those Redevelopment Commission tax increment financing funds that we created through this area as well as their existing TIF district that they would like to. Beyond the town limits there is no additional TIF that the town is going to coach into the county. That’s up to the county’s Redevelopment Commission if that’s what you would like to do or not. So the town generates its own increment in its town corporate limits and we use (inaudible).

Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 14 Mr. Rivas, Has this been presented to our Redevelopment Commission? Where are we at with this? To me it sounds…

Mr. Ban, This has been our first formal presentation for the county government boards.

Mr. Rivas, It seems like to me this would be a good thing to take to our Redevelopment Commission. See where they’re at, see what. What are our economic development plans for that area? Does it fit within that? Does it fit within our Redevelopment Commission plans? I think 49 is a goldmine, I think Route 6 is too. What are our plans? Do we have plans?

Comm. Evans, Well, this all coming together at a pretty good time because we are in the process of doing the U.S. 6 corridor study. So as that is completed we can dovetail the information from that into this project, as well, and have a lot better handle on it.

Comm. Adams, We’ve already done two town meetings on U.S. 6 corridor.

Mr. Biggs, I know there are some residence in the Liberty Township area, some of which are here this evening, that are concerned about what the project may or may not do. We all need to understand that I think it’s in all of our best interest that commercial development that creates economic opportunity, if there was a perfect situation it would be on state right-of-ways. It wouldn’t come into our county roads and certainly into our neighborhoods. So in that sense we are very limited as to where we can create this kind of opportunity without impeding into subdivisions and places where, next to schools and parks. Really, I think Jeff said it, it’s an opportunity. There’s no doubt there’s an opportunity here. Whether or not we’re going to recognize it and invest in it is yet to be seen. I think you also said, Jeff, that there’s a whole lot of work to be done here and what this will look like or your guess is as good as mine. The only thing that we have to, I mean, this is a very special area; I think we can all agree to that. Because it’s a very special area, we need to listen to the planners, the experts; we also need to listen to the property owners and the residents as to how we want this at the end of the day to look like. As far as the county goes, I’ll just say my part of it. I think if we invest here this is a countywide investment. However we do this, I’d like to see it where the money rege nerates itself. If that meant in tap-on fees that we realize later on, I don’t know. I’m not the expert, but that’s what I’d personally like to see.

Mr. Polarek, That’s one thing that catches my attention, is the word grant. I agree that this is an excellent project coming forward just my only hesitation at this point would be how do you, if Valparaiso approaches for $2,000,000 how do you say no to that, if Portage comes forward for $2,000,000 or Kouts or Hebron. So with the word grant, obviously there’s not an unlimited amount of funds here to where, like Mr. Biggs said, if it can somehow regenerate itself maybe in terms of a loan or something like that. I would definitely be more open maybe once we add it into the discussion.

Mr. Trout, Yeah, again, this is our first touch with the county. We were trying to stay away from the term loan so others wouldn’t come and ask you for money. We thought if it was a partnership, you were investing within the county and you’re doing the project basically yourself, I would think if the City of Valpo came and you had an opportunity to do some utility extension and create some jobs, it would be a little different view.

Mr. Biggs, And you’re right. You’re right. I mean, that’s what we need to do, I mean, I think we all agree on this board that we’re in no position to give anybody $2,000,000.

Mr. Trout, Right.

Mr. Biggs, But we are in a position to invest $2,000,000 in a way that it’s going to regenerate that money and bring it back into the county and a little more than what we initially invested. I think that’s the sort of thing that we should be doing.

Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 15 Comm. Evans, Two things in relation to corridor study, I don’t think it’s anybody’s desire to see U.S. Highway 6 developed to the east past Old State Road 49. I don’t think there’s ever been any indication that that was going to happen. The other thing is, there is a history of Porter County working with other municipalities and other governments. I mean, let’s look at 911 for example. We have gone out and we have worked with other municipalities and other governments to make projects happen. So it’s not a first.

Mr. Whitten, I think we have a few more pieces of the puzzle to put together here. I think we all realize that we’re just getting to first base tonight. I think Jeremy makes some good points to see where the redevelopment for the county is at. We appreciate the time you’ve put into this presentation. Personally, I recognize this is an area that we already began investing in so I’d like to see it move in the right direction.

Mr. Biggs, For the record, we don’t have the authority, our Redevelopment Commission, to TIF. So just for the record.

Comm. Evans, Ed Gutt, Liberty Township President would like to say something.

Ed Gutt, My name is Ed Gutt, 165 East Highway 6, Valparaiso. I want to thank you for letting me speak because I realize this is not a public hearing, but I’m compelled to speak a little bit for myself, my family, and for some of the residents of Liberty Township. I was a couple years back through Farm Bureau was on the Valparaiso Growth Committee, that’s probably 14 or 15 years or something like that. At that time, I’ll say Nancy Pekarek was the City Planner for Valparaiso and has the plans were made out, future plans, it said Valparaiso may grow and go to 6 and Chesterton from the north to 6, a divided lane. The hospital has made that more of a concern. I listened to the plan tonight and it’s a good plan. I think what was left out, which is a lot of times left out, is the residents that live in that area. What do they want? Did they move there to get away from the hustle and bustle, to have some kind of a country living and a little space? I think so. It was said that the area doesn’t generate as much tax as commercial and that’s true, but the services that are required for those people and those empty acres are not very much (inaudible). So there’s some things, I’ve been to a couple meetings, to the Council and they went through a rough budget.

Mr. Whitten, Yes.

Mr. Gutt, By golly, I think I heard at one of those meetings that didn’t someone ask the cities to contribute to 911? Somebody, as I understand, answered no. They said they didn’t have the money either. So you’re reading to us tonight to invest in something that’s affecting a lot of people’s lives, changing the topography of Porter County and something really needs to be thought out before you bring all the commercial in. You’re talking about jobs, yes, a lot of jobs, but you’re bringing people in for those jobs. What’s the unemployment rate of Porter County right at the present? It’s not quite as much as nationally so we’re better off than some. A neighbor and I were at the Open House for INDOT last spring in May. They had a five and a ten year plan for highways. We asked about U.S. 6 just because I live on it and he doesn’t live far away and he said to us that there was no money there only to maintain it not to improve it or whatever. So I then asked him what about people on 49? Unless something has changed, we were told that was a by-pass, a limited access highway, that if somebody wanted to build up on it they would have an awfully hard time putting more intersections in. The best thing that they could do was put frontage roads along their development inside of the state’s right of way. Those are some of the things to think about. You folks don’t realize you have the hands and the opportunity and control of people that already lived there. I see Porter County, and I’ve lived here all my life, I’ve experienced Porter County residents moving out while the city residents are moving in. We have empty buildings here in Valpo, I’m sure Chesterton does too, look at Gary. All of this. There’s space all over and we say in our ordinances and that we don’t want urban sprawl, but if you look at the map you see and I don’t know the exact acres, Chesterton has a number of acres, but they have right here on this side of the Toll Road the Olson Farm and other places that all needs developing first. Otherwise we got urban sprawl, our cities, our big cities are being vacated and we’re being (inaudible). Along with that comes the things that we read about in the paper. I know society has changed; some of those things are from society, but also crowding. Crowding produces some of those things. So, again, I want to thank Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 16 you very much for letting me talk. I’m not against development. I want a U.S. 6 corridor s tudy and I think it’s being handled well. Everybody has an input, the citizens were notified and asked their opinions and that’s really my concern. What do the people who live there want? Thank you.

Comm. Evans, Thank you, Ed. We appreciate your comments. Was there anybody that wanted to address the group tonight? Tim, come on up.

Tim Cole, Okay, I haven’t really planned on speaking, I haven’t prepared anything, but I’ve been to the town Council meetings. A couple years ago I said, why don’t we partner and essentially they said you’re not our constituents. Essentially, they didn’t want to partner with Liberty Township they essentially wanted to annex (inaudible) developer who promised the big bucks (inaudible) and also promised to pay the cost of bringing the sewer and the water under the Toll Road. As soon as all the plans were made and as soon as the Town Council okayed everything and approved everything a big for sale sign went up on that property and today it is vacant. We don’t know if the plan would be enacted by some future developer or not. We’ve seen the Coffee Creek area, a large 900 acre area. It has for 40 years it has been under development by different people. It has failed every time, they have gone bankrupt. Maybe the effort and the focus should be there first. Take care of your home. The problem I do have is that a couple years ago we had a corridor study developed. Those corridors include U.S. 6, Highway 49 and Meridian Road; a number of other highways were also involved. I called people on the Town Council, I called the Chamber, Duneland Chamber of Commerce, I called a number of people that I felt would be interested and nobody ever showed up for any of those studies. Nobody had any input from Chesterton. Now the same thing happened a few months ago when we started the U.S. 6 corridor (inaudible). One person showed up, remains silent. Mr. Doyle came made a lot of notes, I asked him some questions, he didn’t have any answers because he had to answer to the Town Council. Let me point out one really important feature; the county has done this, the county (inaudible). We are looking at the good planning along U.S. 6 and we hope to complete that within the next couple of months. We got a good, excuse me, a good plan in effect or coming into effect. The hospital has said that they would prefer the conservancy district over the Town of Chesterton and we have seen that come to light on October 19th when the Indiana Regulatory Committee granted Damon Run a full run and it’s all been requested annexation areas; Liberty Schools, Sunset Hill Park, a couple of other subdivisions and the hospital and the medical campus area between Tanner Trace and the hospital. Development is happening, good development is happening, good planning is happening. It’s already (inaudible). The conservancy has the capacity; there is fiber optic that’s under two different companies. Verizon has just put, installed a new, I don’t know off the top of my head (inaudible) for their fiber optic. There’s another fiber optic, AT&T is running fiber optic down 6, it’s all four inch conduit. It’s already there.

At this time Atty. McClure and Mr. Whitten left the meeting.

Mr. Cole, The conservancy district is providing sewer treatment. It is already there. Granted a slightly, slightly smaller pipe because they were not anticipating the hospital, but they have the capacity and they have more capacity then what the plan development now in effect for schools, the parks, two more developments, the hospital. It’s all adequately handled and those too, a treatment plant that has not bypassed in 12 years. Chesterton’s bypass is on an average of once a month, or at least almost every rainstorm. Their sewage tank, when it’s finally completed, will not eliminate all bypasses. The documents are there, the engineering is there. They have no more room to expand, they can’t do it. If they get anymore development in Chesterton, no they said 45%. 45% capacity (inaudible) or you’re at 45% full capacity or capacity?

Mr. O’Dell, Am I allowed to answer the question?

Comm. Evans, Yeah, sure, but this is getting a little bit, this is not a public hearing and there obviously will be public hearings before this goes through.

Mr. Cole, I know.

Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 17 Comm. Evans, And if you weren’t prepared to talk, you’re sure doing a good job, Tim.

Inaudible comments made among board and audience members.

Mr. Cole, First of all, most importantly, Porter County has a professional planner, Chesterton does not. I suggest to you that if you want to go forward with the Town of Chesterton that they be required to hire a professional planner before anything else is done and with that I’m done. Thank you.

Comm. Evans, Thank you. Thanks for coming. Well, we certainly got a wealth of information all across the board tonight. So I’m glad for the discussion. I guess the thing to do from here is to continue the discussion and we’ll see if we can’t get some consensus with the boards and come up with a plan.

Mr. Trout, Who would we contact? Should we talk to Bob Thompson?

Comm. Evans, Bob would be the best contact, yes. He is our planner; thank goodness he is our planner. He does a great job and we really appreciate his work. He can come back to either body and he can give us his recommendations and we can take that into consideration. Anybody else? No? We stand adjourned.

There being no further business, meeting adjourned.

PORTER COUNTY COUNCIL PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

______Jim Biggs

______Laura Blaney

______Karen Conover

______Sylvia Graham

______Jim Polarek

______Jeremy Rivas

______Dan Whitten

PORTER COUNTY COMMISSIONERS Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 18 PORTER COUNTY, INDIANA

______Nancy Adams

______John Evans

______Carole Knoblock

Attest:______Robert Wichlinski, Auditor

Porter County Council November 2, 2011 Page 19