Mary Beever, Planning Commission Admin, came before the Starke County Commissioners with several requests at their March 17th meeting. The first request was for BZA secretary position funding.
“So, when we did the budgeting for the BZA secretary, the number at the top there (indicating a report handed to the commissioners) was the number I was told to budget for for the year for that position,” Beever said. “However, I’m now being told that wasn’t a correct number and that, that is short $1,113 for the year. It should have been higher, I guess.”
Commissioner Don Binkley asked Beever who told her the number was short.
“The auditor’s office,” Beever replied. “So, at the end of the year, I’m going to be short in that account that amount.”
Commissioner Mike VanDeMark asked how the dollar amount became short.
“I don’t know how that works,” said Beever.
The commissioners were told that the email was sent before the 3 percent increase had been calculated in. The budgeted amount was $37,087. In the salary ordinance, the number listed is $38,200.
The commissioners approved a motion for the increase due to a clerical error. The next stop for Beever in this matter is the Starke County Council.
The next thing Beever brought before the commissioner were quotes for tablets. She had discussed with the planning commission about using electronic tablets instead of binders and paper copies for meetings.
“At the last planning commission meeting, we discussed this and as you can see on that second page, I put together a table there. The quote would be for 12 devices. The planning commission, they seem to like the idea of possibly the commissioner’s giving approval for a flat number of around $3,000 because prices can fluctuate day to day on stuff like this,” said Beever.
Beever stated that the planning commission were interested in the Samsung tablets that were listed in the information given to the County Commissioners.
When asked if the funds were available in her budget, Beever said that “I have a penalty fund that we could use for some of them. There’s two shared funds. There’s a BZA penalty and a planning commission penalty fund. We could use money out of those.”
“Everybody was in favor of it,” VanDeMark said. He also serves on the Planning Commission. “I don’t think that there was anybody on the board opposed to the tablets.
Commissioner Binkley motioned that the funds should be used from those budgets Beever indicated and then if there wasn’t enough money then come back to the commissioners. The motion was approved.
The third thing that Beever brought before the commissioners concerned an Indianapolis-based company that would be drafting a new solar ordinance for the county. The estimated fee for this would be $10,000.
“So, the discussion at the Plan Commission was favorable to hiring this company to come in to give a presentation. My suggestion was I didn’t want them to come in and do a big presentation for us if there was no hope of moving forward with their goals. So I think this is Mary’s efforts to make sure that we would be in favor of spending this money through us and the council before we have them come in. So, this wouldn’t necessarily be an obligation to move forward but at least have them come in and do a presentation,” said Mike VanDeMark.
Commissioner Binkley asked if the company was going to be rewriting the ordinance for a fee of $16,000. Commissioner VanDeMark said that they wouldn’t be completely rewriting it, more like organize it.
“So, this is a worldwide company, and they have created a division to just help folks with the understanding and the environmental concerns and just make sure that ordinances are set up to date,” said VanDeMark.
Plan Commission member Roberta Lee stated that she was reading the proposal. “What I like is that they also go, and they look at our existing projects to see some of the environmental things that we might miss. So, it’s not just writing the ordinances, if I’m reading that correctly. They’re going to look at what is the soil compaction caused for us, what did it cause, didn’t it cause. So, it’s not just $10,000 to write an ordinance.”
Binkley asked if the company stated how long it would take to complete it. Beever said that she was unsure of how long it would take. Binkley said that he was okay with it unless it was going to take two or three years. VanDeMark said that he didn’t get that impression that it would take that long.
VanDeMark pointed out that if they made a motion to proceed, it wasn’t obligating the county to pay the $10,000 fee. The motion only meant that the commissioners were interested enough to have them come in and make a presentation.
VanDeMark made a motion to approve up to $10,000 in the event that the company comes in and make a presentation for the county ahead of time. The motion was approved unanimously.
