The regular monthly meeting of the Public Infrastructure and Development Committee of the DeKalb County Board met on Thursday, April 4, 2002, at 7:00PM in the Conference Room of the County Highway Department. Chairman Wilson called the meeting to order..

Committee members present were Chairman Wilson, Mr. McLaughlin, Mr. Sands, Mr. Hoffman, Mr. Smith, Ms. LaVigne and Mr. Guehler. Mrs. Casella was absent. Also attending were William Lorence, County Engineer; Mr. Ray Bockman, County Administrator; Gary Hanson, Deputy County Administrator; Jeffery Metzger, County Board member; Jim Quinn, Operations Manager at the County Highway Department and Roger Hopkins, Economic Development Director.

Motion by Mr. McLaughlin to approve the March 7, 2002 minutes, seconded by Mr. Sands. Motion carried unanimously.

A resolution was presented for several County and road district projects. Mr. Lorence reviewed all bids received and recommended award to the low bidders.

Mr. Lorence explained that two previous ordinances had been passed for various lengths of this 35 mph speed zone and during those processes it was realized clarification in the Code Book was still needed. Therefore, the Department decided to make that clarification with the passage of the new ordinance.

This ordinance would extend the existing 45MPH speed zone on Peace Road near Pleasant Street northerly to Challenger Drive. This extension would both coincide with the new curve design for the widening of Peace Road and better define the speed zone area by taking it to a physical point, that being Challenger Drive, rather than a measurement.

Chairman Wilson distributed a statement regarding the proposed extended snow removal operations by the County Highway Department and asked Committee members to review it.

Mr. Sands said that he had met with Mr. Bockman, Mr. Hanson and Mr. Wilson regarding the proposed extended operations as well. At this time he agreed it would be best to table the concept of fully extended snow removal operations and concentrate on addressing the emergency response situation.

Mr. McLaughlin questioned the 10 minute response time as written in the statement. Mr. Bockman responded that, while it may seem quite constricting, it seems that it is necessary to make a timely response to an emergency situation with the traveling public. Therefore, someone will be "sleeping" with the emergency vehicle. The plow driver on emergency duty, will not be responding from home, but from the Highway Department facility. Additionally, there will be the need to have further meetings to determine what constitutes an emergency situation and who will call it.

Mr. Lorence agreed that at this time the Department will be concentrating on addressing only emergency situations. It is certainly possible that, in the future, extended snow removal operations may well have to be looked at, but for now, he and his staff will establish a policy for emergency response. Mr. Lorence was asked if he could bring that policy back to the Committee at May’s meeting? He responded affirmatively. Mr. Lorence added that the Department has already made a decision to go out on snow operations earlier. That being at 3:00AM rather than 4:00AM, conversely the staff will be off the road one hour earlier.

Once estimated costs have been established, the Department will address the funding during the upcoming budget preparation year, with implementation for the 2002-2003 snow removal season.

Mr. Guehler asked if there would be any money budgeted for additional equipment for the Department from the Special Projects line item? He was under the impression that there was $300,000 allotted for that purpose. Mr. Bockman responded that they had never appropriated nor contemplated utilizing non-highway funds for highway operational purposes. Mr. Sands also added that in original discussions he had misunderstood when it was mentioned that there could be monies made available, assuming they would be a grant rather than a loan.

Mr. Metzger and Mr. Guehler expressed their concerns regarding the south end of the County receiving emergency response as well as the northerly end. Mr. Lorence and Mr. Bockman reiterated that several items still need to be defined, i.e., what constitutes an emergency situation and who makes that call. Once this is addressed that may also address some of the concerns for equal emergency response throughout the County.

Logistics may always present a problem. Once this concept is implemented, more questions and answers will be raised and addressed. However, this recommendation represents many hours of work and discussion by Highway staff, County Administration, Snow Removal Task Force and Committee members and is a good beginning. Mr. Sands added that, even if in the future it is proven that snow removal operations need to be extended, we are now ten steps closer to addressing that situation than we were previously.

Chairman Wilson thanked everyone for all their work on this project.

Mr. Lorence reviewed his monthly update of projects under the Department’s responsibility.

Once the weather warms up the seeding of last year’s Glidden and Peace Road projects can be completed. This would finalize both of those projects. The Genoa Road Underpass project is approximately 9% complete and is running two months ahead of schedule. The Department has also been working on the bike path located at the Nursing Home.

Chairman Wilson said that he had attended several meetings regarding economic development in DeKalb County and commended Mr. Roger Hopkins on his fine representation for DeKalb County. Mr. Hopkins then presented an update to the Committee on the state of the County regarding various development issues. Among items discussed was the impact of the recession on employment and development. The pattern of employees going outside the County to work and those coming into the County to work. Discussions he has had with potential builders including residential, commercial and industrial. Chairman Wilson thanked Mr. Hopkins for his presentation.

Respectfully submitted,

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John Wilson
Chairman