The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/60507
A-2 Wednesday, March 21, 2012 The Press-Dispatch ★ City must be ADA compliant Continued from page 1 do not receive the grants. They gave Mayor Jon Craig the ability to negotiate with Bernardin Lochmueller the cost if the city can complete some of the requirements on their own. This portion will be to develop a plan of action the city will need to meet ADA standards and a plan of ac- tion. While this portion must be done this year, the next three portions to not New CASA Volunteers Take Oath Pike Circuit Court Judge Jeff Biesterveld administers the oath of offi ce for fi ve new Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) on Tuesday afternoon. CASA volunteers will work with and guard children in the local family court system. From left are Lisa Witherald, Kelly Rice, Kim Willett, Peggy Thomas and Melissa Stokes. Volunteers monitor cases closely and are advocates for the children in court cases. James Capozella photo. ★ Commissioners request funds Continued from page 1 Kottlowski said he had checked the water level and it had dropped nine inches at that time. He added it was falling at the rate of 12 inch- es every 15 days. Kottlowski said he un- derstood it was a slow rate of fall, but it was falling. "I talked with Tom Miller and he is happy with it," said Kot- tlowski. He said one thing slow- ing the fall of the water lev- el is debris plugging 10 cul- verts on railroad compa- ny property. He said when they contacted the railroad, they were told the railroad would take care of it. How- ever it hadn't been taken care of. Kottlowski suggested the county contact the railroad. Kottlowski said all the work designated in the con- tract had been done for the claim before the commis- sioners. However, there was still some work to be done in the area of CR375S. Deig Bros. has not submitted a claim for that work yet. Confusion on trash stickers Pike County voted last week to raise the price of trash stickers from 50 cents to $1 beginning April 2. Commissioner Assistant Melissa Bryant said peo- ple do not need to use two stickers then. Any sticker purchased is like a forever stamp, and 50-cent stickers will still work after April 2. However only $1 stickers will be sold as of April 2. Stellar Community grant Commissioners voted to request $50,000 from ED- IT funds for the next three years be designated for Pe- tersburg's Stellar grant ap- plication as a match. They al- so agreed to donate 100 man hours and 100 equipment hours to the project. Both donations would be void if Petersburg doesn't receive the grant. "I don't have any prob- lem with this, I think both are fair," said Commission- er Brian Davis making a mo- tion for the donations. Com- missioner Dale Nalley sec- onded Davis' motion. It was approved 3-0. Bryant said the labor and equipment hours would be used to haul material for work creating a plaza on Eighth St., between the courthouse and former In- tegra Bank building. • Commissioners voted to purchase a $48,000 ditching machine. It runs off a PTO of a tractor and operates sim- ilar to a snowblower. The commissioner approved re- questing a $48,000 addi- tional appropriation from the Rainy Day Fund by a 3- 0 vote. Before the vote, Nalley asked Highway Superin- tendent Bobby Morton if he thought they needed it over new trucks. Morton said he miles on them. He said a dealer told him a larger size ambulance will last longer and hold its value better than the smaller units now in use. "Currently we have spent half our repair budget on ambulance repairs." He said it would be more than that, but the highway department has been doing most of their service and repair work. Highway Superintendent Bobby Joe Morton said $176,000 sounded like a lot of money until a loved one was on an emergency run and the ambulance breaks down. "These trucks are worn out," said Morton of ambulance fl eet. Young said one day last week the county had three of their fi ve ambulances out of service for repairs. Commissioners voted 3- 0 to request funding for an ambulance. • Commissioners opened mowing bids for the Old Town Cemetery in Peters- burg and the Coleman Cem- etery in Monroe Township. The bids were: Ryan Cole- had viewed the machine in op- eration and was amazed at how quickly it operated. "I agree we need trucks and graders, but 99 percent of our calls on are on roads." He said ditching the roads would solve many of the road problems by improving wa- ter drainage. It will have to be approved by the county council as well. • Commissioners vot- ed to request funding for a new ambulance. EMS Di- rector Chris Young said the county has fi ve ambulances and three of the are model years 1994, 1996, and 1998 and three of the ambulanc- es have more than 170,000 man $80 for Coleman Cem- etery and $90 for Old Town; Eric Heaton $125 for Cole- man Cemetery; Mark Ju- lian $85 for Coleman and $120 for Old Town; Lanny Simmons $100 for Coleman. The bids were taken un- der advisement. • Morton told the com- missioners INDOT request- ed to close CR175E before they construct a permanent access road. The commissioners asked Morton to fi nd out the esti- mated construction time of the access road prior to the next meeting. The next commissioner meeting is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. Monday, April 2. ★ Warren sentenced to 16 years Continued from page 1 his residence when police where called there to in- vestigate him getting into a fi ght with his cousin and then throwing knives at his cousin. Friday afternoon Pike Cir- cuit Court Judge Jeff Bies- terveld issued the sentence. He ordered Warren to serve his time in the Indiana De- partment of Corrections. Warren was sentenced to 12 years on the class B felo- ny, with the manufacturing charge to run concurrently with two years on the child neglect charge. However, Bi- esterveld added four years for the habitual substance of- fender charge, which carries ERNIE HUME FOR COMMISSIONER I began learning about Pike County's roads in 1948 when I became a rural mail carrier. In those days, I was frequently able to get the County Highway Department to improve the roads I travelled on. Later, when I was selling and servicing TVs and other electronics, I travelled more of the County's roads. Since 1994, when I began working with the 9-1-1 system, I have travelled the roads in all parts of the County. In all these pursuits and as Emergency Management Director, I have come to know more and more about the great people of our County and of its businesses. With Highway I-69 coming through, we will have new challenges in Pike County with regard to roads and every other department of our County government. Good roads provide easy access. Easy access attracts businesses and residents. I want to continue to work for and with the people of Pike County, and I believe that my varied experiences have prepared me for the job of Commissioner. -Ernie Hume Paid for by Committee to Elect Ernie Hume • Marilee Hume, Treasurer Winslow 405 N. Main St. Drinks Now Available Call ahead for fast service 789-8800 Mon. 4PM-8PM Tues. – Thurs. 11AM-8PM Fri. & Sat. 11AM - 9PM Closed Sun. a sentence range of three to eight years. The four years on the habitual substance charge is to run consecu- tively to the 12 years on the manufacturing charge. This means time on the habitual substance charge will not start until his 12-year sen- tence on the manufacturing charge is completed. have a deadline. Thoman said the city will have to show it full compliance is moving toward to meet the standards and require- ments of the fi rst section to be in compliance with the ADA mandates. The city will need to have public hearings as part of the pro- cess and identify all of the streets and intersections that will need action as well as look at all city owned buildings to see if they are compliant. They will have to prioritize what they are going to do to be ADA com- pliant. They also have to set up procedures for complaints and how they will handle any complaints. They will have to adopt a grievance procedure and adopt plans to meet the standards in the future. They will have to also survey the entire city to identify streets and intersections along with sidewalks that will have to be made ADA compliant. That is part of step two and outside the portion of the fi rst part of the process. Mayor Craig also men- tioned that Spruce Street is temporarily open. It has not been repaved because the state still is going to do bridge work on the high- way. The City Council also re- viewed the progress of get- ting the Stellar Grant Ap- plication ready for the site team visit. There is a pub- lic hearing on March 29 at 6:30 p.m. about the grant. The site team for the grant application will be visiting April 11. A special celebra- tion day is going to be part of the activities on Wednes- day, April 11 with Eight Street next to the old Integ- ra Bank being blocked off for the celebration. There will be several events there that day. The city is also taking steps to become a Main Street Community as part of the grant process and for future planning on Main Street. There will be a Main Street Clean-up Day April 7 sponsored by the Peters- burg Lions Club with volun- teers being sought to help with the effort. Mayor Craig said they have already lined up city funding as well as county funding and private dona- tions to help with the Stel- lar Grant process and to support the projects that ware part of the application. City Attorney Brian Ma- honey announced that sev- eral liens have been placed on properties that were cleaned up by city staff dur- ing the last year and those efforts were not paid for, that by the city staff. There are several around town. The liens and work costs will be added to real estate taxes on the properties. The mayor also an- nounced that a public hear- ing will be held on several unsafe buildings in Peters- burg. The mayor said they found out Gupta also owned that building and appar- ently sold it in January, but the sale was not fi led until March 13 with the county. The new owner did not know the building has or is being condemned. Gupta also owned the Silver Dol- lar Saloon at the time it collapsed, but then later recorded a sale of the build- ing prior to the collapse. The hearing on the Silver Dollar Saloon and Double Play Building as well as oth- er unsafe buildings will be held at 9 a.m. Wednesday, March 21, in the City Hall. includes lots mowed The Board of Public Works and Safety approved a bid of $11,265 by Fluid Systems of Evansville for two pumps for the Peters- burg sewer system plant. They are backup pumps to be used at the pump sta- tions. The board also gave ap- proval for James (Hunter) Manning to be added to the Petersburg Fire Depart- ment pending approval by the Fire Territory Board. The mayor announced is the city applying another Safe Routes for to Schools Grant and includ- ing sidewalks in several ar- eas around Petersburg Ele- mentary and the city in the project application and not just one set of sidewalks. He said that grant applica- tion has been submitted. The City Council appoint- ed new member Ryne Bies- terveld to fi ll a position on the Planning Commission that was held by former Council Member Tammy Johnson. She just resigned from that position as well. Biesterveld was not at the Council meeting. The Water Board re- ceived quotes on repaint- ing the north water tower. The Board approved the quote of Talbots Cleaning of between $2,000 for the bottom half and $3,000 for the entire water tower. There could be some ad- ditional costs if additional work must be done to make the painting last. They also decided to explore having the 811 logo painted on the tower and their sharing the costs of painting. Mayor Craig said they have received a lot of com- plaints about the construc- tion on the water lines in the town and the yards being torn up. He asked Engineer Brian Bullock to get an esti- mate from Wabash Utilities when they will complete the work and get the lawns back into shape. The city would like that work done as soon as possible and the lawns restored. ★ Stellar Grant project Continued from page 1 ing unit to be put on the old IMI or Ready Mix concrete plant. But because that is out of the downtown area it has since been changed to have the senior housing project moved to the downtown ar- ea. Another centralization project has been to move a youth business incubator to be called the Stellar En- trepreneur Incubator from a proposed industrial park near the I-69 and Highway 61 exchange to the Integra Building. Another feature is to cre- ate a plaza on the Eighth St. between the courthouse and former Integra building. Craig said they had put a lot of money in the Stellar plan for sidewalks to con- nect the senior housing in- stallment at the old IMI con- crete plant to downtown. But since that has been moved they are now able to use some of that money to cre- ate the plaza. He said they are still in the concept phase of its design because it has come about so quickly and are awaiting drawings of the new plaza. But the basic plans would be for traffi c to be closed in that section and to pro- vide an area for people to be able to eat lunch as well as an event center, where bands could perform or events such as the car show or farmers' market could be featured. A key of this plan is to be able to control truck traf- fi c on Main St., which is another part of the overall plan,which calls for a bypass to be built from near Horna- dy Park to Highway 61 al- lowing truck traffi c from the west access around the downtown. Craig said the committee is already planning to dem- onstrate this concept on April 11, when the Stellar selection team will be mak- ing a visit to Petersburg. He said they plan to have Eighth St. closed off and hosting a charity fund-raising event on that day. It will include a tent and live music. County commissioners gave their backing to the Stellar project on Monday. They pledged to use $50,000 for the next three years from EDIT funds toward the proj- ect as well as 100 man hours and 100 hours of equipment to help haul in materials for the plaza project. "Everyone we have run this by loves the idea," said Craig. He also thanked the coun- ty commissioners for their "unanimous support" saying it was vital to Petersburg's chances. Jaycee Easter Egg Hunt March 31 The Petersburg Jaycee Easter Egg Hunt is sched- uled for 10 a.m. Saturday, March 31 at Hornady Park. It is for children ages two to eight. EXPANDED MENU • SIT DOWN OR CARRY OUT NEW LOCA B - a k e NEW HOURS d OCATION P $5 DAILY LUNCH SPECIALS E r i u p t O o 1 6 W " B S c k R V I O izz N G n v e a N