The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/659203
A-2 Front Wednesday, March 30, 2016 The Press-Dispatch 618 E MAIN ST, PETERSBURG | 812-354-2004 LIKE US ON FACEBOOK WE'RE OPEN: MON-FRI 8am-5pm, SAT 8am-2pm cafe & cakes cof fee cafe MONDAY APRIL 4 Special Ball Park Lunch • Fully-dressed Ball Park hot dog • Pickle spear • Chips • Salted in-the- shell peanuts • Crackerjacks • Fountain drink, coffee or tea #14 Baseball Cookies (Gil's Uniform Number) GIL HODGES' Celebrate birthday $ 6 99 Only Enjoy vintage videos of Gil as a player and manager while you dine! PLUS Is it TIME for your next eye exam? 8–7 . Mon. 8–noon . Tues. 10–7 . Wed. 8–5 . Thur. 8–5 . Fri. Locally Owned and Operated Dr. Clint Shoultz 715 S. 9th Street, Petersburg (812) 354-9400 By Andy Heuring Two paving projects in Pike County are expected to start soon. Indiana De- partment of Transportation spokesman Jason Tiller said paving on Highways 61 and 257 should start in the next few weeks. Highway 61 will be paved from Highway 64 in Arthur, north to Petersburg to High- way 56. Basically, they will start in Arthur and pave it to Main St., Petersburg, then go south down Main St. to the intersection of Main St. and Highway 56, which then turns west and goes to Ha- zelton. However, the paving will stop at Pike Ave., which is also Highway 56. Highway 257 will be paved from Otwell to Washington. The Highway 257 project began last year as crews did skip patching and installed culverts on the route. Tiller said crews did some work on the worst area to make it bet- ter over the winter. A third project sched- uled to be let in November of 2017 is paving of Highway 57 from Petersburg to Wash- ington. Paving of SR57 and SR61 scheduled for this summer CHARTER Continued from page 1 respectful for the next day." "We try to keep them within the two hours," Mar- ra added. "When I say that, an alarm doesn't go off and we say, 'Okay, that's all the questions. Please leave.' But people make plans and they drive and they have jobs or kids or whatever. So we try to be respectful and focus those questions." Marra said that Friends of Otwell Elementary had al- ready confirmed that they would be coming to the meeting but that he did not know who would actually be attending. "We always tell people to please bring the people that you think can answer the fi- nance questions, the aca- demic questions, the orga- nizational questions," Marra said. "People usually bring the organizing board. Some- times people will want to call in and we're okay with that. We try to accommodate." "They're going to ask questions about what cur- riculum they picked and why they selected that," Marra added. "They'll ask, like, special education ques- tions or populations. Where will you get those services from? Where will the OT (occupational therapy) and P T (physical therapy) come from? How many teachers do you anticipate needing? " A fter that meeting, Marra said that he will be debriefed by Georgette Davis, BSU's New School Development Coordinator, before mak- ing a decision to proceed with the next step – a pub- lic hearing. "Usually, we do it right away because everything's fresh in everybody's mind," Marra said. "I'm going to be with my family, but we're working on arrangements for Georgette to call me." "The key to this one is we want to get it complet- ed by the 29th," Marra add- ed. "If we say yes, we've got to get that public meeting in there. So I'm going to try to look at it that week and have Georgette give me a phone call on my vacation." If Marra decides to pro- ceed with a public hearing, it would be scheduled for sometime in the following two-week period. "It wouldn't be the next day that we say, 'hey, we're having a public meeting'," Marra said. "We do a little bit more than what the stat- ute requires. We'll make sure that the superintendent and the school board get a letter stating that we're hav- ing it on this date. And then the (state) representatives and senators in the area ... we try to make sure that they know, if they want to come out and speak." According to Marra, Da- vis would conduct the pub- lic hearing. "It's our public hearing, meaning Ball State Univer- sity," Marra said. "It isn't a Friends of Otwell or whatev- er school corporation (pub- lic hearing)." Marra said that the Friends of Otwell Elementa- ry organizing board would be asked to introduce them- selves to the community, followed by a 10 - to 15 -min- ute overview of the char- ter school application by a spokesperson – usually the president of the board – for the group. "And then we would open it up for questions," Marra said. "Some of them might be about the process. And then we would take public comments." Public comments about the charter school applica- tion can be made during the public hearing, or submitted in writing. "People sometimes don't want to speak, so they'll hand us a document, but then we always put out what we call comment cards," Marra said. "People some- times don't want to get up and say something if every- one's saying no to the school and they're saying yes." Following the public hear- ing, Marra will make a de- cision on whether or not to recommend to BSU's presi- dent that the application be approved. BSU's president makes the final decision on all char- ter school applications that Marra recommends for ap- proval. "I have, in the past, brought an approval to the president and it was denied," Marra said. "So just because I say yes doesn't mean it's a given." The entire process, Marra noted, is a very difficult nee- dle to thread. "From 2012 through 2015, I had 15 applications," Marra said. "Fourteen of those ap- plications went to interview. So we looked at an applica- tion that was so significantly deficient that we didn't even give them an interview." "A fter those interviews, however, three of the schools withdrew their ap- plications," Marra contin- ued. "So it left us with 11. Out of that 11, we only had five that went to public hear- ings. And out of those five that went to public hearings, only one was approved." Marra added that even if BSU's president gives a charter school application a final approval, no contract would be issued until the or- ganizers had met all the re- quirements set forth in the start-up protocol for new charter schools. "It would wind up being a conditional approval – you've got to do this, this, this and this," Marra said. "And if they didn't do that, then it would stop the pro- cess." "It would be a contractu- al thing between Ball State and Friends of Otwell El- ementary," Marra added. "If Ball State says to Pepsi, I want Pepsi products, and they don't deliver, then it's a breach of contract. That's the same thing here. It's an- other contract." Marra noted that a previ- ous director actually issued charters before the start- up protocol for new charter schools was completed, and that three charters had to be returned because their orga- nizers were unable to meet all the conditions. "I know one was in Mun- cie and one was in Lake County," Marra said. "The other one was in Fort Wayne. They had a char- ter but couldn't find a facil- ity in time and they had to turn their charter back in. So now we're saying, 'get all that and then I'll give you the charter.' I've kind of re- versed that a little bit. Pike Central will host more than 750 area high school seniors at the Junior Achievement of Southwest- ern Indiana Career explo- ration day on Wednesday, April 6. High school students from Jasper, Northeast Dubois, Wood Memorial, South Knox, Heritage Hills, Washington and Washing- ton Catholic will be attend- ing the event to learn about local corporations and busi- nesses, the products and services they provide, the career options they offer and how they are making a difference in the Tri-State area. More than 35 local busi- nesses, nonprofits and ed- ucation institutions will be attending. This year's event is sponsored by area busi- nesses, including local Sis- son Steel and Pike Central High School. It will take place from 9 to 11:30 a.m. in the Pike Cen- tral High School gym. JA career exploration day is April 6 at Pike Central By Andy Heuring The Winslow Town Coun- cil scheduled two special meetings for this week and continued to discuss a new building proposed by the Fire Department during their Monday night meeting. Councilmen scheduled an executive session for 8 a.m. Thursday morning to talk about their options on town employee insurance. The town's policy expires in April before the town's next meeting on April 11. The special open meeting at 8 a.m. Friday is scheduled to make a decision on what insurance they will offer to town employees. Winslow is paying $1,750 per employee this year, but if they renew, it will increase to $2,000 per employee. Councilman Terry Stro- bel asked if they could let the policy ride for a couple of weeks until their next meet- ing. Clerk-Treasurer Beth Bennett and councilman Dick Brewster both said they didn't think an open enrollment policy would be carried beyond the renew- al date. Strobel suggested they schedule the special meet- ings in case they couldn't carry over the policy, but if it could be carried over, they could cancel the spe- cial meetings. In other financial mat- ters, Bennett said the town's credit card needed to be re- newed because they were re- quired to get the new style card with a chip in it. She said also the credit card company wanted each per- son who was authorized to use the card to have a sepa- rate card with different num- bers. Bennett said this will help her keep more detailed records of spending. Councilmen also voted to create a new Local Option Income Tax fund in their budget. Bennett explained they needed the line item to be able to spend the Pub- lic Safety Fund money the town will receive this year. Winslow now receives about $1,100 a month from the Public Safety Fund Tax ap- proved by the county coun- cil last year. Tony Williams and Rick Mathias of the Fire Depart- ment asked the council for a long-term agreement on a proposed building they want to build at the mud boggs field. Williams said they are getting donations for the building and they want to be sure a future board doesn't decide to rescind their use the building. "We are going around getting donations from people and we want to make sure the building will continue to be used for its in- tended purposes." The fire department said they plan to have spot shoots at the area and get a gaming license for fundraising. Councilman Brewster said the building never had a formal approval of the board. Both Mathias and Wil- liams said the previous board had approved it. Brewster and Bennett both said they search the meeting minutes from 2015 and couldn't find where it had been voted on. Brewster said he thought they should have the ground surveyed to make sure the building is on town proper- ty. He also said they should have the town's attorney re- view a proposed agreement. Williams agreed getting a survey was a good idea and said they thought DeWayne Sanders would do the survey work for them. • Councilman Strobel said truck drivers using town streets need to be care- ful where they are backing up and driving. He said it ap- pears a trash truck backed over and crushed a storm sewer line last week. "We aren't charging them for it, but we can't continue to have this expense," said Strobel. The council voted to pay their claims totaling $18,363.83. The next meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Mon- day, April 11 at the Winslow Community Center. Winslow council schedules meetings to discuss insurance A car bounces through a rough section of Highway 61, where Indiana Department of Transportation crews installed a culvert. INDOT spokesman Jason Tiller said there are no hot mix plants open this time of year, so they have been putting old blacktop millings into the road cut. The cut became extremely rough over the weekend. Crews improved it on Monday. Tiller said Highway 61 from Highway 64 to Highway 56 is going to be paved. He said the contract has been let and they expect the contractor to start in the next few weeks. VIDEO NetEdition Exclusive