The Press-Dispatch
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/990974
Local ........ A1-10 Sports .........B1-3 History ........... B4 Opinion .......B5-6 Classifi eds ..B7-8 Church ..... C1-12 Home Life....C4-8 Obituaries....C8-9 School.......10-11 WHAT'S INSIDE: CONNECT WITH US: NetEdition ...pressdispatch.net/edition Facebook.....facebook.com/pressdispatch E-Mail .........news@pressdispatch.net Phone:.................. 812-354-8500 Fax: ...................... 812-354-2014 E-Mail . editor@pressdispatch.net NEWS TIPS: PIKE PUBLISHING See COUNCIL on page 2 See MILLER on page 2 Three sections 30 pages Six inserts Wednesday, June 6, 2018 Volume 148 Number 23 Phone (812) 354-8500 Petersburg, IN 47567-0068 (USPS 604-34012) $ 1 Winslow Town-Wide Yard Sale to be June 16 The second annual Winslow Town-Wide Yard Sale is sched- uled for Saturday, June 16. Participants may have the sale at their residence, or stage their sale along Main Street. Space will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Promote your yard sale in The Press-Dispatch classifieds and have your location placed on a map in the June 13 edition. Three vehicles hit cow in I-69 Three people escaped injury last Tuesday night when they hit a cow that wandered into the northbound lane of I-69. The chain reaction crash started when Richard Condol, 40, of Lyons, was driving north on I-69, near the 39.5-mile marker at about 11 p.m. Lyons told Deputy Seger the cow ran out in front of him and he could not avoid it. Condol struck the cow with front end of his 2012 Toyota Camry, then careened to the right, hitting the guardrail on the right side of I-69. He was uninjured. A pickup truck being driven by Daniel S. Kreig, 21, of 7627 E. SR 56, Winslow, was following behind Condol. The cow carcass was in the roadway and Krieg hit the carcass. He told firemen at the scene it caused his truck to go air- borne. He then lost control and came to rest in the median. A third driver, Leana Shaw, 27, of Seymour, was following Kreig in a 2010 Chevrolet HHR. The carcass was still in the passing lane, with Condol's car on the right side of the road. Shaw went to the right, but struck part of the carcass with one wheel, causing damage to the driver's side front wheel. Deputy Seger said he was able to determine Layne Cannon was the owner of the cow. Cannon said he was unsure how the cow got out because the corral pen was still up. By Ed Cahill Otwell Miller Academy employees who elect not to take the health insurance plan offered by the charter school will no longer receive the amount of the policy's premium contributed by OMA as part of their salary, according to action taken by the school's board during its regular monthly meeting on Monday, June 4. According to the terms of Otwell Mill- er Academy's teachers employment agree- ment for the 2017-18 school year, all full- time employees were permitted to choose from the plans offered by the OMA board, or receive a stipend toward a self-purchased plan or an increase in their base salary in lieu of insurance. Each full-time employee who elected to take the health insurance plan offered by the school received a contribution – or "premium contributory amount" – from the OMA board of up to $448 per month. Full-time employees who did not take the health insurance plan offered by the school had the option of receiving the pre- mium contributory amount as part of their salary – subject to the appropriate income tax deductions – or as a payment to an IRS - recognized Health Savings Account estab- lished by the employee, up to the amount allowed by the IRS. "We built into the salary schedule at the beginning, for a certified full-time employ- ee that takes the insurance, it'll be a single plan, and then if you don't take the insur- ance, that money is also paid to the teach- er each payroll," OMA director Rick Fears said. "It's the amount of the premium that's paid." "So what we're saying is, I think there were six or seven employees that did that, if those employees want to take the in- surance, it's still fully funded, the single plan, by OMA," Fears continued. "If they don't, they will no longer receive the pay- roll amount that they've been receiving for not taking the insurance." On a motion by OMA board member Lou Fort, which was seconded by board mem- ber Jenny Byrd, the board voted to remove the stipend payment. In other business, Fort announced that the personnel committee – comprised of Byrd, Fort and board secretary Emily Wil- lis – had interviewed three candidates for the director position being vacated by Fears at the end of June. "We have decided to put together a pro- posal for one of the candidates, and pres- ent it to them and bring their decision to the board either late in the month at anoth- er meeting or at the beginning of July at the July meeting," Fort said. "But we do have a candidate that we agree upon to present to the board, so we'll be working on put- ting together a contract proposal for them." Before the meeting adjourned, the board scheduled a special meeting for Monday, June 25, at 6 p.m. In addition, Byrd – one of two parent/ guardian representatives on the school board – volunteered to allow her position to be put up for re-election after Fort point- ed out that one of the two parent/guardian representatives elected last summer was Miller Academy changes health policy, interviews director candidates By Andy Heuring Petersburg City Council passed a reso- lution to declare buildings at 606 and 608 Main St. as a blighted area that will allow them to seek a grant to renovate or raze the buildings. They also announced June 12 will be a day for free pickup of storm debris. Petersburg Mayor R.C. Klipsch told City Councilmen they needed to pass the reso- lution declaring the buildings as a blighted area. Petersburg purchased the buildings a few months ago so they could either tear them down or rehabilitate them. Klipsch said once they had engineers do an inspec- tion of the buildings, they realized it was too big of a project for city crews to han- dle. He said cost of rehabbing the build- ings could be several hundred thousand. Petersburg is in the process of applying for a grant through the Office of Communi- ty and Rural A ffairs for a grant to help with the cost of the project. He said Petersburg would have to put up a 10 percent match for the grant. It was approved by a 3-0 vote of Fran Lewis, Brian Van Meter and Gary Leavitt. Councilmen Bertis Jenkins and John Mel- hiser were not at the meeting. Klipsch said Petersburg crews would be picking up storm debris from recent storms. He said people can drag their tree limbs and debris to the side of the road and city crews will pick it up. Klipsch said they should call City Hall at 812-354-8511 to get on a list for city workers to pick up the de- bris. He said this has to be debris from the storm, not just people trimming their trees. During the water board portion of the meeting, Klipsch said they will have a pub- lic hearing during their next meeting to get public input on a proposed water treatment plant grant application. He said they are ap- plying to get a grant to build a new water treatment plant, it would also include build- ing an additional water storage tank near I-69 and other updates to the distribution system. Klipsch said the price tag will be large. "That is why we are going after a feder- al grant. . . We were led to believe we are a designated community for development. So it should put us up at the front." He said after the application is reviewed, they would find out how much of the proj- ect will be paid for by grant and how much by loan or if the application is successful or not. In other business, Klipsch announced Petersburg is going to receive about $ 8,000 from an insurance payment. He said the payment stems from when a delivery truck caught one of the city's decorative flags on the light poles and pulled three of them down. Klipsch explained even though Pe- tersburg didn't own the light poles, it cost them to have to replace the poles. Councilmen also voted to cancel the sec- ond meeting of July. He said Clerk-Treasur- er Tammy Selby was going to be off during that time and it might be better to just have one meeting in July. The council agreed. Police Chief Chuck Baumgart said so far only three golf cart permits have been is- sued and one more is in the permitting pro- Blight area label will allow city to seek OCRA grants See STORM on page 2 By Andy Heuring A strong storm moved through Pike County early last Thursday, dropping heavy rains, blowing over trees and downing limbs. Nearly every community in the county had light storm damage. Pike County Highway Depart- ment Superintendent Josh Byrd estimated they had to remove trees or limbs from about 50 sites around the county following the storm. He said they also had sev- eral culverts and drain pipes washed out. Byrd said the worst part of the storm seemed to hit a line across the middle of Pike County, from Oatsville to Glezen, Campbell- town, White Oak and a small part of Otwell. However, it was widespread. "We are still cleaning up from it," said Winslow's Street Super- visor David Gayhart on Tuesday. "We have hauled off 10 to 15 loads of debris today from the storm and we probably still have another 10 to 12 to go. But we are starting to see an end," said Gayhart. "We didn't have any houses damaged, but we had a lot of trees and limbs down," said Gayhart. Pike County central dispatch logs show they started getting calls at 1:01 p.m. about power lines down at Ninth and Good- let sts. in Petersburg. There was a large tree limb that fell through a fence near Ninth and Maple sts. in Petersburg. A tree was down across Highway 61 near Half-mile Hill. In Winslow, a tree was down at the Pantry and on the north edge of Winslow on Highway 61. Strong storm Thursday fells trees, interrupts area power This large hole opened up in CR425N near CR750E during the strong rains last Thursday. Highway crews were able to fix the washout quickly despite being kept busy by about 50 downed trees and or limbs that had to be removed from county roads following the storm.