The Town Council of Winona Lake, Indiana met in a
regular session on Tuesday, November 10, 2009 in the Town Hall at 6:00 p.m.
COUNCIL MEMBERS PRESENT: Joy Lohse, Jim Lancaster, Terry Howie, Randy Swanson
and
Retha Hicks
ABSENT: Sue
Gooding and Jim Walmer
OTHERS PRESENT: Craig
Allebach, Larry Long, Mitch Titus and Pete O’Connell
Opening - Allebach opened the meeting with prayer and the Pledge
of Allegiance.
Approval of minutes – Lancaster motioned to accept minutes of October 27,
2009, and the work session of October 20, 2009. Motion was seconded by Lohse and minutes were approved
as written.
·
November 20,
6:30pm – Winona Lake Community Dinner at Senior Center. Tickets are $15.00
·
November 21,
8:00am – Breakfast with Santa at Senior Center hosted by the Fire Dept. The tickets for breakfast are $5.00 and
children under 10 are free.
·
November 21,
9:00am – KringleFest at Rodeheaver Auditorium
Floor Topics – Michael Skipper has a
tentative date of September 11, 2010 for the LakeCity Running Club race. He wants to organize a safety and health
festival for Friday, September 10 and a Freedom Festival on Saturday. He has also spoken with Cindi Clawson at WNDU
about the possibility of a “weather radio programming time” because it is
promoting safety. Skipper is requesting
community support. Lohse asked who from
the Town would be involved with this kind of activity. Allebach responded that the Park Department
does their own 5k and is not involved with other races in our community. He suggested that Skipper approach the Park
Department.
Ordinance 2009-11-1 Tree
Ordinance –
The Town attorney has some concerns with the ordinance and was not in
attendance. Allebach felt that the
ordinance was to be pro-active and not heavy-handed. Going on resident’s property and giving them
a fine is not something we want to do.
Allebach asked the Council to review Walmer’s comments and give some
feed back. Lohse has asked five
individuals to make up the Tree Board and all five have shown interest. Those five people are John Hawkins, Aaron
Wilcoxson, Luke Hunt, Pete O’Connell and Paul Schmitt. Allebach also has three other names to
contact for foresters to assist us. The
Council tabled the Ordinance by consensus.
Lancaster asked if we have a Town Forester and was told we do not. Titus has spoken with the Grace Brethren
Investment Foundation about the dead trees on the property and the owner is
willing to share the cost of the removal.
Ordinance 2009-11-2
Amending Section 1-61 Prohibited Discharges - This Ordinance prohibits discharges into
our wastewater sewer from resident’s heat pumps and air conditioners. We do not want to pay for unpolluted water to
be treated by Warsaw. Ordinance
2009-11-2 was approved for first reading by the Council.
Report from Town Engineer
– Long
presented the bids for the salt building and three items that were question in
the last meeting. Long reported that those
items have been addressed to comply with the specs he provided. The Council approved a salt building bid in
the October 27 meeting.
Long
also present a storm drainage project south on Park Ave. dealing with standing
water next to the street. This was not
corrected by the project last year in that area. A catch basin will be installed on that side
of the street and then we will run a line across the street and tie it into the
storm drain. We have received two quotes
as follows: Newton & Sons Excavating
for $2,731.56 and L.D.P. Excavating, Inc. for $2,780. Long recommended that we accept the bid from
Newton and Sons. Jerry Nelson asked
about the drain line put in previously because when we had the flood the lake
water was coming back up the drain line at 1605 Park Ave. Had the Town considered putting in a flapper
valve on the line? Long was unsure of
the location, he doesn’t remember a storm drain line there. O’Connell will check out the location of the
line. Long reminded Nelson that this
area is in the flood plain, but we could do work in this area regarding storm
drainage. Howie asked if we wanted to go
back to the bidders for this project and rebid with the work of installing a
flapper valve. Long recommended we
accept the low bid and negotiate the additional work otherwise you will have to
rebid the work. Lohse made a motion to
approve Newton and Sons quote and Swanson seconded the motion. The motion was approved unanimously. Howie asked Long to negotiate the flapper
valve. Brent Wilcoxson stated that the
valve was not appropriate for the area and was only future maintenance problems. Long concurred that the valves were only
potential problems.
Long
presented street paving quotes. When
asphalt bids were taken in the spring, Niblock included an
escalation/de-escalation clause to allow for the fluctuation in the oil
prices. Phend & Brown bid a firm
price. Long recommended at that time that
the Town accept both bids for the asphalt.
Niblock used the de-escalation clause on the asphalt and that made the
difference on the two quotes for the street paving. The Niblock quote is $68,369.24 and the Phend
and Brown quote is $91,859.50. Long
recommended we accept the Niblock quote.
Paving is for portions of Ft. Wayne
St.; Roy; Park; an alley between 11th and 12th; alley between
Mineral Springs and Pope; and Faunn driveway entrances. Also included are curb and gutter replacement
on 12th; Kings Hwy.; and Short St.; and the parking lot on Ft Wayne. Long recommended accepting the quote from
Niblock. Swanson moved to accept the
Niblock quote and Lancaster seconded and the motion passed.
Long
discussed the parking lot project on Roy Street. There were concerns with the protective
covenant that might preclude putting in a parking lot. Long researched the neighborhood covenants
and is recommending Walmer look at the covenants as Long feels it is not
clear. Lancaster recommended because the
striping is done on Roy Street that we table this project and not incur any
further expense.
Long
discussed the Town Hall (north) parking lot project. In the last meeting the Council indicated
they wanted the grass option. Long
provided an option with asphalt for $56,702.50, a second option with 16 spaces
and grass for $67,334.50 and a third option of grass with 10 spaces for
$33,169. Long presented information from
a company that provides the reinforcement for grass paving. The asphalt option has storm drainage the
grass options do not require storm drainage.
Long recommends that we add a storm drain of a fabric wrapped tile to
the grass projects. There is an old
cement foundation from a building and two good sized tree stumps. Swanson recommended we contact Slabaugh for
the stub removal. Wilcoxson asked why
you could not leave the asphalt lot where it is and put the grass lot in. Long responded that we could. Long noted to the Council the “per parking
space” cost listed on each option as follows:
Option a $4.45 per space, option B $7.45 and option C $7.26. Lancaster wondered if the parking shouldn’t
be on the other side of Cherry Creek.
Hicks replied there is a shortage of parking for renters of the Senior
Center. If we installed a lot on this
side of Cherry Creek, the town would have water issues and cannot come within
75 feet of the Creek. Long felt with the
grass lot it would not be an issue.
Swanson was concerned if we would have to water the grass in a grass lot
because of the sand/rock mix underneath.
Long responded that it would drain more than normal grass. We would also have issues with gas or oil
drained from cars. You cannot stripe the
lot, but Long shows parking bumpers in the picture. You could also use bricks to distinguish the
spaces. Lancaster would like the Town to
look at the area down by Cherry Creek on the south side of the “gatehouse”.
Long
had looked into the drainage problem at 2873 E. Prestwick (Dan Rice). Two catch basins behind this property drain
water off of the golf course in a storm line down to Prestwick in a very
hap-hazard way. The line was filmed and
about half way onto the first private property the pipe was flat. The street employees have not gone to the
catch basins and tried filming from the other direction. Since the storm drain line is flat, the catch
basin overflows, and spills onto the empty lot owned by Dan Rice.
Reports from Supervisors:
O’Connell – Both leaf machines were down
as of tonight, but we should be able to get them going tomorrow. Pete asked for the public’s patience with
leaf pick-up.
W.A.
Jones submitted a quote to extend the bed on the Mack so it can be used for the
Dial-a-Truck program and leaf pick-up.
The quote is for $8,200. Jones
would give us about $2,000 for the bed of the truck and then take the chassis
from the old International for about $1,000.
This would bring our cost down to approximately $6,200. The International is in very bad shape and we
keep putting money into it to keep it running.
The International currently interchanges between the container for the
Dial-a-Truck and the leaf machine.
O’Connell would have the work done after leaf season. Swanson moved that we accept O’Connell’s
recommendation and Lancaster seconded the motion. The motion was approved.
Swanson – Asked about the data for our
wastewater treatment. Hicks reported
that the data had been gathered and give to Sue Haase to rework her
information. We need to set a Council
work session date. Monday, November 23,
at 6:00pm was agreed upon.
Lancaster – Inquired when the dredging
would start and the response was dredging would start on Wednesday.
Hicks – Reminded the Council to
purchase their tickets for the Community Dinner.
Lohse
made a motion to adjourn and Lancaster seconded. The motion passed.
Meeting was adjourned
_________________________ ___________________________
TERRY
HOWIE RETHA
S. HICKS
PRESIDENT
CLERK-TREASURER