The Independent-News, Volume 120, Number 18, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 15 September 1994 — Page 4

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- THE INDEPENDENT-NEWS - SEPTEMBER 15. IW4

[ EDITORIAL

NOT REALLY NEW . . . . . . JUST IMPROVED! We, at The Independent-News, are undertaking a small improvement program that has been all too long in coming. It is hoped through this rather simple venture, we will improve greatly the quality and readership of our hometown newspaper, "The Independent-News". Truthfully, in recent years yours truly has kind of been dogging it. In life’s ebbs and flows, things were moving along rather well for our business until the very late 1980’s. Then a series of events started that changed things considerably and as a result, a little less effort than should have been exerted, was given. Hating to use the term "I", but necessary here, 1 just didn't give the business the time and attention it deserved, looking for the easy way out, using about anything I could for an excuse, etc. I kind of let outside matters affect the inside game. By realizing this and trying to do something about it, we are going to make a few small changes, nothing major, but changes we feel will give our paper more readership. AFTER ALL, THIS IS THE ONLY HOMETOWN NEWSPAPER WE HAVE. We are a paid circulation, we can accept legal advertising, we do qualify under postal standards as a newspaper. Others may use the term newspaper, but they are not. We try to cater to our public, but this is one area we have been a little weak in lately. We would like to say something about the "New” Independ-ent-News”, but we aren’t going to be new. We strongly prefer to use the word improved and hope you feel the same. Looking the word new up in the dictionary, the word could be used as after the original definition which said: "Having existed, or having been made only a short time”, we continued to read a lot of more ways the word new can be used for something that isn’t new. Also, we are extremely proud of our history as we are in our 120th year, just slightly behind the "South Bend Tribune” in this area, who has also recently taken major steps to give the public a better newspaper. We salute the Tribune on their improvements and only wish we had just a little bit of that kind of revenue to work with. Getting down to the facts, we have subscribed to a syndicated service that will supply us various features for our use as we see fit. Some of them I personally like, some 1 don’t care much for, but we would like to have you help us make the decision of what you would like to have available. We will be running more pages most of the time. We will try to give you as many of these features as we can. We hope to put together special pages, once again working an editorial page with our own writings, we will resume a shorter memories column, will always welcome “Voice of the People” contributions and also will have a special “Your Opinion” column for articles which we feel are slightly different or possibly longer than regular voice columns. For a couple of weeks, we have several pages featuring these various features. We want you to help us decide. A form to fill out specifying your feelings will be available both this week and next week. You have two ways you can express an opinion, a simple yes or no answer to ‘would I like to have this feature’, or you can also rank your choice of features in order of your preference with number 1 being your favorite, and rate as many as you please. This questionnaire will have a lot to do with the determination of what features we will run! Please in the next couple of weeks, cut a questionnaire out and return it to us either by mail or drop it off at our office. We are open 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. Your input will mean a lot. We hope by giving you a bigger and we feel better weekly newspaper, we will also encourage more advertising by our area merchants. We still have a great value for their advertising dollar, giving a well-read paper based more on quality of material rather than quantity of numbers. And, oh yes, let us forewarn you. A price increase will be forthcoming, but we have been holding off waiting to see what happens with postage increases, which preliminary reports indicate will be quite heavy for second class mail. This is some time down the road, but with both mailing expenses and production costs going up, it will be necessary. If you currently do not subscribe, your best deal right now would be use our W.I.N. Coupon and get two years at today’s price! You can’t go wrong with this. We will have more on our improvements next week. Thank you for your time and we do sincerely want your opinions.

Voice Os The People “Urey Ragrovatteu” Is the Urey renovation-addition proposal a good buy? You decide! In June of this year, Dr. Ivan D. Wagner, educational consultant, presented a feasibility study to our Board of School Trustees. His studies show that by the year 1996, we will be in need of more room at

North Liberty Elemetnary School. The study also shows the need for more room at the Walkerton Elementary School by the year 2000. These findings were based upon an increase of only one kindergarten student per year. Amazing! Since the year 1990 we have increased almost four of these students per year at Walkerton, and 2 per year at North Liberty. His studies go on to show a school wide increase of 22 students at Walkerton, and 69, yes

69 students at North Liberty! Dr. Wagner also said the need for rooms at those schools were based upon a projection of "functional capacity”. “The functional capacity is (obtained) when laboratory areas are excluded i.e. music, art, computer lab, gymnasium”. It terrifies me to say that to obtain 100% capacity we can only do one thing. Add more students to each classroom. What will having up to 35 students per classroom instead of 24 students per classroom do to the quality of education? It seems pretty clear that we need to plan for these problems and now! The current Urey proposal does nothing for these problems. Simply adding a 6th grade wing onto Urey at a later date sounds like a solution, but do not be fooled. The current Urey proposal is designed for two grades only. Our own consulting architect Mr. Kari Vilamaa warned us at the last school board meeting that if we design the administrative, support, industrial tech., home economics, cafeteria, kitchen, etc., at a minimum now for only those two grades that when we possibly add a 6th grade wing onto Urey at a later date, we will find those areas "very difficult” or "infeasible” to add onto. "If we don’t talk bout this thing now, then we may come back in five years and say that stupid architect never mentioned that.” School board member Janice Ryan stated: "I agree with you, we have to look at the growth and we won't be smart if we don’t.” To support the current Urey proposal only dooms us to spend more money by the year 1996 and 2000 by adding onto our exploding elementary schools, or adding onto an added onto Urey Middle School. What will these costs be? Well those costs be more than if we built a 6-7-8 middle school, which addresses the elementary schools’ overcrowding? I have my answer but would like the School Board to come up with one for the public’s sake. Let us know that before be buy this used car, we could have more money invested in it within two to four years than if we would have bought a new one in the first place. Patron for a quality education Jeffrey L. Johnson “A Good Idea” Several months ago it was decided to promote the W.I.N. Coupon book, by the Walkerton Area Chamber of Commerce. Everyone, businesses and individuals, thought it a good idea. Dixie Anspaugh was gracious in volunteering to get the show on the road. After many hours of hard work, it was readied for market. Everyone, business and individuals, were excited and enthused. The work was done locally at The Indepen-dent-News. The coupons are great, more than generous, well worth the five dollars that it costs. So what happened to the sales? After a small flurry of sales, it slowed down. The merchants are not being super salesmen. This would be a good time to have people sign up at the individual businesses for a drawing for a free coupon book. How about factories buying and giving them to their employees? How about you individuals buying and giving to your children? These books have something in them for everybody. I have bought about 10 of these for our children and for friends. The money is needed for improvements and projects that the local Chamber of Commerce want to implement and it needs the funds. The Great Pumpkin Festival is coming along greatly. Many of you have seen our placemats. These carry our program along with the merchants who advertised on it. We want you to consider these places when you are looking to buy anything. St. Pat's Auction is this coming Saturday. Whenever I mention this to Roy, he grumbles that we don’t have any more room for stor-

| VIEWPOINT

The Walkerton-Lincoln Township Library is located on Roosevelt Road in a small building of about 1,800 square feet. It serves for "free”, residents of Lincoln Township. In the past seven years the Library has grown extensively. It has added programs, services and materials for the community, and it would like to continue to add more. Unfortunately, the Library is running out of space. In 1990, the latest census, the population of Lincoln Township was 2,782. As of August 1994, the Library had 1,163 Lincoln Township residents with current library cards. The Library is definietly used by a large part of the population of the township. The more people that use the library, the more space we need. In January of 1994, the Library paid off the building it now is in, so it has no major loans. At this time the Library Board, librarians and even patrons, have realized there is a definite need for a larger building to house the Library. The Library Board and I have started looking into puchasing a new building. One of the things that we feel is important to discover before we really get going on this project is how does the community feel? Would the residents of the community support the purchase of a new library building? Right now our shelving areas are crowded and we must discard books to make room for newer ones. Our storage space is overflowing into our office. There is no room to add any new materials such as books-on-tape or even video tapes. We have no room in the Library for people to read nor do we have an adequate meeting room. With a larger facility we would be able to add to our materials without discarding older ones. We could have a more organized shelving system and shelves that could be reached easier. We could keep books and magazines for longer periods of time. Many times we have to send to other libraries for magazine articles because we have no room to keep many back issues. This costs money and wastes the patrons time. We could have tables and chairs put in for people who wish to age. We'll be there! They really have nice clean items. This sale helps keep St. Pat’s off my taxes. Also, 1 find that I have a great time harrassing the auctioneer, Paul, and clerk, Barbara. Remember, buy W.I.N. Books and Great Pumpkin raffle tickets, and go to St. Pat’s sale! Sincerely, Nedra Williams “I Need Your Help” Hi! I’m your American Legion Unit 189 Auxiliary president. I really need your help. The Department has given us (the Auxiliary) a special assignment this year. In place of the greeting cards and the gift wrap which was sent to our members each year, the Department is going to raffle a 1995 Cadillac or $25,000 if you are the winner. There is also a second prize of $3,000; third prize of $2,000; and fourth prize of SI,OOO. The tickets are $5.00 each. The drawing will take place at Department Headquarters on November 19, 1994. The Department is asking each unit member to purchase or sell three tickets. Since this is another step in helping our veterans, I would appreciate all the cooperation I can get from our membership. Thank you. Alice Flaugher

read in the Library. With a reading area it would be possible for area business kpeople to bring their lunch in while they read the magazines and newspapers.

With more room we could set aside an area in which groups can meet. It would also be available for the Library staff to put on programs for patrons. At this time we can only do programming for children because we lack the space for adults. We would also have more room to display materials the Walkerton Historical Society has also expressed their wishes to house some of their materials at the Library, so anyone can enjoy them. With a new facility we would be able to set aside a spot to do this. More room would help the Library staff. At this time we do not have enough room at our check out desk for more than one person. The Library makes copies and faxes for patrons, but we have no room to put our copier or fax machine up front. At this time we must run to the back to do this for patrons. A larger building would allow us to consider the possibility of purchasing a computer and/or typewriter for public use and books on cassette or videos. This, of course, would increase the taxes paid. Our treasurer has estimated it would increase between .15 to .18 per SIOO assessed valuation. Because the Library Board and 1 also pay taxes, we understand the concern this may cause people. We would like to invite everyone to come and look at our present facilities, so they can see for themselves what we need. In the next month we will be putting out surveys to help us discover your views on getting a larger library and what you would like to see the Library provide. At this time we are looking at several possible sites and we are looking at their advantages and disadvantages and of course, their cost. We would appreciate any advice or ideas from the residents of the city and township. The Library is an important resouce in any community and everyone should have a say in its development. Gail Sutter, Librarian and Library Board Os Walkerton-Lincoln Twp. Library

LEGAL NOTICES

NOTICE TO BIDDERS LIBERTY TOWNSHIP ST. JOSEPH COUNTY 1800 GALLON TANKER FIRE APPARATUS Sealed bids will be received by the Liberty Township Trustee on Specifications for an 1800 Gallon Tanker Fire Apparatus. Bids will be accepted for the chassis separate, the pump and components separate or the complete package. Bids will be opened at 7:00 p.m. at a public meeting on November 1, 1994. TGhe meeting will be held at the Trustee’s Office located at 300 South Main Street, North Liberty, Indiana. Bid forms and specifications may be obtained from the Trustee. A bond or certified check shall be filed with each bid in the amount of 10% of the contract price. Liberty Township reserves the right to reject any or all bids. Liberty Township Trustee Martha L. Lambert Bids returned by mail: Martha L. Lambert Liberty Township Trustee P.O. Box 729 North Liberty, Indiana 46554 Bids returned in person: Trustee Office 300 South Main Street North Liberty, Indiana 46554 2t522