The Independent-News, Volume 121, Number 18, Walkerton, St. Joseph County, 14 September 1995 — Page 6

- INDEPENDENT NEWS - SEPTEMBER 14, 1995

New Teachers At St. Pat’s In Walkerton VWlCOni€

I • • ms" Judy Miller Judy Miller has joined the St. Patrick School staff as the third and fourth grade teacher, in Walkerton. With 27 years teaching experience and a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s from Ball State University, she brings solid maturity to St. Pat’s. For the last 12 years Judy was in charge of the fourth grade at St. Barnabas School, in Indianapolis. Judy’s husband, Larry, is the director at the Swanson Center, in LaPorte. Their daughters are Keri, a student at Ball State and Kristi who attends Indiana University, at Bloomington. With a fine family and teaching expertise Judy will be an asset to St. Patrick School.

ENGAGED Ik

Jack and Arlene Wise announce the engagement of their daughter, Loretta Lynn Wise to Jason Paul Cleveland, son of Paul and Cathy Cleveland. The wedding will be on SaturWALKERTON TOWN COUNCIL MINUTES Con’t from 2 weeks ago and the unusual rain fall we may have to pump, and work some extra hours to handle the run off. Norfolk & Southern Railroad sent a letter regarding some federal rules about installing stop signs at railroad crossings. Norfolk & Southern is offering to pay half of the expense. Zehner said that he and Chief Sobieralski had checked each of these crossings and they feel that there is a problem with the angles of the intersections and of not having enough distance to warn people of the stop. Zehner had contacted Norfolk & Southern about the problem and Clifford

.AS if ■w J| Cindy Moore St. Patrick School, Walkerton, welcomes Cindy Moore as the new teacher for first and second grades. Her educational background includes a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s from IUSB. Cindy’s elementary experience over the past 10 years involved schools in Elkhart, Mishawaka and South Bend. Her most recent assignment for the past four years was a Chapter I tutor at Nuner School, in River Park. The Moore family includes her husband, Marvin, who is a South Bend restaurant consultant; a daughter, Mindy and a son, Eric. ! These well balanced credentials • will be a definite plus to the St. Patrick’s teaching staff.

day, October 14,1995. A bridal shower was given for the bride-elect, on Saturday, August 19. A big thank you to all who attended. DeLaCroix from their Indianapolis office came down and studied the crossings and made certain recommendations. On August 17th De LaCroix met with Zehner and recommended that yield signs be installed at the following intersections: Georgia, Virginia, Illinois and Kentucky Streets. DeLaCroix further recommended that stop signs be installed on Adams Street, and stated that they could be installed on the crossbuck poles. The Council resolved to accept these recommendations from DeLaCroix as to the type and placement of signs at the Norfolk & Southern crossings, on a motion by Reese. The motion icluded the approval to pay our share of the cost of the signs. Seconded by Hartsell, carried. Copies of the letters, report and maps concerning the signs an crossings are on file at the clerk’s office.

Terry Baugher told the Council that there are two construction agreements that need to be approved tonight, for the Adams Street Sewer Project. The agreements are with CSX Railroad and Norfolk & Western to allow us to work in their right-of-way and for going under the CSX tracks. Jaske made the motion to allow Rizek to sign the agreement, seconded by Reese, carried. Baugher told the Council that we will be buying into the liability insurance policies of the railroads at an approximate cost of $250.00 each. Buying this insurance saves a couple of thousand dollars of the contractor’s expense. Baugher had prepared a notice to proceed for Herrman & Goetz to begin work on the project, with their contract starting on Sept. 4th. The project should be completed by Nov. 18th. After voicing some concern about how the children will be able to get into the school, Jaske made the motion to approve the notice to proceed after getting an okay from Superintendent McKee, seconded by Reese, carried. The bid opening for the Washington Street-Adams Street Water Main Project will be on September 6th. Baugher had two permit applications that have to b? signed for the Water Main Project. One is from IDEM for approval of the . water main itself and the other is from INDOT for boring and jacking under SR 23. Reese made the motion to allow Rizek to sign the applications, seconded by Hartsell, carried. Reese asked Zehner about the progress of the Sidewalk Project. Zehner responded that four out of seven of the sidewalk replacements have been done. The contractor hopes to get back to our sidewalks by the end of the week. David Behr reported on the Housing Rehabilitation Grant. At the last meeting Behr had reported that $4,000.00 of our match could be made up by having our electrical workers do some of the work on the homes. After talking with Bolze he found that our men are not licensed to do residential work and he has had to rework the figures for our grant match. He said that clean up work that was going to be done by our town workers is now going to be done by community service workers from Lincoln Township. Behr will now be doing the clerical work and monitoring the entire project. Originally Behr had reported that the $131,000.00 grant from the St. Joseph County Housing Allowance Office, required only a soft match (no cash) from the Town. Since our electrical workers can not do any of the work and there were other changes to the match, the Town now has to provide $9,282.00 in cash. The Gerk told Behr and the Council that we do not have any budget appropriations in 1995 or 1996 to cover these expenses. Five thousand dollars of the match is for the code inspector, and we only have two thousand budgeted for the building commissioner. Most of this two thousand dollars will be used in the normal course of business as the building inspector’s earnings for issuing building permits. There was a discussion of using some of the money in the Economic Development Fund, but it was determined that this money is supposed to be used on a revolving loan basis. Attorney Holmes advised that it would be feasible for the utilities to pay for these expenses as a part of economic development. The Council discussed using some utility funds for this grant, with Bolze. Jaske said that he thought this was a very worthwhile project and feels that we should help out with housing in Walkerton if we can. Jaske made the motion to use Electric Operating-Office Supply funds for our grant match, seconded by Hartsell, carried. Reese asked for a description of what this grant will do. Behr said that it is for housing rehabilitation for homeowners who meet certain income

guidelines. You have to own your house, live in the house and sign a document that you will not sell your । house for a five-year period. Behr . went on to explain that this is HUD I money and if you move before the ( five-year period is up, you have to pay the money, that was spent on your house back to the grant fund. The grant is to be used to bring homes up to code standards such as plumbing, roofing and electrical. It cannot be used for luxury items such as swimming pools. It was pointed out that this grant is for Walkerton homeowners and is sponsored by the Town Council. Final decision on homes that will be selected for the grant money will be made by a committee that includes Behr, Chuck Secord and someone from Housing Allowance. Reese will also sit in with the committee. Citizen’s Input: Faye Snodgrass, whose home is on the new sewer line, asked when her yard will be put back together because she has numerous problems with her yard. Snodgrass said that the hydroseed that they are using has gotten on her bushes and is killing some of them. She added that she now has sand in her yard (which was not there before) and any grass seed she plants, washes away and her fence has not been put back up. Bill Dutton, Wightman Petrie, said that there is a definite problem because the first seeding did not take. He said that they have to get all of the paving done first, and then they will have the restoration crew in full time to do the landscaping. He assured her that it should be done by the end of the month. Snodgrass said that she does not want them to hydroseed her yard again and added that she would prefer to seed it herself. Dutton said that they will get the top soil in shape for her to seed, if that is what she prefers. Old Business: Hartsell made the motion to do the second and third readings of Ordinance No. 1995-14, an ordinance for appropriations and tax rates, in short form, seconded by Jaske, carried. The second reading was accepted on a motion by Jaske, seconded by Hartsell and carried. The third reading was accepted on a motion by Hartsell, seconded by Jaske, carried. There was some discussion on making our vehicle insurance deductible higher. It was decided to contact Ed Walz about getting us some new premium quotes, using a higher deductible and make some corrections to the “cost new” on some of the vehicles. The Council also decided that we should have an independent audit of our insur ance. The cost of such an audit wil be around $500.00. Jaske made the motion to have the insurance audit done, seconded by Hartsell, careied. New Business: It is also necessary to buy into Norfolk & Southern’s liability insurance for the North Sewer Extension Project. Cost of that insurance is $350.00 and is on tonight’s claims docket. The Gerk said that a resident on Spruce Road was unable to hear the

YOUR HOME •SbT" TOWN ..BC! PAPER NEEDS J YOUR ” SUBSCRIPTION "

Town’s sirens, warning of a possible tornado. She would like to have a siren installed in the northeast part of town. It was decided that Superintendent Bolze will do some testing to see how far you can hear the sirens and then bring a recommendation back to the Council. Claims 992 an 993 for $117,213. 58; claims 949 through 994 for $210,782.12 and payroll docket dated 8-16-95 for $20,132.87 were accepted on a motion by Reese, seconded by Hartsell, carried. Motion to adjourn was made by Hartsell, seconded by Jaske, carried.

I VOICE OF THE PEOPLE

YOU ASKED FOR IT! Members of the Walkerton Area Chamber of Commerce have asked for and grumbled about the lack of quarterly meetings. You asked for it and you are getting one, on Thursday (tonight), Sept. 14, at Swan Lake Golf Academy, at 6:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served. A representative from an insurance company and from a telephone company will be present to give some information. So all you Chamber members be there! This year the Great Pumpkin Festival will be held on Harrison Street, because of many reasons. The greatest is the safety factor, it is getting to be too dangerous to be on and crossing U.S. 6. Another reason is that it is a little counterproductive for the merchants to give up their entries to vendor’s tents. So let’s give it the Walkerton Try. The dates are October 6,7 and 8. We are lining up a number of good food booths and entertainment. The Little Miss and Mr. Pumpkin contest, Pumpkin BakeOff, the Sentimental Journey, Gospel Singers and lots of good food booths. There will also be many craft booths. In fact it sounds like such a fun thing that 1 might even attend. More later. I may be writing a column of Johnson Township happenings for the Independent. If you think that 1 should, you people of the Township will have to give me some information. My telephone number is 586-3627. Give me a call. I wish that I could vote in the Walkerton Town elections. It sounds like the townspeople are finally taking an active interest in the area- We have always had a few interested people active in town government, but it is a good sign when more want to get involved. Isn’t Sue and her crew doing a good job with the Independent? I like the new format and design. Keep up the good work. It’s card day and I must end this note. Keep on growing those pumpkins! Sincerely, Nedra Williams One things you can’t brag about is your modesty.