Warsaw City Council approved transferring $50,000 toward the purchase of a backup generator for city hall during its meeting Monday. The city will be reimbursed through a grant from Homeland Security. Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Michael Wilson said once the city spends the money on the generator, which is expected to be less than $85,000, the city will have to fill out the appropriate paperwork and will be reimbursed for the $50,000. In explaining why a generator was needed, Wilson said, “This all started with power failures here in the building and with your new city central server being located here. We needed to find a way to help fix that.” Mayor Joe Thallemer said the city server is the connection between all of the city’s departments, and if power goes down, there are about 20 minutes of power on the server. “In the event there is some sort of power failure in downtown Warsaw, this building needs to have some sort of emergency backup,” Wilson said. The generator will kick on within three minutes after a power failure. Wilson said a few types of portable generators were investigated. Thallemer said the city had to spend some money to wire the electrical system to even accept a portable generator. The city engineer was getting ready to send out the bid specifications for the generator to potential bidders Tuesday with the intent of having the Board of Public Works and Safety being able to decide on a bid during its Dec. 20 meeting, Wilson said. The generator will be portable, housed on one of the parking spaces and will most likely be hidden by a fence. Wilson said the generator will be primarily used at city hall. However, there is an option that it could get moved and used elsewhere if a power outage happens in another part of the city and city hall was fine. Wilson said, depending on the manufacturer, the timeline is approximately 90 days before the city can get the generator set up. The city council also unanimously renewed Rick Snodgrass and City Councilman Michael Klondaris to the city’s redevelopment commission.
