Board Of Works Awards Street Light Project, Approves Fire Chief Agreement
April 21, 2023 at 9:53 p.m.
Board Of Works Awards Street Light Project, Approves Fire Chief Agreement
By David [email protected]
Friday, the Board of Public Works and Safety awarded the project to Hawk Enterprises for $295,560. The city had received two bids for the project on April 6, with the other bid from D & D Electric coming in at $319,285.88, and the bids were taken under advisement.
City engineer Aaron Ott told the board on Friday that both bids were deemed responsive and both contractors responsible. He recommended the board award the project to Hawk Enterprises as the low bidder. The board will be asked to approve the contract at a later meeting.
“These bids were a little bit higher than we thought they were going to be,” Mayor Joe Thallemer said. “These are ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds, so we’re going to have to go back and transfer some funds within the ARPA release fund.”
He said the Warsaw Common Council will probably be asked to approve a transfer at their next meeting so the cost will all be taken care of. Thallemer said he was fine with the $295,560 cost.
“It is what it is and we’ve got to get these lights done,” he said.
Ott said the city already owns the equipment as the replacement lights have already been purchased from Sternberg. The $295,560 is for the installation of the lights.
“There are 53 of them to be put up, and we’d really like to start that work right away and get these lights up as soon as possible,” he said.
Thallemer said, “Just as a reminder, there was some failure with the materials and we went back to the company and they gave us a very, very fair settlement, so now it’s just a matter of getting all of those replaced. Like you said, we’re at the installation side of this now.”
Board member George Clemens made the motion to approve the bid and it passed unanimously.
The board also approved an employment agreement with new Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Brian Mayo.
“This was recently set up by the approval by the city council Monday night that they would bypass the five-year requirement Brian be a member of this department. So with that, we’re now ready to propose his contract agreement,” Thallemer said. “Typically, we do not need a contract agreement, but coming from another department from afar, relocating, we wanted to show certainly that we have some confidence that we are agreeing that, with this agreement, we are hopeful that Chief Mayo will extend well beyond that.”
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan said that the eight-page agreement with Mayo was for two years. The fire chief serves at the pleasure of the mayor, he said, and the city will be in a transitional period after this year. Thallemer did not seek re-election and, so far, Councilman Jeff Grose is the only person who has filed to run for Warsaw mayor. Harlan said the agreement gives Mayo a little confidence in the city and it lets him know that the city understands the position he is in moving from South Carolina.
“If at some time he is relieved of duty, as long as it’s not for cause, then he would get a 12-week severance package,” Harlan stated.
Grose said he appreciated the mayor keeping him in the know since it’s all developed and he was in full support of the agreement.
Mayo replaced Garrett Holderman as fire chief after Holderman resigned after one year to move back to Arizona.
The board approved the agreement unanimously.
Assistant to the Mayor Staci Young presented a contract to the board for an eight-month agreement with Language Matters for a Spanish call center for $15,680.
Thallemer said the city set up a Spanish call center. “We’ve kind of been doing some beta testing, if you will, and we’ve had a pretty good start. I mentioned to somebody I got my first complaint about the roads in a bilingual call, so it tells me that it’s working,” he said. “But we want to extend this at least through the end of the year, so we’ve got a period of time to evaluate how effective this is before” whoever is here next.
The contract extends the call center through the end of the year, he said, and whoever is the next mayor will have to sit down and evaluate if they want to continue it going forward.
Young said the Spanish call center went live in November and there’s been a period of just trying to get the word out about it.
“In our Hispanic community, promoting things works best by word of mouth, and so it has taken some time of getting people out in the community talking with these individuals, letting them know about this opportunity. So naturally, there’s going to be that period of growth. We also know that just generally in the city, as we head into spring and summer, our call volume for different situations increases dramatically. We expect that to happen with this as well,” Young said.
Within the last month or so, she said they’ve seen a big uptick with the Spanish call center. Young said they expect that uptick to continue.
Thallemer said the city has had great success with Language Matters as far as getting documents translated “and having a really good interface now when there is a bilingual concern. This is just an idea that came out of our discussions that we thought was very relevant and, so far, it seems to be working pretty good.”
The board approved the agreement 3-0.
In other business, the board approved:
• The acceptance of a $408,059 Community Crossings 50/50 matching grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon said the projects the money will go toward totals $816,000, according to the engineer’s estimate.
He hopes the bids for the projects will be opened in June, and they include repaving Ranch Road from the railroad tracks south to CR 200S; Country Club Road from the bridge to the city limits; Center Street, from Lake to Indiana streets; Buffalo Street, from Market to Main streets; and Jefferson Street, the truck route from Bronson Street to Argonne Road.
“That will be new paving, ADA ramp updates on some of the sidewalks off Ranch Road and we’ll also add new paving markings as well as we’re doing this,” Dillon said.
He hopes the projects will start in the fall.
• WWFT Assistant Chief Aaron Bolinger’s request to apply for the State Homeland Security Grant for $10,946. The funds would be used to purchase lumber for structural collapse shoring training and new equipment for structural collapse, rope rescue and vehicle extrication.
• An amendment to the agreement with Wildman Uniform & Linen that the board had approved at the March 3 meeting, as requested by Wildman, that the Warsaw Wastewater Department was agreeable to. The amendment adjusts the rates for nine of the department’s supplied items.
Thallemer noted that while Wildman has been good to the city, and the increases were minimal, “It’s a little bit out of the ordinary to come back and increase the price on a contract we already approved.”
• An outdoor seating certificate for Courthouse Coffee on the Square, 108 N. Buffalo St., as presented by City Planner Justin Taylor.
• The acceptance of Warsaw Police Department’s portion of the Stop Arm Violation Enforcement (SAVE) grant of $7,000, as requested by Capt. Joel Beam. The grant is for officer overtime to enforce school bus stop arm violations.
• WPD to donate a 2003 Magic Trail boat trailer to Pleasant Township Volunteer Fire Department in Laketon. Warsaw Police Chief Scott Whitaker said the dive team has had a trailer that’s been out of service since 2015 and that’s the trailer they are donating.
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Friday, the Board of Public Works and Safety awarded the project to Hawk Enterprises for $295,560. The city had received two bids for the project on April 6, with the other bid from D & D Electric coming in at $319,285.88, and the bids were taken under advisement.
City engineer Aaron Ott told the board on Friday that both bids were deemed responsive and both contractors responsible. He recommended the board award the project to Hawk Enterprises as the low bidder. The board will be asked to approve the contract at a later meeting.
“These bids were a little bit higher than we thought they were going to be,” Mayor Joe Thallemer said. “These are ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds, so we’re going to have to go back and transfer some funds within the ARPA release fund.”
He said the Warsaw Common Council will probably be asked to approve a transfer at their next meeting so the cost will all be taken care of. Thallemer said he was fine with the $295,560 cost.
“It is what it is and we’ve got to get these lights done,” he said.
Ott said the city already owns the equipment as the replacement lights have already been purchased from Sternberg. The $295,560 is for the installation of the lights.
“There are 53 of them to be put up, and we’d really like to start that work right away and get these lights up as soon as possible,” he said.
Thallemer said, “Just as a reminder, there was some failure with the materials and we went back to the company and they gave us a very, very fair settlement, so now it’s just a matter of getting all of those replaced. Like you said, we’re at the installation side of this now.”
Board member George Clemens made the motion to approve the bid and it passed unanimously.
The board also approved an employment agreement with new Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Brian Mayo.
“This was recently set up by the approval by the city council Monday night that they would bypass the five-year requirement Brian be a member of this department. So with that, we’re now ready to propose his contract agreement,” Thallemer said. “Typically, we do not need a contract agreement, but coming from another department from afar, relocating, we wanted to show certainly that we have some confidence that we are agreeing that, with this agreement, we are hopeful that Chief Mayo will extend well beyond that.”
Human Resource Director Denny Harlan said that the eight-page agreement with Mayo was for two years. The fire chief serves at the pleasure of the mayor, he said, and the city will be in a transitional period after this year. Thallemer did not seek re-election and, so far, Councilman Jeff Grose is the only person who has filed to run for Warsaw mayor. Harlan said the agreement gives Mayo a little confidence in the city and it lets him know that the city understands the position he is in moving from South Carolina.
“If at some time he is relieved of duty, as long as it’s not for cause, then he would get a 12-week severance package,” Harlan stated.
Grose said he appreciated the mayor keeping him in the know since it’s all developed and he was in full support of the agreement.
Mayo replaced Garrett Holderman as fire chief after Holderman resigned after one year to move back to Arizona.
The board approved the agreement unanimously.
Assistant to the Mayor Staci Young presented a contract to the board for an eight-month agreement with Language Matters for a Spanish call center for $15,680.
Thallemer said the city set up a Spanish call center. “We’ve kind of been doing some beta testing, if you will, and we’ve had a pretty good start. I mentioned to somebody I got my first complaint about the roads in a bilingual call, so it tells me that it’s working,” he said. “But we want to extend this at least through the end of the year, so we’ve got a period of time to evaluate how effective this is before” whoever is here next.
The contract extends the call center through the end of the year, he said, and whoever is the next mayor will have to sit down and evaluate if they want to continue it going forward.
Young said the Spanish call center went live in November and there’s been a period of just trying to get the word out about it.
“In our Hispanic community, promoting things works best by word of mouth, and so it has taken some time of getting people out in the community talking with these individuals, letting them know about this opportunity. So naturally, there’s going to be that period of growth. We also know that just generally in the city, as we head into spring and summer, our call volume for different situations increases dramatically. We expect that to happen with this as well,” Young said.
Within the last month or so, she said they’ve seen a big uptick with the Spanish call center. Young said they expect that uptick to continue.
Thallemer said the city has had great success with Language Matters as far as getting documents translated “and having a really good interface now when there is a bilingual concern. This is just an idea that came out of our discussions that we thought was very relevant and, so far, it seems to be working pretty good.”
The board approved the agreement 3-0.
In other business, the board approved:
• The acceptance of a $408,059 Community Crossings 50/50 matching grant from the Indiana Department of Transportation.
Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon said the projects the money will go toward totals $816,000, according to the engineer’s estimate.
He hopes the bids for the projects will be opened in June, and they include repaving Ranch Road from the railroad tracks south to CR 200S; Country Club Road from the bridge to the city limits; Center Street, from Lake to Indiana streets; Buffalo Street, from Market to Main streets; and Jefferson Street, the truck route from Bronson Street to Argonne Road.
“That will be new paving, ADA ramp updates on some of the sidewalks off Ranch Road and we’ll also add new paving markings as well as we’re doing this,” Dillon said.
He hopes the projects will start in the fall.
• WWFT Assistant Chief Aaron Bolinger’s request to apply for the State Homeland Security Grant for $10,946. The funds would be used to purchase lumber for structural collapse shoring training and new equipment for structural collapse, rope rescue and vehicle extrication.
• An amendment to the agreement with Wildman Uniform & Linen that the board had approved at the March 3 meeting, as requested by Wildman, that the Warsaw Wastewater Department was agreeable to. The amendment adjusts the rates for nine of the department’s supplied items.
Thallemer noted that while Wildman has been good to the city, and the increases were minimal, “It’s a little bit out of the ordinary to come back and increase the price on a contract we already approved.”
• An outdoor seating certificate for Courthouse Coffee on the Square, 108 N. Buffalo St., as presented by City Planner Justin Taylor.
• The acceptance of Warsaw Police Department’s portion of the Stop Arm Violation Enforcement (SAVE) grant of $7,000, as requested by Capt. Joel Beam. The grant is for officer overtime to enforce school bus stop arm violations.
• WPD to donate a 2003 Magic Trail boat trailer to Pleasant Township Volunteer Fire Department in Laketon. Warsaw Police Chief Scott Whitaker said the dive team has had a trailer that’s been out of service since 2015 and that’s the trailer they are donating.
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