Bids for the interior renovations of the Justice Building were opened Tuesday by the Kosciusko County Commissioners, each coming in at less than $2 million.
The renovations include wallpapering, carpeting, painting in the building. The county has obligated up to $2.4 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds for the improvements to the building.
Opening the two bids received, county attorney Ed Ormsby said the combined bid from Schenkel Construction was for $1,547,800, with the bid from R Yoder Construction being $1,830,000.
“We’ll take those two bids under consideration and come back at the next meeting for the selection,” he stated. The next meeting is Nov. 6 at 9 a.m.
Kosciusko County Highway Department Superintendent Steve Moriarty presented the stage 3 plans for bridge No. 9. The bridge is over Husky Trail. They were already completed, but Moriarty said there were a few small changes that they had to have.
“This is the next step so that we can go to our letting date,” he said, adding that he just needed the commissioners’ signatures on the title page.
The commissioners approved the request.
County Administrator Marsha McSherry presented the annual Terminal Services Data agreement for 2024.
“What that does is allow the outerlying police departments to have access to the same information that the sheriff’s department does,” she said.
The departments pay for the services and it’s based on the number of police vehicles they have.
The commissioners unanimously approved the agreement.
Both of the rezoning requests presented by Area Plan Director Matt Sandy were OK’d. The Area Plan Commission unanimously recommended that the commissioners approve them. There were no remonstrators against either petition, and the petitioners did not speak at Tuesday’s hearing on their own behalf.
In the first request, Mike Long petitioned to rezone property from agricultural to agricultural II. The property to be rezoned is on CR 800W, just west of Hoffman Lake. Sandy said Long reduced his original request from about 52 acres down to just a corner of the property of about 4-5 acres.
The second rezoning was Larry Hochstetler’s request to change his property of roughly 2 acres along Ind. 19, just south of CR 75N, from commercial to agricultural.
Sandy said Hochstetler was recently before the county’s Board of Zoning Appeals and they’re wanting to build a new house on the property. The BZA approved the exception for the Hochstetlers to get going on the new house, with the idea that the property was going to be rezoned to agricultural, which would allow the house as a permitted use, Sandy said.