When the Justice Building parking lot renovation begins tentatively next week, the county has a plan as to where employees will park during the two to three months of work.
County Administrator Marsha McSherry told the county commissioners Tuesday, “When they start, we’re going to be shutting down half of that parking lot so the north half of the parking lot, when they start, will be shut down.”
She said they made arrangements for county employees to park in other areas, which requires two parking lease agreements. One is with Shirley Polk for two months for $1,344, with the option for a third month if necessary; and the second is with Jacob Chalk for the old Harris parking lot for $2,000 for two month, with the option to extend that if needed.
After the commissioners unanimously approved the leases, Commissioner Cary Groninger said, “Marsha took a lot of time to locate some different parking lots. She presented it to the department heads with a map showing where everyone’s going to park, so we think we’ve got a plan in order where we’re going to park people during this construction time.”
The parking lot is just north of the Justice Building and where the former Enterprise Car Rental building is.
“All of that is pretty much getting redone,” Groninger said after the meeting. “Some of it is just going to be an overlay, but then there’s a fair amount that will be new curbs, new sidewalks, new lighting, new asphalt put throughout that area. It’s roughly about a 2- to 2-1/2-month process. We’re going to be doing half at a time as we walk through that.”
When the renovation is completed, Groninger estimated they will gain about 35-40 spots of additional parking that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
The former Enterprise building, 215 N. Lake St., Warsaw, will stay, Groninger said, and be utilized for storage for the county’s weights & measures department, surveyor’s office and some other things.
At the June 24 Warsaw Board of Zoning Appeals meeting, the board approved a temporary new location for Enterprise at Crouse Body Shop.
In March, the commissioners awarded the bid for the parking lot expansion and redevelopment to Brooks Construction for a base bid of $696,124.79, with an alternative bid of $25,215.21 for a total of $721,340.
In other business, Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter said, “As we all know, technology is wonderful when it works, and our tornado sirens are no exception to that because they use two forms of technology: computers and radios.”
So to increase the reliability of activating the tornado sirens that are activated through central dispatch, Shuter said they will be doing a reprogramming project starting Monday that will run through all next week.
“Primarily, south sirens on Monday; central sirens on Tuesday; and northern sirens on Wednesday. All of that is weather dependent, of course, so we don’t set them off when” bad weather, he said.
J & K Communications has identified a great plan so the reliability of the sirens is much higher than it was previously, Shuter stated.
The county commissioners also approved:
• The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Committee recommendations, as presented by County Administrator Marsha McSherry.
“These have gone to the committee. They have reviewed it. It needs to come to the commissioners for approval and then will go to the (county) council for approval in September,” McSherry said. “We had a project (Justice Building renovations) that came in under what was appropriated, so this is where these dollars are coming from. There are no real dollars available in ARPA anymore, so we’re just trying to appropriate these dollars that are not being used in another project in the county.”
The recommendations include $23,000 for the Justice Building parking lot cameras; $64,435 for the Work Release security system update; $7,800 for Work Release exterior painting (main entrance and lobby area); $7,425 for Work Release parking lot; $220,000 for Justice Building furniture; $66,900 for assessment of several county buildings; and $150,000 for courthouse exterior camera system, including installation of fiber, cameras and the poles to put them on.
• Kosciusko County Community Fair Inc.’s request for $85,790 in ARPA funds for roof preservation and electrical upgrade. The county’s ARPA Committee approved recommending the request at their July meeting.
Randy Shepherd, Fair president, said all of their barns on the 4-H end are in dire need of some roof repair, and they picked out two of the worst ones to ask for help on.
The Beef Barn is slated for $44,616, and the Home & Family Arts Building is $31,174. Shepherd that would include pressure washing the building, doing an acid wash and a repair on all the leaks, tape and seal all the joints and re-coat all the surfaces of both buildings.
Another $10,000 is for electrical upgrades. “That would be a tip of what we need, but that gets us out of trouble right now. We want to put in a new service on the east end of the fairgrounds so we can split up some of the power on that end to help alleviate some of the overdraws,” Shepherd said.
Commissioner Brad Jackson said, “Just to clarify, my understanding is, obviously, there’s talk about the fairgrounds ultimately moving. Here we are putting money back in to these fairgrounds, and my understanding is you’re just literally doing the bear-essential things that need done to just keep it operating and safe.”
Shepherd said this will make it user-friendly for the next few years. It’s at a point now where they have to do something.
• The unofficial detour agreement for Ind. 14 between the county and the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT), as presented by Troy Kintzel, Kosciusko County Highway Department assistant superintendent.
INDOT has Ind. 14 closed for bridge maintenance and repair between Silver Lake and South Whitley over Crazy Creek overflow, Kintzel said. INDOT is using state routes for the official detour, and Kintzel said the county highway department would like to use its detour.
The unofficial detour would be Ind. 14 to CR 600E to CR 1150S to CR 700E and back to Ind. 14. With the unofficial detour agreement, INDOT would reimburse the county for any damages related to the unofficial detour after approval from INDOT.
• The LPA (Local Public Agency) consulting contract between the highway department and Butler, Fairman & Seufert (BF & S), as requested by Kintzel.
“This is for an HSIP (Highway Safety Improvement Program) grant through INDOT that we have been awarded for road striping initiative,” Kintzel said. “This agreement between us and BF & S is not to exceed $56,000. This grant is a 90/10 split. INDOT has already reviewed this contract, sent it back to us. We’ve done our checklist, we’ve done our due diligence on this.”
He said they already sent it to county attorney Ed Ormsby for his review.
• A proposal from Core Mechanical for $79,600, as presented by McSherry, for cooling units at the public safety tower shelters, which houses extremely expensive equipment. The sites are in Claypool, at the highway department and at Dewart Lake.
• A proposal from Core Mechanical for $25,179, as presented by McSherry, for 2024-25 planned maintenance for all of the county’s buildings that have chillers, boilers, mini-splits and walk-in refrigeration units. McSherry said the county hasn’t had an increase for the planned maintenance since 2022 and the increase this year is about $3,000.
• The Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office January to June 2024 commissary report. The county council reviewed it at their meeting Aug. 8.
• An ordinance establishing EMS T 33 J Lane at Patona Bay on the northwest side of Lake Tippecanoe, as requested by Lee Taylor, Kosciusko County Area Plan Commission.
She told the commissioners, “They have gone to the Board of Zoning Appeals and are asking to expand, so we’re adding a new EMS lane. And because this particular location is not lot numbers but EMS lanes, I need your approval to accept a new EMS lane for our system for addressing.”
The next commissioners meeting is at 9 a.m. Aug. 27.