City Council To Review Police Vehicle Purchases, Moving Tornado Siren
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Jennifer Peryam-jperyam@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw City Council Monday will review a proposal to purchase two police cars to be used by school resource officers. The council also will consider a proposal to move one of the city’s tornado sirens from the former city hall on Market Street to Fire Station 1 on Main Street. Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety Friday approved recommending to the council that Warsaw Police Department purchase two 2013 Caprice patrol units from Kelley Chevrolet, Fort Wayne. The police department’s 2013 budget will support the transfer if it’s approved. The purchase amount for the two vehicles is $50,794.60, and if the city approves the purchase it will come out of the police machinery and equipment budget. WPD Chief Scott Whitaker said the city also sought quotes from Lakeside Chevrolet, Warsaw, but the Warsaw auto dealer did not have access to 2013 models with the specifications that Kelley Chevrolet provided. The two cars from Kelley Chevrolet are leftover vehicles from the 2013 Fort Wayne city bidding process. The board also approved sending a favorable recommendation to city council to move $12,840 from the city budget from salaries and wages into other capital outlays. The council will review the request to pay J & K Communications, Columbia City, $8,565 to move the old tornado siren. The contract also is for J & K to install a new 70-foot pole at the Main Street fire station for the siren. A request to pay Dennie Electric $4,275 to unhook and remove power from the old emergency horn and run new power to the fire station will be reviewed. Warsaw Fire Chief Mike Brubaker said Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer had requested he get a quote to move the siren. Brubaker said the siren needs to come off the roof to make sure it’s still functioning. “We won’t know until we get it down to figure out if there are components that are past their life,” Brubaker said. He said it would cost approximately $25,000 for a new siren, and moving the existing siren and setting it on the 70-foot pole would provide a better signal range. He also said the fire station has a back up generator and the station is manned 24 hours a day 365 days per year as opposed to the vacant former city hall. Brubaker said the issue now is that people go inside the former city hall and flip breakers that causes the siren to be turned off. He said there are currently tornado sirens in Warsaw at Station 2 on Center Street, the former city hall on Market Street and at Zimmer. “The advantage of moving the siren to station 1 is it will be higher than where it is now and provide more coverage,” Brubaker said. Thallemer said he had received calls last fall from local residents after tornadoes in Oklahoma asking about the operating condition of the city’s existing tornado sirens. He said at one time the tornado siren that is on the former city hall was tested, and it did not work because a breaker had been tripped. “It’s much safer to have the siren on a building that’s manned so if for some reason the breaker is flipped and the siren doesn’t go off there is someone there to take care of it,” Thallemer said. “We need to figure out a long-range plan and I don’t think the long-range plan is to keep it where it’s at.” Thallemer said he did not want the tornado season to come and the siren location to not be taken care of. Jeff Grose, board member, said he supports safety, but had concerns with the price tag to move the aged siren and wanted input from other council members. He also brought up the idea of the state’s discussion in moving toward weather notifications on mobile devices. Brubaker said the National Weather Service is working on a text-based weather alert system that sends texts to people in instances of bad weather. Brubaker said there are elderly and poor residents in Warsaw who cannot afford cell phones to get the weather notifications and still rely on manual tornado sirens. “You have all the younger generation who carry cell phones, but older folks may not carry a cell phone, and if they live in town they are still relying on the siren,” Brubaker said.
