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As construction continues on the Warsaw Street Department facility, preliminary engineering on Winona Avenue improvements also is underway.
Warsaw Community and Economic Development Director Jeremy Skinner, on behalf of the Redevelopment Authority, presented to the Board of Public Works and Safety on Friday payment application #13 for $562,958.94 to Robinson Construction for the new Street Department facility on West Center Street.
The total estimated cost of the facility is about $13.4 million.
“We have biweekly construction meetings. I was out there yesterday. Went through all of their work to date, and recommend that you approve this pay application,” he said. “If you haven’t been out there, all the concrete floors are poured. Roof’s on. Most of the interior paneling has started to be completed. Garage doors are up. HVAC, fire suppression system and the electrical work is being done. So a lot going on, a lot happening out there. It’s all going quickly.”
Work on the brine building has started as well.
“The project’s moving forward nicely, and, hopefully, (Public Works Director) Dustin (Dillon) and his crew will have a partially completed building to use this winter,” Skinner said.
The Board of Works approved the payment.
Skinner also presented a $6,930 pay application to American Structurepoint for ongoing Winona Avenue engineering work.
His memo to the Board of Works stated they received the first draft of the roadway spacing layout and would be working with property owners and business owners to make any needed changes to the draft. Councilwoman Diane Quance asked him about that.
“So the business owners have seen the first draft. We’ve done two other drafts since then. They did a draft that I didn’t like. I told them to redo it. So we have a third draft that I shared with a group of community partners we put together to kind of review. As they review that, then we’ll get it out to business owners for their comment,” Skinner said.
Quance said it was nice to see it was moving along. That payment application was approved.
In other business, the board approved:
• For the Public Works Department to move forward with a contract with CyberTech Systems & Software Inc. for $110,565 for the design, project management, Cloud hosting and server migration services to the city’s ArcGIS software environment for multiple city departments. It’s a three-year contract, with the $110,565 covering the first year of the contract.
Related to that, the Board also approved a contract with Accela Inc. for project management and server migration services for the city’s Elements XS software migration to the city’s new Cloud environment. The amount of that contract is $3,600.
• Payment application #9 from Core Mechanical Services for $191,659.80 for the HVAC improvements and VRF replacement at City Hall, as requested by Dillon. He said the majority of this work was for phase 4 of the project, which was the mayor’s and human resource’s offices.
Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen pointed out the next Board of Works meeting will be at 10 a.m. Aug. 21 at City Hall - instead of the Warsaw Police Department Training Center where they have been held since late January - because all of the city meetings will start taking place back at City Hall on Aug. 18.
• Dillon’s request to solicit sealed quotes for full-depth patching, milling, resurfacing and pavement markings for the city parking lot at Buffalo and Jefferson streets. Funding for the project will be available through the Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT) fund.
“Looking forward to getting that parking lot back up to snuff and prepared to rent out parking spaces for the future,” he said.
Sealed quotes must be delivered to the clerk-treasurer’s office by 10 a.m. Friday, Aug. 21 and will be read aloud at that morning’s Board of Works meeting.
• Street Superintendent Joe Vetor’s request to purchase a 2026-27 Case loader from RPM Machinery for $165,937.33. The price includes the trade-in of a 2016 Volvo L90H loader and is through Sourcewell.
Vetor said he had some numbers ran on the Volvo and “we have actually spent $68,000 in repairs on that, so we decided to upgrade that to a Case, which we already have the same model in our inventory now so it’ll help save on inventory for filters and whatnot, too.”
The funds will come out of the street department’s 2026 budget for equipment.
City attorney Scott Reust said Vetor is a good shopper and he saved nearly 29%.
• A grant award through the Indiana Work & Learn to reimburse up to 50% of the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory’s wage expenses for two worked-based learning students from the Warsaw Area Career Center, as presented by Fire Chief Joel Shilling. The WWFT Board approved the grant acceptance at their meeting Tuesday.
• The new hire and change in payroll report, as presented by Human Resource Director Denny Harlan.
A number of the new hires were for part-time employees, at $10 per hour, as they are worked-based learning students. Four part-time employees are listed for aviation, two are for the fire department and one is for the building and planning department.
Harlan said the part-time employee in the building and planning department is from Lakeland Christian Academy, the city’s first work-based learning student from there since at least Harlan has been with the city.
“It’s nice that that program is starting to spread out and we’re able to accommodate more of the students,” Harlan said.
The fire territory also has two new probationary firefighters, Brody Haines and Jordan Rish, beginning Aug. 16 at $2,500 biweekly. Harlan said they made it through their Pension Board physicals so they’re ready to come on board and start.
• The travel requests as presented by Harlan. They are all from the Public Works and Street departments to attend the Indiana Street Commissioners Convention in Muncie from Sept. 21-24, and include Street Superintendent Joe Vetor, Supervisor Justin Ousley, Dillon and Supervisor Keith Arnold. Cost is $731.96 each, except for Dillon whose cost is $275.
• A change order for the professional services agreement between the Warsaw Public Arts Commission (WPAC) and Grant Beachy for the American Crossroads photography project, as presented by City Planner Justin Taylor. The change order will increase the agreement by $221.92 from $3,835 to $4,056.92. The cost of the change order will be covered by the Kosciusko County Convention and Recreation Visitors Commission grant awarded to the WPAC for the project in 2025.
“He (Beachy) documented the America 250 celebrations this summer. Due to a rain delay, he had to make an extra trip, so the Arts Commission thought it would be fair to reimburse him for his time where he had to make that extra trip to take photographs of that event,” Taylor explained.
Quance asked what the WPAC intended to do with the photos.
“So it’s, I think, 100 photos that they’ll process. I think he’s going to give us more than that as well, and the Arts Commission intends to print and use those images for an arts walk this fall. So plans are still tentative on that, but they plan to display them in various places,” Taylor said.
• The termination of Ashley Hughes’ Fast Cab 2.0 LLC permits due to the closure of the business, as presented by Warsaw Police Department Deputy Chief Bryan J. Sherwin. He said Hughes, the sole owner of Fast Cab, started it in April this year and now she’s getting out of it. Sherwin said one of the drivers has an interest in starting it again and they are clear on the proper application forms needed to do that.
