County To Replace Fire Alarm System In Justice Building
County To Replace Fire Alarm System In Justice Building
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
County To Replace Fire Alarm System In Justice BuildingKosciusko County Administrator Marsha McSherry told the Commissioners Tuesday morning that the county was looking to completely replace the fire alarm system in the Justice Building.
“I have two requests for you this morning. I’d like to request the approval of the Commissioners to put out two RFPs (Request For Proposals),” she said. “One is for the replacement of the fire alarm system in the Justice Building. This would be a complete replacement and I do have an RFP. This would follow our procurement policy.”
Her second request was for Northern Industrial Flooring.
“We’re not approving that. We’re just looking for quotes on it. But, it would be for the jail, the showers and the floors – the walls and floors of the showers in the jail. What it would do would be to put a coat on that to seal the cement blocks. And the floors, a couple of them, some of them are in pretty bad shape and we need to replace the flooring in there,” she said.
Back in 2017, the county did a similar procedure for four showers in a block and those showers “look the same as they did the day they completed it,” McSherry stated.
Commissioners Brad Jackson and Cary Groninger approved the two RFP requests. Commissioner Bob Conley was absent Tuesday.
Kosciusko County Highway Department Superintendent Steve Moriarty asked the Commissioners to set an advertisement date to advertise for the Community Crossings Matching Grant 2021-2, which the county was awarded.
“That’s over $892,000 that we were provided to pave Old 30 and Old 15,” he said. “So we’d like to advertise for getting to open those bids.”
He said they want to advertise on Jan. 26 and Feb. 2, which meets the state requirement for advertisement. The bids would be opened Feb. 15 and awarded March 1 and would be in compliance with the Indiana Department of Transportation’s regulations with the Community Crossings grant.
“This is something that we continue to leverage these grant dollars for this 50/50 match, so we’re able to ... do a pretty much $1.8 million project for half that. So that really helps stretch our taxpayer dollars here in the county on these projects,” Groninger said.
Moriarty’s request to advertise was approved.
Groninger then congratulated Moriarty on his hard work.
Moriarty provided the Commissioners with a report Tuesday on his road program for 2021. Moriarty’s department was able to touch just over 112 miles of county roads. The county has about 1,100 miles of road.
“That means he touched almost 10% of our roads last year with funds that were given to him to continue to improve our roads. We really appreciate his and his department’s hard work and continue to try to maintain our county roads and give us the infrastructure that we need to be able to get people to and fro and about. So we appreciate all of your hard work, Steve,” Groninger said.
Assistant Planner Matt Sandy presented the Commissioners with a zoning ordinance amendment regarding roof-mounted solar systems. He reminded the Commissioners that about 1-1/2 to two years ago, the county passed a solar ordinance amendment, “pretty well making it restricted to those areas that we really wanted to see that development happen by allowing smaller systems to go in place where they fit into the ordinance parameters that were set up.”
Sandy said when they talked about the original amendment, they did look at allowing residential roof-mounted solar systems but not much beyond that.
“We’re seeing more growth in the solar areas and businesses really looking at trying to implement that into their proximities and systems,” he said.
With that, he said they ran into a couple instances where the county ordinance is restrictive enough that it’s now not allowing businesses to install the solar that they need.
“We’re talking solely roof-mounted systems. We’re still staying with the parameters around ground-mounted systems, but we’re looking at opening the door for anyone – business, industrial, residential, which is already in place – to install roof-mounted systems on their building, on their existing building. Existing roof that is out there, not extending beyond those roofs so they’re still within the setback areas,” Sandy said.
The new zoning amendment requires that all state, local and federal regulations be followed.
The Area Plan Commission approved a unanimous recommendation to the Commissioners to approve the new zoning amendment, which the Commissioners did.
Sandy also told the Commissioners that the county’s comprehensive plan is moving along well. At the Plan Commission’s February meeting, that board will get an informal presentation on the plan, but there will be public meetings on it, via Zoom. The Commissioners will be brought something in March or April.
Sheriff Kyle Dukes gave the Commissioners a report on the commissary fund for the last six months of 2021. The fund is derived from when inmates make purchases, mostly food items, at the jail.
“And when you look at our commissary for 2021, and some of the larger purchases, you’ve got to start with three police vehicles. This was kind of a unique situation because we found three police vehicles that were currently on a car lot. Instead of ordering them, waiting for four to six months, they were there,” Dukes said.
The Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office was able to purchase two Dodge Chargers and one Ford Explorer. Dukes said they also had a couple trade-ins on some Ford Explorers that had 170,000-180,000 miles and it was time to trade them in.
He said the cost of the three vehicles, after trade-ins, was $68,081.
Another large purchase out of commissary in 2021 was carpet, he said. A lot of the Sheriff’s Office was recarpeted, as well as jail offices and work release. The bill for the carpeting was $39,000.
In 2021, Dukes said they also had to replace a conveyor belt in the jail kitchen and it had to be special ordered due to the size. Cost was $9,870.85.
With the commissary money, Dukes said they also were able to purchase office furniture for $10,542.27. Eleven new chairs – that were extra wide and sturdy to accommodate gun belts and officers’ equipment – were purchased for $6,044.92.
Tasers with extra batteries cost $9,551.71. Dukes said they also had a lot of smaller purchases, including equipping three deputy sheriffs who just graduated from the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.
The balance in the commissary “right now,” Dukes said, is $214,927.72.
In other business, the Commissioners:
• Approved Moriarty’s request to purchase a 2022 Chevrolet Silverado pickup from Lakeside Chevrolet, Warsaw, for $43,953. He said the expense was in his 2022 budget.
• Approved the memorandum of understanding between the city of Warsaw and KCHD for snow removal and road maintenance. Moriarty said it was an extension of what they did last year and this agreement was for three years. The Warsaw Common Council already signed it, he said.
• Announced the next Commissioners meeting is at 9 a.m. Feb. 1 in the old courtroom of the old county courthouse.
