Milford Entering Wastewater Apprenticeship Program
Posted
Denise Federow-
MILFORD – The Town of Milford will likely be getting an apprentice for the wastewater department after action taken by the town council Thursday night.
The council voted to enter into an agreement with the Alliance of Indiana Rural Water’s apprenticeship program. The program pays the wages of the apprentice for two years while in training and supplies the apprentice with a laptop that the town can keep after the program’s completed.
Clerk-treasurer Tricia Gall said the program can also be used for the water department. She told council members she needs to give program coordinators a starting wage, allow for raises every six months and supply them with an ending wage.
“We have an employee interested in the program,” Gall said, and told the council she used his current rate of pay as the starting wage and increased by 3% every six months. With the completion raise at the end of the program that would take the employee to $22.51.
“I wanted to make it reasonable so we could afford them afterwards,” she said.
Gall said the grant starts in June and they’re expected to get $90,000. She said the town may end up having to pay $3,000 for two years for the employee’s wages and benefit package. Council Member Kenneth Long made the motion to “Get on board with Alliance” and Council President Douglas Ruch commented they’d be foolish to leave $90,000 on the table.
No Guns
On Town Property
Town Attorney Jay Rigdon clarified for the clerk and council that the town ordinance states guns or any deadly weapons are not allowed to be in possession on any town property by anyone other than police officers or reserve officers.
Rigdon said the clerk asked him about discharging a weapon on town property and since the ordinance states one can’t have possession of a deadly weapon, you’d obviously have to be in possession to discharge it. There would be fines imposed and the firearm could be seized.
Council Member Long wanted to ensure everyone knew that the police firing range at the wastewater treatment plant was only for the use of police officers and reserve officers only.
Assistant Fire Chief Steve Farber asked if they show up for a fire call and they have their legally permitted firearm with them is that okay? Rigdon said, “As it stands now it’s illegal. If you have it locked up in your car on the street it’s okay, if you take it into the station it’s not.”
Council said they’d review the ordinance further.
Meter Troubles
The fact that some of the town’s water meters are failing came up a couple of times in the meeting. First by resident Sue Wert, 111 S. Higsbee St., who appealed to the council regarding her approximate $162 bill, which she said was three times larger than normal. The customer said they checked for leaks and Water Utility Superintendent Steven Marquart also checked and discovered the meter had failed and he couldn’t retrieve any data from it.
Long said there was a 3,000 gallon increase from her previous month’s bill. Council Member Robert Cockburn said it seemed it was “a mechanical error not the customer’s—I think it’s only fair to adjust.”
After much discussion the council directed the clerk to take an average of four months billing to adjust the customer’s bill.
In a related matter Brian Ropes a Badger meter distributor was present to speak about the meter issues the town was having and offer solutions. He said the town has been using a Badger base with Midwest Meter registers which he said causes “a lot of connectivity issues” and the batteries have been failing within six years without warning.
He said if the town was to replace those meter registers with Badger units and something was to happen the data would be preserved and the most that would be lost would be one day. He also said they had a 20 year battery that would alert them when the battery life was running low.
He offered the town two options—a mobile system like the town is currently using or a cellular system, which would eliminate having to physically read the meters and it would send updates to the town every 15 minutes.
Ropes told them South Bend uses their cellular system and they have 40,000 meters “And they don’t see failures like you guys are experiencing here.”
Council Member Doug Ruch asked about being able to run two systems at the same time because the town couldn’t replace all 600-700 meters at one time. Ropes said it was possible to do that. Council decided to look into the information and possibly bring it up again at an end of year meeting.
K-21 Foundation Grant
Rich Haddad of the K-21 Foundation came before the council to tell them of the foundation’s intent to give the town up to $200,000 in grant money to be used for health and wellness for the community. He told them there was no deadline and he encouraged community planning that he would be glad to be a part of if they wanted him to. He said the idea didn’t have to come from the council but the foundation wanted them to approve it.
He said the foundation is offering that to all incorporated towns in the town except for Warsaw and Winona Lake because the foundation wanted the people in the county to know “We care about the whole county. Every person matter and this is a way we can show it.”
In Other Business:
Approved drafting a letter of recommendation for Chore Time Brock’s underground power line project.
Heard the fire department held elections at the last meeting for officers for 2020. Those officers are Todd Haines as chief, Steve Farber as assistant chief, Virgil Sharp as second assistant, Dan Duncan as secretary, Cameron Tusing as treasurer and Brian Haines and Kevin Walker as training officers.
Approved purchasing three 850 megahertz radios for the police department from Motorola at a cost of $8,503.77 with installation provided.
Heard the police department received a grant for two portable radios from Ed Rock, Kosciusko County Emergency Management.
Approved paying Beer & Slabaugh $2,480 for emergency water main break work.
Set an end of year meeting for December 30 with an executive session at 1 pm and a regular session at 4:30 pm.
Set 2020 meeting dates for the second Monday of the month with a couple of exceptions including January which was set for Thursday, January 9 and October which was set for Tuesday Oct. 13.
Heard the clerk’s office will be closed on December 24 and 25th and December 31 and January 1. Other days during the holidays from December 23 through January 6 the clerk’s office will be closing at 2 pm.
