Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer gave a state of the city address during Monday night’s Warsaw City Council meeting. A complete video of the mayor’s speech is available at wioe.com “As I begin the fourth year of my first term, it has been an honor to work with our elected officials as we have been guided by our strategic plan for growth management, business retention, business attraction, downtown and neighborhood revitalization,” Thallemer said. This year, Thallemer said the city will update its curbside pickup services with automated trucks and single bins to allow more efficiency that will improve service, and save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars. This year the local portion of the Market Street reconstruction will be one project. Storm water utility will coordinate with the city engineer to construct and reconstruct new and existing drainage facilities as the road is reconstructed. Drainage and flooding problems of a very longstanding nature will be addressed. The building and planning departments will oversee the bike/pedestrian portion of the project. The street department will do as much in-house work as possible in preparation for the contracted construction phase of the project, and the city engineer and city planner will inspect and oversee the construction phase of the project. “The Market Street Reconstruction is a two-phase project that, when completed, will improve safety for motorists, cyclists and pedestrians as they make their way to our downtown, into Winona Lake, to our city parks, local schools and retail serving the neighborhood,” Thallemer said. Major surface drainage improvements will eliminate storm water problems that have been around for a long time. New trees will replace aging trees that infiltrate storm and sewer lines, sidewalks and roadways or may hinder the expansion of traffic and parking lanes and sidewalk/pedestrian path construction. It will be a busy summer on Market Street, he said. This year the city also will be continuing preliminary work on the $3 million Husky Trail reconstruction project using $2.4 million of federal funds awarded in 2013. The YMCA relocation and Parkview Hospital construction will necessitate resurfacing of Mariner Drive, which will also occur this year. A joint project with the county for widening of the CR 300N bridge will take place. “We have also opened discussion with our county officials on the future of U.S. 30 through our community. With the state showing interest in making that road more limited access, careful local planning is vital to meet community needs as INDOT’s much larger plan unfolds,” Thallemer said. With the city’s acquisition of the old water pumping buildings and property on North Buffalo Street, the city is in the process of seeing if it could support a lakefront redevelopment area. This could include some limited commercial activity with denser urban housing. In 2015, the city will use allocated funds, 100 percent of it from cigarette tax money, along with donated funds to build the Market Street pedestrian path. In other business, the council approved an ordinance to transfer $4,650 from office supplies into machinery and equipment for the purchase of a copy machine that will be shared by the mayor’s and human resources offices. And the council approved a petition for vacation of an alley in Highland Addition that runs from the east right of way of McKinley Street to the west right of way of Roosevelt Street.
