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WINONA LAKE - When considering the proposed Economic Development Income Tax Tuesday, the town council gave it their qualified, if not unanimous, support.
The council voted 3-1 on the EDIT proposal Tuesday. Councilman Harold Dunn opposed the new tax.
"I have a problem with it," Dunn said. "It's another tax and once you get it, it never goes away."
Council president Brent Wilcoxson said there will always be projects EDIT could be used to fund, but thinks those projects should be ones that benefit not just Winona Lake residents, but county residents as a whole.
"I think you'll never run out of projects you can use it (EDIT) on," he said. "But it is a tool to spur economic growth, which should be good for everyone."
Possible uses for Winona Lake's EDIT disbursements would include improving Southtown roads or widening CR 250E, roads used by county residents as much as town residents, Wilcoxson said. Also, cost sharing with Warsaw on expanding sewers is another possibility.
In other business, the council approved a revised bid from S&S Fire Apparatus Co., of Fairmount, on the new tanker approved at the council's Jan. 26 meeting. The revised price, after some design and equipment modifications were made, is now $164,697.
"We've taken things off and designed it with only the needed safety items," said Mike Collins, of the Winona Lake Fire Department. "The big ticket item on this truck is the pump. Our purpose was to eliminate tying up the pumper truck to fill the tanker.
"We want to give the town a tanker that will last a long time," he added.
The board also announced the receipt from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management of recycling bins to be distributed to every residence in Winona Lake.
"We have a mandate from the state to reduce our solid waste by 50 percent," said Wilcoxson. "In order to achieve that, we will be implementing a curbside recycling program through Worley's Disposal Service."
