Ferdinand Town Council: New text and email service now available
Ferdinand Town Manager Chris James urges all residents to visit ferdinandindiana.org to sign up for a brand new service that went live on Friday.
Residents can sign up, via a messaging portal, to receive texts and emails, or just emails, whenever something important needs to be conveyed, such as a boil order, road closure or the like. The new service is also available on Jasper and Huntingburg’s websites and residents may want to sign up for all three.
James noted weather-related information will not be included except in special circumstances.
When the three communities discovered they share a provider (E.gov Strategies) they approached the company with a wish list for a way to contact the community, especially in an emergency situation. The service will gradually be fine-tuned to make sure it is meeting everyone’s needs.
Council members want to come up with a protocol for how the service is used and who can upload to it. This information will be included in the employee handbook.
Begle Properties
The Town Council met in special session September 7 to discuss how Ferdinand could assist Randy and Dakota Begle with their planned apartment and duplex projects.
As Town Council President Ken Sicard pointed out, one of the major issues for the community is available housing, or the lack there of.
Besides trying to help with the development, extending water and sewer to the Begle property north of the bypass will benefit future projects.
The father and son plan to build an apartment complex in four phases which, when complete, will contain 54 apartments, (phases one, two and three, 12 units apiece with 18 units in phase four). Options were considered based on input from Utility Superintendent Henry Haake and Wastewater Superintendent Roger Schaefer.
After close to two hours of discussion, council members made some decisions to be shared with the Begles. For their needs, a four inch water line would serve, at least for Phase one at a cost of $17,777; however, the town needs an eight inch line to add improved fire protection for that area and for other potential growth, which would cost $64,641.
The decision was made to ask the Begles to pay the $17,777 and the town would pick up the remaining $46,864. “I feel we almost have to do the eight inch line,” opined Councilwoman Debbie Johnson.
“I agree with that,” added Councilman Ron Weyer.
“Yes,” said Sicard, “if we’re going to open ourselves for future development out there.”
Wastewater is a bit less costly, with the Begles’ share approximately $9,300 plus $2,318.52 for engineering.
The devil is in the details, so council members assessed the costs in a variety of fashions before agreeing to present the proposal to the Begles. At their September 13 meeting, the council also held a hearing and adopted Resolution TA16-1c, providing a residential tax abatement for Begle properties.
Randy Begle thanked the council and the department superintendents for their willingness to help with the project and “sincerity in getting this project done.”
The council also (note: this is a very partial list)
-Held a budget hearing and adopted the 2017 tax rate at .7727 per $100 assessed valuation. The 2016 rate is .6387 and the town’s net assessed value is $113,422,763. No one was present to remonstrate and the hearing closed. The budget will be adopted October 11 and the rate will likely decrease slightly.
-Learned from Chief Dan Lindauer the Fire Department did not receive a much anticipated grant to pay for a new aerial truck and agreed to work on improving the grant and looking at other funding sources for the $400,000 plus vehicle.
-Heard Property and Street Superintendent Tom Lueken plans to seek bids for seven road projects, some of which may be completed in 2016. Additional projects will be bid in 2017 (18 projects were awarded Community Crossing grants). Lueken will also seek bids on a 2017 heavy duty truck, trading in the 1995 pick-up and shifting the 1999 Ford F-250 to the Parks Department. A snow plow will be added to this truck. Bids for the new truck will be opened at 8:30 p.m. on October 11.
-Heard from Park Board member Delores Boeglin the state is working with the town on the Old Town Lake grant, which is 99% approved but still needs an okay from the feds.
-Held a public hearing on a rezoning request from Greg Rickelman, which was denied (actually an ordinance that would have allowed the change was denied) and offered to help him come up with an appropriate solution.
-Learned almost all documentation has been completed for the Rural Development loan to fund the bio-solids project and advertised (in this issue, see public notices) for construction bids, which will be opened at 9 p.m. on October 11.
-Adopted a fee ordinance, amending the municipal code (2016-16) charging $150 per recording of anything captured on one of the town police cars dash-cam recorders. The recordings must be kept for 190 days and then will be destroyed.
-Heard a lengthy list of projects and updates from all department heads.
-Learned Town Wide clean-up will be held Tuesday, October 11 (everything west of SR 162), October 12 (everything east of SR 162) and October 13 (everything that’s left).
