Huntingburg Council: Stellar steps moving forward

Huntingburg earned the Stellar Community designation in August but the planning is still a continuing process.

Mayor Denny Spinner, planning director Paul Lake, Communications and Community Development director Rachel Steckler, Indiana 15 Regional Planning executive director Lisa Gehlhausen, CWC Latitudes, INC. president Ed Curtin, and a representative from the Lt. Governor’s office attended meetings held with representatives of the the state agencies involved — Office of Community and Rural Affairs, Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority, and the Indiana Department of Transportation — Wednesday.

This is the first meeting the city has had with the state agencies regarding the Stellar process since the announcement was made in August.

The meeting was important to begin the process of scheduling the projects identified by the city in the Stellar application. Over $40 million is allocated to complete the Stellar projects listed in the city’s application. The funding for those projects is split between the state agencies, the city, county, and private investment.

“What we learned Wednesday was basically what funds would be available at what time from each of those agencies,” Mayor Spinner said. “From that meeting, we will be taking that information to the full Stellar Committee to sit down and prioritize the projects based on the funding that is available locally or through the state.”

The projects associated with the different state agencies will start as the money becomes available from that agency. According to Mayor Spinner, the city has several projects funding through city money and the planning for one of the projects — the Ninth Street extension to Monkhaus Drive — has already begun.

“Yesterday really gave us the green light for the first time to take a true look at what projects can we achieve in this timeline early and what projects may have to wait for later in the process,” Spinner said.

Spinner pointed out that one of the main reasons the City of Huntingburg received the Stellar designation was the community’s involvement in the application process. As they move forward the community will have opportunities to continue to be involved in the process.

“These projects in the Stellar proposal were concepts of what we think could be done,” Spinner said. “As those project move forward into completely engineered projects there will be opportunities for the public to comment, review the projects and have input before those plans are submitted for finalization.”

The Stellar committee will meet in November and then recommendation a prioritized schedule of projects to the common council for their approval.

Any project that involves federal funding will have a chance to receive public input, as hearings will be scheduled. Two to three projects will likely be on the docket for 2015 and all projects are slated for completion by 2018.

The council also took the following actions.

–Approved a contract with CWC Latitudes LLC for $100 an hour for 960 hours annually for project management and consulting on the Stellar projects through 2018. The contract is backdated to August 22 for services rendered while the city was seeking a new planning director.

–Approved a 1 percent pay raise for full-time and salary positions. The council also approved an additional 1.5 percent for a merit pay raise. According to the Mayor Denny Spinner, the department heads will submit reviews of the city employees and the reviews will be used to create a curve to determine the cutoff point for the additional 1.5 percent raise. Employees who do not receive the additional 1.5 percent, will be eligible to be reassessed halfway through 2015. If their performance improves, they can receive the additional raise. The first reviews will be completed in December so the raises can take effect in January, 2015.

–Commonwealth Engineering gave a report on the Huntingburg Lake dredging project. According to the report, the lake receives 700 to 950 cubic yards of sediment annually. Since the last time the lake was dredged about twenty years ago, enough sediment has flowed into the lake that some areas have six feet of sediment that needs removed. Commonwealth estimates that 16,000 cubic yards of material needs to be removed from the 5 acre area sediment pond on the south side of 630S and 62,000 cubic yards from the main lake. The estimated cost for the project is $2.5 million and it is not expected to begin until the fall of 2015 at the earliest.

–Heard that the Indiana Municipal Power Agency is interested in the city-owned property at the intersection of Chestnut Street and Phoenix Drive to build a solar panel array. The array would create enough power to power 164 home. The power produced would go directly into the power grid and be part of IMPA’s green energy efforts. Power Superintendent John Reutepohler stated IMPA was interested in seeking a tax abatement for the project. The council approved the continued process.