At its May 19 meeting, the Winona Lake Town Council approved several construction projects and amended a couple of old ordinances.
Town Manager Craig Allebach presented a parking lot project for the park and the Limitless Park. The town will build a parking lot on the south side of the Limitless Park and renovate the main parking lot at the park.
The two projects were quoted by two contractors, Phend and Brown and Niblock. Phend and Brown quoted $21,978.40 for the new lot, $23,679.85 for the main lot and a $2,000 discount to do both projects. Niblock quoted $20,950 for the new lot and $22,000.
Though Phend and Brown’s quotes were $708.25 more than Niblock, the council felt more comfortable giving the job to Phend and Brown, which is based in Kosciusko County. Councilman Robert Swanson, a professional in the asphalt industry himself, motioned to give the job to Phend and Brown. The motion carried.
The town also has plans to put in a parking lot on Chestnut Street, near the street department building and pumping station. The new lot would add 26 new parking spaces. Phend and Brown and LDP Excavating bid on the project. Phend and Brown was the low bidder at $52,998. The council approved the project with Phend and Brown.
Town Engineer Larry Long also introduced a project to install decorative street lights on the island and the Village at Winona. Long bid out the project in three sections: one for driving piles, one for installing conduit and one for anchoring the fixtures.
The council opted to award the pile foundation project to Camden Construction, which bid $8,198. The conduit, which is to be installed by directional boring, and anchoring was awarded to Hoosierland Excavating, which bid a total of $34,375 for the two portions of the project.
Also at the meeting, the council approved two ordinances for first reading. Ordinance 2015-5-1 amends Ordinance 2004-7-1, which authorizes the Winona Lake Police Department to enforce park rules. The way Ordinance 2004-7-1 was originally drafted caused some confusion. Since the park board is authorized to pass its own rules and regulations, Ordinance 2015-5-1 states that WLPD can enforce park rules and other town laws which are not in conflict with park board rules.
As an example, the ordinance states, “e.g. if the Park Board determines that dogs can be on the Park Property for a Dog Show for a day, and an Ordinance of the Town prohibits a dog from being on Park Property, then for that day the Ordinance is in conflict and does not apply to those Dogs being on the Park property.” [sic]
The other ordinance, Ordinance 2015-5-2, amends Ordinance 2003-4-4, which allowed the town to collect fees for equipment rentals. The original ordinance included prices for kayak, paddleboats and canoe rentals.
Ordinance 2015-5-2 adds rental fees for paddleboards. According to the new ordinance, paddleboats and canoes can be rented for $7 an hour or $20 a day, kayaks are $10 an hour or $30 a day and paddleboards are $15 an hour or $45 per day. A refundable damage deposit of $20 will be charged on all equipment.
Additionally, Allebach submitted a special claim authorizing payment of $51,419.61 to GAI. The payment closes out the CR 250E project, which was plagued with problems.
“They had a geologist test the soil. They only tested two or three places,” recalled Town Attorney James Walmer. “There was a meeting with IDEM, the engineers from GIA, and some other people. The state of Indiana signed off on it. Local people would have known we would’ve had a problem.” [The town engineer was not involved in the project.]
“All these people said it was ok, including INDOT,” said Allebach. “We probably would not win [in court], it would be very risky. So get out and save money.”
The council approved the claim. “Put that behind us. What a mess,” Allebach said.