By GLEN WERLING
Members of the Ossian Town Council Monday night gave their support for Ossian Days to be held Sept. 15-17.
The 100 blocks of East and West Craig Street will be closed again and the town employees will lend their assistance in helping get the midways ready to accommodate the vendors and rides.
Ossian Days Committee members Darrell Reynolds and Rose Barrick informed the council that their goal is to contract the same ride vendor as the street festival has had in the past.
The council members also approved contracting API Construction of LaOtto to replace water lines on Hickory and Shady Lanes in the Rose Ann Heights subdivision.
API’s bid of $447,660 was the lowest of two received for the project, with the other being $525,000 from Bercot Inc. of Fort Wayne.
Bercot’s bid was right at the engineer’s estimate of the cost of the project at $525,000.
The council also approved renewing property, inland marine, crime, auto, liability, errors and omissions, cyber liability, and umbrella coverage insurance for 2022 at a premium cost of $62,942.
Although insurance on buildings was increased substantially, the premium for 2022 will be $2,997 less than 2021’s premium, explained Tom Neuenschwander of Amstutz Insurance, the local agent for the coverage.
The council also renewed its contract with retired assistant clerk-treasurer Sally Bracke, who has been lending her expertise to the town in the wake of the opening created by the resignation of clerk-treasurer Erika Allison.
Bracke’s part-time services will be retained at a rate of $50 an hour.
The golf cart ordinance was updated by the council members to require registration stickers to be displayed on the back of the cart, mandate that the only crossings at which carts will be permitted to cross busy Jefferson Street will be 90-degree crossings, and any valid licensed driver may drive a cart, but those under age 18 will not be permitted to operate carts after dark nor have more than two passengers under the age of 18 on the cart with them.
The 90-degree crossing was put as an amendment to the ordinance because apparently people operating the carts were using the town hall’s parking lot as a de facto 90-degree crossing coming off Morton Lane, which T-intersects Jefferson Street across from the parking lot.
The former provisions of the ordinance restricted cart operation to those 18 and older, but Sgt. Stephanie Tucker of the Ossian Police Department observed that it wasn’t very fair to have 16 and 17-year-old auto drivers who couldn’t drive carts.
The council also agreed to pay SoundCloud.com $144 a year to post the town’s meeting minutes online, decided to delay action on posting 25 mph speed limit signs in the town’s subdivisions until Town Manager Luann Martin can determine how many signs will be needed, and took the town’s two utility clerks off probation, allowing them to take vacations receive holiday pay and be able to take personal time.
The clerks have been employed three months and are doing a good job for the town, Martin said.
The council also hired Douglas Rydman as seasonal mowing help, gave Tucker permission to dispose of five obsolete in-car police laptop computers and made an adjustment of $181.86 to a utility customer’s water bill whose lateral water line burst, leaking water into the customer’s yard not the sewer.
The council agreed to postpone action on a police pay matrix and a request by the Regional Chamber of Northeast Indiana seeking $5,000 from the town to help pay for the Northeast Indiana Strategic Development Commission.
Regarding the pay matrix, the council acknowledged that it needs to be rewritten to reflect pay in dollars per hour, not straight salary, as that is how the rest of the salary ordinance is written.
The matrix was also rewritten writing out the police chief as a beneficiary of the pay raises that the department will be receiving to bring it more in line with what other law enforcement employees in the area are paid.
This did not appear to sit well with Police Chief Dave Rigney, but Town Council President Josh Barkley said that any questions or concerns needed to be addressed to the council’s liaison on the matter, Dennis Ealing. Barkley repeated that several times in the waning minutes of the meeting when the topic came up.
The council also wanted to postpone handing over $5,000 to the Regional Chamber before finding out how that monetary contribution to the chamber will be used.
glenw@news-banner.com
