By GLEN WERLING
Boating will not be allowed in the residential front yards of Ossian.
By a 4-0 vote Monday, members of the Ossian Town Council adopted Ordinance 23-2-6, which creates Chapter 72 in the town’s code of ordinances establishing regulations concerning the parking of vehicles and trailers on unimproved surfaces and within the residential districts of the town. It further restricts the parking of boats unless the boats are stored on trailers and covered.
Council members Josh Barkley, Brad Pursley, Dennis Ealing and Stephanie Tucker adopted the ordinance. Council member Jason House was unable to attend Monday’s meeting.
The complete ordinance will be available for review on the town’s website at ossianin.com, but the gist is that people can’t park any motorized vehicles (read large motorized vehicles — lawn mowers, mopeds, motor scooters, personal mobility devices and go-carts are excluded) on grassy or dirt surfaces on a semi-permanent or permanent basis — unless those vehicles are completely obstructed from public view behind a privacy fence.
The ordinance also states that any vehicle visible from the town’s right of way that does not have a current license plate and is not covered with a fitted cover or any boat or jet ski or other watercraft not on a trailer and covered with a fitted cover will be prohibited.
In other parking related news, it would appear — at least for now — that the Ossian United Methodist Church has worked out to the satisfaction of the town council issues surrounding a parking complaint brought against the church and its daycare/pre-school by the church’s neighbor to the west, Chelsey Tyner.
Tyner was before the council last month seeking redress from the council members about the way people are parking along Norwalt Street for pickup and dropoff at the daycare/pre-school. Parents and guardians are parking their vehicles behind the school in such a way as to make it difficult or impossible for Tyner to exit or enter her driveway during certain times of the day.
The council recommended that Tucker, Tyner, interim Police Chief Brian McClish, and representatives from the church sit down and iron out a solution.
McClish has stepped up patrols of the area, ensuring that people parking behind the facility are at least obeying the rules established in the town’s parking ordinance.
The church has also proposed:
• Providing two parking lot spaces for parents along the west side of the church’s fellowship hall marked “No Parking — Drop Off and Pick Up Only.” This has already been accomplished.
• Removing the shrubs, sidewalk, and asphalt and installing a new layer of asphalt to make a lane wide enough so that people can park up against the west side of the fellowship hall without encroaching upon Norwalt Street.
Pastor Benjamin Herr pointed out this phase of the proposal cannot be accomplished until funds become available through fundraising and donations to the church and Learning Tree Academy, the name of the preschool. Also, permits will need to be sought and contractors will need to be hired to perform the work. Herr observed that the project will need cooperation from the weather.
The church has also proposed petitioning the town to restrict Norwalt Street to one-way northbound between Mill and LaFever streets, but Tucker was not in favor of this without the consent of all those living on the street. She also wanted the approval of the post office, which fronts Ogden Street but takes deliveries from Norwalt Street.
She also questioned the impediment making Norwalt one way would create during Ossian Days, when adjacent Ogden Street is temporarily designated a one-way southbound street.
The town is also exploring with Indiana Michigan Power the cost of moving an electrical pole from the east side of Norwalt Street to the west side of Norwalt Street behind the fellowship hall to make it easier for vehicles to drive through the pickup and drop-off site.
In other business, the council members:
• Recertified the town’s historical three election districts with no changes. That move was taken at the request of the Wells County Clerk’s office.
• Signed the agreement for the multi-jurisdictional Poke-A-Bache Trail and appointed Myndi Love of rural Ossian to serve as Ossian’s representative on the trail’s board. The duties of the board will be to raise funds for the project and to market the trail to the public. The board’s first act will be setting the budget for the trail for 2024. The trail is expected to take 20 years to complete.
• First held a public hearing on three additional appropriations and then adopted them as ordinances 23-2-3, 23-2-4, and 23-2-5 later in the meeting. The ordinances appropriate funds that the town already has but were not appropriated into the 2023 budget. Ordinance 23-2-3 is for $17,357.18 for the parks department; ordinance 22-2-4 is for $50,000 to the police fund; and ordinance 23-2-5 is for $1,050.93 to the fire fund.
• Approved hiring Ottenweller Contracting LLC of Fort Wayne at a cost of $664,000 to replace the deteriorating mechanical bar screen and overhead door at the wastewater treatment plant. A mechanical bar screen is a filter system designed to remove objects such as rags, wipes, and plastics from wastewater and protect the plant’s pumps from clogging. Ottenweller’s bid was the lowest of two received but was more than the $610,000 estimate for the project submitted by town engineer Jim Breckler of Engineering Resources. The bid is high, Breckler observed, because of the difficulty in finding labor and inflation driving up the price of the materials for the project. Town Manager Luann Martin observed that the town has the funds to cover the cost of the project.
• Learned from Police Commission President Caleb Chichester that a decision on the new Ossian Police Chief will be made at a special meeting of the commissioners Feb. 28. The council also directed Chichester to offer an amount for the new chief’s salary not to exceed $70,000 probationary for the first six months of his or her employment and an amount not to exceed $75,000 annually commensurate to the remaining six months of employment for the first year.
• Were informed by Chichester that the process of accepting applications for the open officer positions is ongoing.
• Learned from McClish that the contract the town has with the sheriff’s department to provide interim coverage for the town has worked out well.
• Learned that the town grew by 66.019 acres as the council formally annexed the area of open farm ground that will become a new subdivision on the north side of Ossian. The subdivision will be located immediately to the north of Rose Ann Heights.
• Approved the first contractor’s payment in the amount of $146,416.66 to API Construction Corp. of LaOtto for the Hickory Lane/Shady Lane water line replacement project. Breckler noted that the project is wrapping up and should be completed by the end of this week. The project replaces deteriorating water lines that have experienced numerous breaks in recent years.
• Approved a four-year tax abatement for Trusted Supply Chain Partners in the Ossian Industrial Park. The abatement is for a Safan Darley E-Brake 100-3100 CNC servo mechanical press brake. The machine is expected to cost $209,289. Under the town’s weighting system for tax abatements, Trusted will receive 100 percent abatement of property taxes on the brake for three years and 50 percent of abatement in the fourth year. Trusted plans to hire two new employees for the brake with an average salary each of $60,000. The brake will also assist the company in retaining its current work force of 65 employees.
• Approved three sewage bill adjustments for citizens who had water leaks on their property where the water did not go to the town’s sewers. The first was for $288.37, the second for $198.54, and the third for $128.30.
At the conclusion of the meeting, during the time set aside for approval of employee time cards, Tucker asked McClish to keep a closer eye on the hours being put in by part-time officer Russ Mounsey. Tucker observed that one week Mounsey put in 31 hours and another week he put in 33, which exceeds the maximum allowable service time for a part-time officer of 30 hours per week.
During the public comment portion of the meeting, Jennifer Ford, 402 Melching Court, asked that the cul de sac at the end of the court be paved as the pavement has deteriorated to the point where it is causing her driveway’s end to crumble.
Martin explained that it is too late to put it on this cycle of paving projects but she would consider it for approval for the next cycle.
Citizen Gene Donaghy also expressed concern about a downtown shopkeeper blowing leaves into the street and about snow piled up in areas around downtown restricting parking in the downtown area.
The next regular meeting of the council is set for 7 p.m. Monday, March 13, at the Collier Comfort building, 215 N. Jefferson St.
glenw@news-banner.com
