By DAVE SCHULTZ
People around Liberty Center are complaining about unfinished landscaping after the town’s sanitary sewer lines were installed, and Lewis Brown feels their pain.
Brown is the superintendent of the Wells County Regional Sewer District, and he’s been a familiar presence in Liberty Center and Murray as the sanitary sewer installation for those communities is in its final stages. The unfinished landscaping has him irritated and he told the members of the RSD’s board Monday night that something needs to be done.
“The board has to stand up and say, “This is not acceptable,” Brown said.
The issue he has is with the construction company, VTF Excavation LLC, and the companies that are the subcontractors for the landscaping work. He’s heard reports that some landscapers showed up “and didn’t even so much as take a rake out of the truck.” He showed a photo of a yard where there’s way too much bare dirt.
Mike Mossburg, president of the RSD’s board, has been to Liberty Center and agreed the situation is not optimal. He also took a little longer view than Brown did, saying that the effort is not yet officially completed. If it still looks like it does now when it’s supposed to be done, he said, then the board will push harder for the ground to be remedied.
No one from VTF was present for the board meeting. Ryan Lefeld, the project engineer from Choice One Engineering, said a representative of VTF told him that as every complaint is received, it will be addressed. “We don’t have to release any more funds until we are satisfied with the work.
In his report to the board, Brown — as he has done in the past — gave a “good news/bad news” analysis. The good news, he said, is that 81 of the district’s customers in Liberty Center and Murray have been connected to sewer service. The bad news: 116 haven’t connected, and “fall is coming,” he said in the report.
Brown is generally an easy-going individual, but he had another point to bring up about what he considers to be bad practices. To summarize his irritation, he wants to be informed as to what’s going on so that he could be ready to respond anytime an RSD customer has a question.
For instance, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management sent out letters asking questions to customers. When the customers called Brown to ask questions, he had to admit he knew nothing about it.
Also, if VTF is coming onto private property, he wants to know about that, too. In Kingsland, the company brought in video crews to photograph land parcels before any excavation is done. It’s proper for that to be done, he said, but he didn’t know about it and the crews doing the work weren’t very communicative about it, saying merely that they were just doing their jobs.
“I can’t do my job if I don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
In other topics covered during Monday night’s meeting:
• The board members — Andy Stoller, Leon Berning, Mossburg, Jon Oman, and Bruce Stinson — approved paying $8,861.61 in claims.
• Lefeld said progress is being made on the plans for Craigville. Brown said VTF, which is also doing the installation work in the Craigville area, could be ready to start construction this month.
• The board approved paying $7,500 to the Norfolk Southern railroad because they will be installing a sewer main under the tracks in the Kingsland area. Mossburg said there was no real reason for that payment, calling it “blood money,” but the board as a whole approved the payment.
• Mark Burry, the RSD’s attorney, noted that $318,607 in payment to VTF was approved last month and the check is now ready to send. Additional payments will be going to Choice One in the amount of $1,451 and to Wessler Engineering for $3,048.
• Work on the Kingsland and Tocsin installations are reaching the point where an informational meeting is becoming necessary. Burry said the board must draw up a rate ordinance for the area..
daves@news-banner.com
