Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
BURKET – Burket Town Council on Thursday discussed utility poles in need of repair or replacement around town.
Street Superintendent Brad Bibler brought up a downed telephone pole in town brought a cable down as well. Bibler said the telephone company removed the pole and cable without replacing them.
Council President Bill Rayburn said he saw a telephone pole on Buffalo Street was leaning. Someone had put a stake in the ground and aluminum wiring on the pole to get the pole to stand back up.
Rayburn also said a pole by his house is free swinging.
Bibler said he has contacted Frontier about issues with telephone poles and has gotten some tickets started with the company.
Later in the meeting, resident Marvin McClone said it was amazing the town was able to get hold of Frontier when a hanging telephone pole was in one of their yards, but there’s one telephone pole in an alley that’s been hanging and the town has “talked about it for two years.”
Bibler said he he’s helped get the process started to get a telephone pole started for a resident.
He also brought up a NIPSCO pole in town that had issues. McClone said the town should call NIPSCO for that resident. He said if the town knows about it, they should call the company to get the issue taken care of.
Rayburn said, as far as he knew, any NIPSCO customer can call NIPSCO’s number and if there’s an issue like trees in electrical wires, NIPSCO will come out and trim the trees. However, he said he didn’t know if the town should go around town and call NIPSCO for every pole in town.
McClone said if the town sees it, they should call it in. He said he understood what Rayburn was saying, but they shouldn’t wait until the pole was laying down to get it taken care of.
Bibler said he’ll get the pole number and will call it in.
McClone also brought up ordinance violation enforcement on unplated cars. He asked where the town was in being able to enforce that ordinance.
After some back and forth between Rayburn and McClone, Rayburn finished by saying the town wasn’t going to go forward until they had a lawyer go through the ordinance. He also said he was supposed to recuse himself from that particular issue as he’s had some issues in regards to unplated cars at one of his properties, which he said he’s in the process of fixing.
Rayburn said if he was a guessing man, the town would never enforce that ordinance because it’s not enforceable in the way they have the ordinance written.
After that, McClone said he said he had a view of why things don’t get done in town.
“When a town board member or a town resident brings up a problem or suggestion, the town (council) president says, ‘We’re not going to do that’” or the town has to talk to a lawyer or the town wasn’t going to do what was brought to them, McClone said. McClone also said Rayburn doesn’t work with Councilwomen Lean Ball and Debra Deniston and it “was just kind of one-sided there.”
McClone said he thought it would be best if Rayburn resigned and the town could get someone to replace him that would help out the town and the residents.
In other business, the council:
• Voted not to have a townwide garage sale this year due to low participation in last year’s garage sale.
Ball suggested maybe having people who are interested in having a garage sale contact Clerk-Treasurer Katina Webb ahead of time next year and maybe they could do it again.
• Bibler said he should be able to get more street signs put up around town within the next month. The signs were previously ordered, but Bibler said they were not put up due to the amount of rain the area has seen.
• Approved Bibler replacing some of the telephone pole flags around town.
• Heard Webb is working on a townwide newsletter.
• Heard about a property that has furniture and trash on the property.
Rayburn said they could mention not to have furniture and trash outside in the town newsletter. He suggested giving the property owner a week and possibly putting an ordinance violation letter on the door.
• Heard from Bibler the basketball hoop at Broadway and CR 700 seems to be in pieces. Bibler was asked by a truck driver if the hoop could be moved because the hoop was hit more than once. Bibler said the base of the hoop still appeared to be in the street.
