North Webster Council Tables Decision On Erosion Issue
Posted
Jackie Gorski-
NORTH WEBSTER – The North Webster Town Council tabled a decision Tuesday about a resident’s request to help stop erosion near Mulberry Street.
Rob Wacker said he lives at the end of Mulberry Street and he got directed to the Council via the Webster Lake Conservation Association. Wacker said Mulberry Street ends at a channel and there was kind of a no-man’s land that hadn’t been kept up. Where the road stops, it was probably 25 to 30 feet to the water’s edge. Wacker has started maintaining and stoned this land since there was a lot of erosion from the street coming down.
Wacker said he is concerned about sea walls stopping on either end of that street easement that goes through channel. It’s in need of some stone to control erosion because the erosion is working its way back behind the seawalls.
Wacker said he got a quote from Custer Sand and Gravel for some glacial stone for $1,500. He wanted to see what the best route to get that work done was.
Councilwoman Lisa Strombeck asked whose responsibility it was and if was the town’s.
Town attorney Jack Birch said he doesn’t know if it is the town’s responsibility. Council President Dan Thystrup asked who owned that land. Councilman Dave Waliczek said they’d have to look into it. Waliczek asked if the Department of Natural Resources would have any say in the work. Birch said DNR will deal with work where the water starts.
Birch said the Council could decide to something about the work, offer a private citizen to do something or say the town has no interest in doing anything about the situation. He said the Council has to remember the town may assume the obligation to continue to maintain the land.
Waliczek asked Wacker if the work is something he wanted to and if the Council decided to split the cost with Wacker if it was something he’d be interested in. Wacker said it was.
Wacker said, for that no man’s land, he’d pay for the entirety of the work if the Council could deed that land over to him. Birch said it’s not as easy as that. It would have to go through the process of vacation. Birch would have to look at how the street was platted. Most likely, Wacker would own half of it and his neighbor would get half of it. Vacation is also a discretionary act for the Council.
Wacker said he gets that. If he was going to fix up and maintain that area and there was no easement needed to the water, it seemed reasonable to him. Thystrup said the Council would look into it and would get back to Wacker.
Also, the Council approved 1.47 miles of roads to be considered under the town’s jurisdiction, effective today.
Rick Pharis, of Triad Associates Inc., said the streets he recommended were 528 feet of Arbor Vista Drive, 686 feet of Esterbrook Drive, 523 feet of Mary LaFern Street south of Effie May Street, 792 feet of Midlake Drive, 1,430 feet of TK Way, 950 feet of Tayna Avenue, 1,320 feet of Crystal Flash Road between Blaine Street west to the town corporate limit west of Midlake Road and 1,531 feet of Epworth Forest Road.
Pharis said portions of Crystal Flash Road and Epworth Forest Road are under county jurisdiction, but the town has been taking care of that portion of the road. Pharis is submitting paperwork for the town to get the tax dollars for the roads instead of the county.
Pharis said the paperwork will go to the Indiana Department of Transportation, which he said he’s hoping to have to INDOT within the next week.
July is the next call for Community Crossing money and a lot of the streets that were motioned to be under town limits were on the last call, which is why the town didn’t get any money toward those road because the roads weren’t on the appropriate maps, Pharis said.
In other business, the Council:
• Approved Jayne Alger, project manager for the wastewater/street department, as the town’s ADA compliance officer.
• Heard from John Lantz, president of the Animal Welfare League Board of Directors. Lantz thanked the town for its support of the AWL.
He also shared some of the projects the AWL was doing, including doing a Shelter Buddy Literacy Program, where area students can go in to the AWL and read to shelter pets.
