Winona Lake Hopes To Eventually Make Utility Billing Paperless
Winona Lake Hopes To Eventually Make Utility Billing Paperless
Posted
David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Winona Lake Hopes To Eventually Make Utility Billing PaperlessWINONA LAKE - By 2024, Winona Lake Clerk-Treasurer Laurie Renier would like to see utility billing be as paperless as possible.
At the Winona Lake Town Council meeting Tuesday, Town Manager Craig Allebach reminded everyone that the town’s stormwater rate will go up to $9 at the first of the year.
Renier then filled in the Council in on utility billing changes that will occur at the same time.
“We’re trying to encourage, this next year, people to go online. If we can encourage you to pay your wastewater, trash, stormwater account balance and any future bills by going to the town’s website, which is www.winonalake.net, and you can select a payment. You can choose a date when it’s pulled from your accounts, and you’ll need your account number to put in there. But this next year, I would like for us to go paperless by 2024,” she said.
Council President Rick Swaim asked how that information will be provided to people other than at the meeting. Renier said her office will send out a notice, and it will be provided to neighborhood associations and put out through social media.
Allebach said instead of yearly billing, the town will do six months for the first part of 2023. “So, traditionally, we send coupon books out, but we’re looking at doing a monthly - probably get a postcard in the mail - on a monthly basis versus the yearly where you tear off a coupon,” he said.
The town would like to get people to pay online so they can get away from paper billing if possible, he continued. “So we’re kind of revamping everything.”
Allebach said that for those who already do the monthly payment automatic withdrawals, they will have to go to their account and increase that by $2 for the stormwater fee increase.
The Council next approved a resolution appointing Jacob Bill as a Winona Lake Police Department reserve officer. Town attorney Adam Turner gave him the oath of office.
Bill said he works full time at the Mentone Police Department. He just left the U.S. International Guard. He grew up in Warsaw, having attended school at Madison Elementary, Edgewood Middle School and Warsaw Community High School. He and his wife live in the Warsaw area and don’t have children. Before joining the military, he was an EMT. His career with law enforcement began with the Indiana State Police and then has been with Mentone since April. He’s also on the Narcotics Enforcement Team (NET43). His dog is a German shepherd.
Suzie Light, a volunteer for the Community Wellbeing Committee at Live Well Kosciusko, and Alex Hall, Kosciusko County Community Foundation vice president of programs, gave a presentation on the K-County First Initiative.
Light said Live Well Kosciusko has an initiative titled K-County First and is a combination effort from the Wellbeing Committee and Kosciusko Leadership Academy (KLA).
“Our committee started working on an effort to make sure that our police force, our EMTs, our fire departments understood they are appreciated,” she said. “So, we wanted to make sure that we engaged community in this.”
A poster presented to the Winona Lake Police Department - the Fire Department already has one - features artwork from elementary students. The students also wrote hundreds of thank-you notes that are being delivered to various departments in the county, Light said. Some of the artwork also appears on billboards throughout the county saying the first responders are appreciated.
KLA put a “really interesting” spin on this by creating a discount program for the first responders, she said. All first responders are getting K-County discount cards that they can carry with them and get discounts at a number of participating businesses.
More information on the campaign and where people can post their own thank-you notes can be found online at livewellkosciusko.org/kcountyfirst.
Swaim did KLA years ago, he said, and encouraged anyone who hasn’t taken part in it yet to do so. There’s also a Kosciusko Youth Leadership Academy for high school juniors.
Later in the meeting, Carson Kintzel, Winona Lake Fire Department assistant chief, told the Council that through a grant provided by the Autism Society of America and Today’s Champions, the Autism Society of Indiana was able to purchase communication boards that they would like to have placed in every emergency vehicle in Kosciusko County.
“So, we reached out to the Indiana Society for Autism and received enough of these communication boards to place in all - not only in all of our engines and apparatuses at the fire station here in Winona Lake - but enough for all 14 stations in Kosciusko County,” Kintzel said.
At January’s Kosciusko County Fire Association meeting, Kintzel said he will take the boards to pass out to all the fire departments in the county. He hopes they will put them in all of their fire engines and apparatuses.
“It’s just a way to communicate with people that maybe are nonverbal, may have autism,” he said. “We’ve got another tool in our toolbox.”
In other business:
• The Council approved a redistricting ordinance that adds Raccoon Run to Council District 2. The development will potentially add around 138 homes to the town.
• The Council approved a resolution transferring monies.
Allebach explained Winona Lake is the fiscal agent for the Kosciusko County Traffic Safety Partnership and he is the grant administrator. It includes various programs and for each program there’s been a grant award.
“About three years ago, they put all the different programs into one called CHIRP (Comprehensive Hoosier Highways Injury Reduction Program),” he said, which includes the DUI Task Force, Operation Pull Over, Click It To Live It, a nonmotorist grant that deals with crosswalks and pedestrian traffic and other programs. Most of the agencies in the county participate in the programs.
“So when money would come in from the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute, and the Traffic Safety Division runs that program, then we would apply for the grant and then we would get monies for each one of those programs. And we’ve had up to seven programs at least that we’ve been funded for,” Allebach said.
All seven of those programs were put into one grant, so Allebach told the Council that what they were doing Tuesday night was combining all the old accounts and putting them into the CHIRP account.
• The Council approved the 2023 agreement with the Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation for $27,500.
• Agreements with town attorney Adam Turner and town engineer Aaron Carl were approved for 2023.
