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WINONA LAKE – Winona Lake Town Council approved going forward with several projects during its meeting Tuesday.
Town Manager Pam Howard brought up the topic of a new potential website for the town.
Right now, CivicPlus, the company who maintains the town’s website, is changing platforms. The cost is about $4,800 a year for CivicPlus to maintain the town’s website.
Howard talked to representatives at Blue River Digital. The platform they use is Word Press, which Howard said is mobile friendly and easy to use. A full rebuild of the town’s website would be $8,500, but the annual fee to maintain the website is $480.
Howard said she still would upload any information to the website, but Blue River Digital would do any patches or similar work needed.
She said her recommendation would be to rebuild the whole website with Blue River Digital. She would like to put stuff on the website for each town department and run it. It could take a couple months for Blue River Digital to rebuild the website.
Fire Department Kevin Gelbaugh asked if town employees would have access to put things on the website, as the fire department has never had access to put stuff on their section of the website. Howard said she thought information would still have to be given to her to put online.
The council approved rebuilding the town’s website with Blue River Digital.
The council also approved engineering work through A&Z Engineering LLC, Fort Wayne, to extend the Heritage Trail.
Work is broken into two different amounts, according to Howard. The first amount is for $11,310, with the second amount being $5,280.
The overall project will consist of the construction of a multi-use path/trail that begins at the trailhead located at Christ’s Covenant Church, 2090 E. Pierceton Road, to the Tuscany Subdivision, where it will head south until it reaches Celebration Church, 1289 CR 250E. Once there, the trail will run east until it connects to the Heritage Trail segment that runs along CR 250E.
Earlier in the meeting, the council approved a contract separation regarding a Lakeland Christian Academy school resource officer.
With Philip Hawks resigning from the Winona Lake Police Department (WLPD) since he was recently sworn in as the new Pierceton town marshal, Council Vice President Austin Reynolds said the WLPD is not able to fill the SRO duties at LCA. Hawks worked as the SRO at LCA while employed at the WLPD. Due to this, Reynolds said LCA has agreed to mutually break that contract for SRO services and contract with off-duty officers through an app at $50 an hour.
Town Marshal Joe Hawn will have SROs, but not with the same amount of time dedicated to the role.
Hawn said the police department could hire an officer if the school would extend the contract, but the school decided against that.
Earlier in the meeting, the council approved to put out bids for a new town engineer.
Howard said she heard the town kind of inherited T-E Incorporated and engineering services never really went out to bid, so she said she’d like to find an engineering company that would be on-call for the town for wastewater, streets, stormwater and the town’s 12 lift stations. With that, when the town would need something engineered, that company would be the ones the town would go to. She confirmed the position would be for a town engineer.
She said with any engineering company that is approved, Howard would like the town to work with them for two years.
With the request of qualifications that will be sent out, Howard has a scoring list that will be used for each company. She noted T-E can still submit their request for qualifications (RFQ), but Howard said she wants to see who else who qualifies.
The letter of qualifications will be submitted today and companies can submit any questions until Jan. 5 and then companies will have until by Jan. 11 to submit their RFQ. The town will then interview the applicants and choose one.
In other business, the board:
• Saw Clerk-Treasurer Heather James swear in Cody Bixler and Corie Strong as reserve officers for the WLPD
• Approved the resignation of Megan Smith from the Park Board.
The council also approved for a Park Board Interview Committee to be established to interview any applicants for the vacant position. Councilman Barry Andrew was approved to be the council appointment to the committee.
• Approved Christmas bonuses for town employees of $500 for full-time employees and $250 for part-time employees, with the bonus being pro-rated for any employees hired starting Nov. 1.
• Approved selling some barricades at the Miller Sunset Pavilion that were not used.
