The Starke County Commissioners took time Monday night to discuss several capital projects on the schedule for this year.
Commissioner Kathy Norem pointed out that the tuckpointing needs to be done on the courthouse. A portion of it was done a couple of years ago, but problems persist.
“It was not tuckpointed behind the gutters,” said Norem. “There’s water coming in there that is already damaging some of the new stuff that we had done. So, we got a quote last year for that but it was too late in the year for them to do that.”
The downspouts will need to be removed in order to complete the tuckpointing and then they would be reinstalled. Some stone repairs over the entryways will be done as part of this quote. The new quote came in at around $58,500 which was unanimously approved. The project may not begin until August.
The commissioners also discussed the purchase of a new ambulance for Starke County EMS at over $130,000 and two squad cars for the Starke County Sheriff’s Office. The commissioners approved a motion that requests the county council members to appropriate up to $34,000 for a new squad car out of the Jail CEDIT fund.
Other projects discussed include fencing around the air conditioners at the courthouse, a new Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) system at the Starke County Sheriff’s Office, a new computer server at the jail, and the replacement of curbing on the west side of the Starke County Annex No. 2 building. Quotes will be obtained for the projects to determine if they can be done yet this year.
In addition, the commissioners approved a motion to request approximately $50,000 for the county’s grant match in CEDIT funds for the courthouse elevator project. The county council will discuss that later this month.
If quotes allow all of the projects to be complete this year, they will be paid for in stages as money becomes available in the CEDIT fund each month.
