The Bass Lake Property Owners Association Building has been fully remodeled by a home remodeling company in Everett Washington. You are invited to an Open House so you can see the improvements.
The Open House will be Sunday, January 22nd, from Noon to 4:00 p.m. and there will be different vendors there to offer food and to assist you with event planning. A variety of room rental packages will be presented. The building can be rented for weddings, graduation parties, and banquets.
The restraining order against former Starke County Treasurer Linda Belork was removed Wednesday in Jasper Circuit Court after attorney Martin Lucas requested it. Lucas told Judge John Potter that the purpose of the temporary restraining order in the first place was only to prevent any destruction or alteration of public records in the immediate aftermath of the executive order to remove her from the Treasurer’s office.
Belork’s attorney, Ethan Lowe, did not object and the 15 minute court appearance ended. Although a discrepancy of thousands of dollars was initially reported, all funds were eventually accounted for.
Funeral Services will be held Sunday at the Braman and Bailey Funeral Home in North Judson for Robert “Bobby” Tauteris, Jr., 44, who was killed when the vehicle he was riding in struck a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. The funeral will be held Sunday, January 15th, at 1:00 p.m. CT. Visitation will be held after 10:00 a.m. Sunday.
Tauteris was one of four soldiers killed in the explosion.
The Starke County Jail Committee will be holding three public meetings to present information on what the Jail Committee has been discussing concerning a jail project.
The first meeting will be on Tuesday, January 17th at 7:00 p.m. at the Knox Middle School Cafeteria. Other meetings will be held on Wednesday, January 18th at 6:00 p.m. at the North Judson-San Pierre High School and on Thursday, January 19th at 6:00 p.m. at the Oregon-Davis High School.
Yesterday was the first day to file for candidacy in this year’s election.
One person filed in Starke County. Dennis Estok filed for Starke County Surveyor on the Democrat ticket.
In Pulaski County, Christi Hoffa filed for Recorder, Lynette Wilder filed for Treasurer, Joni Frain filed for State Delegate and Sam Frain also filed for State Delegate. All of the Pulaski County candidates filed on the Republican ticket.
Eastern Pulaski School Corporation is one of only two systems in the state that are on a fiscal year budget. The rest are on calendar year.
Superintendent Dr. Robert Klitzman said that the board received and approved the budget for the year this week. The budget will begin in July of 2012.
“Senator Charbonneau called and I talked with him and he is interested in looking at some legislation that would have all schools move towards a fiscal year budget,” said Dr. Klitzman. “When you stop and think about it, you call it a fiscal year budget, but really it’s a school year budget. We start a school year in August and our budget starts in July so there’s some benefits to it. On the other side of it, I do understand why some folks don’t want to change. It’s something they’re used to and they do it as a routine and as we all know change is difficult and quite frankly, I don’t think it’ll get changed. What I’m most interested in is that they leave us alone and we can do our projects the way we want to and so far they’ve done that. If they want to change I’m all for it.”
Starke County Health Nurse, Frank Lynch, says the State and the Health Department are reporting a lower number of flu cases.
“The last flu report I got was for the last week of 2011, but flu is actually staying a little below what we were seeing last year,” he stated.
Lynch said the reason for the reduced number of flu cases varies.
The North Judson Police Department had a total of 3,820 calls in 2011. The department had 832 traffic stops, 162 theft-conversion calls, 64 accident calls, 201 juvenile-family disturbance calls, 75 mischief-vandalism calls, and 55 assaults, battery and fighting calls. The officers also completed 12 Operating a Vehicle While Intoxicated reports, 27 battery reports, 23 alcohol-drug reports and 116 adult arrests. 538 traffic warnings were also given in 2011.
William Blankenship III, 22, of Knox, remains at large, after he allegedly stole a police car Tuesday night, wrecked it and put it into a ditch.
Blankenship was under arrest by Kouts police on drug related charges following a traffic stop at the Family Express station at the intersection of State Road 8 and State Road 49 in Kouts. The arresting officer placed Blankenship in the back seat of the patrol car while the officer took inventory of Blankenship’s car. It was then when Blankenship allegedly got into the driver’s seat and drove from the scene.
On August 11th of last year, Starke County Treasurer Linda Belork was served a restraining order removing her from conducting her duties as treasurer of the county. The restraining order was issued after the three county commissioners voted to remove her from office following the announcement to the public that there were irregularities in some 2009 accounts.
Two juveniles were arrested yesterday after they burglarized a home and the homeowner had wounded one of the suspects.
An officer from the LaPorte County Sheriff’s Department responded to a home in the 7800 North block of County Road 175 East, or Fail Road. The homeowner said that he discovered his home was being burglarized and the suspects were still inside the home. When police arrived on scene, the victim had shot one of the suspects in the hand. The suspect was transported to IU Health LaPorte Hospital and the other juvenile suspect was transported to the LaPorte County Juvenile Justice Center. After the injured suspect was cleared from the hospital, he was taken to the Juvenile Justice Center.
Judge Kim Hall has named a new CASA Director for Starke County. The new director will be assuming the duties held for the past four years by Ron Henningsmith.
“Rhonda Adcock has been a CASA volunteer with our program for just over a year now and she’s a very capable young lady,” said Henningsmith. “I decided that I need to step aside and let someone else take the reigns at the helm and she has gracefully accepted that challenge.”
The West Central School Corporation is moving forward with technology upgrades. Infrastructure for wireless technology is almost complete and Superintendent Charles Mellon says this enables the Corporation to become prepared for some important projects.
“If we go with one-to-one computing down the road, the wireless is there, plus the wind turbine will be on wireless. That means that the people in Chicago will be able to control the wind from the city. If a component goes bad, there’s a red flag that comes up and they can give us some directions on how to fix it or how to reset it on site. So, this opens the door for a lot of things,” said Superintendent Mellon.
The Eastern Pulaski School Corporation met in regular session during the day Monday. This was one of two school board meetings held each year during the day so the school board members can tour a school. The meeting Monday was held in the Middle-High School Building.
The Culver Community School Board made a number of organizational changes at their recent meeting, including the appointment of a new Vice President. Jack Jones was originally nominated, but he declined the position, telling the board that he would be more comfortable in the Secretary position.
Ryan Sieber was ultimately nominated and elected with a unanimous vote.
A Knox man was arrested on possession charges after a traffic stop on Thursday, January 5th.
An officer from the Starke County Sheriff’s Department pulled over a vehicle driven by Jennifer Bonnell on 200 South East of 550 East in Knox. She had allegedly driven into the officer’s lane as she approached him. As the officer turned around and activated his emergency lights to initiate a traffic stop, the passenger, Vernon “Dale” Chessor, allegedly opened his door, dropped something outside of the car, and then shut the door. The officer called for another officer to see what the object was and continued with his traffic stop.
Ed Hasnerl was recognized for serving 14 years on the IU Health Starke Hospital’s Community Board during a special meeting Monday night. At the same time Hasnerl was receiving his award, the board was welcoming his replacement, Martin Bedrock.
In board business, Ben Bennett was reelected the Board President, Sandy Hansen remains as Vice President, and Dr. Walter Fritz was selected to be the new Secretary taking the place of newly retired member, Ed Hasnerl. Continue reading
A high school gymnasium built for $50,000? Even though it would not be possible today, that is what the Grovertown High School gymnasium was built for in 1928. On this date in 1928, the new gymnasium was dedicated with Mr. Henry Schricker of Knox giving the principal address.
An armed robbery incident is being investigated by the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department.
Police were called to the Bottle Stop Liquor Store on Michigan Street in Lapaz on Monday night where the employee said a man brandished a knife and demanded cash from the register. The employee was cut on a finger with the suspect’s knife. Police arrived on the scene within one minute, but the suspect had fled the scene and was not immediately found. The man had run out the front door toward the alley. An undisclosed amount of cash was stolen from the cash register.
Stacie Brown, and her attorney Timothy Lemon, were in Starke Circuit Court yesterday afternoon to accept a plea agreement that has been worked out with the Prosecutor’s office. Brown pleaded guilty to Battery Causing Death, a Class A Felony, and the State dropped the second count of Neglect of a Dependent Resulting in Death.
