The Town of Winamac will not pick up bagged grass again this year. According to Town Manager, Jim Conner, the Town Board decided that residents will need to dispose of their own grass clippings. The issue was brought up last year when the Town Board and Wastewater Superintendent, Brad Zellers, expressed concern about the grass clippings in the streets and the problems they cause with the sewer system, especially during rains.
Porter-Starke Addictions Councilor, Leo Smith, conducted a seminar yesterday on relapse in the recovery process.
Leo Smith tells us the first thing necessary to prevent relapse.
SCILL Center Instructor, Rod Dawson, is in this week to give us car care tips for National Car Care month. He says we can’t neglect spark plugs
“People don’t realize it, but that spark plug will fire 3 million times within a thousand miles of driving,” said Dawson. “Take a look at what that spark plug actually does. There’s a lot of heat, a lot of electrical, and chemical erosion that happens on that spark plug. It does wear down and it does need to be replaced.”
The six individuals arrested Friday night on various methamphetamine charges will appear before Starke Circuit Court Judge Kim Hall Wednesday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. for their initial hearings.
Mathew Schoff, Cheryl Paschen, Kimberly Hurley, Tracey Gaideski, Timothy Clark, and Holloway Motel manager, Freeman Spelts, were arrested Friday after police found three active methamphetamine labs at the Holloway Motel on U.S. 30 in Starke County. They have charges ranging from Possession of Paraphernalia to Manufacturing Methamphetamine and Neglect of a Dependent. An 8-year-old child was taken into protective custody after the incident.
Bond has been set at $50,000 each.
Nearly 20 citizens of Pulaski County packed into the Commissioners’ meeting room to dispute the expansion of the county airport. The Pulaski County Airport Association Board has been looking into expanding their runway by 800 feet, which would allow larger corporate aircraft to land at their airport without jeopardizing their insurance, but the expansion requires the closure of road 100 West, as well as the acquisition of land from citizens. Everyone, from farmers to pilots, had something to say regarding the issue.
It’s two weeks before the Primary Election in Knox. Today, we will begin a series of interviews with candidates running in contested races.
Rick Chambers is completing his first term as Mayor of Knox. The Mayor sat down with us recently to talk about that four year term.
“The first term was very exciting,” he said. “I like dealing with industry. We had industry move into our Industrial Park every year I’ve been Mayor. We added about 80 jobs, we did six tax abatements for industry that either expanded or built new. It was very exciting seeing that Industrial Park grow.”
Porter-Starke Addictions Councilor, Leo Smith, will conduct a seminar today at 11:30 a.m. CT at the Knox Community Center. His topic will be relapse.
Smith was asked if it’s true that most people who begin a recovery process relapse before becoming successful.
The West Central School Board has decided to move forward with the wind turbine project.
“In the contract, there will be contingencies as far as whether or not we do proceed, but one of the largest issues had to deal with the insurance and that has been solved at this point in time,” said Superintendent Charles Mellon. “The connection point will be in the contract as a contingency and it is also being worked on at this time. This deals with NIPSCO where we want the connection to be prior to the meter so we can use the electricity ourselves that are generating. We are still waiting on the feed-in tariff regulations to be clarified and approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.”
The Eastern Pulaski School Board members discussed textbook rental fees and cafeteria prices for the 2011-2012 school year at their recent meeting.
If in the course of your travels you drive by WKVI, you will see a beautiful purple toilet sitting in our front yard. Now you might wonder what that toilet is doing here and especially sitting in our yard.
We were selected to be a part of Starke County Relay for Life’s Toilet Parade.
Someone in Starke County donated the toilet in our honor and we get to proudly display it in our yard.
The Holloway Motel complex was the site of a huge drug bust in Starke County on Friday with some of the building used for clandestine methamphetamine production. Because of the fact that dangerous particles remain in the air, Starke County Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Alexander, evacuated the facility and condemned it after the arrests were made.
Property tax bills in Pulaski County were mailed out last week and you may be concerned with the absence of a homestead credit you won’t see on line 4b of your statements.
The state homestead credit has been phased out statewide. On March 14th, 2008, the Indiana General Assembly passed the property tax reform bill House Enrolled Act (HEA) 1001-2008. One component of the bill was a change in the way state property tax relief is delivered.
Beginning with 2008-pay-2009 property taxes, the State permanently assumed school and welfare costs formerly paid from property taxes in exchange for a phase-out of the property tax credits offered in the past. This lowered the property tax rate but also reduced the amount of credits given. This credit has been phased out over the past three years, so property tax bills will have likely changed in 2009, 2010, and 2011 in part as a result of this phase-out. For homesteads, the phase-out of the state homestead credit becomes complete for 2010-pay 2011 property taxes. This credit is reflected on Line 4b of your tax statement.
You should still be receiving both the homestead standard deduction and the homestead supplemental deduction. The sum total of all deductions is indicated on Line 2a of your tax statement. Each deduction is also itemized in Table 5 of the tax statement. These are the deductions you are confirming by completing the pink verification form.
April is National Car Care month. Rod Dawson, Instructor at the SCILL Center in Knox, is in this week to offer gas mileage saving car care tips with us.
“Three out of ten vehicles have either missing or failed gas caps and nearly 150 million gallons of gas vaporizes because of it,” said Dawson. “A $5.00-$10.00 gas cap is an easy fix for that.”
Mr. Dawson will have more tips for us throughout the week on how we can keep our cars running efficiently and how we can save money at the pump.
At their last meeting, the Eastern Pulaski School Board members discussed eliminating Driver’s Education from the curriculum. During last week’s meeting, Superintendent, Dr. Robert Klitzman, shared the results of a Driver’s Education survey he conducted with 26 participating schools.
“13 of the 26 offered it only in the summer and it is strictly a fee assessed to the students that take it. No Corporation money is involved at all,” Dr. Klitzman explained. “12 other schools don’t offer it at all. There’s a private contractor involved. There is only one lone school that offers it during the school year for absolutely no cost to the student and that happens to be Eastern Pulaski Schools. I’m not going to recommend we do anything for this coming school year, but for the following school year, I just don’t see how we can offer Driver’s Training during the year any longer. The way finances are and the trend, it’s just not a practical matter.”
The West Central School Board approved the Reduction in Force procedures that the Corporation will continue to use this year.
“Often these past few years, we’ve had to go through this process and much of the time we’re hiring much of the same people back that we are putting on the reduction in force list,” said Superintendent Charles Mellon. “In case we don’t get the funding we anticipate, and even more so this year if we get the funding that we are anticipating, which is less, it’s even more critical that we notify our teachers by May 1st that this is a possibility. Because of resignations of a few people and retirements of others, we may be able to eliminate some positions, but not necessarily eliminate teachers.”
At the young age of 16, Eric Corey was diagnosed with ALS. An avid hunter his entire life, the Starke County resident has made it his mission to make sure other young adults with mobility challenges like him can experience the joy of hunting. That’s why he and his family have organized Turkey Tracks. The event allows hunters with physical challenges to use adaptive equipment and the help of a guide to experience a turkey hunt in Northern Indiana.
This is the third year for Turkey Tracks.
The Holloway Motel has been evacuated and condemned after a huge drug bust Friday. In the course of serving a warrant on a person at the motel, Starke County Police detected an odor commonly related to the manufacturing of methamphetamine.
The courtroom was full of family and friends of John Brooke as the jury returned to the courtroom with their verdict. The judge read their decision, his face calm, revealing nothing. As he began reading the verdict aloud, family members burst into tears while Brooke remained calm and collected, even in the face of the seriousness of the charges.
The jury found Brooke guilty of six of the seven counts against him: Conspiracy to Commit Armed Robbery, Intimidation, Possession and Manufacturing of a Destructive Device, Resisting Law Enforcement, Unlawful Use of Body Armor, and Assisting a Criminal. The jury found him not guilty of the count of Possession of a Destructive Device.
This week we are presenting parts of a report given to Starke County officials assessing County buildings. The report was prepared by RQAW an Indianapolis Consulting and Architecture Firm. Today’s report covers the Starke County Courthouse.
The Courthouse has an issue of limits on space available for some of the offices, particularly the Probation Department, the Clerk and the Magistrate. These functions are located on the second and third floors of the Courthouse.
Some space limitations can be alleviated by more efficient layouts, more efficient record storage and furniture and/or computerization of records and off-site storage. The County has adequate space for off-site record storage at the Glove Factory.
We have been recognizing emergency dispatchers this week for National Public Safety Telecommunicators Week. Melissa Osburn, who has been at the Starke County Sheriff’s Department for two years, says they take a variety of emergency calls.
“It can be anything from a medical emergency, structure fire, grass fires, civil matters – it’s anything that anyone would have a problem with,” said Osburn.
