April has been proclaimed as Child Abuse Prevention Month for Starke County, thanks to the Commissioners and the organization Prevent Child Abuse Starke County, operating under the Coalition Against Domestic Abuse (CADA). Ruth Matsey from CADA spoke to the audience and the Commissioners in regards to their proclamation against child abuse. Mary Armstrong-Smith, Community Partners Director of Prevent Child Abuse Indiana, also addressed the audience and expressed her concern of child abuse.
The Senior Volunteer of the Year and the Older Hoosier of the Year award winners were announced Thursday during a luncheon at the Bass Lake Fire Department.
“Today, we are honoring all of our volunteers for the past two years, for 2009 and 2010,” said Community Services of Starke County Director, Joan Haugh. “This is just our opportunity to give them a little credit for all of the many hours of service they’ve put in or the donations they’ve given to support our programs and the food pantry. We’re very grateful for them and if anyone out there would like to volunteer, please call me.”
We continue with our introduction of the primary candidates to you today. Clarence Marshall is a Democrat candidate for Clerk-Treasurer for the City of Knox. He’s a lifetime resident of Starke County, primarily living in Knox.
We asked him to talk about his background.
“I worked at the Rudd-Shepherd dealership for 36 years and most of those years I was the Service Department Manager,” explained Marshall. “I did leave for a couple of years. I worked at Automatic Music for a few years and also Ed’s Auto Parts.”
April is National Car Care Month. SCILL Center instructor, Mark Anderson, says that it may be a good time to check your exhaust system.
“Cars have an exhaust system underneath that is made out of aluminized metal which reacts with the salt that they put on the roads in the wintertime,” said Anderson. “At this time of the year, we see a lot of exhaust systems and mufflers laying along the side of the road, so this is a good time of the year to check your exhaust system. Just go behind the car and give your tailpipe a little bitty kick and see if anything rattles. If it does, you should take it in and get it fixed.”
The Knox City Police Department investigated a two vehicle accident that occurred shortly before 1:00 p.m. today at the intersection of Culver Road and US 35 in Knox.
According to City Police Officer, Chad Dulin, Sharon Button, of Winamac, was traveling southbound on US 35 when she reportedly disregarded the stoplight at the intersection and struck a vehicle driven by Dalerie Ford of Knox. Ford was traveling westbound through the intersection when the accident occurred.
Representatives of Indiana University Health Starke Hospital will meet next week with members of the Starke County Board of Commissioners and the County Council to discuss the future and continued use of the facilities leased from the County. The current lease expires in 2016.
“We are committed to be here, we want to stay here, but we also know that improvements are going to have to be made along the way, particularly in relationship to the building” stated hospital CEO Linda Satkoski. Continue reading
A plea and sentencing hearing for Kevin Eggert was held Wednesday morning. Eggert is accused of threatening to kill Misty Ross while pointing a 12-gauge shotgun at her, and faces one count of Intimidation, a Class C Felony, and one count of Pointing a Firearm, a Class D Felony.
At the request of the highway department, the Starke County Council approved the spending of $135,000 for bridge inspections throughout the county. In total, 67 bridges are to be inspected, with the expense coming out of the county’s cumulative bridge fund, which can only be spent on bridges.
The bridge inspections are a necessary expense, especially when given the current state of the bridges in Starke County. Three bridges were recently closed, and three others are in danger of being reduced to one-lane to allow for repairs.
We’re less than two weeks away from the 2011 Primary Election, and we’re talking to the candidates running for office in the City of Knox Election.
Knox Clerk-Treasurer Jeff Houston is in his 5th year in the position. We asked Houston what he enjoys about the job.
“I enjoy working with people, and I enjoy planning for the future with the City,” said Houston. “Right now we’re working on a number of different projects including the new J.W. Hicks project. We’re working with different grants – we’re working in the park right now with a five year grant. I like interacting with the different people in the City and with utility customers. All in all, I enjoy the job altogether.”
National hiring day for McDonald’s was held yesterday. It was the intent of the business to hire 50,000 employees nationwide during the one day event.
Billy Boldt, Manager at the McDonald’s restaurant in Knox said that they received 70 applications. 47 applications were received the day of the event. while others were received online prior to the event. 11 people were hired and three others are pending. 56 interviews were conducted and part-time crew member positions were filled.
Looking for ways to save at the pump? Rod Dawson, instructor at the SCILL Center in Knox, says that a clean air filter can increase your gas mileage.
“This is the time of year when we’re starting to get a lot of bugs, farmers are out in the fields and we’re going to be picking up a lot of dust and dirt and those filters will start to clog up. We start restricting the amount of air that needs to be put into that engine through that air filter,” said Dawson. “When that starts to clog up, it richens the engine up because we’re not getting the air to mix in with it. We start using a little more fuel at that point in time. We’re robbing about ten percent of the air that needs to come into it which can cost us up to about fifteen percent on fuel consumption.”
It seems the Treasurer’s office will not be getting the full-time help they’ve been requesting, after all. At the Starke County Council Meeting on April 18, the council noted that after looking at newest budget figures, they noticed that they would be short of the amount needed to transfer in order to support another full-time employee in the Treasurer’s office because some of those funds do not exist in the Treasurer’s budget.
The Commissioners agreed with the council, withdrawing their support as well because of budgetary concerns. They did not anticipate the coming year, and the Commissioners do not believe they will have the $5600 necessary to contribute that they previously believed they had. Treasurer Linda Belork was not present and could not help the Council and the Commissioners determine if the funds were available in the budget or not.
A plea and sentencing hearing for Kevin Eggert is scheduled for this morning. Eggert is accused of threatening to kill Misty Ross while pointing a 12-gauge shotgun at her, and faces one count of Intimidation, a Class C Felony, and one count of Pointing a Firearm, a Class D Felony.
According to the police report, Officer Todd Keen was dispatched to a residence on Nov. 21, 2010 in reference to a male subject pointing a gun at a female. When Keen arrived, he spoke with Misty Ross, who was standing outside the residence. Ross told Keen that she and her boyfriend, Eggert, had been having some relationship problems, and had told Eggert a few days prior that she was leaving and taking their children. On Nov. 21, Ross had gone to a male friend’s house, and was getting ready to leave when Eggert pulled into the driveway, pointed the shotgun out the window, and said, “I’ll kill you and Tom.” Eggert then left.
We continue today with our interviews with the Knox city candidates for elective office in the spring Primary on May 3rd.
Mark Smith is the President of the County Council and has been coroner in the past. He is the owner of M.C. Smith Funeral Home in Knox.
Smith noted the improvements made in past administrations, including the highway project through Knox, Gateway Project, renovation of the old depot, and others. He said he feels we’re not progressing now, as we did then.
Absentee voting has begun in the Starke County Courthouse for the May Primary Election. This election will feature the City of Knox candidates running for office only.
Absentee voting is available on the first floor of the Starke County Courthouse, Monday through Friday from now until Friday, April 29th from 8:00 a.m. to Noon and from 1:00-4:00 p.m. CT. Absentee voting will also be available on Saturday, April 23rd and Saturday, April 30th from 8:00 a.m. to Noon and 1:00-4:00 p.m. On Thursday, April 28th, absentee voting will be available from 5:00-7:00 p.m. You may vote absentee May 2nd from 8:00 a.m. to Noon. The Starke County Courthouse will be closed on Good Friday so absentee voting will not be available.
Bridge #156, the bridge over the Robbins Ditch on Range Rd. between 400 N and 500 N, may not be out of commission for as long as expected. Lee Nagai explained an alternative method of repairing the bridge, suggesting a deck maintenance project as opposed to the state’s recommended plan of total reconstruction.
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.”
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.
