Stardust Road to get streetlights

Thursday, April 12, 2012

CLOVERDALE-- The Cloverdale Town Council is making progress on many of the key issues that have been looming over the town for months.

The council started off its meeting a few minutes early to ensure that at 7 p.m. the sealed bids they received for the Doe Creek Lift Station were opened on time.

Five bids ranging from $567,890 up to $744,800 were read to the board, which later decided to wait on making a decision until next month's meeting.

Don Gedert of the Redevelopment Commission brought a proposal to the board in hopes of installing lights on County Road 925 SE.

The total costs of the installation of the lights will be $5,533.67 from Duke Energy. The price includes the necessary wiring to accommodate the lighting as well as installing transformers.

"This is primarily a safety issue," said Gedert. "Anything that we could do to make that road safer is a benefit to the town."

Gedert had hoped to receive grant money from the Putnam County Convention Visitor and Bureau to help with the costs, but was turned down. So the Redevelopment Commission will be paying for the installation and maintenance of the lights for the first year.

There will be 12 lights installed from U.S. 231 down to the C Bar C Expo Center. The cost per month of running the lights will be $46.52, which the town has agreed to pay after the first year.

"There should be pretty much continuous light from 231 to the arena," explained Gedert. "This is the amount (of lights) that Duke recommended to do it correctly."

The council agreed that with the incoming traffic, most from out-of-state, going to events at the arena, it is better to be safe than sorry.

"If we're going to do this, I think we need to do it right," Vice President Dennis Padgett said.

Installation of the lights should begin in June.

The council is taking the necessary steps to repeal the ordinance creating the utility board in order to create one less meeting a month. The board introduced the ordinance during the meeting, but will officially consider it during the May meeting.

The council also agreed to go with H.J. Umbaugh and Associates, from Indianapolis, for a utility rate study at $5,000 for each water and sewer. There will also be a $1,000 credit for doing both at the same time.

Umbaugh is an independent financial advisory team, which will conduct the study for the town to see how money is being spent on running the water and sewer plant.

"We are doing a rate study to see how much money we're actually spending," explained Clerk Treasurer Cheryl Galloway. "If we're going in the hole, we are going to have to raise the rates."

Town officials hope not to raise the rates for water and sewer, but according to Galloway that is likely to happen.

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  • Hahhahahahaha what a joke!

    -- Posted by captain crunch on Thu, Apr 12, 2012, at 7:32 PM
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