Bainbridge to look at future improvements

BAINBRIDGE -- The town council of Bainbridge is looking at starting several new projects to help with the future of the town. At Wednesday's meeting the council discussed plans to help improve the town.

One of the projects is the start of the Safe Routes to School grant. The grant gave Bainbridge the money to build sidewalks to schools. Utility workers have been grading roads to prepare for the installation of the sidewalks.

Clerk-Treasurer Jason Hartman also brought a request about sidewalks on Main Street and who was responsible for the repair of them to the town council. Most of the sidewalks in town are part of town property, but on main street the property owners own the sidewalks. This brought about the discussion of making the sidewalks part of town property, so that the town takes the burden of repair work.

The town will look into the matter and see what would need to be done to make the sidewalks town property.

Troy Elless, utilities superintendent, informed the council that utility workers will be working on pulling the utilities from the site where Casey's will be located. Elless also informed the board that the first underground wiring had been done on a new home that was built.

Town Council President Chuck McElwee also raised a suggestion that the town write up and adopt an ordinance of guidelines for business signs downtown.

"Some signs in town make it less pleasant." McElwee stated.

His suggestion for better signage was made in hopes to help make the main-street area look nicer and make sure that signs aren't "a piece of plywood that's hand painted."

McElwee will be doing research on the matter by looking at other towns that have similar ordinances and will present more information at the next council meeting.

Also next week the town will begin work on the community center and town hall parking lot. This construction is to help with some of the drainage issues in the lot.

In other business:

-The council has updated the fair-housing ordinance for Bainbridge. This is to meet a grant requirement and was adopted on the first reading.

-Hartman sent in the application for Bainbridge to have a comprehensive plan, he informed the board that he would have more information soon.

-The council still has questions about the memorandum of understanding between Bainbridge and North Putnam Community School Corporation; they will seek a meeting with the school board to get their questions answered.

The next Bainbridge Town Council meeting will be on Aug. 14 at 7 p.m.