Tuesday November 2, 2011 the Bicknell City Council along with the mayor accepted a bid from Myczak and Palmer to oversee the downtown development project.

Pace did not submit a bid, suggesting that with their recent problems they are removing themselves from the Bicknell project.

John R. Stanczak
 

From: Ronald Ackman <rmackman@hotmail.com>
To: John Stanczak <jrstanczak@yahoo.com>
________________________________________
I attended Mondays city council meeting and since there were no reporters there am furnishing a report for this website as I viewed the meeting. The Water Dept made a request for about a dozen new check valves to install on the house side of the meters. Seems it is state code and several have already been installed over the years. They prevent water from back flowing through the meter and possibly damaging a house by draining a water heater in case water service is cut off during repair to lines. They are about $700 apiece. This was requested in the BOW meeting. I missed the first part of the Boad Of Works meeting.

The council meeting saw bids reviewed and approved on 2 rehab jobs financed by the rehab grant somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 38k per house. The Lankford Drive Street was discussed as to who owns it and who is responsible for maintenance. Although not in the City’s name yet the city can claim it and maintain it according to Dick Vermillion, County Surveyor. Franklin Avenue north of Hwy 67 was discussed about being too narrow and too much parking on both sides including the highway due to the existing HR Block business being there and Councilman Carie requested parking be eliminated on the west side of the street and along the highway. The council seemed to agree and the City Attorney will prepare an ordinance. The Councilman said the street was muddy and with large chuck holes. I asked if it could be fixed with more gravel but was told it couldn’t since it would all wash down the hill.

I had an interesting discussion not part of the meeting with Matt Brough of the sewer department and was told the new treatment plant is working well and an open house will be scheduled when the sidewalks are done and there is some grass. The high volume recently was just a little over 1 million gallons and even though the designed capacity is right at 1 million it can actually handle up to 6 million gallons during an event; likely one or two days. It does this by releasing cleaned water at the same time new comes in, supposed to be all proper operation. They are not using the bacteria killing ultra violet lamps yet but will when the weather warms up.
He said the plant practically runs itself and other than some lab work daily leaves them free to do other sewage type work like on the lines.
Sludge will be collected and dried and spread on farmland.
They want to get a permit to allow it to be picked up and used by a permitted farmer. I asked if the extra dirt could be used as a levee to protect the city’s water wells. He liked the idea of protecting the wells with a 'berm' as he called it but said the dirt will be hauled by the city to a farmland filling project by an already made agreement.

There was no mention of the possibility of any 'stimulus' money benefiting the city. I noticed on the news later that the Elkhart Mayor made an unabashed statement on network news that he wanted some of the 'stimulus' money to come to his town. I know they lost a lot of jobs but I'll bet that Bicknell’s unemployment rate is as high as theirs and we have a much lower median income than they do.
My personal hope is that some money can come to at least pay down the 4.75 million for the sewage plant and possibly reduce the sewage bills giving Bicknell citizens more money to spend and create jobs that way. Washington Indiana is also making plans to use 'stimulus' money to help finance their planned sewage project.

The SIDC representative (grants) was at the meeting and if she shows up at the next meeting she should be asked about grants.
Ron Ackman

Monday, February 16, 2009
To: Bruce Borders; Tracy Woolbright
Subject: Bicknell
Dear Senator Hume and Representative Borders, I have made requests to both of you about financial aid to Bicknell for our just completed sewage treatment plant and the 4.75 million dollar loan the city took out to pay for it.
Thank you Tracy for your response, I do hope there may be some money for us as the high sewage and water costs are hurting our town a lot. The news this morning said there will be 200 million in the stimulus package that the states can do with as they please. I hope you will put us on the list.
Thank you,
Ron Ackman
-----------------------------------------------
Ron,
I apologize for the delay; I was waiting for details on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act that was signed into law this past Tuesday, the 17th. I have attached a fact sheet that will better explain what is available and what the process is for grants. Please let me know if you need any letters of support and I will do what I can. The Federal law will provide Indiana $94 million for fund wastewater infrastructure projects. I am not sure what will apply since the Bicknell project has already been completed. It seems like the grants are for planned projects. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Bruce Borders
State Representative – District 45

I was at the brief meeting with just a few local people mostly sitting in the back row.

Mr Moore was not there.

The Mayor announced 3 grant applications had been made as I understand through SIDC for City Ditch on Mary Street, Water Dept, and a sewer line in the south east section of town. All about a million each as I understand.

The Mayor also commented that the southeast sewer line project is an agreed order project since 1993 with IDEM and must be done even if we get a grant for it or not. Lets hope

The Mayor at last nights council meeting said the 1.3 grant IS the grant for Alton St to 2nd street improvements and NOT Downtown Improvements like the Vincennes paper had in its headline story Sunday.

He said he had never talked to Editor Gayle Robbins who wrote the story.

He said some of the quotes were accurate so I guess he talked to somebody but anyway it seems kind of funny that they would screw it up so bad.

I asked if the city was asking for a correction but was told that a press conference to be held Thursday in Terre Haute with the Lt Gov giving the check was to be held.

Hope the Vincennes paper doesn't screw that up too.

In other business they recognized a police officer and a city worker who gave CPR to a Bicknell citizen and saved his life in early May.

The Tresslar building was discussed and it was agreed to hold a hearing following the next Council meeting hopefully with the owner present to try to solve the problem.

The old bank building was discussed and they seemed to think it was given back by the Piepers. Don't know how they could do that as it is still in their name at the Assessors office.

They seem to have a problem finding who owns vacant lots the city mows in order to bill. I suggested they check the addresses on the Co Assessors webpage but they didn't seem to think that would work. Don't know why, I do it all the time.

And they also talked about the Youth Centers money which is still intact (4k) and their plans. They do plan to use about 1k of it to get a 501 c 3 non-profit status in order to ask for grants in the future.

From Ron Ackman

Here is a writeup on the council meeting Monday night as I saw it.

Mayor Jon Flickinger announced that the city is being helped by INDOT to get a grant to acquire over 1000 signs which will replace and reinstall all city signs at no cost to the city. Including street identification signs.

Ordinance #1-2009 was passed by unanimous vote to limit parking to one side of Franklin Street in the 1100 and 1200 block area. Margo Stanczak questioned the impact on her HR Block tax business during the last week of Jan and the first week of Feb which is their heaviest time for parking and the council agreed to allow parking on both sides for those two weeks.

I presented copies of the Indiana Code concerning smoke alarms in rental houses and asked the council to make a resolution recognizing it and to allow city authorities to investigate complaints.

Councilman Bourlard and the City Attorney who both worked on the defeated rental ordinance of a couple of years ago argued against the idea with Bourlard saying it is unenforceable and impossible to gain entry without a search warrant and the City Attorney saying it is an effort by me to get a rental ordinance 'on the cheap'.

Well yes it is and would likely be a simple and inexpensive solution to the dangers of possible ineffective smoke alarms in rental houses.

I was also told that no one would enforce the code.

The City Attorney then tried to ignore my proposal and to get the council's attention  and suggest to the Council that now would be a good time to bring up a new possible rental ordinance.

But no council people showed any interest.

With no more discussion my compromise suggestion failed for lack of a motion.

A later conversation with the police chief suggested that if they did investigate a complaint the prosecutor would not follow up and would in effect make it a waste of time.

I also talked to the State Fire Marshall's office and was told that Dept of Homeland Security has an addendum to attach to leases that covers the need for smoke alarms and their maintenance. I will be obtaining a copy and am willing to share it with interested landlords.

A routine style budget transfer was approved. I don't remember the details. Also the Water Dept revenue which was described as 'doing fine' was discussed and the conclusion drawn that the 'River Boat' money that was loaned to the water dept will be returned to the city for the general fund this year.

Amy Ferenbacher who is the Pace Community Action Agency representative for the proposed housing grant application for the city in the SW area of town was introduced and thanked for her efforts. Clerk Treasurer Rita Dupire announced that she would not handle any funds and be accountable for them if this project happens. She was assured 'she would not go to jail' and after passing through the city account would be handled through a special escrow account set up for it.

The Mayor announced that several grant applications are in the works including

1. The Neighborhood Stabilization Program Grant, 4 years

2. CDBGCFF, Oak and Alton and 2nd

3. Water Plant 4.

Street repair 5. 0% for sewer repair

6. CDBG Downtown

7. CDBG Community Center.

8. Gossard clean up.

And more unspecified.

From Ron Ackman

I attended Mondays city council meeting and since there were no reporters there am furnishing a report for this website as I viewed the meeting.

The Water Dept made a request for about a dozen new check valves to install on the house side of the meters. Seems it is state code and several have already been installed over the years. They prevent water from back flowing through the meter and possibly damaging a house by draining a water heater in case water service is cut off during repair to lines. They are about $700 apiece. This was requested in the BOW meeting. I missed the first part of the BOW meeting.

The council meeting saw bids reviewed and approved on 2 rehab jobs financed by the rehab grant somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 38k per house. The Lankford Drive street was

It was a pretty busy meeting Monday night and surprisingly  no one seemed to be in a hurry to get the meeting over with. Thats the way they should be, but maybe with a little more citizen input.
 
  Rod Mullins asked for a resolution of support for about 25 camper sites on the TP trailer court that he owns. He is making an application for a permit from the State and this would help. He was granted the resolution.
 
  Greg Jones from SIDC and David Ripple from Bernardin, etc presented the City Comprehensive Plan and also received a resolution of support, next it will go to the County Commissioners for approval to become effective. SIDC and the city will then apply for a grant. (the Plan will also serve to back up any other grant applications such as from the Good Start Committee and others). Since I didn't get a chance to offer input to the plan I did write out some comments and they are made part of the official record. Don't know if anyone else did this, possibly not, but at least there are some suggestions from me as a part. This wasn't discussed at the meeting but I was assured by Mr Ripple that they are to be included.
 
  The Attorney pleaded with the council to pass $16,000.00 for Landmark Surveying to start a survey on the Industrial Park and it was granted. She thought the original survey didn't have pins set and was of little value but I checked my copy and it did have pins and all that is necessary for a valid survey.

 

I gave it to Rita Lee the next day in hopes that since the original work was already done they shouldn't charge so much. Lets see. A fresh survey is good for development but to say there was nothing to start with is wrong. I also don't agree with her statement that the city of Bicknell is a mess, survey wise. In my 33 years as a Realtor here I haven't seen ANY problems. Some towns do have problems but not Bicknell to my knowledge. I don't know anything about Landmark except that they are from Washington. As I understand the $16,000.00 is for Phase 1 of a complete surveying job. Would be interesting to know if any other surveyors were contacted.
 
  Fran Rottet requested the city check into Lankford Drive parking but was told to check the deed and go back to Bicknell Manor.
 
  The handbook for city employees was discussed for updating, revision and continual updating and passed. The company to be hired will charge $8,000.00 as I remember.
 
  Our Good Start suggestion of accepting donated vacant lots in the northwest section of town to turn into mini walking parks and a wooded refuge was brought up by the Mayor with the suggestion that it would cost too much for some park benches and picnic tables. Idea was tabled. Good Start will consider going it alone for grants and the city likely will pitch in with labor and equipment.
 
From Ron Ackman

 

BOW sniffs around bad smell

JENNIFER JAQUA
Vincennes Sun-Commercial

BICKNELL - Members of the city council here Monday opted not to have the North Knox Development Corp. represent the city in its effort to bring new businesses to town.

Mayor Jon Flickinger said he had been approached by a member of the newly re-established group.

"They asked me to ask the council if you would support them in representing Bicknell to

JENNIFER JAQUA
staff writer

BICKNELL - Board of works members here tabled a request to extend the city's wastewater treatment plant construction contract by 60 days.

In October 2007, the project was ahead of schedule, but now the project seems to be running behind.

"The board received a letter from water Supt. Jim Hubbard and Assistant Supt. Matt Brough, who both said they are in favor of the 60 day extension," said Clerk-Treasurer Rita Dupire. "The board tabled the issue because they want to

Miss Gordon miscalculated the percentage the new increase is, it is 86%, not nearly 50% as the Sun-commercial stated.

$7.50 divided by $4.04 = 1.86 (one for the original rate plus 86 for the increase.)

There was some good news at the council meeting that didn't get reported, for example the city has received a grant (I think $58,000 for a comprehensive outlook study for Bicknell of which $5,800 or 10% is to be paid by the City).

This is supposed to be a good thing making future grant applications easier and more likely to be received also giving some long range

BICKNELL - City council members here approved an ordinance to increase the water rate by nearly 50 percent at their meeting Monday with a 4 to 1 vote. Steve Sandefer voted no.

Several in attendance spoke at the meeting and said they didn't oppose an increase, but they thought the proposed 50 percent rate hike was exorbitant.

Ron Ackman asked the council not to increase the rates, arguing that it would cause residents to move out of town. He asked the council to consider a minimum fee, even for vacant homes, and to decrease the $750 fee for a 3⁄4 inch water tap.

Clerk-treasurer Rita Dupire said Frank Gugliotta's report to the council that the water department begins each month with a $12,000 loan payment wasn't exactly accurate.

"The bond payment is based on a percentage and last month that amount was $7,900 - not $12,000," she said. "That

BICKNELL - Board of works members here addressed requests from the city police department and approved a request for additional lighting at both city parks.

Police Chief Paul Jones asked the board to approve the purchase of three radios for some vehicles on the police fleet.

Jones said two vehicles already have the new radios and with the purchase of three more radios, the city would only have one other car to outfit.

Board members approved the purchase of three radios from Tri-State Communications, Evansville, for nearly $5,000.

Jones also told the board that one of the city's officers, Lawrence "Butch" Meyers, would be away for several weeks at the Indiana Police

From reading what Mrs. Coyle wrote it appears that the meeting didn't go well.

Is it possible that the city council members already had their minds made up prior to the meeting?

I guess that people can just go sell everything that they own so that they can pay the water and sewer at least until they move.

Did the council actually say that?

John R. Stanczak

5/11/2008
Public hearing on water rate increase
To be held Monday before city council meeting
JENNIFER GORDON
staff writer

BICKNELL - City council members here will hold a public hearing at 7 p.m. on Monday in conjunction with the monthly council meeting. The hearing will center around raising water rates, and while most people haven't complained about the proposed increase, two residents are voicing their opposition to the move.

"The city should start off going through the water department to cut down on overhead," said resident John Stanczak. "You do what you can to cut labor and fuel costs, then you look at

State Rep. Kreg Battles, D-Vincennes, attended the city council meeting here Monday night to discuss House Bill 1001 and the impact it will have on the city in the next two years.

Battles said he attended to discuss with council members and citizens the loss of $177,000 in 2009 for the city and the loss of $286,000 in 2010.

"Because of the circuit breakers, the city of Bicknell is looking at a loss of 14 percent of their budget in the first year and an additional 24.8 percent of their budget in 2010," Battles said. "That is nothing compared to the $750,000 loss Vincennes is facing but I wanted to inform them of the numbers so

BICKNELL - Board of works members here tabled several requests that came before them Monday including one from Scepter, Inc., the aluminum and scrap metal recycling plant.

"Brian Griffin, a representative with Scepter, asked the council to continue an agreement they established in 1996 where they can dump some of their water waste from their plant," said Clerk-Treasurer Rita Dupire. "They agreed to pay $2,000 every six months to cover the additional cost of the chemicals used to treat the water, but for the past 12 years they've only ever made one payment of $2,000."

Dupire said the council agreed to table the request until they could meet with United Engineering, the Indianapolis-based engineering company currently working on the construction of the new

BICKNELL - City council members here held a first reading Monday on an ordinance that would raise water rates for residents.

The ordinance indicates an increase from $4.04 to $7 per 1,000 gallons with a cap of $6 for use of over 30,000 gallons. The ordinance also allows for a nearly 50 percent increase in monthly meter fees and a tap charge of $750 for a 3/4 inch or smaller tap. Previously, residents only had to pay $198 for a 3/4 inch or smaller tap.

No one reportedly spoke in opposition of the increase, which came as a surprise to Clerk-Treasurer Rita Dupire.

However, some residents who attended the meeting did suggest adding a clause to the ordinance that would allow for minor percentage increases to the water

Kreg Battles was in attendance at the Monday Bicknell City Council meeting; he is from Vincennes, he's a Democrat and it is said that he seems to be bitter about the bill which is of course a Republican bill pushed through by Governor Mitch Daniels; I hear that he did give a thorough report on it though.
Maybe now the city can have somebody in who voted for the change and see what their report sounds like.

The council meeting was lively last night according to Ron Ackman.

Seems that they (the administration and council) believe that it is likely that tax revenues will be way down for the city of Bicknell and will require lots of belt tightening; it appears that the city fathers are not very happy when it comes to

Bicknell City Attorney, Kerry Currier, is representing Gary Goodwin.

A special judge has been requested. Sherry Gregg has not made a decision if she will accept the case.

TJ Brink (republican party) has asked Gary Goodwin 3 times to resign, but has not received a response.

There will be a city council meeting tomorrow 4/2/08 at 6:00 pm. It is to be held in the Bicknell City Hall upstairs in the council meeting room.

It seems like the notices of these events is getting shorter and shorter. John R. Stanczak