Town Meeting May 16th 2019

The Town Meeting was preceded by a Public Hearing concerning the OCRA grant the Town is attempting to get to help conduct major water infrastructure repairs and improvements.

This is the second go around for the Town of Lapel with this type of grant and the Town failed to secure the grant last time around simply because the money was already used up on other projects that scored higher than the Town of Lapel under the OCRA grants scoring system.

The Town of Lapel will be using $160,000 of local funds ($54,000 from Water Operating Fund, $53,000 from Water Improvement Fund and $53,000 from Water Improvement Savings Fund).

If successful, the Town will receive hundreds of thousands of dollars from the OCRA grant to help in the following projects:

• Rehabilitation of Storage Tank, clean and remove any rust, spot weld holes.
• Rehabilitation of Ford St Well with some structural repairs to building.
• Replace asbestos/cement mains.

This is a competitive grant so the Town of Lapel will be competing with other towns and cities across the state who may or may not score higher on the OCRA scoring system and as such there is no guarantee the town will secure this grant the second time around.

Final submission for the grant is June 28th.

If anyone wishes to make a comment about the quality of the Town water and the brown water issues please email info@lapelindiana.org with your name, address and comments on the water together with any pictures you may have concerning your comments.

Public comments will help improve the score.

Members present for the Town Meeting:

• Deb Wainscott (President)
• Toby Pearson (Vice President)
• Tom Marvel
• Lindsay Washmuth

The Town Council approved resolution #6-2019 "Resolution Authorizing Application Submission and Local Match Commitment" relating to the OCRA grant.

Employee Handbook

The Town Council reviewed and briefly discussed the new Employee Handbook and Town Employee Policies.

The Council voted to approve the new sexual harassment policy in the handbook and will review the handbook and vote on approving it at the next meeting.

Storm Water Repair Ford St

The Town Council and Aaron Crow (RQAW) discussed quotes and details concerning repairing a storm water drain and line replacement on Ford St.

Two quotes were received to conduct work, but a vote was tabled until RQAW can do further investigation.

The Council also asked RQAW to look into drains at 11th and Main that are no longer working correctly.

Sidewalk Replacement

The Town was asked to replace a section of sidewalk damaged during water line replacement at the Corner of 7th and John St.

Tom Marvel made the motion to fix the section damaged by the Town and at the same time make the corner of 7th and John St ADA compliant.

The Town Council approved the motion.

Work Order / Maintenance Tracking System

The Town Council was presented with a proposal to develop a system to digitally generate work orders and keep track of work conducted in Town and maintenance on equipment by Regal Computer Services.

The Town Council approved the $4,500 proposal.

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