town news 12/16

Hello all.
Merry Christmas.
At the recent town council meeting (12/15/09) during councilor comments I addressed a couple of issues.
The first being the Washington street project. I travel the section in Cumberland twice daily and have seen little if any work being done between the bridge and meijer but the barrels remain. I expressed my displeasure for the slow work at past meetings and reiterated that as well. I also pointed out my concern for what the barrels will do once the snow flies and plowing becomes needed. The safety of the residents and visitors, I feel, would be in jeopardy with these remaining over the winter months and asked that the town "require" them to be removed post haste. I was then informed by the town manager that in meeting call he had that very day, INDOT said they would be removed and the lanes marked by the end of this week (12/18). That will mean the road will be open, with the exception of the bridge, until spring. There may be a day here or there that utility crews will be working to move lines.
The next issue I talked about is the continuing sanitary sewer billing of the 4 unit minimum regardless of how much water we use. I have learned that the sanitary sewer board has tabled the issue until they can form a committee and get a consultant to review the issue and its effects on the sewer budget. I really expressed my displeasure at this. 1. there are already to many layers of government for a town this size. 2. the sewer board should BE the committee and should not need to pass the issue on. 3. a consultant will cost the tax payers money when the board should be able to figure out the cost difference themselves. 4. I then gave a very easy to understand math lesson on what the difference would make. (ex: we charge 4.25 per unit ((100 cu/ft)) and a minumum of 4 units regardless of usage. So each month residents are charge $17.00 even when they are in florida. If we had 100 homes using no water for 1 month that is $1700.00. If they are gone for 6 months a year that is $10,200 in lost revenue. I then stated that the sanitary sewer utility annual budget is 3.2million, that is 3/100 of a percent of the budget and I doubted that anyone can prove that the utility is at risk of financial failure from loosing 3/100 of a percent of its budget. It took me about 2 minutes to show what a consultant will charge the town thousands for. Councilor Engerer replied by saying that if they stay hooked up to our sewer system we should charge them weather they have water flowing out or not.
I can not stand the idea of charging for something someone is not using. That also is the reason why I pushed so hard for us to get some stimulus money since cumberland will be asked to pay back our share, we might as well get to spend our share here.
We also passed a few ordinances dealing with panhandlers near roads and convicted criminals in town parks. These are both similar to ones passed by Indianapolis and other towns in the state. They have been upheld by the state courts and found to be acceptable. We also approved money for the purchase of a video recording system for police reports, interviews and depositions that can be sent down town for transcribing into courts rather that having to pay officers extra time to manually deliver them.
Also check out the new town website. It is at the same address as before. http://www.town.cumberland.in.us/
Have a safe and happy Christmas and New Year
Joe Siefker

H1N1

The federal government said "trust us, the vaccine is perfectly safe. everyone should get it." although our president elected NOT to have his children get it. Now what is the latest news. 800000 doses are being recalled because they were found to not be concentrated enough to be effective. Trust us! Pat no attention to the man behind the curtain!
This current federal government is going to be the bigges big brother the world had ever seen and we are all going to regret it.