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Mayor in ‘State of the City’ Disclosures!

By JIM BARBIERI
A exceptionally healthy Bluffton with an action-packed 2003 program was how Mayor Ted Ellis described the city status in his early March annual State of the City address, led by major disclosures.
These were headlined by direct word that the state will indeed build the pedestrian footbridge across the Wabash River alongside the west side of the Main Street Bridge as part of the bridge rehabilitation to be bid this year and done for bridge’s 70th anniversary in 2004.
The further top headline was that Bluffton will do a nearly million dollar sewage project to eliminate Combined Sewer Overflows -- vastly less than what most municipalities need to do so -- and that the city has the cash to pay for it without borrowing or bonding.
In fact, as revealed by the mayor, the city has left over money from the 1996-completed $6 million sewage project plus $1.2 million built up in CEDIT funds along with a host of other financial strengths at a time when many governments are facing financial crisis or crippling crunches.
First the new word on that pedestrian bridge.
Revealed by the mayor was that he had been informed by the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) that INDOT has agreed to construct a footbridge across the Wabash River just west of the Crosbie Main Street Bridge.
That footbridge, which will be entirely paid for by the state, will be part of the state project for rehabilitation of the Crosbie Main Street Bridge, on which bidletting is slated for the latter part of this year.
That bidletting will be designated in time to restore the 1934-opened Crosbie Main Street Bridge to its original look on schedule for its 70th anniversary in 2004.
It will be celebrating the outstanding service of that bridge, which is to be getting its first major physical project in its history after carrying in excess of an average 20,000-plus vehicles daily for years.
The state and city consider the pedestrian footbridge as a big safety stride, eliminating the need for those walking across the bridge to be precariously next to waves of moving traffic as in the case with the present bridge wall walk.
Hailing the entire project as “yet another example of cooperation between agencies,’’ Mayor Ellis amplified:
-- The footbridge, in addition to enhancing pedestrian safety, will provide a vital connection between Kehoe Park and the new Wells County Arts, Commerce & Visitors Center, the Bluffton downtown and the Rivergreenway Trail.
That Arts-Commerce-Visitors Center building, a $2 million private donation-funded project through a huge 2002 fund-raising success -- is aimed for completion this year on the south bank of the river across from Kehoe Park, cited the mayor as a previously-announced big news action for 2003 and one which is now into active construction.
The completion next by the state, entirely paid by the state’s Department of Transportation, of the Crosbie Bridge rehabilitation including the new pedestrian footbridge, will mean even more, declared Mayor Ellis.
He said it will “mark a restoration of the ‘bluff’ for which our city is named -- a literal ‘return to our roots’.’’
There was more in new announcements by the mayor on road-street strides.
Included was that “late this year, with an 80 percent grant of federal money, we will bid the rebuilding of East Dustman Road from the city limits to Main Street, including a full sidewalk for non-vehicular traffic.”
That firming of envisioned 2004 completion was a bright message for a road stretch where the city currently is battling potholes added to subpar status for the growing traffic needs.
Mayor Ellis pointed out in the State of the City address that city council already had approved of $200,000 in CEDIT funds “for resurfacing the major transportation corridors in the coming year.”
He added then that “because our asphalt bids are fixed prices, we have locked in those prices in January before the huge spike in the price of crude (oil).
“In view of the fact that these prices may be the lowest we will see for some time, I will ask the council to consider accelerating our paving schedule during this year,’’ the mayor amplified.
The mayor and council have made good on this promise with a $260,000 12-day, nine-mile record street-paving action this spring.
“Because we have the cash, we can afford to take advantage of these potential savings,’’ elaborated Ellis in another mention of the city’s exceptionally strong financial shape -- a centerpoint in his State of the City report.
Further on roads-streets, the mayor observed in the March message that within weeks the state’s INDOT will begin milling and resurfacing State Road 1 beginning at the Wabash River in Bluffton and continuing south to State Road 18.
He pointed out that as a part of this project -- as announced some weeks earlier -- “the state has agreed to a major widening in the Harvest Road/Harrison Street area to improve traffic flow on our south side.” The state programs were carried out in the spring as cited.
But Mayor Ellis also commented last March that paving is “only part of making traffic flow easier. We will be completing two traffic plans this year,’’ he stated.
These he cited as the Ind. 1 Corridor and the Bluffton Downtown Traffic Plan.
On the first, the mayor said that “a corridor plan, funded with 80 percent federal highway money, will give us some standards for planning and zoning along State Highway 1 from our (Bluffton) south side northward through Ossian.”
Explaining, the mayor said:
“We simply must begin thinking beyond the next development plan or the road will be littered with a multitude of curb cuts and exits which will create impossible traffic snarls and until the entire road between Bluffton and Ossian resembles the ‘mayonnaise mile’ between the bridge and Dustman Road.’’
On the second big plan for 2003, Ellis said “the heart of the city, which also needs care, is our downtown. The second traffic plan will be a study done this fall of traffic patterns downtown as recommended by our national consulting firm, Hyett-Palma.”
On the big sewage project needs and action disclosure, Mayor Ellis said:
“Because of our financial strength, we can invest in our future at a time when costs are favorable.”
He noted than that “while our wastewater (sewage) plant operates at less than half its rated capacity, there are times each year when because of heavy precipitation, the plant is overwhelmed.
“At these times, the overage, heavily diluted with rain water, is deposited straight to the river. These are called Combined Sewer Overflows or CSOs,’’ Ellis explained.
He elaborated that “while permitted by environmental authorities, this practice is rigidly monitored and under increasing scrutiny by federal and state agencies.”
The mayor reported that over 100 communities in Indiana from Indianapolis on down and including communities in this area, “are struggling to find solutions to these problems.”
The mayor then declared that Bluffton will meet the situation this year on its own action and funding -- not wait for any direct environmental blow that could hamstring private or public progress here.
“Before the end of the year we will present a plan to the state of indiana for Bluffton to virtually eliminate these CSOs,’’ disclosed Mayor Ellis.
“This project will carry nearly a million-dollar cost; however, it can be paid by leftover funds from the 1996 wastewater treatment plant expansion and existing reserves,’’ affirmed the mayor.
“While other communities are out of money, contractors will be hungry, and there will be no better time to let bids for this project,’’ added Ellis.
The amount is surprisingly low since Decatur is funding need for a project of over $5 million while Ossian spent more than $2 million and Markle is expecting to spend $1.5 million. Amounts for Fort Wayne and Indianapolis go far through the roof. Bluffton’s cost is believed so much lower because of the doubling of the Bluffton Sewage Plant completed in 1996 and a program for many years of separating combined sewers.
Regarding the new plans, Mayor Ellis noted:
“This is not a flashy project; however, it is one that not only is the right thing to do environmentally, but also it will relieve us of substantial monitoring and reporting requirements that take hundred of manhours each year.”
The city already has moved forward on this program, advancing it for state clearances.
Two other big stride aims for 2003 as brought out by the mayor in his March message were in respect to safety and to the city’s downtown.
“We must invest in our safety,’’ he declared.
Noted by Mayor Ellis was that Bluffton already has received a $90,000 grant for the purchase of on-board computers for the city’s police vehicles.
“Such computers will allow officers to spend more time on the streets protecting our citizens. They will also give the officers in the field access t0o more and better information,’’ he pointed out.
However, the mayor also observed that the implications of implementing such technologically goes beyond the city’s boundaries.
Ellis told of going to Washington for a meeting of the National League of Cities and being among the early ones to get a tour of the new Homeland Defense Department.
He cited also another new word in the security technology field -- “interoperability.”
Ellis pointed out that while communications needs between units keep increasing, ‘here in our area, our emergency service providers are hampered by differing levels of communications technology.”
He predicted that “to make these levels converge into one seamless communications system will take our best efforts, but it will also take a lot of money.”
On the downtown, before launching into the plans and disclosures on the Arts-Commerce-Visitors Center building, the Main Street Bridge and pedestrian bridge and links to the central city, Mayor Ellis alluded to that downtown traffic plan to be unfolded this coming fall by the Hyett-Palma consultants.
“Many of their (Hyett-Palma) recommendations (as presented last June) are already in the planning stage to the point where we expect that 85 percent of those recommendations will be implemented by the end of this year,’’ declared the mayor.
These plans, he said, included:
-- Decorative lighting.
-- Increased activities downtown.
-- Cleaning up the downtown -- reducing the number of dumpsters (currently 22) in the six-block area and making it totally unacceptable to stack trash or other debris on city streets and alleyways.
The mayor said that in implementing these plans, the citizenry must look at the downtown as “the heart of our city.”
He amplified that “a healthy downtown is absolutely essential to our health as a community. While downtown is no longer the center of retailing, it is, however, the center of commerce,” Mayor Ellis affirmed.
“We cannot recreate the downtown of the 1950s, but the downtown can be a center of activity,’’ stated the mayor, who then launched into the disclosures about the pedestrian footbridge and its linking of the downtown and new Arts-Commerce-Visitors Center with the Rivergreenway Trail extensions and more.
More on the State of the City is on page 8b (the next page) in this edition.