North Judson Officials Informed of Advantages of Starting Community Crossings Designs Now

Posted on August 26, 2019
Author Jacque Ryan, WKVI

The North Judson Town Council recently signed off on beginning the design phase for the next round of INDOT’s Community Crossings Grant.

The Town applied for a total of $130,000 in the next round for paving projects on George, Liberty, Hubeny and Garden Streets.

When members met last Monday, Flies and Vandenbrink Senior Project Manager Mitch Hansel explained that the award announcement will be made in late September or early October. He had a suggestion for officials to consider in the meantime.

Hansel told members, “What I would recommend the Town to do is maybe start the design of that so that you can have those plans ready when the money comes in.”

He continued, “The contractors have been getting full fairly early now with these grants from INDOT so what we can do is get first in line, get the best prices and get the most bang for our buck.”

Town Superintendent Joe Leszek added that having the design phase complete ahead of time would likely allow them to get started on the construction portion earlier in 2020 rather than having to wait until the fall. Hansel presented the council members with a contract and described what F&V would be able to do.

He explained, “This is a contract for $4,850 and this is to put the plans together, put the specifications together, meet all of INDOT’s requirements, to get it bid it out and then to help Joe [Leszek] with all of the bureaucratic paperwork that will be thrown his way.”

Members provided no opposition to entering into a contract with Fleis and Vandenbrink for their services on the design phase of the proposed Community Crossings projects.

A map with those projects can be found below:

North Judson Looking to Resurface Four Roads with Community Crossings Funds

Posted on July 22, 2019
Author Michael Gallenberger, WKVI

The Town of North Judson is hoping to resurface four roads, with the next round of Community Crossings funding. That preliminary list includes George Street from Vine to State Road 10, Garden Street from State Road 39 to Luken, Liberty Street, and Hubeny Street, according to Clerk-Treasurer Andrew Rowe.

“This year, Fleis & VandenBrink did what’s called a PASER rating, so they go through and they study the roads and they give it a grade,” Rowe explains, “and these four were identified as four of the worst roads in need of resurfacing in town.” Rowe says that while that’s fewer roads than last year’s application, the actual amount of pavement will end up being about the same.

He adds that the town is planning for an estimated $135,000 worth of paving projects. If the grant is approved, the town’s 25-percent share of the cost would be just under $34,000, which would come out of the Motor Vehicle Highway and Local Roads and Streets funds.

Last week, the town council approved a pair of documents related to the Community Crossings application. In addition to the funding commitment letter, Rowe says council members also signed off on Title VI assurances. “As a condition of receiving federal financial assistance, from the DOT and the Federal Highway, we assure them, basically, that we comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act,” he explains. “We have those policies in place already, but to formulate, in a sense, that it’s official, on our books and that it’s passed by the council, to maintain compliance with all regulations, nondiscrimination, solicitations and contracts, procurements, materials. It covers all that kind of stuff.”

Similarly, the town also has to have an ADA transition plan, but Rowe says it already has one on file.

Starke County Highway Superintendent Submits Community Crossings Application

Posted on October 5, 2018
Author Anita Goodan, WKVI

Starke County Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler told the commissioners this week that he submitted four projects for consideration for the fall Community Crossings grant round.

Ritzler submitted two bridge projects for reimbursement. They include Bridge No. 154 on 100 E. north of 400 N. and Bridge No. 36 over the Eagle Creek on 25 N. west of 600 E.

“This is the last time you can do bridge projects you’ve already done [for reimbursement],” said Ritzler. “We want to do that because when we get that money we can use it for any other project we want. That really helped us during the flooding this year because we didn’t have to borrow any money or anything. We had that money we could use for that.”

Two other road projects are included in the application.

“There’s an intersection improvement project on County Road 210 and 200 S. There’s a lot of accidents there. There’s a bid sight distance problem. A lot of trucks use that there. We don’t want them to do that. We want them to use State Road 10. By making that a t-intersection, they’re not going to want to make that turn. People can see there. It’s going to slow down everybody and make it safer for pedestrians, bike traffic and golf cart traffic around the lake. We picked 25 N. There’s high traffic on there and a fair amount of accidents on that road. It is a major connector from the eastern part of the county to Knox.”

The total cost of the project is $987,786.55. If awarded, the county would pay 25 percent of that cost.

NJ Town Superintendent Discusses Funding for Paving and Sidewalk Upgrades

Posted on March 12, 2018
Author Jacque Ryan, WKVI

North Judson Town Superintendent Marshall Horstmann told council members that the town was recently awarded $158,160 in Federal Highway Administration funds for phase three of their ADA compliance project.

At their meeting last Monday, he mentioned since planning and engineering costs haven’t been factored in yet, that won’t even be the complete amount awarded. He also told members that with all three phases of the ADA compliance projects, the town has been awarded a total of $406,360 so far.

Though phase three won’t be tackled until 2022, Horstmann has been diligent in providing the plans to council members for their review and submitting them to the necessary state organizations in a timely manner.

Horstmann added that due to Community Crossings Grant funding they have an additional $125,094.75 for paving.

He said if you combine the Community Crossings Grant funds with the money they’ve been awarded through the ADA compliance projects, the town has a total of $531,454.75 to spend for paving and sidewalk upgrades. Horstmann said while that may not seem like much to some communities, it really it will do a lot of good in North Judson.

Potential Funding Available for Repairing Flood Damaged Roads in Starke County

Posted on February 28, 2018
Author Jacque Ryan, WKVI

Several roads around Starke County have spent many days underwater due to the recent floods. This extended exposure to saturation will most likely result in many sections of roadway needing previously unplanned repairs.

On Sunday, Starke County Highway Superintendent Rik Ritzler took county and state officials on a tour of the area to highlight some of the spots that were hit the hardest by flood waters.

He explained that once the waters recede enough, crews will be conducting thorough assessments around the county to see where work will need to be done.

“When this goes down, we have to reassess the roads, do our PASER ratings on the roads, check the bridges again so we’ll be busy doing that and we’re probably going to have to readjust our asset management plan a little bit.”

Ritzler said that after they are done assessing they will move onto repairs. He said fortunately, there is money available to the Highway Department to help with these flood-response efforts.

“We were lucky, the Community Crossings Grant money we got this last year are bridges that we have already done, we can kind of use it for anything we want really,” Rizler explained, “it will be very helpful to us. We paid for those bridges ahead of time and got reimbursed for it and now we kind of just have that money that we might need to use for something here.”

Starke County Highway Department crews have been out already and will continue to assess road conditions over the next few weeks. If you come across any major problems with County roadways or bridges, notify the Highway Department at 574-772-3011.