The Pulaski County Council has given its permission to pay the final bills from the courthouse elevator replacement, more than a year after the work was completed. The county council voted five-to-one last week to finalize a series of additional appropriations. That included almost $57,000 for the elevator work.
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The Pulaski County Commissioners will once again consider repealing the county’s campaign sign regulations when they meet this morning. The commissioners and the advisory plan commission have been discussing removing the “special signs” portion of the county’s Unified Development Ordinance since April, since election board members felt there were already enough rules at the state and federal level.
The Pulaski County Courthouse elevator should finally be ready for use tomorrow. “The state inspector will be here on Thursday, inspect the elevator,” Maintenance Director Jeff Johnston told the county council and commissioners Monday. “The elevator will be operational Thursday afternoon, I’m hoping.”
A shortfall in the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Department’s overtime budget has the sheriff asking to move some money around. Sheriff Jeff Richwine told the county commissioners last week that he plans to transfer a total of $17,600 into his overtime budget. “Some of this is due to people not getting moved in the matrix in time, so we have to go back and do back pay, so that’s some of it,” he explained. “Some of it’s overtime.” Richwine said that money will come out of the Dispatch Salary, Equipment Repair, and Part-Time Cooks line items.
The Pulaski County Commissioners will meet tonight in the County Highway Garage. They had planned to move back to the courthouse, but an unexpected delay in the elevator project has led to a change in location.
The Pulaski County Commissioners won’t be moving back to the courthouse Monday, after all. Monday’s meeting will once again be held at the County Highway Garage, according to Auditor Laura Wheeler.
Pulaski County officials are hopeful that the courthouse’s new elevator will be ready in time for Monday’s county commissioners meeting, in spite of a last-minute hiccup. Maintenance Director Jeff Johnston says a fire alarm issue means the elevator probably won’t be in service by tomorrow, as previously announced. But the contractor says it should still be ready for Monday, according to Johnston. He adds that crews are working diligently to get it done.
The Pulaski County Courthouse elevator will be ready for use by the end of the month. “The construction will be absolutely complete by the 15th and then two weeks for the inspection,” Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston told the county commissioners Monday. That means that starting in November, the county council and commissioners meetings will be back in the courthouse.
The replacement of the Pulaski County Courthouse elevator is on track to be complete by its October construction deadline. The problem is that the original legal agreement called for it to be installed by the end of September. The project is part of a larger effort to make the courthouse compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit over a lack of accessibility.
Work continues on the Pulaski County Courthouse’s new elevator. “The car and the cylinders and all that’s now on-site,” Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston told the county commissioners Monday. “They delivered that at the end of last week. They’ll begin installing that this week.”
The replacement of the Pulaski County Courthouse elevator is on track to be complete by its October deadline. Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston told the county commissioners Monday the work had been running far ahead of schedule but then hit a couple snags. “We had to cut part of the brick away from one of the columns, and we had to wait for the structural engineer to get with us to tell us exactly how that had to be done,” Johnston explained. Continue reading
A potential ban on wind turbines will be considered by the Pulaski County Commissioners tonight. The county’s advisory plan commission recently recommended banning wind energy convergence systems, over concerns about the safety and welfare of the community, flicker issues, and local fire departments’ ability to provide fire protection to the structures.
The Pulaski County Council is working to make sure the maintenance department has enough money to pay its part-time employees through the end of the year. Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston reminded council members Monday that they’d cut money for part-time pay when they put together this year’s budget. “You guys, at that time, told me to come back halfway through the year and request enough to cover the rest of the year,” he explained. “It’s for $30,016 for Part-Time Help.”
The Pulaski County Courthouse’s new elevator may be done ahead of schedule. That’s what Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston told the county council Monday. “If you guys remember, it had a deadline of October, to be complete by the beginning of October,” he explained, “but we’re looking at the middle/end of August to the beginning of September, and we’ll be done. So really good progress there.” Johnston said all the block has been delivered to start building the new shaft.
The Pulaski County Commissioners have approved a budget transfer to try to keep the courthouse elevator replacement project on track. They agreed Monday to use nearly $28,000 out of their budget to cover a construction bill, until the county council can finalize an additional appropriation.
The Pulaski County Courthouse elevator replacement project could be in jeopardy because the county council failed to make funding arrangements ahead of time. That was the fear that Maintenance Supervisor Jeff Johnston shared during Monday’s council meeting.
The invoices received for the engineering work for the upcoming Starke County Courthouse elevator project will be going to K-IRPC representative Shawn Cain for review. Commissioner Kathy Norem stated last week that the invoices are going to her as K-IRPC is the overseeing agency over the $500,000 grant the county received for the project. Cain will review the bills from DLZ to make sure they are acceptable according to the grant standards. Those invoices will return to the commissioners for payment. The county paid 10 percent as a match and the engineering costs will be paid for out of that match money.
A set of written guidelines on Pulaski County’s pay structure are expected to be approved during tonight’s county council meeting. An 11-page draft document was presented to council members last month, and department heads were given a chance to offer input. The guidelines are designed to clarify a number of issues, including the pay rate for part-time employees and the process of amending the pay structure going forward.
