Swiss Days opens with tribute to Taylor

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

A hush of respect and grief fell over the large crowd attending Swiss Days opening exercises on Thursday evening when Berne Chamber of Commerce director Sheree Barkley directed those present to a time of silent reverence on behalf of Nick Taylor, son of Tim and Stephania Taylor, who lost his life in the line of fire in Afghanistan on July 16. The playing of "Taps" followed the time of silence.

The National Anthem was sung by JD Tarr and Samantha Holley; those attending also stood with respect for the playing of the Swiss National Anthem.

"Welcome to Swiss Days 2012," said Barkley in greeting those present. "There was such an amount of work that came together for this moment; there are wonderful things planned for you."

Andrews council retains insurer at special meeting on Friday, July 20

Huntington County Tab:

During a special meeting of the Andrews Town Council on Friday, July 20, council members voted on bids for the town's liability insurance.

President John Harshbarger made a motion to accept the bid from Mettler Insurance Agency, the company that has provided the town with liability insurance coverage for the past 55 years.

Councilman Ray Tackett seconded the motion, and Harshbarger and Tackett voted in favor of accepting the bid. Vice President Mike Rohler voted against accepting the bid from Mettler.

Hospital color of month stays the same: black

Decatur Daily Democrat:

When a business has total operating revenue of $20,409,965 for the first six months of the year, a figure of $18,127 seems like small potatoes.

But, for Adams Memorial Hospital, that small number was how much the facility was in the black for the month of June — and for the year the hospital has taken in $147,235 more than what has been spent for expenses.

Chief Financial Officer Dane Wheeler noted, "It wasn't a lot, but we were in the black. I'll take that any day as opposed to being in the red."

City dispatch station closing soon

Decatur Daily Democrat:

On Wednesday, August 1, at approximately 9 a.m., the Decatur Police Department will no longer dispatch calls for service from the police station at 521 N. Third Street, according to an announcement by Chief Ken Ketzler.

All calls to the department's telephone number, 724-3123, will be answered by an electronic operator, and the caller will be asked to hang up and call 911 if it is an emergency or to call 724-5345 for all other calls. The 724-5345 number is the Adams County Sheriff.s Department number, and is answered by the Central Dispatch Center in the basement of the jail.

All dispatches will then come from the Central Dispatch Center.

Taylor to arrive back in Berne Sunday afternoon

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

The remains of Spc. Nick Taylor will arrive home in Berne on Sunday afternoon at an estimated time between 3 p.m. and 3:15 p.m. Funeral director John Kirchhofer announced on Tuesday that the body of Taylor will arrive in Fort Wayne earlier on Sunday afternoon for a private family meeting.

Taylor will then be transported from Fort Wayne to Berne, with estimated arrival time around 3 p.m. The young soldier will arrive on U.S. 27 North, turn left on Main Street to Columbia Street to the Yager-Kirchhofer Funeral Home. Kirchhofer emphasized that the public is invited to welcome the family to Berne.

Visitation for Taylor will be held at South Adams High School gym on July 30 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Funeral services will then be held at the school at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.

Emotional meeting-Berne council tearfully remembers Nick Taylor

Decatur Daily Democrat:

A somber mood was prevalent in Berne City Council chambers on Monday evening as city officials paused to tearfully remember one of their own.

After spending the first hour of Monday's meeting attending to routine city business, council members concluded their evening with an emotional tribute to Nick Taylor, who was killed a week earlier while serving his country in Afghanistan.

Council President Gregg Sprunger choked back tears as he read a special resolution prepared by city leaders in honor of Taylor. Everyone in the room stood with heads bowed as the resolution was read, and heavy hearts and immense grief were clearly evident.

City officials encourage water conservation

Huntington County Tab:

City officials say that while there's currently no shortage of water in Huntington, residents are encouraged not to waste the liquid resource.

"At this time the city's water supply is not at risk," Huntington Water Superintendent Randy Jones said in a news release issued Monday, July 9. "However, in being good stewards of a precious natural resource, we ask that citizens use their best discretion on the use of water,"

The Indiana Department of Natural Resources has asked 32 Indiana counties - those that have capacity to withdraw 100,000 gallons or more per day - to implement voluntary water conservation measures.

SA school board denies facility request from The Bridge

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

With more than 40 people from The Bridge Community Church in attendance for the work session and the regular session, much of Tuesday evening’s South Adams school board meeting and a one hour work session prior to the regular session were taken up with discussion on Policy 7510 – Use of School Facility. Changes and updates by the board to Policy 7510 were brought to the table when a request was made by Mo Hodge on May 8 to use the facility as an extension church of The Bridge Community Church in Decatur. They requested the use of the auditorium and six classrooms every Sunday for an unspecified amount of time.

The request has been tabled since then as the board has held two work sessions and discussed the request during the regular board meetings to decide what is best for the school and the taxpayers and to discuss what changes they felt needed to be made to the current policy. Several areas of concern were brought up by various board members, including rental fees, student privacy, facility wear and tear, use of the facility by non-education related organizations, and a request for the use of the facility with no specified amount of time attached.

Truck downs lines, knocks out power and causes fire

Decatur Daily Democrat:

Inconvenience quickly turned to chaos as downed power lines caused widespread outages and sparked a fire in the Custom Car Care storage building on Thursday.

At approximately 9:30 a.m. a semitrailer driven by Edgar Butler of East Point, Michigan, attempted to drive between two I&M poles on the west side of the Pizza Hut parking lot.

Butler told investigators he was looking for Walmart. Having been told the store was behind Pizza Hut, its former location, Butler turned into the Pizza Hut parking lot after missing the entrance to Rural King.

Warren Town Council discusses downtown property

Huntington County Tab:

It was business as usual when the Warren Town Council met for its monthly meeting on Monday, July 9.

The council discussed the state of the abandoned property at 124 N. Wayne St., which was severely damaged when a support beam collapsed, which allowed the second floor of the downtown building to collapse.

While the town had started the legal process to acquire the abandoned building through the Huntington County Commissioners several months ago, ownership has not yet been transferred. As the building shares common walls with two other businesses, the exact state of the interior, and of those walls, needs to be established, but no access is available through the front of the building.

Sewer board to talk rates with Decatur

Decatur Daily Democrat:

The Adams County Regional Sewer District board of directors on Tuesday appointed a subcommittee charged with the task of negotiating with the city of Decatur the rates that will be charged to county residents whose sewage ultimately will be sent to Decatur for treatment.

The fledgling regional sewer board is attempting to get up and running following its receipt of a $2 million rural development grant earmarked to construct sewer lines to serve the unincorporated areas of Monmouth, Bobo, Pleasant Mills and Arcadia Village. The new sewer district would serve some 233 residences.

The board on Tuesday heard from John Skomp of Crowe Horwath LLP, an Indianapolis firm hired to serve as rate consultants for the city of Decatur.

Berne man attacked by wolf

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

A wolf attacked Grant Moser, a business teacher at South Adams High School, on Thursday while he was cleaning up storm damage in his yard. The wolf, Moser said, belonged to a neighbor and had sprung loose from the confinement two properties away.

"Our neighbor two houses over has a wolf and husky," said Moser. "He keeps them tied up. The husky has gotten away two or three times. One time the wolf came over and we went inside and watched it.

"I was out picking up sticks from the storm and I saw the wolf come jogging over with its chain," continued Moser. "I told my wife to go inside. I reached down to pick up a stick and the wolf grabbed my arm. It started jumping at my face. I hit it to protect myself and it grabbed at my leg."

Back to normal...except for rain

Decatur Daily Democrat:

Back to normal ... or at least close to it.

Everyone's power is restored and after nearly two weeks of extremely hot weather, Decatur-area residents are going to be seeing near-normal temperatures this week, the National Weather Service said this morning.

Now, if we could just get some more rain!

Forecasters said the Decatur area can expect a high temperature near 88 today, 85 on Tuesday and 87 on Wednesday. The trend shifts back upward a bit on Thursday and Friday with highs expected to be around 87 or 88 degrees.

Geneva employees to receive raises in 2013

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

The Geneva Town Council began with clerk treasurer Bill Warren commending the area law enforcement for the quick response to Friday afternoon’s storms and thanking the citizens for the quick clean up following the storm. During the monthly fire report, deputy fire chief Art Booth also commented on conditions during the storm.

“Friday night was chaos. But we did what we needed to do. We can thank God Almighty there were no fatalities,” said Booth.

The council approved several new ordinances during Tuesday evening’s meeting. Following the example of Berne and Decatur, they approved the first reading of Ordinance 2012-7 Salary Utilities and Ordinance 2012-8 Salary General which will give full time employees a one percent plus $400 raise in 2013 and will give part-time employees and council members a two percent raise.

Relief by Sunday?

Decatur Daily Democrat:

Weather experts are saying Decatur-area residents could be getting some relief from the oppressive heat by Sunday — if highs in the upper 80s are relief. The way it's been going of late, that could be a dip of 10 to 15 degrees!

The temperature topped out at 99 degrees at the city weather station on Thursday, the ninth consecutive day when the high hit 89 or more. And the National Weather Service is saying highs could be in the triple digits today and Saturday.

At least Decatur got some slight relief from the drought conditions. The edge of a storm dropped .27 on the city in early evening. That only wetted things down for a short time, but this summer, that's better than the norm.

Fireworks ban here bolstered by council

Decatur Daily Democrat:

Although fireworks were banned in Decatur by city officials over a week ago, there has been some question whether the city had the authority to do so. It now appears that most doubt is gone following the passage of an emergency proclamation at Tuesday night's city council meeting.

Probably two-thirds of Indiana counties have instituted burn bans during this summer of drought, and many communities have banned the use of fireworks.

State law allows the use of fireworks on private property from June 29 to July 9, even in areas under open burning bans.

Some legal experts think the only way to legally ban the use of fireworks is under an emergency order.

City workers to get 2% pay hike

Decatur Daily Democrat:

Full-time City of Decatur workers will be getting a two percent pay boost next year, marking the second year in a row they've received an increase after going the two previous years without.

Mayor John Schultz recommended the two percent hike at Tuesday night's city council meeting and council readily agreed.

Severe storm leaves area strewn with trees, without power

Berne Tri-Weekly News:

There were a lot of cheers and sighs of relief around 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon when power, which had been off for over 24 hours, returned to the city of Berne.

The outage had been a result of a massive severe thunderstorm packing winds estimated between 65 and 80 miles an hour that passed through the area around 3 p.m. Although dropping some much-needed rain, it also brought a trail of downed trees, power lines and some structural damage through portions of the area.

In addition, many portions of the county were without power for at least 24 hours and longer in some areas.

Special preparations for fireworks

Decatur Daily Democrat:

With special precautions in place, Decatur's Fourth of July fireworks event — the 20th annual — got a green light this week from Mayor John Schultz.

"Right now, we working with Tim Bombka (of TND Fireworks of Decatur) to get ready," Fire Chief Les Marckel said Monday. "We'll probably wet the area down a couple of time on Tuesday, then again in late afternoon on Wednesday. We didn't much rain (over the weekend), but the area has greened up a little. What worries me is that with the storm, the mulch pile and brush out there has gotten bigger."