Archive - News Article
February 21st, 2011
COLUMBIA CITY — With the arrival of warmer weather, work has accelerated on a pair of lift stations in Columbia City which are replacing structures more than a half-century old.
“These old lift stations were installed in 1959,” said Mike Cook, Superintendent of Columbia City’s Water Pollution Control Facility.
According to Cook, the old lift stations were located more than 30 feet underground, but new technology will enable the new structures to be barely 11 feet under the surface.
COLUMBIA CITY — The narrow corridor of Columbia City’s CC Deli was standing room only Saturday morning as anxious teachers and educators inundated local state lawmakers with hard questions about the direction education funding is heading in Indianapolis.
“It hurts my heart when our governor says we’re in it for the money,” said an impassioned Cheryl Stalter, Northern Heights kindergarten teacher.
“I know that God gave me the talent to teach and I want you guys to know that we do it because we love these children or we wouldn’t walk into that school every day.”
February 18th
COLUMBIA CITY — The Whitley County Consolidated School Corporation’s Board of School Trustees is inching closer to making tough decisions in order to tighten its belt.
At its regular meeting Feb. 7, Superintendent Dr. Patricia O’Connor supplied the board with a large number of potential “budget-saving” measures in order to combat a steady decline in the school system’s general fund.
“We’re just trying to keep as many programs as we can and live within our means,” O’Connor said Thursday.
COLUMBIA CITY — The Whitley County Commissioners heard earlier this month that deciding to put the health of county jail inmates in the hands of an outside company instead of providing inmate health care in-house has been money well spent.
County Attorney Dan Sigler and Sheriff Mark Hodges gave a report to the three-man board Feb. 7 about the current health plan for prisoners of the county jail.
According to Whitley County Auditor Jennifer McGuire, the county hired healthcare firm Health Professionals LTD of Greenwood Village, Colo. in 2009.
COLUMBIA CITY — Voters in Columbia City will choose between three mayoral candidates in the Republican primary this May.
Banker and current city council member Don Sexton, police officer and restaurant owner Gary Parrett and Ryan Daniel, who previously worked as the Northeast Community Liaison for the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA), are all seeking the Republican nomination from voters this spring.
COLUMBIA CITY — While the sale is still not final, preliminary plans are under way for use of the Lehmberg Building in Columbia City by Passages, Inc.
The non-profit was named as buyer of the former hospital property at last week’s meeting of the Whitley County Board of Commissioners.
Attorney Peter Mallers of Beers, Mallers, Backs and Salin of Fort Wayne appeared before the three-man board Feb. 7 and announced that the building, located at 333 North Oak Street and owned by Whitley Memorial Hospital, Inc., will be sold to Passages, Inc.
CHURUBUSCO — A two-car collision in Whitley County Thursday afternoon claimed the life of a Mississippi woman and critically injured a Churubusco woman, according to police.
The crash occurred just before 5 p.m. on U.S. 33 west of Churubusco near County Road 700 North, police said.
According to the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, a vehicle driven by Ryan Harter, 33, of Fort Wayne, crossed the center stripe and struck a Jeep driven by Teresa Trainer, 49, of Waterford, Miss.
Trainer was pronounced dead at the scene.
February 17th
COLUMBIA CITY — The Whitley County Plan Commission looked at three proposals Wednesday night of companies willing to draft the county’s ordinance for wind energy.
LCL Planning, Inc., RWR Armstrong & Associates, Inc. and Ground Rules, Inc. each submitted proposals and quotes for the task of drafting a wind energy ordinance for the county.
With three members absent (George Schrumpf, Dave Schilling and John Johnson), the commission voted 6-0 to give Ground Rules, Inc. the nod.
COLUMBIA CITY — Whitley County’s first comprehensive plan in more than 20 years is one step closer to reality.
A short-handed Whitley County Plan Commission voted unanimously Wednesday night to allow the plan’s authors to create a fourth version of the document and present it to the panel in next month’s meeting for possible adoption.
“We’ll prepare Draft D as quickly as possible,” said Brad Johnson of Ground Rules, Inc., the consulting firm that has created and revised the document over the past several months.
COLUMBIA CITY — A Fort Wayne man escaped serious injury Wednesday when he was side-swiped by a semi tractor-trailer on U.S. 30 west of Columbia City.
According to the Whitley County Sheriff’s Department, Donald Gotsch, 55, of Fort Wayne, was traveling east on U.S. 30 near County Road 300 East when a semi tractor-trailer driven by Jason Roberts, 37, of Marble Hill, Mo. changed lanes and shoved Gotsch’s vehicle into the guardrail.
