Chesterton Street
Commissioner John Schnadenberg has reason to hope most fervently that Old
Man Winter (2019-20) is kind.
Turns out, the
price of road salt has spiked by $12.90 per ton this year and since 2018 has
gone through the roof: up $21.54 per ton.
Brass tacks: if the
Street Department purchases its full ration of road salt this winter--1,500
tons--it will cost the town an additional $19,000.
“There’s not much
we can do about it,” Schnadenberg said.
Paving
In other business,
Schnadenberg announced that the Street Department is in the home stretch of
this season’s paving projects. Most notably, West Indiana Ave. between South
Calumet Road and South Fifth Street has been milled, re-paved, and striped
for angled parking in the 100 and the 300 blocks.
And, as a
photograph he shot Monday afternoon attests, the new angled parking spaces
aren’t just being used during the European Market on Saturdays. “They’re
being utilized every day,” Schnadenberg said.”
“I think it’s
phenomenal,” observed Member Emerson DeLaney, R-5th. “It’s better than it
was planned out. It’s beautiful.”
Upcoming paving
projects, the last of the season, scheduled to begin late in September:
--Sidewalk Road
(1050N) from Dickinson Road to 200E.
--200E south to
Harrington Ave.
--Coffee Creek
Drive and Mississinewa Road in the Morningside subdivision.
Schnadenberg also
said that the Street Department will do some patching on the south side of
East Oakhill Road, “just to hold it together over the winter,” and then next
year work toward a joint re-pave of East Oakhill Road with the Town of
Porter and the Porter County Highway Department.
Schnadenberg did
take a moment to extend his gratitude to the Highway Department for
chip-sealing 950N and Saemann Road. Under an agreement, the town purchased
the chip-sealing materials and the Highway Department did the job itself.
“It turned out to be a nice project,” Schnadenberg said. “Thanks for their
assistance.”
CSX Contractor
Meanwhile,
Schnadenberg told the council that he’s got a bone to pick with the
contractor hired by CSX to do track work around the grade-crossing at Indian
Boundary Road and North Calumet Road.
The contractor left
a “mess,” Schnadenberg said: gravel in the roadway as well as damage to the
traffic island.
Schnadenberg added
that he was told the contractor intended to return today to clean up the
debris, but that he’s most desirous to speak to CSX itself to register his
complaint.
Tripping Hazards
Schnadenberg had
one other piece of information for the council on Monday: fully 312 sidewalk
trip-hazards were ground down this season.