Personal

Culver Thoughts

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I met some Culverites for dinner recently and they asked some questions that got me thinking. I thought I would share some of my thoughts here. I would credit them for some of this, but since I didn’t ask their permission, they get to remain anonymous. Probably safer for them anyway! Ha!

They wanted my thoughts on a new development in Culver. (One they wanted to pursue, not one of the current ones moving through the processes.) To be honest, I found myself struggling to stay positive. That was not the case 6 years ago when Culver was in the middle of their two Stellar applications. I was on those two committees and while there were some naysayers, as there always are, they were far outweighed by those with a sense of enthusiasm and camaraderie that pulled the community together.

To be clear, I don’t want to belittle what has been accomplished in the last few years. Culver’s Stellar designation has been parlayed into two grants awarded through the Regional Cities Initiative, at least five grants from the Marshall County Community Foundation and matching grants from OCRA, IHDCA and INDOT. So far this has resulted in a new Amphitheater in the Park, major renovations to the Beach Lodge, a new sports park with a playground on school property, new walking/biking trails as well as ancillary benefits not directly funded tied to Stellar, but resulting from Stellar.

When we first started down the path of toward Stellar designation, the scuttlebutt was that Stellar had the reputation of a “Mayor Killer”. In several communities that had attempted or received Stellar designations, the Mayor that promoted the effort was voted out in the next term. OCRA’s assessment of this was that this was mostly due to things not happening quickly enough, allowing opponents to point to the outlays involved with Stellar and profess there was no return on the investment.

Culver didn’t really have that issue as there were enough people involved in Stellar and enough of them understood the time lines in order to refute those claims. Ginny Munroe as our de facto Mayor didn’t let things languish and the town remained well informed about the progress. We’ve lost Ginny’s leadership at this point and there is a void with the Council.

Ginny began Culver Crossroads to chart the next steps for Culver, but I feel that it is losing it’s momentum. I initially served on two Culver Crossroads subcommittees which have fizzled out. One is gone and the second is really down to one person doing the work of the committee. The Culver Crossroads steering committee is also serving as the steering committee to revise the comprehensive plan and that feels like it is losing steam as well. It is odd, because I know there are people on that committee that are still motivated and excited about change, but my feeling is that this isn’t translating into much action between meetings.

On top of that, we have community members actively trying to sabotage input surveys with negativity. We have decent projects being opposed in public meetings and in some cases derailed by procedural attacks. We have seen project support pulled without discussion. All of these things are troubling.

To go back to the conversation I referenced above, I don’t feel like the town’s elected leaders and appointed boards have the same appetite for change that they did when Stellar started. They are still moving some things forward, but it feels like it’s being done with a more scatter-shot approach. We’re going back to dealing with individual things in lieu of pursuing our aspirations of bigger and better things. (Blue Zones is an aspirational project and the recent handling of that didn’t look good.) The three largest projects that are being worked on by the town are all projects brought to them by developers rather than projects they have specifically pursued to meet new goals. That’s a switch in mindset.

It’s not hopeless. It’s just harder than it was and harder than it needs to be. Culver Crossroads is working to create new aspirations for the town. Hopefully the town officials will embrace them and move them forward.

En Garde! Corrections in Fencing…

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404 Lake Shore Drive Fence on east property line

I ranted a bit in a previous post here about the lack of action on the fence at 404 Lake Shore Drive. This has been an ongoing issue since pre-pandemic. While I was recently told nothing could be done about it, things changed when the property owner at 404 Lake Shore Drive applied to combine their two parcels in to one lot at the 1/17/23 Plan Commission meeting.

I attended the meeting with the intention of asking that bringing the fence into compliance be a condition of the replat, but before it got to Public Input, one of the commissioners brought it up on their own. That in itself was gratifying after all this time and hassle. At that time the owner’s representative asked what I wanted done. I requested it be brought into compliance and that there be a date set for compliance. In an abundance of consideration for the homeowner, the date was set for 8/31/23. If for some reason this has not been remedied by that time, daily fines can be requested until it is resolved.

On a somewhat amusing note, the date was pushed to the end of summer due to potential problems in finding a contractor to make the change. One commissioner suggested there was a contractor in the room that could probably do it expeditiously, pointing to me. Somehow I don’t think I will receive that call! Ha! I’m still pleased that this is moving towards resolution. Thank you Culver Plan Commission!

Allen Chesser

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Allen Chesser

Easterday Construction Co., Inc. lost a friend last week. Allen Chesser passed away Wednesday. (Obituary) Allen was our primary banking contact with First National Bank of Monterey (FNBM). We’ve followed and worked with him from his time as a loan officer to his last position as Bank President. There was no real change in the way he treated us. Last year, when it was time for our Line of Credit to renew, he personally delivered the documents and inquired about my parents. That is service you don’t find anymore. FNBM has been our go to bank because of that service, but there are cases where they actually send us elsewhere when our need is outside their niche. We’ve never gotten the same service as we received from Allen.

I helped recruit Allen to join the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Council (LMEC) back in the 90’s. Allen wasn’t sure if it was what he wanted to do and he said he wouldn’t be able to do more than one term as a council member. He was still on the council doing great work to advance the mission when he passed, far surpassing my 20 year tenure. He is even the voice of LMEC in one of the survey videos. Not only was Allen an advocate, he was out getting his hands dirty as necessary. I left things in good hands and he advanced the group significantly. He’ll be missed there too.

Log Bike Rack at The Paddocks Bld 100

Personally, Allen has been a friend of the family. My father, Larry Berger, serves on the FNBM board and has often spoke about his trust in Allen. Allen’s son-in-law, Andrew Schouten, worked for Easterday Construction for several years, increasing our ties to the family. We can always count of a Christmas Card from Andrew and Emily, and have watched the growth of their children, Adrian, Katie and Nicholas. I had the opportunity to meet Adrian last year when he had volunteered for one of the committees for Culver Crossroads. It was easy to see Allen’s legacy of having a servant’s heart was passed on.

Log Bike Rack at The Paddocks Bld 300

Last year I asked Allen for a lead on someone that could create the sustainable log bike racks I wanted to install at The Paddocks. Instead of a making a connection for me, he made the racks. And then argued about taking compensation.

Allen was a friend, confidant and business partner. I don’t know that I know anyone else as genuinely nice as Allen Chesser was. His passing is a loss on a personal level to many like me, but I know it will also be felt throughout our region. Allen left a legacy of which he and his family can be proud.

Reflecting on today’s Pilot News

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Did it seem to anyone else that the Michael Hicks commentary in today’s Pilot News was directed at Marshall County? It highlighted the successes of the Regional Cities Initiative and the Stellar Communities Initiatives and how those should reflect success in the READI applications.

Marshall County’s collaboration with St Joseph County and Elkhart County created a successful Regional Cities Initiative bid. While the other two counties took the Lion’s Share of the money due to the differences in population, Marshall County still benefited from this group effort. Some of the Regional Cities money came to Culver and helped Culver’s Stellar Initiative.

Marshall County had great success in the Stellar program. The County came together to support Culver in their Stellar application which resulted in Culver being designated a Stellar Community. This success was rolled into Marshall County’s Stellar application, which resulted in Marshall County being designated a Stellar Region. Building on the successes, Marshall County again collaborated with St Joseph County and Elkhart County to make a READI application. The region’s past success working together help them achieve the maximum READI award ($50MM) for our region.

Mr. Hicks reflex on the holistic approach of these initiatives and how the community collaboration and community planning creates additional opportunities… much more so than just spending money on basic infrastructure such as roads. Particularly in the case of READI, these initiatives create the opportunity to multiply the effect of scarce public dollars by combining them with private funds.

For better or worse, the incoming County Council has telegraphed that they will have a laser focus on cost control and infrastructure (roads) projects. While I cannot find fault in their intent or honesty in stating their position, I have concerns regarding their plan to ignore other opportunities. They seem to feel the READI projects are outside the scope of county government, despite the fact that the State has made local government partition a requirement. They will be missing an opportunity to multiply the return on County tax dollars if they don’t participate.

I will confess that I do not know all the intricacies of County government. If the County Council members are doing their job, they should know those things much better than I do. My view is from the outside and I have to say I am concerned…

Does Anyone Read Your Blog?

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TL;DR – I know of a few people that “follow” me, but for the most part, I’m talking to myself. 😁

I get this question off and on by people. I don’t really know the answer. I’ve never installed a counter and SPAM is rampant in the comments. I have some Lurkers that have made themselves know IRL a few times, but that’s rare. Occasionally people mention this blog, but I don’t particularly think I have a following. This is my response to this question when it came last week:

The Blog serves a few purposes for me…

  1. It gives me a semi-public place to organize my thoughts when I have opinions on things. It usually keeps me from saying something I regret or saying something without having back-up for it. A lot of times that’s as far as it goes. I did the post with the multiple Main/Davis intersection options before bringing it up at the Plan Commission, to make sure I’d given it sufficient thought. For example, it wasn’t until I’d drawn out a couple ideas that I took the next mental step to consider the other utilities that are in the current ROW, which means those areas would have to remain ROW.
  2. Occasionally, a blog post becomes a payroll stuffer if the topic is appropriate.
  3. Occasionally it gives me a time-stamped document to point to when someone tries to appropriate an idea I’ve put forward. (A few individuals come to mind…)
  4. It gives me a place to post things that do double duty as advertising a project and providing an easy place to point people with questions. I’m doing a lot of that with Twitter and Instagram for the Riverside Commons project. When the bank asks about status, I can point them to the ECC instagram or a recent blog post on this.
  5. It’s a trick to keep my website current. Since the blog posts appear as updates on the front page, it appears that my page is constantly being updated, despite the fact that the website is pretty stagnant. I just don’t have the time to do that justice and struggle to justify the expense of paying someone to do it. I paid someone to do the Sand Hill Farm website and it’s slow, hard for me to edit and overall clunkier than the ECC site which has been up forever. Currently it’s even lost it’s home page and I haven’t had time to research a fix. There’s a blog there too which I try and speak from with a different voice, i.e. less personal stuff.
  6. When someone chooses ECC they are really buying me. If they are interested, the blog shows them some of my community involvement, some of my politics and some of my sense of humor. From my blog, people have met my grandfather, know my disdain for Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline” and DST, and friends that have passed like Mary Ellen, Pete, Bobbie and Richard. They’ve even gotten to see some personal art.
  7. It gives me a place to write. Facebook is too sappy and promoted for some of what I just need to get off my chest. I don’t necessarily want a big following or someone sending me hearts. Though occasionally I cut & paste a blog entry there if I think it’s appropriate. The blog is much easier to correct and I like being able to include pictures and links within the text.