“The words of a President have an enormous weight and ought not to be used indiscriminately.” – Calvin Coolidge
“Salient advice that several recent Presidents should have taken to heart.” – Kevin Berger’s commentary
Elkay Visits Sand Hill Farm Apartments
One of Elkay’s crews at the Sand Hill Farm Apartments Site Visit October 16, 2018
Earl Lilly, Plant Manager of Elkay Wood Products in Culver, brought a large contingency of Elkay employees to observe the cabinets going in at Sand Hill Farm Apartments this past Tuesday. Representatives of several divisions that worked on these cabinets were there including engineering, scheduling, production & shipping. They often don’t get to see their products in place, so this was a great opportunity to see a large installation underway just a block from the plant. Steve Deford of Deford Kitchens, the cabinetry installer for the project, was onsite to discuss how the installation was going. The installation is going well!
It was great to see some of the people that work in our community and could potentially be future residents at Sand Hill Farm Apartments at the site. The optics of the private/public partnership that occurred here was instrumental in Culver’s success in the Stellar Communities program. Elkay Wood Products and Easterday Construction Co., Inc. helped developer Culver Sand Hill Farm, LLC step up to the challenge of creating affordable housing for the Town.
Shelby Harrell, editor of the Culver Citizen, was on site to document the event. Her article appeared in The Pilot News on October 18, 2018. (See the article to the right.) The exposure can only help the project’s success. We count this as part of the community effort to see more entry-level housing in Culver. Thanks Shelby!
Unfortunately progress is currently impeded by the late start on the street. Lack of utilities is slowing us down and may force a stop soon. Currently we’re moving 5 gallon buckets of water to the site from our office in order to keep working. NIPSCO could not bring gas and electric to the building without the completion of street utilities. The furnaces are ready but can’t be fired without gas and electric, so we’ve started providing temporary heat with space heaters in order to keep things warm enough for the various sealants, adhesives and paint needed to finish out the project. The fire sprinkler system is full of water and in danger of freezing with the cold nights we’ve been having.
The lack of fire protection is also a concern, since the sprinkler system has water in it within the building, but does not have a hook up to the Town water system yet. The fire hydrants that serve the building currently have no connections. We’ve been assured these things will be available soon.
Affordable Housing
Courtney Papa, District Director, Office of Senator Todd Young
Affordable Housing continues to be the buzzword. A couple of weeks ago I was at a meeting with Governor Holcomb and we spoke about the issue. One of his staff members is trying to connect with me on that. MacKenzie Ledley, Library Director for Pulaski County Public Libraries, made a connection with Courtney Papa, District Director for Senator Todd Young’s office. Courtney and MacKenzie met me for a tour of Sand Hill Farm Apartments this past Wednesday. The issue is on Senator Young’s radar as well.
It is clear that our political leaders recognize that there is an issue. In my discussion with Governor Holcomb, he had just finished a presentation on the great job climate in Indiana and their efforts to reverse out-migration trends. I raised the question regarding where these new residents were going to live? This seems to be a harder question to answer than how to bring in new business. I get it. I don’t have a solution either. He took notes and then proceeded with the follow-up.
What I do in these situations is explain what we’ve done here in Culver. It may not be an universal solution, but without the Town of Culver becoming a partner in these efforts, Sand Hill Farm apartments wouldn’t be here and there would be no consideration of The Paddocks, the next phase of housing at Sand Hill Farm development. Without the proposed IHCDA funding, The Paddocks will not happen.
CCMHS New Principal’s Office
Existing Media Room Office
During the construction of the new vestibule entrance at the Culver Community Middle High School, we were asked to duplicate the existing office in the former Media Room for a new Principal’s Office. This was a change order to the original project, but the goal was to keep it on a similar time line. The old office, shown to the right, was constructed using a block lower wall with hollow metal window frames in the upper area. The wire glass windows in the existing office are mostly obsolete technology at this time. Appropriate for the long term and reasonable to do during new construction in 1991, this proved to be an expensive add-on with long lead times and multiple trades involved.
New Aluminum & Glass Principal’s Office
We worked with the School to provide a better solution. The new Principal’s Office, shown to the left, has been constructed with a wood stud and drywall lower wall, dark bronze store front aluminum framing and an aluminum & glass door. It mimics the layout of the old office, but gives a more modern look. As a bonus, it was something that could be constructed quicker and at a savings of thousands of dollars. The office as pictured is nearly complete, lacking only the installation of a few of the window panes to wrap it up. We were pleased we could help with this solution.
Dress Appropriately
“Dress Appropriately” is the two word dress code at General Motors according to this article. In our current litigious society, where it appears HR department attorney’s are compensated by the word, I found this reduction to basics fascinating. It’s also refreshing to find that it seems to be working for them.
A friend from a larger company related struggles they had with trouble makers finding loopholes in their policies. One example he cited was an employee that objected to their policy that everyone wear hard hats. In protest, the employee childishly wore a hard hat strapped to his knee, citing the policy back to them that he was indeed wearing a hard hat. He would have had a hard time defending his action as dressing appropriately.
I don’t know if this is a solution to all things, but it refreshing to see the move to put responsibility for common sense back on employees, rather than treating them as imbeciles. As the article suggests, employees can, and should be expected to, think on their own… to do the right thing… to use common sense…
I am fortunate to have good people working here that I can trust to do the right thing… the appropriate thing… 99% of the time. That other 1%? We all have lapses in judgement, but they’re generally small and self-correcting after some good natured ribbing from their peers. “______ appropriately” could well be the correct policy for a multitude of things that fit in that blank.
Image borrowed from Keep Calm-O-Matic. You can purchase their products here.
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