My Great Aunt Melba was recently named as a Citizen of the Year by the Culver Lions Club. (See the Article to the right). I’ve written about her here before. (previous posts here and here)
She has had a long and interesting life. She is the last surviving member of the second generation of Easterday Construction Co., Inc. She was married to Edward Lee (Red) Easterday, Russell’s middle son and she worked for the company for a time during World War II when Red was in the service.
She’ll be celebrating her 100th Birthday next month. It’s great to have her represent that generation of our family. She has long served as the family historian and I hope to learn a few more anecdotes the next time I can see her. Unfortunately she’s currently living at Millers Merry Manor in Culver and with Covid restrictions, I haven’t seen her in over a year.
Thank you to the Lions Club for recognizing her contributions to the community. I won’t reiterate what’s in the article, but I know it only scratches the surface.
I ran across an interesting article at QRFS.com’s Blog titled The Conflict Over Residential Fire Sprinkler Requirements which I found interesting. It does a reasonable job of laying out pro’s and con’s on the the cost of the systems themselves and their safety benefits. What it does not discuss is the additional regressive fees that communities are currently putting on these systems. This is often a hidden tax as well, i.e. one that’s not recognized until the bill comes after construction.
This is an argument I had with the Town of Culver last year. Sand Hill Farm Apartments has a Fire Sprinkler System. This is required by the State of Indiana. We also installed a fire hydrant on the property. This was not required, but just seemed like a reasonable way to terminate the line. (There is a fire hydrant adjacent to the site in the street, so there was no insurance benefit or coverage benefit to it. It was just there to flush the line.) Before construction was even complete, we received two invoices from the Town, one for $700 for having a Fire Hydrant and one for $1,200 (plus tax!) for having a Fire Sprinkler System. When I inquired about this, I was told that it was in the ordinance. It doesn’t cover material, maintenance, inspections, replacement or any other service. Paraphrasing: It is there to cover additional load and upsizing of the system to support the additional fire protection. These are arbitrary fees, i.e. it is the same fee whether one of these is installed in a single family home, a 24 unit apartment building or a 400,000 sf manufacturing facility.
This is not solely picking on Culver. Culver is just where it first came to my attention. While they are not as high, Plymouth has the same fees. Neither community allows for higher densities (as suggested in the linked article) or gives any other incentives; just punitive fees if these things are installed. They are also not capped, so if a developer/apartment building owner/homeowner would rationalize these fees as they stand and plan for them, there is no guarantee that they will not double or triple in the future. Being an arbitrary fee suggests that it can change arbitrarily as well. These fees are apparently suggested by the accountants doing the rate studies as a way of reducing fees charged to residents.
It cost $500 to remove the fire hydrant at Sand Hill Farm Apartments. Wasted money on top of the original installation, but a reasonable investment against $700 or more a year forever more. Again, there was no issue regarding coverage as there is a fire hydrant in the street in front of the building. It was installed on site as a way to flush the line where it terminated.
In my opinion, the assertions made about the additional costs for the system are specious. 1) The standard line size was used in the street in front of the apartments to provide the loop service and to supply the fire hydrant that would have been there regardless of the development. The line was not upsized due to the sprinkler system. 2) The whole point of the sprinkler system is to put out a fire before it spreads. Theoretically, a fire in one of the apartments would be extinguished before it spread to other units, using much less water than a building that could otherwise be engulfed in flames.
Furthermore, it would make sense to encourage sprinkler systems with incentives in lieu of penalizing them with regressive fees. 1) They improve life safety for residents. 2) They improve life safety for fire fighters. 3) They reduce fire fighting equipment costs. 4) They improve a communities fire rating, which helps all residents.
Because the State requires sprinkler systems in multifamily housing, the local community has building owners over a barrel. We took this into account for the Riverside Commons project planned for Plymouth. That development will be 100% townhouses. By using this model, with firewalls in-between units, the State requirement is void. This increases initial construction costs, but helps control yearly ownership costs.
At some point, as discussed in the QRFS article, fire sprinklers may be required in all residential construction. I cannot say this is a bad thing or that it doesn’t improve life safety. It is one more thing that contributes to the high cost of housing and is an expense that must be considered on any affordable housing project.
Everyone talked about the extra hour of sleep they got Sunday morning. Nope. Still woke up at the same time. Then tired all day. This morning was the same thing. I’ll be dragging all week. We really need to end this idiocy…
Granted, Fall is better than Spring when it comes to the DST change, but change is bad. Nope. Nope. Nope. I do not like it…
You can find a couple of my previous DST rants here and here or just search DST in the search bar. Nothing as good as John Oliver did in the video above, but still worth it if you want to laugh at my folly… or with a few of them, maybe even learn something. Ha!
Julie did a great job decking out the front entrance for this Fall. Thanks Julie! The mums are looking great and the other decorations came together nicely.
We’re generally not big Fall People around here. Not that there’s anything particular wrong with Fall, it’s just that it’s a precursor to that cold season we don’t like. If we could take Fall straight through until Spring, we’d be Fall fans!
We’re signed up for the Scarecrow contest too. Julie did Corky’s Crow Bar for a few years ago and won first place for us. Let’s see how creative she is this year…
This is another installment of Easterday Lore. Those that have been to our office have probably noticed the old barn adjacent to the main building. Internally this is referred to as the Pony Barn or the Red Barn (though it’s only vaguely red anymore). This is dates back to when this property was part of Great Grandpa (Russell) Easterday’s farm. At that time the property was at the edge of town. Back then there were a couple of cattle barns on the site as well. One had been swallowed up by nature back in the seventies and the other was replaced by a pre-engineered steel building around that same time.
In the early days, the Easterday farm included the property extending from the current site of Easterday Construction up to highway 10 and across 10 to 17th Road. In the 60’s, Russell’s Hereford cattle would graze in pasture at the end of Slate Street. Up until the construction of the high school in 1969, kids would ride their bikes up to the end of Slate Street to pet and feed the cattle grazing on the other side of the fence. The field behind the baseball and little league diamonds and the farmland directly north of the Culver Middle/High School are all that remain of this farm owned by descendants of the Easterday family. This is all leased property now. The working parts of the farm were sold off over time.
The Pony Barn truly housed horses & ponies in the day. Russell’s grandson, Larry Berger, had a pony housed there when he was a kid. Russell owned and rode a beautiful five-gaited horse that was also stabled there. (That was before the offices actually moved to that location from their original location in the State Exchange Bank. That’s another story for another time.) At that time, Russell and his wife, Wanda, lived at 309 Ohio Street. Between the farm and the construction company, Russell was successful and always drove a Cadillac. But as a farmer and contractor, that Cadillac was a working man’s car. There was often grass caught in the bumper and cow manure in the wheel wells from when he’d driven it through the field to inspect the cattle. And the day Grandpa Easterday bought his grandson Larry a pony… that pony road home in the back seat of his Cadillac!