CUTPL Knox Box Presentation

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I will be discussing adding a Knox Box (or two) to the Culver Union Township Public Library (CUTPL) building tonight at the library board meeting.  This discussion was prompted by one of the board members seeing my previous post regarding Knox Boxes and Culver Garden Court.

I’m pleased that others in the community are picking up on this.  I still believe this is a positive step forward for our community and can lead to greater safety in emergency situations.  Knox Boxes can be installed on commercial, industrial, municipal and residential buildings as well as private residences.  When combined with a safety walk-thru to familiarize the emergency personnel, this installation can improve safety for both the occupants and the first responders.  It can save emergency repair costs as well!  If you’d like a quote on installing a Knox Box in your home or business, please don’t hesitate to call!  You can also use the Contact Us page on our website here.

Culver Garden Court Fire Scare

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This past Sunday there was a scare for Culver Garden Court.  Apparently a grass fire in the adjacent field to the south got out of control and crossed onto the Garden Court property.  You can see in the pictures below where it wrapped around the building on the southeast and southwest corners.  It burned some of the existing landscaping, the vegetation in the detention pond and melted the silt fence we had along the property line.  If obviously could have been much worse!

Other than the respiratory concerns from the smoke, the residents were not in danger.  Culver Garden Court is the first Garden Court project to fall under the new fire protection regulations which mandate a sprinkler system.   I’m still glad that we didn’t have to test that though!

The landscaping is the last item we have to complete and despite the balmy March weather we’ve been having, we’re a little hesitant to plant grass yet.  It will be coming soon though.  If you’d like to see the future landscape plan, you can see it here.

Super Tuesday Thoughts

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All of the news organizations are lathered up about today being “Super Tuesday“.  It’s all a little frustrating as I generally feel like the decisions on the national candidates have been made long before Indiana’s Primaries roll around.  Hoosiers have the opportunity to support candidates financially before the primaries, but in the end it’s the votes that count.  I guess we’ll have to see if the new method of awarding delegates makes Hoosier votes relative this year.

Along with the changes with the national delegate counts, we’ve seen some local changes as well.  For those of you that haven’t seen the new district maps, Marshall County occupies the majority of Indiana House District 17.  Fulton County to the south shares a portion of District 17 as well.  (See the map to the right)  We will no longer be “represented” by Nancy Dembowski as she will be in District 20.  The latest information I’ve received is that she didn’t file to run so she is retiring after this year.  That will leave Tom Dermody to run unopposed in the general election.  Mr. Dermody is the current Representative for District 20.

There are currently two Republicans, Francis Ellert and Tim Harman,  running in the primary to represent District 17.  As of this time I haven’t had the chance to learn too much about Mr. Harman, but I did support Francis Ellert in 2010 (previous blog post here) and feel he would do a good job representing the interests of our district.

On the Senate side, Marshall County is split along what appears to be township lines.  (See the map to the right)  West Township along with Union, Green, Walnut and Tippecanoe Townships along the south side of the County fall into Senate District 18.  District 18 covers all or part of 5 additional counties south of Marshall County.  The remainder of Marshall County is part of Senate District 9 which includes portions of Elkhart, Kosciusko and St. Joseph Counties to the north and east.

State Senator Randy Head currently represents District 18 which includes Culver.  Senator Head came to Culver to speak last Saturday, but unfortunately I was unable to attend.  Hopefully Culver generated a good turnout for him!  Senator Head is running unopposed in the primary and general elections.

State Senator Ryan Mishler currently represents District 9 which includes Plymouth and the remainder of Marshall County to the north and east.  Senator Mishler is running unopposed in the primary and general elections.

I would encourage you to take the time to learn about Francis Ellert and Tim Harman.  We often mistakenly think that our State representatives aren’t important, but they are key to decisions that affect our daily lives and how competitive our State is nationally and worldwide.  I’ll be cursing their decision a few years back to go to Daylight Savings Time when the alarm goes off next Monday just as I cheered their decision to implement Right to Work in the current session.

Culver Garden Court – Permission to Occupy!

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This past Tuesday we had our PTO (Permission To Occupy) meeting with HUD for the Culver Garden Court.  This released the building to the property management company (Bradley Residential Management, formerly Real Estate Management) and they started to move furniture in that day.   There were a few minor cleaning issues and some general touch-up items to be completed and they are underway.  We will be moving the equipment and trailers off the site this week.  The first residents will be moving in on Monday of next week!  We’ve had to kick one future resident out multiple times over the past month as he’s been impatient to move in!  Ha!

Due to the timing for completion of this building, there were a few items escrowed including the landscaping.  This is scheduled for installation later this Spring.  If our Spring comes in as mild as the Winter has been, we should be able to get an early start on it.  Since it includes seeding, we don’t want to push this too early though.

We think this has been a successful project and we have gone over and above since it’s in our home town.  There will be an announcement for an Open House and Ribbon Cutting coming out soon which we’ll include as a post here.  We look forward to seeing you there!

We’ve included a few additional pictures after the jump.

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Culver Knox Box Program

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Since the walk-thru with the Emergency Services Personnel last week, I have made several presentations on a proposed Knox Box program for Culver.  Initially I spoke on this topic with the Town Council on Tuesday the 14th.  The Fire Chief and the EMS Director were both at that meeting and were charged by the Council to come up with a program.  They also asked the Clerk to look into any insurance implications.  The Council also agreed with my recommendation that it go before the Plan Commission as a possible addendum to the Zoning Ordinance so that when additional Knox Boxes are installed, they are installed in a uniform fashion.  I agreed to carry that suggestion to the Plan Commission, which I did on Tuesday the 21st.  They expressed interest as well, though no action was taken to move this forward at this time.

I have also contacted the Culver School System regarding this new program as I think they should consider implementing it.  The Culver Union Township Library has also expressed interest.  I’m hoping the program will take off!  This will bring Culver in line with other area communities.