One of my lurkers saw my instagram post about meeting the LaPaz Fire Department at LaPaz Commons Apartments last week. We always offer the local fire department the opportunity to walk through once the framing is in place. This gives them a better understanding of the structure in that worst case scenario of fighting a fire there. One of the things we discussed with the firemen was the location of the Knox Box. My Lurker sent me this picture of a Knox Box he had seen in Grand Rapids, MI. (See right)
Yes, that’s a Knox Box somewhere around 12′ above the ground above the awning. Pretty much inaccessible… I’m guessing this is a case where the City required a Knox Box, but didn’t include location specifications and the building owner didn’t want one and put it there out of spite. But I’m just projecting that scenario. Who knows?
Most communities set up standards for placement of Knox Boxes. These have to be carefully considered so they have some flexibility. All buildings are different. But as much as possible, you want the box placed in a location that is immediately recognizable and found by emergency personnel, else its intention is defeated. Firefighters in particularly are notorious for bringing their universal key (fire axe) and not hesitating to use it.
Easterday Construction Co., Inc. was responsible for introducing and writing the Key Box requirement in Culver’s Zoning Ordinance, Chapter 6, Section 100. Enforcement has been pretty limited though. We haven’t actually seen one installed on any projects completed by others. (That doesn’t mean there aren’t some out there.) Even with a pretty clear definition, we ended up getting cross-ways with the building commissioner on a project where he chose to interpret the requirements differently than they were written. (He lost. We don’t argue unless we’re right.)
There is more than one benefit to these systems, i.e. 1) limiting property damage from emergency personnel accessing the building by any means possible, 2) speeding up access when the building is extremely secure and 3) giving emergency personnel a place to find pertinent information such as building plans, electrical shutoffs, among others. But the system has to be set up for the municipality to make the Knox Box keying universal and the program must be understood by the emergency personnel it benefits.
We have promoted the use of these systems, but with limited success. We’ll continue to sing their praises, as they are a benefit to public safety.
Admittedly, “Fall Back” is the least objectionable of the annual DST time changes, but it still messing with my system and is less than desirable. This time <pun intended> I’ll late the CATO Institute do the heavy lifting and explain why DST leads to “Dead Children” in their #EndDST article here. And again, Indiana is the poster child for why the energy savings justification is debunked. When Indiana adopted DST in 2006, energy use went up…
There is still active legislation trying to eliminate DST on the Federal level. Contact your Senator and Congressman and ask them to push this! Marco Rubio has been pushing this for several years.
As usual, the CATO Institute has a great article here with lots of great charts, facts and quotes, but John Oliver still wins the award for the funniest take… “If it doesn’t benefit our energy bill, our health or even our stupid, stupid cows… Daylight Savings Time: How is this still a thing?” Enjoy!
Julie Heise is our all-around go-to person here at Easterday Construction Co., Inc. She kindly consented to being lent to Berger Audiology to help woman their booth at the Marshall County Council on Aging Senior Expo. She helped set up, tear down and handed out candy and golf balls throughout the event. She even helped wrangle an interview for Dr. Becky on Max 98. Thanks Julie!
Make sure and check out Dr. Berger for your hearing aid and Audiology needs. She’s the only full time Audiologist in Marshall County. She’s not just a hearing aid dispenser, she’s an Audiologist. There’s a difference!
The October 16th meeting of the Culver Redevelopment Commission had a pretty full house and the majority of the meeting was taken up with a Public Meeting (not Public Hearing) on The Dunes. I was pretty proud of Culver as the majority of the questions were well thought out and asked respectfully. There were only a few questions I thought were irrational and even those were asked succinctly and calmly. I was also pleased to see that all of the Town Council members and a few of the candidates for Town Council were in attendance to listen.
Burke Richeson spoke for the Developer and did a nice job. Only getting a little vex’d when another attorney representing opposition spoke. Kevin Danti, Culver Town Manager, did a good job of keeping things moving and controlling the conversation. (I was going to link to Kevin’s page on the town’s website, but it hasn’t been updated.)
There were questions about environmental concerns, but these seemed to center on the effect on Lake Maxinkuckee. It was stated by Karen Shuman, who is on the Lake Maxinkuckee Environmental Council (LMEC), that LMEC had determined that the property is not within the Lake Maxinkuckee Watershed. I’m not sure that’s 100% correct, but it is at least mostly correct. Lake Maxinkuckee’s watershed is not large, but since the lake is mostly sustained by springs, the quality and quantity of ground water is important. That said, besides the lake, there are other environmental concerns, one the bigger ones being the surface runoff flow to the wetlands at the north side of the property and the town well fields just north of the property. Protection of those are critical.
Most of the conversation was well presented and questions were mostly answered with the exception of questions regarding the bond structure. Those got rather deep and ended with an offer from the town to provide a visual chart and breakdown to make the flow of funds more understandable. At this time, an agreement between the Town and Developer has not been reached, so the final numbers remain in flux. Progress is being documented on the Town’s Website in a link to Dunes. They stated a plan to document the questions heard at this meeting as well as others under a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section.
Aside from the bonding, which was confusing to all involved, I was a little confused about the Tax Incremental Financing District (TIF) discussion. This was presented by Marty Oosterbaan, Commission Chairman, and I think most people in attendance didn’t know the right questions to ask. A couple of the things that left me puzzled were: 1) was the new land area for The Dunes being taken into the existing downtown TIF as discussed or would it stand alone; 2) was there one new TIF area or two? There was discussion of a 20yr TIF (residential) and a 25yr TIF (commercial) to cover the areas with rental apartments. How do these fit? There was also a discussion about how this would affect local residents and again, the discussion of taxes were muddy. It was stated that there would be no effect for the life of the TIF, but I don’t believe that to be correct, since there will be a reassessment and taxes levied on the new development which could affect neighboring property.
Another positive I heard last night was the future involvement of Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG). Culver is already working with them on the new Comprehensive Plan and have engaged them for help on The Dunes as well. They will be conducting traffic studies, apparently including boat traffic studies. Hopefully they will also step in to fill the Urban Planner role I suggested here before. It would be interesting to see if they address the issue of suburban sprawl and disconnection of subdivisions in Culver I discussed in this post. Would this development be more acceptable if it followed the streets and alleys development grid found on the east side of South Main Street rather than as a controlled access, separate neighborhood? An interesting question…
Though there weren’t pitchforks and torches at this meeting, the tenor of the conversation made it clear that the community is not embracing this project yet. There were comments about screening it so it’s not seen and changing the entrance to face S.R. 17 in lieu of South Main Street, as discussed here before. These ideas treat it as if they expect an eyesore or having nothing to contribute to Culver. While there may be reasonable concerns, the Town government seems to be on a path to address them the best they can. There is good reason to be cautious, but there should also be efforts to take advantage of the positives that could come from this.
West High Corner
January 3, 2024
Kevin Berger
Commentary, Culver, Marshall County, Plymouth, Rants, Safety
Community, Culver, government, Marshall County, Plymouth, Rants, Tips
Whew! There’s a lot going on there! Very little of it good… To orient you, if you’re not local, this is the curve north of Lake Latonka, where S.R. 17 begins to run east towards Plymouth and Sycamore Road continues north towards S.R. 30.
So I don’t bury the lead, the initial reason for writing this was a John Oliver style, “Why is this Still a thing?” rant. I came around this corner from the East the other morning on the way to work, in the dark, to find a school bus stopped to pick up kids from the house on the inside of the curve on the SE corner of this intersection. It wasn’t very visible to me until I was almost on it and it would have been worse for someone coming from the South. The best case for this is this time of year when it’s dark and the bus’s flashing lights are reflecting off of everything. At twilight, the danger doubles down.
This property just recently changed hands. I know things get grandfathered in. I know it’s cold out and kids don’t want to walk far, so the closest point to the house is the preference. But there is a significant piece of property here with an alternate driveway. Barring getting rid of this dangerous driveway, can’t the school bus pick up at the alternate driveway off the curve?
This intersection has always been dangerous. The memorial at the northwest corner of the intersection commemorates the 5 fire fighters that gave their lives at that intersection in 1982. The truck they were in took the corner too quickly and went into the swamp on the west side of the road. This was the worst single-event loss of life for a single fire fighting unit prior to the 9/11 terror attack. The permanent stone memorial included lighted flags and was dedicated in 2014 It replaced 5 wooden crosses on a utility pole near the crash site. It is somewhat fitting that this memorial is quite striking, yet somewhat eerie when lit up at night.
It will be interesting to see how long the West High Corner moniker remains in use since the referenced school is gone. The Northeast corner of the intersection was home to the West High School, named for West Township. Many people were sad to see the school go away this past year. I have to agree that it was frustrating that it couldn’t be repurposed, but location is everything and is often the case with structures like that, its highest and best use was as a school. I could not find documentation, but my recollection is that the school corporation sold it at auction for $1,500 in 2005. From there, the buyer stripped most of the things of value from the building. It became a door and trim shop after that. The Covid pandemic ended that. Most recently it was purchased by Jackson Salvage, which made it go away… except for the slabs and foundations. All that remains is a memorial with a bell and well along Sycamore Road to commemorate the school’s previous glory.
The property on the southeast corner referenced at the beginning of this post was the former location of the original West Township Trustee’s home; a log cabin that was just recently relocated south to Memorial Forest. The picture to the right shows the cabin during reconstruction as new roof framing was placed. The recently formed Marshall County Parks and Recreation Department tried to have it relocated onto the West High site, but there weren’t sufficient funds to make the deal possible.
As attested to by the lost fire brigade, the West High Corner is to be respected. The two exits/entrances onto S.R. 17 from Sycamore Road are also treacherous. From experience, the southernmost connection is the most dangerous and least respected as I often see cars exit or come onto S.R. 17 without stopping. West bound cars cannot see that intersection until they’re into the curve, so if they are taking it quickly, there’s often near misses. In icy winter conditions, this is even worse.
In the mid-1990’s, the Culver Chamber of Commerce petitioned the Marshall County Commissioners to improve Sycamore Road to give Culver more direct access to S.R. 30. For a time, this was a collaborative effort between the Town of Culver, Ancilla College (now Marian College), Culver Academies and Swan Lake Resort. One option for this was to attempt a trade-off with INDOT, changing Sycamore Road into the north end of S.R. 17 and the east/west portion from West High to Plymouth would have become a county road again. This would have had many benefits including an intersection fix at West High, an improved route to S.R. 30 from Culver, fewer driveway accesses, and an easy aerial railroad crossing. At the time, Marshall County had already broached INDOT through MACOG about the Pine Road extension. And also at that time, Plymouth didn’t want to give up the benefits of INDOT maintenance on the main street through the City. (Plymouth is having second thoughts now as their Complete Streets Committee wrestles with the pedestrian issues associated with this.) With the completion of the Pine Road extension to S.R. 17, this initiative is unlikely to be considered. Some of the property that was vacant has been developed, further hindering this right-of-way acquisition.
I don’t see a good solution to this intersection in the near future. At a minimum, I would still like to see something done to eliminate the school bus stop in the middle of a State Highway curve. This intersection doesn’t need another memorial…
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