Inside Indiana Business reported that three Indiana Cities took positions in the Wall Street Journal’s list of Top Ten Places for Remote Workers: Evansville was #3, Lafayette was #5 and Fort Wayne was #10. The topic of remote workers comes up often at the Culver Crossroads meetings. While Culver has done a lot to become attractive to remote workers, I’m not sure we’ve done much to actually attract remote workers.
Culver saw a lot of remote workers during the pandemic. Not surprising that a community of second homes became a desirable location to shelter-in-place. One advantage that Culver had over the cities listed above (for sheltering in place) was our small size. We have many of the necessary amenities without the large population. We undoubtedly missed an opportunity to capture more of those remote workers.
Image from MCEDC website
While we have boosted our amenities, we can’t compete with small city amenities such as colleges. (Though to some extend, Culver Academies fills a lot of that gap. That’s not necessarily obvious to someone looking in from the outside.) What we should do is promote our proximity to these. Two of the above cities, Lafayette and Fort Wayne, are within 75 miles of Culver. Lafayette gives us proximity to Purdue. South Bend and Notre Dame are 45 miles away. Chicago is only 76 miles away! Michigan Wine Country is only 76 miles away. We’re only 100 miles of Indianapolis. Yet we only continue to promote Culver as a destination. The Culver Visitors Center promotes itself as Find Culver.
CabinetWorks Billboard on 31 South
What if we were to also promote Culver as a hub? Marshall County Economic Development Corporation has been doing this with manufacturers for years, pointing out the manufacturing centers and vast population within a 200 mile radius of Marshall County. (One of those interesting statistics is that there are more people within 200 miles of Marshall County, IN than within 200 miles of Atlanta, GA.)
Image from CabinetWorks Group Website
I know we’re still working on things and there are some issues, such as broadband, yet to be solved, but I don’t think it’s too soon to talk about why Culver is a great place to live, not just a great place to visit. This is an across the board thing. Look at the sign CabinetWorks has promoting working in Culver (above) and the image from their website promoting Culver itself (right). How do we extend their suggestion of working in Culver to living in Culver. Culver assisted Sand Hill Farm Apartments and The Paddocks bringing in workforce housing. They are in the process of helping two other developers bring in upper income housing. Is it possible to broaden the Culver Visitors Center’s mission to include finding new residents, not just visitors?
We attended the Vex Robotics Competition at the Plymouth High School Gym on Saturday. We have attended a few times in the past and it is always interesting.
I’m no expert, but here’s what I have gleaned from a few competitions I’ve observed.
The competition is multi-level where you have regional competitions with winners that can proceed on to State, National and World competitions.
Each year the challenge is different and the components allowed for building the robot challengers are different.
There is an autonomous challenge where each robot must perform without active guidance and a guided challenge where the robots are remote controlled by their teams.
Smith Field – one of three competition fields. In this picture, the field is set up ready to add robots.
The competition on Saturday was multitasked and was called “Spin Up”. Two teams of two robots competed – a red team and a blue team. The field of play is approximately 10′ x 10′. In two opposing corners there were two goals – a high goal and a low goal. In the alternate corners there were spinners with blue and red sides. scattered around the playing field were yellow disks that were collected to score points in the high and low goals.
Robots were sent to the spinner corners and they attempted to turn the spinner to show their color. Then they also had to defend the spinner so the other team couldn’t turn it back. Meanwhile they were also collecting disks and for lack of a better term, were spitting them into the high goals. To make that more interesting, the red high goal was over the blue low goal and vice versa. This meant that a missed shot scored for the other team. A score in the high goal was worth more and was safe from removal, but there was also the ability to remove disks from your opponents low goal, reducing their score. There was also a skill demonstrated where the robots shot out a string with a ring on the end, which appeared to be a strategy to tangle up your opponent, but that wasn’t clear and not all of the robots did this.
Battle Bots Competition
For those of you familiar with Battle Bots, this is a much less aggressive competition, i.e. no flame throwers, chain saws or axes, but there was still some mixing it up between the robots as they jockeyed for position and attempted to get the better of the opposing team.
There was obviously a lot of strategy, variation of design and some teamwork that made differences. Most of the robots spit the disks from fairly close and one at a time. One robot we watched tossed three disks at a time and didn’t miss until the upper goal was so full that disks were falling out, while another shot from across the field with pretty decent accuracy. Some had no trouble climbing over the small curbs defining the low goal, while others used that curb as a stop to set up their shots. The decisions between offense and defense were interesting as well. They were not allowed to “pin” their opponent, so a strategy of pushing and blocking was generally employed. We observed one team that would time a bump of the shooting robot just in time to throw off its shot, with every miss being a point for them in the low goal.
My understanding is that while most teams are school sponsored, that’s not a requirement. There were some teams that were quite obviously wearing school colors and were adorned with school mascots, while others were more creative in their team attire. Whether school affiliated or not, there was obviously a lot of non-traditional learning going on. Aside from the obvious STEM connections, the teamwork and strategy demonstrated were impressive. After qualifying, teams must form teams with other competitors in order to move forward in the competition. This is a process of evaluating their opponents and assessing skills that could add to their own. Negotiating and selling skills were employed!
There were several hundred spectators there. Most assuredly, the majority were family members of the competitors, but I would recommend taking the time to watch a competition, if you get the chance. We had no horse in the race, but enjoyed the competition just the same. These kids are future engineers and programmers, and seeing those skills put to work at the high school level is impressive. Well worth the time and price of admission (free)!
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.
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…
In my previous post, Culver needs an Infrastructure Czar, I discussed whether The Dunes development was an opportunity to improve the Davis Street/South Main Street intersection in Culver. I flippantly said there must be at least 6 options for improving that intersection, while offering a round-about as one of them. I decided to make that a creative challenge to myself and sketched up a few additional options here with some thoughts to go along with them.
Crude round-about sketch
The original sketch of a round-about remains an interesting solution. Considering the increased traffic from The Dunes, this might be a way of calming that traffic. It also provides a better way to access the dunes rather than dumping all of those vehicles out onto the narrow street that is South Main at an offset intersection to Tampa Street. (Not only is the offset from Tampa problematic, the adjacent drive for Garden Court that runs parallel to the new street will be problematic as well.)
As stated before, this improves existing intersection issues and preserves the proposed developer units. While this doesn’t eliminate the S-curve as South Main Street transitions through Davis Street, it does lengthen it. That would make it a little safer. It brings South Ohio Street in with a cleaner connection as well. It may also encourage some of the boat trailer traffic to find alternate routes rather than coming through the downtown area.
This does take a fair amount of buffer property away from The Dunes, but the traffic calming should be a reasonable trade-off.
Option #1 – Broaden South Main S-curve
The first additional option strictly reworks Ohio/Davis/Main without any changes to The Dunes layout or proposed street connection. The main advantage to this revision is further stretching out the Main Street S-curve as it transitions though Davis Street. Davis Street would still connect on the west curve, but it’s a broader curve with better site distance. If some additional right-of-way (ROW) could be purchased from 535 South Main Street to broaden that curve too, then all the better.
This again cuts into the buffer area for The Dunes, but would not affect their marketable area. The benefit to the Town would be significant.
Option #2 Doesn’t improve the S-curve, but it does eliminate the west connection between Davis Street and South Main Street. This brings South Ohio Street further south and connects into South Main Street south of the S-curve. This would provide a cleaner intersection.
Option #2 – Extend South Ohio Street
The pavement for Davis Street from South Main Street could be removed, but the ROW would need to remain for the water, sewer and storm lines that pass through there. This issue will be the same on any realignment of South Main Street. There may need to be enlarged ROW to accommodate the existing utilities, but the pavement could be removed and the areas could be landscaped. There would be private utilities, such as electric, gas, phone & cable to consider as well.
Again, if some additional right-of-way (ROW) could be purchased from 535 South Main Street to broaden that curve as shown in the previous option, then the S-curve could be improved as well.
Option #3 – Extend South Ohio Street to Prado Street
Option #3 is basically Option #2 repeated, but with the extension of South Ohio Street further south, so as it is returned to connect to Main Street, it lines up with Prado Street. It is generally good practice to align intersections, but as seen throughout Culver, good practice wasn’t always followed in the past. The same comment as above regarding obtaining ROW from 535 South Main Street applies.
This option is more onerous for the developer of The Dunes, as it severely reduces the buffer they have established between the development and the streets.
The other piece of interest here is the possibility of creating a pocket park here. This has been a Comprehensive Plan goal in the last two Comp Plans and has come up as the current plan is being reviewed. This could tie into future plans the Town has for 530 South Ohio Street, the demolished restaurant site on the corner of Ohio & Davis. This would increase their options on that site.
Option #4 – Purchase 535 South Main Street
Option #4 contemplates the Town purchasing 535 South Main Street. This would allow a complete rework and softening of the South Main Street S-curve and would roll additional Town-owned property into 530 South Ohio Street increasing options. (The same curve improvement could be accomplished by purchasing 604 South Main Street, but I would perceive this as less beneficial and more disruptive. Plus it does not provide the benefit of expanding the Town’s existing property at 530 South Ohio Street.)
This could be done as part of any of the options listed above with much the same benefits. Softening that curve would make that intersection much safer and if combined with the round-about option or Option #1, it would vastly improve the traffic flow and safety in this area.
The connection to Davis Street is somewhat problematic in this option, but could be helped by narrowing Davis Street and making it one way east from South Main Street to Obispo Street. This would change traffic patterns as Davis is feeder street, but it would only directly affect three homes with driveways on this section. This would allow for additional green space between the street and trail for this section as well. This would be similar to the recent change of East Washington Street to One-Way.
Option #5, the 6th and final option in this exercise, is to just toss in 4 stops signs and put the brakes on South Main Street. While this is the least effective in any attempt to improve traffic flow, it would be the most economical and provide added safety. For those of you that say changing the existing pattern would lead to accidents, this decision was made a number of years ago at the transition from North Main Street to Lake Shore Drive. It’s not particularly ancient history when North Main Street did not have a stop sign and just “curved” into Lake Shore Drive, while Lake Shore Drive did not have a stop sign for west bound traffic at that intersection. Never an issue for locals, this peculiar pattern lead to a couple of fender benders for out-of-towners, prompting the full stop requirement for the connection of the two main drags…
The point of this exercise, as a continuation of my last post, is that there are always options that should be considered. And along with the options, there should be every effort made to discern the potential unintended consequences. This is often not best handled locally, but better done with the assistance of professionals in their respective fields.
Edit 11-15-22: Oops! It was pointed out to me that the round-about concept appeared on page 97 of the current comprehensive plan! Geez, as many times as I’ve been through that plan, you’d think I would have remembered it! (see right) This is a more elegant drawing and shows some of the benefit I suggested. It is also suggesting that the eastern curve be abandoned in favor of a three-way stop intersection with crosswalks.This was suggested before development of The Dunes property was considered, so it does not show the forth round-about connection for that street which I still think would be prudent.
Alternatively, the comp plan suggests straightening Davis Street and creating two distinct T-intersections with three-way stops in lieu of the S-curves.
