LAPEL — Lapel is working to prioritize road repairs as part of its application to the state Community Crossings Matching Grant Program.
At the July 2 meeting, Josh Goodmon, a representative of Fishers-based engineering and architecture firm RQAW who has been providing inspections of the town’s roads, told the board road ratings are completed.
The window to apply for Community Crossings grants opened July 1 and closes Aug. 2.
Though a date had not been determined, representatives of RQAW and the town council are expected to meet soon to discuss which roads to be selected for the grant.
“You have to specifically name the roads, streets you are going to repair, and those are the only ones you can do,” council President Deb Wainscott said. “(RQAW) has gone over all the roads and we, as a board, will pick which ones to be done (in this grant application).”
Goodmon said each road in the town and its annexed area is given a rating of one to 10, with 10 signifying a new road and one identifying the older roads.
The numbers are given to LTAP (Local Technical Assistance Program), a Federal Highway Administration technology transfer program.
“We can come and say these roads are the worst, but they may have only one house or two residents on that road, whereas you could have a road that is in slightly better shape, but everybody in town drives on,” Goodmon said, illustrating a couple of the factors that are considered during the grant process.
Community Crossings provides funding to cities, towns and counties across the state to make improvements to local roads and bridges.
Community Crossings is a partnership between the Indiana Department of Transportation and Indiana communities.
Park praised as tournament host
Brookside Park got rave reviews for its hosting of the June 27-30 Babe Ruth Softball State Tournament.
From communities as nearby as Madison-Grant and Tipton and as far away as South Bend and Hammond, about 250 families spent much of the weekend at Lapel’s newest park.
“It was a huge success,” council and Lapel Park Board member Jason Kleinbub said of feedback he received from visitors at the event. “They were impressed with our community and our complex. They thought the tournament was run professionally and liked the central location of Lapel.”
Kleinbub praised the park board, Lapel Girls Softball League and community for its dedication and volunteer work to make sure the park was ready to go for the tournament.
“It was a great joint effort from our park board, the softball league and our citizens,” Kleinbub said.
“It was very humbling to hear some of those towns say how well they thought Lapel handled the tournament,” Wainscott said.
Kleinbub said the league and park hope to host tournaments in the future.
In other news, the council:
• Approved hiring Kenneth Penn as a full-time employee to the utility department. It also promoted Steve Selby from part-time to full-time in the department. Both actions took effect Monday.
• Tabled its decision — so that it can consider all of its options — to move a bank account at Citizen’s Bank in Pendleton to First Merchants Bank in Lapel. The town has one account at each bank. They were approached by First Merchants to see if the town was interested in doing all of its banking at one local bank.
Wainscott said the previous clerk-treasurer did not like all of the money in one bank.
“First Merchants has offered to give us a better deal if we move the account from Citizen’s to First Merchants,” she said.
• Accepted a bid from E&B Paving for $15,600 of work on Third Street. The town sought bids from four companies and received two. The job will include widening and paving a section of the street that connects with Brookside Park.
• Approved a plan from Regal Computer Services to help protect town computers from ransomware attacks. The cost is $200 for backup hardware and an additional $100 per month for two on-site backups for the server and a work station.
• Heard from a resident who said a resident was running a landscape business out of his home on Birmingham Boulevard. He called equipment being left in the neighborhood an eyesore.
The town council agreed to review the related ordinance.
“We will monitor and pay closer attention to it,” councilman Tom Marvel said.
