PENDLETON — While discussion of COVID-19 relief funds during the Thursday, March 11, council meeting was brief, the council discussed at length — eventually passing unanimously — an ordinance involving traffic control around Pendleton Elementary School, as well as other ordinances.
“If you look at between Elm and High, between East and Pearl, there’s quite a network of alleys running through there,” town manager Scott Reske said. “And there’s four four-way intersections, and kids come to the elementary and the intermediate school through those alleys.
“I felt it was a safety issue that we probably needed to put a stop sign there at those intersections, and then as those alleys enter Pearl and as they enter East Street.”
Pendleton Police Chief Marc Farrer said he’s in favor of new stop signs in the alleys.
The ordinance also gave official approval to Pendleton Elementary School-Primary’s use of a portable stop sign at a crosswalk in front of the school when needed. Reske said the town already gave the school two new highly reflective, regulation-size signs to use for that purpose.
Council discussion then broadened to include general safety around the school, and what further actions might be needed.
Farrer said he spoke with the Principal Eric Schill, who is using the portable sign to slow down traffic on East Street. Farrer said he recommended much more be done to improve safety, such as updating the pedestrian crossing signage and adding other warnings.
“My opinion — and I’ve told Mr. Schill this — he needs to make East Street loud. And my point to that is, we need ‘school’ painted on the road; we need those (pedestrian crossing) signs more visible to the driver … I think the whole street needs more attention, some louder signage, and I’m taking the neon yellow stuff.”
Town Planning Director Rachel Christenson said a bigger issue with East Street is that it’s “outdated for what the use is.”
School buses used to park along the street, requiring it be wider, but now the buses pull off into lots. She said in the future the town probably will want to look at “a road diet,” where the road is narrowed and made to look more pedestrian friendly, to slow down drivers.
“I think long term, if we want to be good partners with our school district, we really should be looking at doing a road reconstruction project on East Street at some point,” Christenson said. “And it’s such an important corridor, because it helps connect our schools to our park, and that road just really, over time, has not been kept up as it should have been.”
Christenson said she thinks it’s important for the town to help address the issue to keep the school where it is.
“Having our school in our downtown area is so important, and I think that anything we can do to encourage (the district) to be comfortable there and stay there is good for our kids,” Christenson said. “Because if that school gets moved out to where the middle school is, our kids are not going to be walking to school at all. And I think having kids have the ability to ride their bike or walk to school is good for health reasons, social reasons, just a whole slew of things.”
On a couple of related issues, Reske said the town has plans to install raised crosswalks on East Street this summer as well as apply improved street markings.
Also, Reske said, a future stormwater project likely will take place in the area, so that “some of those traffic enhancements could all be rolled into one project, to improve the stormwater, the sidewalks and the alleys.”
Two other ordinances that were approved unanimously March 11 relate directly to dealing with growth in town.
• A “Post Construction Ordinance” was approved with two readings and two votes back-to-back, possible after a vote to suspend regular rules.
“This really deals a lot with the way that stormwater, or the erosion control measures that are taken on projects in Pendleton,” Christenson said. “This really cleans things up for us and gives us a clear outline of what our processes, basically the planning department, on what our expectation is for contractors and developers.”
Christenson said there was an audit of the town’s stormwater management in 2019, and “this was an area the state said we needed to improve on.”
“This helps us work more closely with the Madison County Soil and Water Conservation District,” Christenson said, and “gets us into compliance with the state.”
The ordinance will apply to future projects as well as those currently under development, she said.
An Access Management and Control Ordinance, which Christenson said limits access to certain roads, such as “major arterials,” to reduce traffic issues, was approved on its second reading. It passed its first reading last month.
“It all ties back to our thoroughfare transportation plan,” Christenson said.
Brandon Kendera, senior transportation planner at Madison County Council of Governments and project manager for the Pendleton thoroughfare plan, said the ordinance follows Indiana Department of Transportation guidelines and that similar ordinances have been adopted statewide.
“The purpose of access control is to improve the overall safety of a corridor by carefully restricting access to land adjacent to the roadway,” Kendera said.
Christenson said the ordinance can be useful when working with developers to back up town positions on certain aspects of proposals, such as why the town might object to a subdivision entrance being located on a certain stretch of road.
“It helps us manage growth,” she said.
Other council reports
Reske said there’s a town staff committee working on plans related to Grove Lawn Cemetery.
He said the town is going to ask Ball State University to use the effort as a senior project, “just to generate some ideas” on how to move forward with the cemetery, which has three sections: an original area, a newer area and an area comprised of fields that are farmed.
He said the town also aims to review the cemetery’s finances and establish a perpetual fund that would pay for maintenance in the distant future when the cemetery is full.
He also described the results of a recent town cemetery survey, which revealed some funeral trends, such as the use of columbariums.
“I didn’t even know what this was until we put this committee together,” Reske said.
“These are quite popular, and the survey showed it,” he said. “Columbariums are a place, as more and more people are cremated, are a place to put their remains.”
He showed images of the above-ground structures with multiple compartments to hold urns.
He said the survey also showed an interest in natural burials.
“We’re not quite sure — we’re investigating that, what Indiana law allows, requires — if we want to do it,” Reske said. “But we’re beginning to look into that in response to what people are asking.”
Pendleton Police Department has started the hiring process for a new officer, which will bring the total number to 11. Chief Marc Farrer said he’s thankful to be able to add an officer. He noted there’s been less interest in the position than expected, something he thinks could be partially attributed to the greater compensation or perks at other agencies, including more vacation time and greater police vehicle driving privileges. Council President Chet Babb said he’s “just glad we’re getting one more officer. It’s been a hard fight. Between Scott (Reske), (Clerk-
Treasurer) Willie (Boles), myself and council, we’ve really fought hard to get another officer,” he said. “I know I’ve tried for over six years. We’ve really done some moves and number crunching.”
Christenson said the town’s Historic Preservation Commission is working on facade grant guidelines for $250,000 of Indiana Food and Beverage Tax proceeds. She said the she expects applications to be sent to building and business owners in April.
Reske said he had the architect who designed the Pendleton fire station look at the town hall building after Boles noticed an issue with potential bowing of masonry. “We’re starting to look at if there’s an issue with the building,” Reske said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”At a glance” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
Pendleton Town Council voted 5-0 in favor of two ordinances during their first readings. The ordinances will return to the council for a second and final vote at a later date:
• Economic Development Rider Ordinance: “Sometimes we get economic development projects that happen very quickly and, as a town, we should be as prepared as possible to offer any incentives to any large businesses that might be coming into town,” Planning Director Rachel Christenson said.
“We worked with IMPA (Indiana Municipal Power Agency), and IMPA highly recommended that we put this ordinance in place, so that if something does pop up at the business park or anywhere else in town that we could move more quickly.”
Town manager Scott Reske added, “It’s for very large users, so it’s a volume discount, basically, is the layman’s way of putting it.
“It’s an incentive to get them to move here. It’s not for existing (operations).”
An existing business could qualify through an expansion, town attorney Jeff Graham said.
• Exemptions to parcels of land subject to the town’s recently established stormwater fee: In addition to public rights-of-way and parcels less than 2,000 square feet, the amendment would exempt from the fee parcels owned by the Town of Pendleton, Pendleton Fire Department, Fall Creek Township, Pendleton Community Public Library, Falls Park and Madison County.
“One of the reasons we want to do this is all you’re doing is just churning tax dollars,” Reske said.
Also factored in was the difficulty of identifying and assessing the fee involved with the entities, all of which already received an 80% discount as non-profit entities.
“When I got the database from the county and was going through, cleaning it up before I submitted it for the property tax rolls, to collect the fee, there was parcels everywhere,” Reske said. “It was chaos to try to figure it out … and so, it makes it cleaner and easier.”
[sc:pullout-text-end]
