If the Town of Churubusco succeeds this time around in obtaining a grant from the Indiana Office of Rural Affairs, they expect to break ground next spring for a new $2.5 million water treatment facility project, which includes renovating and updating the town’s water system. The project would include re-coating and painting the town’s existing 400,000-gallon water tank.

Community Focus Fund (CFF) grants are awarded on a point system basis. Although Churubusco scored enough points to move to the top third of the priority list — thanks to the number of citizens and businesses who sent letters to the state about their dissatisfaction with the cloudy, discolored and often rusty condition of the water — the town did not get a grant in the first round awarded earlier this year.

Jim Atz of Region 3-A was present at the council meeting to outline the process of the grant application process.

The town has applied for a $500,000 CFF grant, and would add to that an Indiana Department of Environmental Management State Revolving Fund for $1.7 million, as well as $262,500 in cash that the town has on hand, Atz said.

The application must be submitted by Sept. 11 and the town should hear in November whether or not it will receive the grant.

If the town receives the grant and begins construction next spring, the project would most likely be completed in less than 12 months, Atz said.

In other business:

• Turtle Days officials asked for the town’s okay before they move forward with a fall fundraiser, scheduled for Sept. 26 and 27 in downtown Churubusco.

President of the festival board, Kirk Gray, along with vice president Robin Ramsey and treasurer Vince McEntee told council members Frank Kessler, John Hart and Viv Sade that they wanted to host the fundraiser in order to raise money to pay for a fireworks display for next summer’s festival - which will be the 60th anniversary of the popular summer event. 

The fundraiser will include a beer tent with live entertainment both Friday and Saturday nights, Gray said. Other events include a motorcycle poker run, an afternoon barbecue and  televised football Saturday, including the Notre Dame vs Purdue game.

The tent will be located in a parking lot immediately west of Valero gas station and Pit Stop Pizza, just off of Whitley Street (S.R. 205), Gray said.

Gray said the festival did remarkably well with its first-ever beer tent and live band performances during this year’s Turtle Days.

“We made a profit and we were able to donate $2,000 to the community park,” Gray said. “We hope to continue this success and give the park even more next year.”

Churubusco Town Marshal Chad Fulkerson told the council that he was surprised and pleased that everything ran smoothly with the beer tent in June. “It went well and we had zero incidents,” Fulkerson said. “Everyone was well-behaved and incident-wise, there was just nothing to report.”

Gray also asked if the beer tent could have two extra hours to close on both nights. The bands will play from 9 p.m. until midnight, as they did last time, Gray said, but he and the other officials would like to give everyone time to visit and “slowly close it down and clean up” from midnight until 2 a.m.

“We would not have any loud music after midnight, but would play some quieter background music as people were leaving,” Gray said. “It just seemed like (at this year’s event) the band quit p,laying and we had to quickly get everyone out. And, many of them stood outside the tent, visiting and talking with each other.”

Sade asked if they had contacted the neighbors surrounding the parking lot and Gray said all had been contacted.

Hart, Kessler and Sade all agreed they had no problem with Turtle Days board members hosting the event, in light of Fulkerson’s positive report on the last one.

• An employee at the wastewater treatment plant, John Forker, was given a favorable recommendation by his supervisor, Bob Hyatt, and the council agreed to end Forker’s standard 90-day employment probation. Forker started last year at the plant on the school’s ICE program while a senior at Churubusco High School. He is employed in the  minimum wage or Class 4 position of part-time employee, according to the town’s salary ordinance. Hyatt said with the jump in the minimum wage in July, Forker received a pretty good raise and that he will get another one next summer, when minimum wage is expected to again increase.
• The council briefly discussed a request by Charles Ransom, who lives in an upstairs apartment at 121 N. Main Street. For years the downstairs has been zoned and used for various businesses - most recently Pit Stop Pizza - but Ransom said it is no longer being leased as a business space. At an August meeting Ransom had asked to be billed only one residential fee for water and sewage. Ransom said he is now occupying the bottom half of the building, as well as the top, and did not want to be charged for two separate utility bills, as it is currently set up. The council agreed to review a copy of the water and sewer use ordinance as it pertains to business and residential and revisit  the issue at a future meeting.
• The Sept. 17 meeting will be held at the Churubusco Community Park in the Boy Scout building where officers of the Muller Memorial Pool organization are slated to make a
  

  Pool committee members ride the float in the Turtle Days parade.
  presentation. Liz Schemm, president of the group, will outline the proposal for building a community pool in Churubusco. The pool fund started with a single donation of $361,000 from the Muller family, but had grown to over $421,000 just six weeks ago, Schemm said. Lucas Konger, a graduate architect for Vintage Archonics of Fort Wayne and a Churubusco High School graduate, said the project would fall in the $400,000 to $500,000 for a simple community pool, with more elaborate plans falling in the $500,000 to $1 million range.