Kosciusko County Teen Court Interim Director Lana Horoho. InkFreeNews photo by Lasca Randels.

By Lasca Randels
InkFreeNews

WARSAW —  Lana Horoho received approval to seek a 2021 grant for the Kosciusko County Teen Court program at the Kosciusko County Commissioners meeting Tuesday, Oct. 13. 

Horoho, who is currently serving as the Kosciusko County Teen Court interim director while Director Betsy Vastbinder is on family leave, spoke about the program’s success — but not before expressing gratitude to Cheryl Hastings who has stepped into Horoho’s former role as a case manager.

“She’s been a huge help,” Horoho said of Hastings. “And I don’t know how I would have done it all on my own.”

Horoho previously held the position of case manager and said she has been fortunate to find someone to help her out with that while Vastbinder is at home.

“We had a very successful year with the teen court last year,” Horoho said. “We had 114 teens go through our program —107 of them successfully completed our requirements with only seven of those teens being referred back to juvenile probation.” 

Horoho told commissioners the program is an asset to the community, providing teens who are referred to the program with a second chance and an opportunity to be redirected, with a goal of preventing re-entry into the justice system. 

“Our program also takes some of the strain off of juvenile probation and Judge Cates,” Horoho said. “Hopefully we’re helping in the long run as well by teaching (the teens) skills and decision-making so that they will not make the same decisions and have any more experience with the justice system.”

Horoho said they’ve had nothing but support from the county. 

“Everybody that we’ve come in contact with has been nothing but helpful and we appreciate it,” Horoho said. “We hope that you’re able to see our community’s values and priorities in the teen court and what we do.”

“I just think it’s great that we’ve only had seven referral backs,” said County Commissioner Cary Groninger. “That’s a pretty high percentage of success, so that’s awesome to hear.”

In another matter, Kosciusko Economic Development Corporation CEO Alan Tio provided a KEDCo quarterly update. 

He spoke about the organization’s housing initiative, stating that more housing will reduce commuting, which in turn helps to reduce employee turnover.

Tio said a number of the areas in the county are unincorporated and those communities do not have the resources to help with pre-development work for additional housing.

“We have a revolving loan set up to pay for that kind of work,” Tio said. “And then when we find a developer they pay us back.”

However, Tio said, when they are working in an unincorporated area of the county, KEDCo has their half of the match but the community is unable to come up with the other half. 

Kosciusko County Commissioner President Brad Jackson

“We’re missing that match partner in the unincorporated areas of Kosciusko County,” Tio said.

He requested that the county commissioners consider allocating money from the special projects fund to serve as that local match so that KEDCo could match with state dollars to pay for predevelopment for site planning. 

“When we get those dollars back, we would put them toward predevelopment of the next site,” Tio said. 

He requested $50,000.

Groninger commented that the commissioners have committed $100,000 from the special projects fund to pay for small business loan relief related to COVID, but pointed out there is $150,000 remaining.

“I guess the big thing I see is that this is really giving some of these small communities that maybe can’t afford or can’t do it because it’s outside their boundary a real opportunity,” Groninger said.

Commissioners approved the $50,000 allocation from the special projects fund. 

Bowen Center CEO Kurt Carlson presented the company’s annual report. He also introduced Dr. Robert Ryan, VP of Operations, who will become the new CEO at Bowen Center in July of 2022. 

“I’m not retiring,” Carlson clarified. “I’ll just step aside and be at his beck and call whenever he needs anything.”

Carlson said the Bowen Health Clinic opened in December and will be holding an open house Oct. 20.

“The Kosciusko County Health Department requested that we work with them to be the COVID-19 test site for Kosciusko County,” Carlson said. “We’ve done everything we can do to do that. We were approved by the state.”

According to Carlson, everything is ready to go on their end. At this point, Carlson said, they are simply waiting for the state to send PPE, testing material and computers. 

Terry Burnworth, owner of Pyramid Consulting Services out of Indianapolis, requested approval to enter into negotiation with J&K Communications Inc. for the Kosciusko County public safety communications project. 

Scoring sheets were used in determining which vendor to go with, Burnworth said, with J&K receiving the highest score. Commissioners gave approval for Burnworth to negotiate a communication service agreement 

Bids for tower sites will be received at the Oct. 27 commissioners meeting, and Burnworth will present the final service agreement at that time. 

County Administrator Marsha McSherry received approval for several items, including: 

• Glycol replacement proposal in the amount of $18,757 with Core Mechanical
• The annual service agreement with Johnson Controls
• A phone system agreement
• Inter-local agreement for terminal services data
• Video conferencing proposal with CSD Group from Rick Stewart Consulting. 

In other matters:

• Syracuse resident Kenny Butt was honored as Veteran of the Month.
• A vacation of public way request was continued to the Nov. 24 commissioners meeting.
• Dates of the December commissioners meeting have been revised and will now take place Dec. 8 and Dec. 22.
• A dedication ceremony will be held at the Gold Star/Silver Star Memorial that was placed on the back of the war memorial at the southwest corner of the courthouse lawn immediately following the 9 a.m. Kosciusko County Commissioners meeting Oct. 27. Commissioner Vice President Bob Conley said the dedication is tentatively scheduled to begin between 9:45-10 a.m. 
• The next regular meeting will be 9 a.m. Oct. 27.