At the Warsaw Board of Public Works & Safety meeting on Friday, April 1, are from left: Board members Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer, George Clemens and Jeff Grose. InkFreeNews photo by Leah Sander.

By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — The Warsaw Police Department is getting new body cameras, thanks to a state homeland security grant.

At the Warsaw Board of Public Works & Safety meeting on Friday, April 1, the board accepted an Indiana Department of Homeland Security Local Body Camera matching grant.

It will pay for 42 cameras for officers to replace aging ones at a cost of $25,200, which works out to $600 apiece. The WPD does have to put up $8,400 as the grant is a matching one.

WPD Deputy Chief Bryan Sherwin said that 14 cameras will go to the department’s SWAT and emergency response officers and the rest to patrol officers.

Fast Cab

The board also heard a request from Sherwin regarding taxi cab permits.

“After 36 years, Dave Cesaretti is retiring as the owner of Fast Cab,” Sherwin said. “He has found two guys that have purchased it and it will be called L and L Taxi.”

The new owners are Leonard Burns and Larry Scripter.

“Of those two guys, each one of them will have their own taxis and then there are five other taxis that already have permits on them that were originally Dave’s,” said Sherwin. “So Dave sold five taxis back to his own drivers and those permits were already in effect on those vehicles.”

Sherwin asked the board if it would approve permits for the two new vehicles and agree to continue the permits on the five other vehicles, so the new owners wouldn’t have to pay new fees for 2022 on those five.

He noted the vehicles had been inspected and L and L Taxi had all the other necessary certifications.

The board approved the request.

Kelly Park work

The board also approved paying G&G Hauling & Excavating more than $600,000 to complete work at Kelly Park’s pond.

“This project was scheduled to go last summer and due to some problems with some easements, the project got pushed,” said Warsaw Utility Manager Brian Davison.

He added that G & G asked for more money for the project due to prices for materials having gone up.

The board agreed to pay G & G the $589,143.67 it was to originally plus an extra $13,510.88 for a total of $602,654.55.

In other business, the board:

• Allowed the WPD to use the approximately $2,700 it received from an Indiana Criminal Justice Institute Stop Arm Violation Enforcement (S.A.V.E.) grant. The grant will pay officers to conduct patrols enforcing school bus safety.
• Approved Brian Neher, Brian Smith, Carrie Heflick, Ted Heflick, Paul Lafferty and Tim Smith as stagehands for city concerts.
• Allowed Cold Delights of Plymouth to pay an in-county rate of $300 for a yearly permit to operate an ice cream truck in Warsaw instead of the out-of-county rate of $1,000. Board members noted in part that Cold Delights wouldn’t be selling ice cream year-round.
• Approved a road closure request brought by Paula Bowman of Warsaw Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The church is having an Easter egg hunt open to the public at the Kosciusko County Courthouse lawn from 3-5 p.m. Saturday, April 16. The board agreed to shut down Buffalo Street from Main Street to Center Street and Center Street from Buffalo Street to Lake Street for safety purposes.

The board’s next meeting is 10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 14, at Warsaw City Hall. It will be on that date instead of Friday, April 15, due to the latter being Good Friday.