By Jackie Gorski
Times-Union

WINONA LAKE — Winona Lake Town Council agreed Tuesday, July 30, to pick several priorities in its Imagine Winona Lake Action Program to see if they can work on them this year.

The action program is part of the town’s comprehensive plan.

Town Manager Craig Allebach said Michiana Area Council of Governments facilitated a plan in 2019, which was adopted.

There is a wide variety of issues in the plan, some of which the town has worked through, some partially and some not so much.

Allebach said he thought it was a good idea for the council to review the comprehensive plan, especially for the newer council members, so it can be used as a guidemap of where they want to go in the next five years.

Council President Jim Lancaster suggested picking two or three projects that have momentum or need momentum to get finished.

The first priority the town will focus on is to install sidewalks along Wooster Road to enhance the safety of users and offer an alternative form of travel to area destinations.

Lancaster suggested the council focus on that priority, noting it would probably be a stretch to have it finished this year. He did say the town needed something along Wooster Road.

Allebach said this priority was based on a grant the town received called Safe Routes To Schools to put sidewalks on Wooster Road to make it safer to walk to Jefferson Elementary and Grace College.

Allebach said the cost of concrete is not cheap, noting Warsaw did a sidewalk project to put sidewalks around Lincoln Elementary School, which cost about $3 million.

Allebach said the Wooster Road project has always been on his list to get done if the town ever gets around to doing it.

Councilwoman Ashley McGinnis suggested a greenway be made along Wooster Road. Allebach said greenways aren’t necessarily any cheaper than sidewalks.

Another priority the town will look at this year is to adopt and implement a complete streets policy. Allebach said with the street policy, the town would look at things like pedestrian traffic and being proactive to make streets safer by doing things like putting in sidewalks and curbs.

The third priority the council will look at is develop more year-round community events and activities to attract residents and visitors. Allebach said part of the priority relates to the ice rink at the Miller Sunset Pavilion.

Another priority is to create an online system to streamline event registration, recruitment for volunteers and event promotion.

McGinnis suggested the town could send out newsletters. Allebach said Winona Lake at one point did send out mailings and mailings are more expensive now than they were when the town did the mailings, saying it was probably over $1,600 a mailing.

Allebach said mailings could possibly be pushed out digitally if they had people’s emails to do so and send out emails for things like special events.

In other business, the council:

• Heard from McGinnis she is the chair of the Miller Sunset Pavilion Committee until a director for the pavilion is hired. Once a director is hired, that person will become chair of the committee.
McGinnis said the pavilion committee has a plan on how to handle some of the upcoming events going on at the pavilion.

• Approved a quote from J & K Communications for $34,861.75 for a tornado siren as the current tornado siren is not in working order.

Allebach said the town originally received a quote of about $30,000 from Federal Signal. Allebach heard of timeliness issues of Federal Signal hooking up a tornado siren in a local township and J & K Communications was brought in to finish hooking up the tornado siren. Allebach said after hearing about that, he got a quote from J & K Communications and recommended the council go with that quote to avoid any issues.

• Approved a bid from Niblock for $863,421.71 to pave sections of 33 streets.

• Approved for Allebach to apply for the second round of Community Crossings Matching Grant money this year. Deadline is Wednesday.

Allebach said the town has a capacity of $455,000 to apply for in the second round. Allebach said there’s a couple projects he’d like to apply that money for, so if he can get the information get ready by 5 p.m. Wednesday he’d like to apply for the grant for those projects.

• Congratulated Allebach on receiving the Sagamore of the Wabash.