From left, Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer and Board of Works members Jeff Grose (standing) and George Clemens prior to Friday’s Board of Works meeting. InkFreeNews photo by Lasca Randels

By Lasca Randels
InkFreeNews

WARSAW — Warsaw’s Board of Public Works & Safety approved contracts for two Central Park summer concerts at their March 19 meeting. 

As announced at the Warsaw Parks & Recreation board meeting Tuesday, March 16, the three major summer concerts – classic rock, blues and country – will not be held in 2021. The smaller Friday night concert series will still take place.

Warsaw Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer said at that time that they would be substituting additional Friday night concerts in place of the major rock and country ones.

The first contract, in the amount of $800, is with Donn May, representing Big Daddy Dupree’s Broke and Hungry Blues Band. 

The band’s bio reads, in part: “Big Daddy brought the Blues straight from South Side of Chicago into Leesburg, Indiana. When Paul Kornfeind arrived in 2008, he continued to pursue his dream of building a small Blues band and having fun playing the greatest genre of music known to man, the Blues. Over the past few years his dream has exploded into a reality of a full-blown eight piece, soul infused, low down and dirty Blues experience.

The band is scheduled to play from 7-8:30 p.m. July 23 at Central Park Plaza.

The second contract is with Zach Day for $1,500. The band will play from 7-8:30 p.m. June 11.

Wieringa also presented contracts for two parks programs. The first is a contract with Heather Widner for painting classes. Widner has been leading virtual painting classes for the parks department during the pandemic but starting in May those classes will be returning to in-person classes, Wieringa said.

“We think that we can socially distance. We’ve got that capped at a good number where we can keep everybody socially distanced inside one of our buildings and be able to have people back in the buildings again so we’re excited to have this contract with her,” Wieringa said.

The second is a contract with Michelle Wysong for ballroom dance classes. 

“We had these scheduled for last March and we got two classes into it and we all got sent home,” Wieringa said. “So we are bringing her back to try and do it again.”

The classes start May 11 and will be held on Monday evenings. There will be two different sessions, with Wysong teaching four types of dance.

Both contracts were approved. 

A complete streets policy for the city that was also presented to the board at the last meeting by Jonny Latsko, assistant city planner, was approved Friday.

Latsko told the board at the March 5 meeting that having the policy established would help unify the city’s approach to designing and building transportation projects.

The policy was tabled at that time for further discussion.

Latsko submitted his letter of resignation in February, with his last day of working for the city being March 5.

“I do want to apologize,” Mayor Joe Thallemer said Friday. “I really meant to say something publicly about Jonny’s service to the city. I know he was fortunate enough to get a job back home, closer to his family, back home in Ohio, which worked well for him … he got some good experience here under Justin and Jeremy and we very much appreciate all the work he’s done.”

In other news, the board approved: 

• Re-establishment of the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Ride-A-Long firefighter program.
• A lease agreement with OrthoWorx through the end of July.
• A stormwater contract with G&G Hauling.

The next regular meeting will be held at 11:15 a.m. on Monday, April 5.