Warsaw Board Approves Entertainment For Summer Concerts
By Leah Sander
InkFreeNews
WARSAW — It’s still winter, but the Warsaw Board of Public Works and Safety approved some requests for summer events at its meeting on Friday, Feb. 4.
One of the events was the retooled Northern Indiana Lakes Festival. The Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department has combined its former blues concert with the lakes festival for an all-day event on Saturday, July 9.
The Lilly Center for Lakes & Streams will still provide educational aspects for the day, but there will also be live music.
The board approved contracts for the music lineup, which includes: Cari Ray & The Shaky Legs; Jake Kershaw; Out of Favor Boys; Treated-N-Released; and William Scott.
It also approved contracts for musicians for the parks department’s Summer Concert Series. Performers will include: Cabildo; High Life; Jus’ta Band; Kennedy’s Kitchen; Mike Almon; Moon Cats; Ted Yoder Band; The 1985; and Tribute Quartet.
The summer concert series will take place at both Central and Lucerne parks this year, said Parks Director Stephanie Schaefer.
Payment for the musicians is coming out of budgeted parks department funds and through grants. Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer stated he was grateful to the Kosciusko County Community Foundation and the Indiana Arts Commission for their help in bringing the musicians to the area.
Religious event
The board also approved allowing some road closures for a religious event in the city on Sunday, June 19.
Dan Hampton from Sacred Heart Catholic Church of Warsaw and Chris Langford from the Catholic Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend spoke about the event.
It’s a processional linked to Corpus Christi Sunday. The processional is to start at Sacred Heart. It will travel from Main Street past the Zimmer Biomet building then on Indiana Street to Central Park.
“It’ll stop off there for 10 or 15 minutes and then proceed up (SR) 15 North or Detroit Street to Our Lady of Guadalupe (Catholic Church of Warsaw),” said Hampton. “The processional is expected to take two hours between the hours of 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. and then there’ll be a festival at Our Lady of Guadalupe that will go until 7 or 8 p.m.”
Hampton also said organizers plan to communicate with the businesses and residents along the route about the plan.
Langford said organizers expect several thousand people to participate as it’s open to parishioners from across the diocese and everything will be cleaned up afterward.
Thallemer asked Warsaw Police Department Capt. Joel Beam to explain about communicating with the Indiana Department of Transportation about event participants using SR 15.
Beam said INDOT had given permission to shut down a stretch of the highway for the event.
Thallemer also said organizers had communicated with Parks Superintendent Larry Plummer about the use of Central Park that day.
The board ultimately granted organizers their approval.
McKinley project
The board also heard from Warsaw Utility Manager Brian Davison a brief update on improvements to a storm sewer at McKinley Street near where Winona Lake is to put in a roundabout.
“We are past substantial completion on it,” he said. “The new pipe is active now, and the stormwater feature with the swirl concentrator, that’s online now, and so we have a little bit of work to do over across the street in that apartment area and then abandon our old pipe that goes to the lake and do clean-up and we’ll be out of there.”
“They are way ahead of schedule,” he added. “I think they have until towards the end of March to finish, so they’re waiting on one component right now that should be another week or so and hopefully they get in and finish pretty quick.”
In other business, the board:
- Approved a request from Beam for the WPD to apply for an Indiana Department of Homeland Security matching grant for new body cameras for officers. Beam pointed out the ones the WPD got in 2014 are starting to get old.
- Praised Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon for his department’s efforts regarding the recent snowstorm as well as other city departments in helping with snow removal.
The board’s next meeting is 10:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 18, at Warsaw City Hall.