James W. Emans, far left, addresses Board Member Tim Croy, Clerk Treasurer Barb Ross, Board President Jill Gross, Board Member Shelly Krueger and Town Attorney Larry Beeson. Emans reported on the need for an ordinance designed to make soliciting municipal contract work less arduous.

MENTONE — The town of Mentone is currently dealing with unauthorized trash dumping and vandalism at one of the town’s most popular parks.

The Town Board of Mentone heard a report on Monday night, March 5 from Street Superintendent Josh Shepherd and Town Marshal James Eads about problems with the the town’s sewage treatment plant and Mentzer Park. According to Shepherd and Eads, someone has been dumping trash at a location near the treatment plant. The town is investigating ways to combat the troublesome trend. But most disturbing is a wave of vandalism that has plagued the town’s signature park.

“We’ve been vandalized three times in the last 45 to 60 days,” said Eads, who said the vandals have spray painted several structures including the pavilion on the west side of the creek. “There was profanity on the back pavilion, which were painted in tan, black and red. The last event was Sunday, Feb. 25 and at that time, they also did some telephone poles and the Cornerstone church up here. I would say at this point we’re still under $10,000 in damages.”

Eads declined specifics but said he plans to solve the case and prevent future vandalism from occurring.

The board heard a report from James W. Emans of Emans Engineering about an ordinance that can make soliciting some contract work a bit less cumbersome for town officials such as Shepherd. “There is a way through the statute that if a town adopts an ordinance that you can authorize just a single purchase through the small purchase statute up to $50,000, you set that amount,” Emans said. “There’s a lot of work that Josh does with contractors that, if you don’t put that in place, he’s obligated, even on a $500 purchase, to solicit at least two quotes and it slows things down.”

Emans said that municipalities are mandated to solicit work through an arduous process, which includes entertaining bids when it comes to major infrastructure projects. He added, however, streamlining the process on smaller, less pricey jobs, would help Shepherd get the work done quicker by means of accessing reliable contractors in quicker fashion.

“If you were to do it, it gives him the latitude, where there are contractors around here who are pretty reliable,” he said. “Typically, you would still get an estimate to ensure that the work wouldn’t exceed the threshold of whatever you approve. It makes the work of soliciting that contract a whole lot easier. I would urge you to consider doing it just to unshackle him so that if he has a $500 or a $5,000 repair, he can just go get someone to do it.”

The board gave town attorney Larry Beeson permission to begin drafting an ordinance and voted to give the ordinance a cap of $30,000.

In other news, the board also:

• Heard a report from Board President Jill Gross about rising costs of health insurance for town employees. “We’re trying to come up with some options just to lower our costs just a little bit,” Gross said. “Nothing’s been decided. Gross gave the town employees two options that are being considered. She told those in attendence that the goal would be to pick an option that would keep out-of-pocket costs to employees from going up. 

• Heard a report from Eads about the need for new laptops for the police department’s squad cars. Eads said he is looking at what he calls Panasonic “tough books.” Eads described the computers as “ruggedized laptops.” He said “the ones that I’ve looked at on there are no more than $500 each. They’re refurbished.” Eads told the council that the laptops he found on Ebay come with three year warranties for an extra $80. “It would be a good thing if we added the $80,” he said. Eads told the board his squad’s current computers are between six and seven years old. The new computers would be taken to the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department to have software installed to make them compatible with the rest of the county. As far as the computers he will replace, “They’ve done pretty well but they’re at the end of their life cycles.”