Warsaw Police Department Capt. Joel Beam displays the stack of speeding tickets for the month of July alone from blitzes the department conducted. Of the nearly 500 tickets, a majority of them were for speeders on US 30 in the city. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone,
Times-Union

WARSAW — Growing up, one of Warsaw Police Department Capt. Joel Beam’s favorite parts about elementary school was show and tell.

At Wednesday’s Warsaw Traffic Commission, Aug. 7, he had a large stack of papers to show and tell about.

“In July, I don’t know if you noticed, but we hit U.S. 30 extremely, extremely hard,” Beam stated.

The first stack of papers — each piece of paper representing a speeding ticket — was from one blitz that law enforcement did on the highway. The second stack was from another blitz, also in the city.

“In July, we wrote, on US 30, 249 tickets. In one day we had a blitz, we wrote 90 people for speeding. We were in the city, and we were also east and west of town as cars were coming in. Police were on the side of the road shooting with the laser. It didn’t look like a police car because we’re sneaky like that,” Beam said, generating laughs from the commission.

The other blitz was in the Warsaw area and not specifically on US 30.

“In total, we wrote 470 tickets, just in July. This was off-duty grant work. This does not include officers who were actually working as well, because that number is going to be higher,” Beam said. “Our goal is, obviously, to make US 30 as safe as possible. We know people are speeding, and this is, obviously, evidence of it and we’re working hard to make it safe.”

With that in mind, Beam said they also have grant dollars to follow buses and to be in schools.

“So we will be out and about,” he stated.

Warsaw Common Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins gave WPD kudos.

“I noticed on Detroit Street, 15 North, a lot of officers out there at different times of the day,” she said.

On another subject, Councilman Mike Klondaris, who doesn’t sit on the Traffic Commission, asked about the status of the intersection of South Detroit and Pope streets where Warsaw Cut Glass is located. He asked if any progress has been made there.

“We have put the pavement markings down, and I have not talked to Warsaw Cut Glass personally, but I have not heard any other complaints, so we went down and watched it,” Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon said.

He has not witnessed any excessive speed coming around the corner of Prairie and Detroit there at Warsaw Cut Glass since the pavement markings were put down.

“There is,” Klondaris said.

Dillon said if drivers are flying around that corner, staying in their lane will be a challenge for them, but he’s not had any complaints on it.

Klondaris said he’s not had any complaints to him, but he drives through there multiple times per day. If someone is parked in front of the Warsaw Cut Glass front door, he said it’s hard to see oncoming Detroit Street traffic from the Pope Street stop sign.

Council President and Commission member Jack Wilhite said he appreciated the double lines on both streets.

Klondaris said the last time he attended a Traffic Commission meeting and they talked about the Detroit, Pope and Prairie streets area, there was some discussion about getting input from the Michiana Area Council of Governments. He asked if that had happened.

City engineer Aaron Ott said he and City Planner Justin Taylor both have been in contact with MACOG, but “they have ideas that are not practical, to be frank about, but what we wanted to do — and I think it speaks to your concern is — you’re talking about the westbound turning movement when you’re sitting in front of Warsaw Cut Glass. You’re not talking about Prairie Street wrapping around, correct?”

Klondaris said he was talking about when you’re on Pope Street heading west and you come upon Detroit Street where people are swinging around from Prairie Street. “It just makes it hard to know if you can pull out safely or not,” he said.

Ott said one of the things they had hoped to try was to convince Warsaw Cut Glass to limit parking at the north end of their business, but they haven’t had successful conversations with them.

“They don’t like the idea of us encroaching on what they believe is their parking area, is my understanding,” he said.

Taylor said their first step after the previous discussion was to see what impact the striping had on that intersection. If Klondaris was continuing to see issues, Taylor said they could take another step in the direction of maybe controlling some of the right-of-way there in front of Warsaw Cut Glass, but that would involve some discussions with them.

“It’s right-of-way, but we still want to be sensitive to their access that they’ve had over the years,” Taylor said.

Klondaris said it seemed like a very simple solution to him to put a stop sign at the end of Prairie Street so it slows them down.

Earlier, at the start of the Traffic Commission meeting, they reviewed ordinances for stop signs in the city that didn’t have ordinances for enforcement. All the stops were one-way stops. Two locations didn’t have stop signs at them yet. The Commission approved the ordinance list and for it to be forwarded on to the city council.