Syracuse Town Council President Nathan Scherer, left, chats with town Attorney Jay Rigdon while Clerk-Treasure Virginia Cazier chats with Mark Aurich, public works director prior to the Syracuse Town Council meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 21. Photo by Lauren Zeugner.

By Lauren Zeugner
InkFreeNews

SYRACUSE — Two local businesses came before the Syracuse Town Council during its regular meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 21, seeking assistance as they move forward with planned expansions.

Marlin Schwartz, developer for Urban Oaks Apartments, and Terry Lang of Wightman, an architecture/engineering firm in South Bend, came before the council seeking to have several alleys and streets around Urban Oaks vacated. Lang explained these alleyways and streets were on paper, but never constructed. Some currently run through the old school building, the south parking lot and the old playground.

Lang explained Urban Oaks is considering the next phase of the apartments and would like those areas vacated so the new apartment buildings can be planned. He reminded the council by vacating those alleys and streets, the property will come back on the tax rolls earning revenue for the town.

Lang also noted there are no utility issues for the town to worry about.

The council took the request under advisement.

The highlighted sections on this map show where the alleys and streets Urban Oaks would like vacated so it can move into the next phase in developing the apartment complex at the old Syracuse Elementary School. Photo provided by Wightman Architecture.

The council elected to have Nathan Scherer serve another year as council president with Cindy Kaiser serving as vice president.

A representative from Aluminum Insights, which is located in the Syracuse Technology Park, requested a declaratory resolution for a tax abatement on both personal and real property. Aluminum Insights is planning a 40,000 square foot expansion of existing manufacturing space with the hiring of at least 15 full time employees.

After asking a few questions, the council approved the declaratory resolution.

The council approved renewing the town’s on-call agreement with Commonwealth Engineering, the town’s engineering firm, not to exceed $10,000.

The council also agreed to pursue grants through the State Revolving Loan program though the Indiana Finance Authority and the Office of Community Rural Affairs. If the grants are awarded, the town could receive up to $750,000 for three major projects in town.

Jeremy Hardy of Commonwealth Engineering told the town the proposed projects included cleaning up the Huntington Street corridor up to the new RV park. This project would include upgrading the water lines. Other parts of the project include installing new transformers behind the wastewater treatment plant and addressing lead services in an older area south east of the water plant.

In the town manager’s report, David Wilkinson told the council the facade grant program has been very successful with “tons of applications” coming in. The $15,000 originally budgeted for the grant was quickly awarded in $5,000 increments. These are one to one grants between a business owner and the town. He requested $25,000 for the grant program for 2025 funded though Economic Development Income Tax funds.He already has one application in for 2025.

Council President Nathan Scherer said he’d like to see before and after photos of some of the projects while Councilman Bill Musser made a motion to increase the grant amount using EDIT funds. Wilkinson gave Scherer some ideas of businesses that received the grant and offered to send before and after photos.

The town has also received a grant from the Michiana Council of Governments to have an electric charging station installed. MACOG will pay for 80% of the installation and has awarded the town a $2,000 grant toward its 20% match, which would be approximately $10,000 to $15,000. The charging station would be installed on Pearl Street and be large enough to handle four electric vehicles.

Vehicle owners would be charged by the kilowatt and funds would go back to the town. Musser asked how these charging stations are advertised so electric vehicle owners can find them. Wilkinson said he believed the cars have gps locators in them to find the charging stations. The town approved accepting the grant.

The council approved donating $15,000 to Kosciusko Coalition on Drug Education.

Police Chief Jim Layne reported he received a grant from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation to update the onboard computers in the squad cars.

Chad Jonsson, park superintendent, reported he submitted the town’s Tree City USA application. Scherer asked if there was any money involved in the award. Jonsson said not from the Arbor Day Foundation, but other organizations have donated money or trees to the town because it was a Tree City USA.

The American Rescue Plan Funds the park department received will be used for new pickleball courts at Schrock Field. Scherer asked if noise from the game would be an issue. Jonsson said where the courts will be located it should not be an issue.

The parks department received a Harkless Foundation grant and will be using those funds to purchase AED’s for all the parks. These AED’s will be installed in lock boxes with instructions to call 911 to receive the pass code to access them.

Fire Chief Mickey Scott requested the council approve the purchase of automated door closers to close the bay doors at the fire house when the trucks roll out on a call. After 3 minutes the door will come down on its own. The cost is $4,412, The council approved the expenditure.

The council also approved $8893.38 for a new emergency light bar for the department’s tahoe.