Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King explains an additional appropriation to the Warsaw Common Council Monday night. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — An ordinance for a nearly $900,000 additional appropriation for airport projects was approved on first reading by the Warsaw Common Council Monday night, May 5.

Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King explained, “This is a request for an additional appropriation for my aviation general fund 2206. The $873,000 is comprised of two different amounts.”

The first amount is for $500,000 and is the money committed by the county toward airport projects. Of that, $400,000 is already pre-committed to helping with the local share of the power line lowering project. Another $50,000 is for splitting the cost for the Airport Overlay District creation project with the city, while the remaining $50,000 is for a self-serve fuel farm that the city and county will be splitting costs on.

The other $373,000 is other matching funds the city had for projects last year. The projects did not finish last year, King said, and they rolled over into this year. “But because we didn’t know the exact amounts that were being paid to the different vendors, we could not create an open (purchase orders) in which we could encumber those monies from last year’s budget,” King said. “So that $373,000 was in my 2024-2206 budget. It was unspent, so we’re just asking that we could spend that to finish those projects up this year in 2025.”

Mayor Jeff Grose thanked King for his “hard work with the county, and also a big thank you for the county, looking at our direction, looking in your direction out at the airport for that half a million dollars.”

A public hearing on the additional appropriation was held but there were no remonstrators.

Councilwoman Cindy Dobbins made the motion to approve the ordinance on first reading, with Councilman Mike Klondaris providing the second. The motion passed 5-0, with Council members Diane Quance and Jerry Frush absent.

The second reading will be held at the council’s May 19 meeting.King then presented a resolution for three transfers of grant funds, which also was unanimously approved. The amounts were $38,052.43 in the Airport Improvement Program grant; $4,299.58 in an Indiana Department of Transportation grant; and $26,319.94 in another INDOT grant.

City Planner Justin Taylor presented an ordinance for three “minor” zoning ordinance changes. The ordinance was approved on first reading, with the second reading set for May 19.

The first change addresses ambiguity in the fence ordinance. “It wasn’t expressly prohibited that you could have a fence in your front yard, but that was the way it was being enforced. We’ve had a few of these cases go before the (Board of Zoning Appeals), we have two next month, where people are requesting to put a fence in their front yard,” Taylor said. “So I wanted to create less ambiguity in the ordinance and really address this head-on by putting a bullet point in the section of the ordinance 13.5.2.2 that describes what would be permitted in the front yard, which is a decorative fence that is no taller than 3-1/2 feet.”

It does prohibit chain-link fences in the front yard.

The second two changes are a little bit less substantial, Taylor said. One beefs up the definition of “lot coverage,” while the other presents a revised table for clarity regarding setback requirements for sheds, accessory structures and detached garages.

Council President Jack Wilhite made a motion to approve the ordinance on first reading, and Dobbins seconded it. The motion passed 5-0.

Taylor indicated more ordinance changes will be brought to the council in the future.

The last action the council took Monday night was to accept Councilman Juergen Voss’s conflict of interest. Voss owns Open Air Garden Center, 965 N. Lake St., Warsaw.

At the start of Monday’s council meeting, Grose remembered three men who served the city in various ways and recently died. Dean Miner served on the board of aviation commissioners. Rick Snodgrass served for years on the redevelopment commission. Jim Gast served on the plan commission. “I want to thank all three of these gentleman” for their years of service to the community, Grose said.