The Frankfort City Council had a speaker present a plan to them that filled the basement meeting room plus had several others standing at Old Stoney Monday night.
The speaker was Ed Rodriguez of Plymouth, who is with La Voz Unida, a group of that is trying to help Hispanics in the community get their Driver Record Cards that most currently don’t have.
“I told them that I wanted to talk with them while the police chief was there as well because I feel that he probably has a better understanding of that and the effects it would have,” said Frankfort Mayor Judy Sheets. “So, then they asked if they could come to a council meeting and I said yes, I would allow them to come to a council meeting to speak. I ask them to bring some information which he did.”
Rodriguez said there is a bill called Senate Bill 248 which deals with this and is currently being debated within the walls of the Indiana State House. The council gave the group their support.
In other news, the council passed a resolution of the City of Frankfort Common Council selecting preferred offeror and authorizing execution of an agreement with selected offeror.
What this dealt with is the parking and housing study the City is currently involved in and the City chose Envoy as the group they are going to work with. If this agreement doesn’t work out, the City would have to pay Envoy a special services fee for the soft costs which would be about $524,000.
The City also followed suite as the Board of Works did in its meeting by passing a resolution authorizing purchasing of fire truck and financing through Indiana Bond Bank. What this means is that they will go ahead and use bonds to pay for the Quint truck, which is over $1.7 million, and is designed for the proposed new fire station on State Road 28 west of County Road 450 West. Sheets added the city expects to pay no more than $7.3 million.
It is going to be awhile before the City sees another one of the two trucks. One has a delay time of 27 to 30 months, while the other is between 44 to 47 months.
“It’s something we really need to look at,” said Sheets. “We keep our trucks for their full life if not longer. They have to think about they need to be replaced every so often. It’s like ever vehicle for the city whether it’s your police department, street department or whatever, you have to realize you need to replace your equipment.”
The City of Frankfort is trying to get a grant that would help them with the bridge work on Kelley Road.
“We’re applying for a grant for Phase III of Maish Road that’s going to go from Haven to Kelley,” said Sheets. “There’s a bridge there that is owned by the county and we talked to them awhile back and they said there was still 18 years of life left in it. So, we asked if they would be interested in helping with the pedestrian bridge.”
Total cost of that project would be about $6.5 million.