By KEVIN NEVERS
With water mains
breaking around town with predictable unpredictability this winter, it’s
come to Chesterton Town Manager Bernie Doyle’s attention that communication
between his office and the Indiana-American Water Company (IAWC) has been
“less than satisfactory.”
That should be
changing, Doyle reported to the Town Council at its meeting Monday night.
Doyle said that he
and Utility Superintendent--and former IAWC director of ops--Terry Atherton
had a recent sit-down with IAWC officials, who undertook to promise that
IAWC crews in the field would report local main breaks both to Doyle’s
office and to the CPD dispatcher as soon as they could.
Doyle added that,
generally speaking, Atherton and Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg learn
of a given break in the normal course of things but that his office had not
previously been notified.
The new and
improved line of communications has been working too, Doyle said, with his
office being informed of breaks now within minutes.
“It’s our goal to
get communications (with IAWC) up to the level it’s been at with NIPSCO,”
Doyle noted, “so folks can quickly learn why they don’t have water or
power.”
Franciscan Alliance
In other business,
members voted 5-0 to enter into an agreement with Franciscan Alliance for an
enhanced wellness package for municipal employees.
That plan--the
Silver Plan, one step up from the Bronze and one down from the Gold--will
cost the town $3,200 per year and will provide employees with an on-line
portal to their medical records and to 24/7 lab results, among other things.
The council didn’t
plump for the Gold Plan, at $3,800 per year, under which employees would
have had access as well to an “on-site wellness champion,” who would have
administered and tracked the results of incentivized wellness programs.
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