On Saturday, April 22nd, former Superintendent of Public Education Dr. Jennifer McCormick spoke about her exploratory committee for the 2024 governor’s race. She outlined her priorities and the focused primarily on the state of public education in Indiana. Listen here:
Last night's Lanesville Town Council meeting is now live on the site. Topics include a new sewer ordinance, recognition ideas for Lady Eagles state championship, and criminal activity in various properties throughout town:
Tuesday’s meeting of the Corydon Town Council featured updates from town manager Bruce Cunningham and executive director of Main Street Corydon, Janelle Amy.
Listen here:
The Harrison County Parks Board has decided to ask the county for an additional funds for playground improvements. After receiving a one million dollar grant from the Harrison County Community Foundation (HCCF) and $1.5 million from the county, the new playgrounds for Buffalo Trace and Gresham Park are fully funded, but the inclusive playground at Hayswood Park is still in need of $400,000. For more context on this, we recommend reading our report of the Harrison County Council meeting earlier in the week.
Parks superintendent Larry Shickles gave three options to the Parks Board:
“Do you want to continue with the inclusive playground, that’s option A, don’t do it at all. Option B is you go attempt to get the $400,000 from the county commissioners and council, everything stays on track. Or option 3 is, we sit back down with the engineers and we redesign it and see what comes out of this…we have to understand is…we probably lose part of that manufacturing deposit, we’re going to hit price increases.”
Board member Greg Reas asked Shickles if they had received a written commitment from the HCCF for the $1.4 million that was originally asked for. Shickles said no, they received written commitment for one million after their application was reviewed by the HCCF board.
Parks Board vice-president Scott Fluhr then said that
“this is not the first time that the Foundation has took somebody down the aisle up to the altar and then pulled the rug out from under them.”
Parks board presidentTeresa Sutton asked the public for comments and one audience member asked “is it going to cost the county more to not do the project than it would be to ask for the $400,000 and continue on?”
Shickles answered that the Parks Department has “had to pay just under $500,000 on the deposit to start the project…some of that we’ll get back, some of it we won’t.”
Board member Carolyn Lowe made the motion to request the $400,000 from the county, which resulted in a stand-off between Reas and Fluhr to second. Earlier in the week, Fluhr insisted he was not interested in asking the county for the money, but ended up seconding the motion, approving the request to the council.
To better understand this issue, we recommend listening to the meeting, skipping to 12:00 in our recording:
On Monday’s county council meeting, councilmember Brad Wiseman asked Larry Shickles for an update on the upcoming improvements to the county’s playgrounds, especially the all inclusive facility planned for Hayswood Park. Shickles stated that the project is in limbo due to a shortfall of $400,000 after not receiving the full grant amount from the Harrison County Community Foundation (HCCF). HCCF has committed to one million for the project, which must first be used to fund the smaller facilities at Buffalo Trace and Gresham Park, with the remaining amount for Hayswood.
Scott Fluhr, vice-president of the Parks Board, said that he
“would not be comfortable coming to you all for an additional out of riverboat for the rest of this.”
Multiple councilmembers pressed Julie Moorman, executive director at HCCF, as to why the project was not funded at the full amount. Moorman stated that she was not at liberty to disclose details of the decision by the HCCF board. She also reminded the council that the amount the HCCF board agreed to was still one of the largest grant amounts that has been given out in recent history. Multiple council members expressed support for the project.
The Harrison County Parks Board meets tonight at 7:00pm and they will decide whether or not to seek the additional $400,000 from the county. In July of 2022, the council approved roughly $1.5 million for the project, to be taken out of riverboat funds.
graylin porter - reporter
Last night the Harrison County Commissioners reviewed a request for a zoning change for multiple properties in Lanesville. Many Lanesville residents attended this meeting with some sitting on the floor in the conference room and filling the hallway outside.
The majority of the meeting was dedicated to a request for a 50 acre plot at Corydon Ridge Rd, Country Lane, and Crandall Lanesville Rd. The request was to change this plot from AR to R3 with the intention of building an apartment complex with 240 units by Lanesville Property LLC.
The commissioners opened up the meeting to the public to voice their opinion on these changes, limiting residents to three minutes. Before the first citizen spoke, commissioner Jim Heitkemper stated that “it probably will get approved, but if anyone wants to speak on that, they could.” However, after an hour of comments, Jim Heitkemper made a motion to deny the request, leaving it as AR, stating that he values “conserving the historical and cultural design of the natural heritage around Franklin Township and Harrison County…I know what Harrison County should look like and this is what we’re after.”
Nearly every resident that spoke at the podium received an applause from the audience. Lifelong Lanesville resident Devin Lopp’s statement summarized many: “you guys were elected as public servants to serve the citizens of this county, you have a room full of citizens that do not want R3 housing in their district, please listen to that.”
Multiple speakers expressed fear of increased crime and decreased property values if an apartment complex is built in Lanesville. Barry Purcell, resident on Corydon Ridge road, commented that “a nice development? Sure. Put a nice development in there, make it nice. I’d love to have Norton Commons nice here in Lanesville, but I doubt if that’s going to happen, but all those apartments like Kepley Estates in New Salisbury? It’s ridiculous, it’s absolutely ridiculous and we don’t need it in Lanesville…we don’t need it in Harrison County.”
Another major issue for several residents was the overcrowding of Lanesville schools.
All three commissioners voted to deny the request.
Click here and skip to 00:28:23 for more details
graylin porter - reporter
At Wednesday's special Harrison County Parks Board meeting, superintendent Larry Shickles gave an update on the playground improvements for Hayswood, Buffalo Trace, and Gresham Park. Shickles went through the purchase agreement plus other documents for the inclusive facility planned for Hayswood. The total cost for this project is $2,568,165.14.
Shickles noted that the contract states a completion date of July 31, 2023, but they are hoping for June 2023. He also said there would be no parking expansion at Hayswood. When asked by board vice-president Scott Fluhr how this project complied with state bidding requirements, Shickles stated that
"The board appointed a commission to review this...we had nine that responded to the first round...they presented to this board, the board reviewed those, and they narrowed those down to three."
Shickles said the the contract was awarded in a co-op bidding process. He did not state when this process took place or who was on the board that made the final decision to go with Commercial Recreation Group.