By David Slone
Times-Union
WARSAW — The code enforcement officer position in the Warsaw Building & Planning Department will be moving back to the Warsaw Police Department.
An ordinance amending the city’s 2024 police salary ordinance to make the change happen was presented by Human Resource Director Denny Harlan to the Warsaw Common Council at their meeting Monday night, June 17. It was unanimously approved by the council on first and second reading.
“We’re going to move the code enforcement officer from Building & Planning into the police department. Just making sure we have the right people in the right seats and they are falling in the right departments. It seemed like a move that we are ready to make, so we are going to make that move and give operation control of that code enforcement to the police department,” Harlan said.
Dana Hewitt is the city’s code enforcement officer.
Mayor Jeff Grose said they’ve had several meetings to work through of what might be the best approach.
“I feel like this step on how we take care of paying the wage is the best way to do it,” Grose said.
The ordinance lists the maximum hourly wage for the code enforcement inspector as $28.58.
Councilwoman Diane Quance asked if the money would be transferred from Building & Planning’s budget to the WPD’s budget. Harlan said that’s the plan.
Grose said they have a six-month window this year to see how it works out when it comes to code enforcement and these changes. They can then re-evaluate in 2025.
“So then would the public call the police department rather than calling Building & Plan?” Quance asked.
Grose said they’re working through that as they go. Harlan said WPD Chief Scott Whitaker and City Planner Justin Taylor are working hand-in-hand on this to make sure the transition will be smooth and all the wrinkles are worked out.
“It’s my understanding that code enforcement used to be in PD, and then they moved to Building & Planning, so just kind of transitioning it back, so it should not be too difficult of a move,” Harlan said.
Councilman Mike Klondaris asked what the logic behind it was.
“With the PD, traffic control is getting bigger, animal control is getting bigger, so we’re trying to kind of – at this time start the foundation to have that little cell fall under the police department that takes care of those,” Harlan responded.
The “little cell of its own” will include animal and parking control, code enforcement “and those type of things,” he continued.
Right now, there will be two men sharing those duties — Hewitt and parking control officer Dalis Owens.
“As we get bigger as a city and as we continue to grow, we know that there’s going to be more people there. It may not be this year or next year, maybe it’s five years down the road, but we’re going to start planning now for the growth that we anticipate,” Harlan said.
Grose said the two men who will be involved in this are going through a lot of training.
“The big thing with animal control is that the point person won’t be a law enforcement officer. There will be support from law enforcement, but … both of these gentlemen are not police officers,” Grose said.
Council President Jack Wilhite asked, “Do you think this will help the public as far as having a one-stop call? I could see where that could be kind of confusing.”
Harlan said that’s what they’re anticipating, and Whitaker and Taylor are working out those plans.
“Our communication has really gotten a lot better over the last couple of years, so I don’t foresee any problems at all, but it should become easier for the public to take care of these things,” he stated.
Taylor said it’s really animal control and parking that’s driving a lot of it.
“I think through our platform with CivicPlus and the way citizens can file complaints, that will be seamless. Those emails will still go straight to Dana, so he’ll be able to take those code enforcement issues and we can also use email to get him the tall weeds and grass complaints in the interim while we transition over,” Taylor said. “So I think for the citizens it will kind of be seamless. We’ll deal with those wrinkles behind the scenes, but it does make a lot of sense with Dana’s skillset, his history in dealing with parking and code enforcement issues over the years. It seems like a really logical fit for him to be over there and deal with animal control as well with their need to staff that position.”
Grose noted that parking control is now a full-time position and Owens is doing a great job.
The ordinance is dated to start July 1.
At the end of the meeting, Terry Sweeney, the new downtown development director for Main Street Warsaw, introduced himself to the council.
He told the council he’s doing a lot of engagement meetings with stakeholders.
On Tuesday, hopefully, he said the board was voting to expand its board and bring more people to the table.
On July 10, they’re going to have a board retreat from 12 to 5 p.m., with a public open house from 5 to 7 p.m. to take a look at what “we said we were going to do and weigh in on that,” Sweeney said.
At the end, he said they hoped they would have a really good integrated plan.
In other business, the council:
• Heard from Clerk-Treasurer Lynne Christiansen on the upcoming dates for the 2025 budget process.
The budget has to be adopted for most of the city by Nov. 1, but a new law states the redevelopment commission’s budget has to be adopted by Dec. 1, she said.
The first public hearing will at 7 p.m. Sept. 16, with the adoption hearing set for 7 p.m. Oct. 7. The budget has to be advertised online at Gateway (https://gateway.ifionline.org) by Sept. 5.
The salary ordinance for police, fire and the general salaries have to be adopted by Nov. 1, with the elected salary ordinance adopted by Dec. 31.
The Aug. 5 and 19 council meetings will start an hour early at 6 p.m. for the department budgets to be presented.
• Approved a resolution for the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory to transfer $28,183.35 from FSSA grant/CARES to miscellaneous revenue – operating and $47,557.39 from FSSA grant/CARES to equipment fund. Chief Joel Shilling explained the transfers were just to recoup funds his department spent on CARES from a grant they received.
• Approved a resolution, requested by Christiansen, authorizing the investment of public funds. She said it’s the annual resolution the city has to do so it can invest its funds in banks all across the state and not just in the city. The banks are approved banking institutions by the state.
• Approved a resolution authorizing application for a Community Development Block Grant construction grant through the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, as requested by Taylor.
The grant application is on behalf of Fellowship Missions to fund the blight clearance project for the demolition of the buildings at 1600 E. and 1624 E. Winona Ave. The council has discussed the project at previous meetings, and the resolution Monday night was another step in the process.
