The South Bend City Council met on Monday, April 25 for their regular city council meeting. Mayor Struck started the meeting as usual by approving the current meeting's agenda as well as the minutes from the previous meeting. For the first item the council opened a public hearing for a CDBG Grant Program for Fliess Creek. The CDBG Grant Program is a grant for up to $750,000. The grant is to help pay for the city of South Bend to use Fliess Creek as an additional water source. Struck asked if there were any comments, where a member of the public, Pacific County Commissioner Steve Rogers, spoke:
"I applaud your efforts because water is indeed the new oil and that's one of the assets that we have and I think it's a very smart move to go out and grab as much as you can."
After Roger's comments the public hearing was closed.
The next item on the agenda was a fee schedule resolution #2016-05, that City Supervisor Houk explained: "This is just for the application and attach fee. The county and Raymond both have had this in their system. We're the only ones that don't do this. We're just keeping up with the times," said Houk. Struck moved to approve the resolution and the council approved it.
As for head of department reports, Chief Eastham reported a sexual assault investigation on a 12 year old girl as well as a death investigation, both of which are still ongoing. "It seems like it's never ending. For some reason these last couple of years have been high in these types of assaults."
Supervisor Houk reported: "We've been jetting the storm drain down the old 101. That's our old sewer line. We were pulling out all types of different debris. There were sewer lids that were broken up and all kinds of old trinkets," said Houk.
For the Mayor's report Struck reported that she has had some correspondence with Ed Horvath, the mosquito control for South Bend. "Horvath asked me to please remind people to dump their buckets or whatever is retaining water," said Struck.
Struck next updated the council on Greg Hinz's project, the sports complex that would be added to Cheney Park in South Bend. "We've checked with our insurance carrier and it's very doable. So we gave him the green light to apply for grants. The stipulation is that whatever organization will have to have their own insurance and will have to submit a proof of insurance form, which would eliminate any liability that the city has.