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THE PAPER August 24, 2011
Councilmen work to trim 2012 budget by Danielle Smith dsmith@thepaperofwabash.com
Wabash County Council went into the third and final day of the first reading of the 2012 Wabash County Budget with the task of trimming the budget by $465,303. As ominous as that sounds, the Council elaborated that, at the conclusion of past years, various departments have returned funds to the County totaling nearly $1,000,000. “At the end of the day, we’re spending, within our budget, what we’re taking in,” one Councilman explained. “But we do have less income coming in this year.” At the beginning of the Aug. 18 meeting, Council had already managed to cut $278,512.04, so they went to work going through department budgets, searching for ways to reach their $465,303 goal. They questioned everything from County unemployment costs to the Sheriff ’s Department’s extradition costs. One common goal of the Council was to retain the two percent salary raise for all County employees (continued on page 6)
In Memoriam Kimberly Bakehorn, 40 Brandon Thornsbury, 20 Marie Clupper, 71 Rodney Haupert, 41 Anna Lambert, 89 Carol Laycock, 68 Scott Melton Jr., 30 Melissa Thornsbury, 42 R. Emerson Niswander, 97 Sarah Haupert, 21 Elizabeth Stone, 94
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Wabash Middle School ushers in a new era in classroom education by Danielle Smith dsmith@ thepaperofwabash.com
When students returned to Wabash Middle School from summer break, they soon realized that the 2011-2012 school year would be different from all previous years. Each student in grades six through eight was outfitted with their own, individual MacBook, a laptop computer made by Apple. To get to this point, Wabash Middle School faculty spent about five months in the planning stages. “It started back in April, when we really started looking at going to the one-toone computing here at the school,” said Scott Bumgardner, principal of Wabash Middle School. “It was a lot of time and a lot of preparation. We went to Chicago and met with Apple, we took a group of our teachers there.” Following the visit to Chicago,
Bumgardner and his teachers were sold on the Apple products. “Their product, all the way around, fit our students’ needs,” he said. One of these primary needs is durability, as the MacBooks are expected to last for a fouryear term. “There are a lot fewer problems with Mac as far as viruses and things of that nature, so they really just sold us on their product and how durable it is,” Bumgardner said. “We basically have a goal that these will last us four years here at the middle school, then we’ll have to figure out how we’re going to transition to the new MacBooks. We still have a lot to figure out on how we’re going to do that.” Another attraction to the Apple brand was it’s functionality and the opportunities it provides to expand students’ creativity.
STUDENTS IN MR. EVANS’ SEVENTH-GRADE SCIENCE CLASS make use of their brand new MacBooks for an assignment. It is the hope of Wabash City Schools Superintendent Jason Callahan that they will have one-to-one computing for Grades 6-12 within the next two years. (photo by Danielle Smith) “The type of software you’re getting, which is iWork and iLife – iLife includes programs such as GarageBand, iPhoto, iMovie - they are not available with other
by Craig Brosman CBrosman@ thepaperofwabash.com
After years of no progress on the former GDX property, Wabash made headway last week. Wabash City Court
Judge Tim Roberts fined the property owner, One General LLC. more than $960,000 in accordance with city ordinances. It is unknown as to if the fines will be paid or if One
General LLC will even fight the ruling in court since they have been absent for each and every hearing the City has had on the site. In addition to fining One General LLC,
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themselves in ways that are just not possible with other things.” He went on to explain that Mac programs are connected and designed to work
well together. “It’s just easy to access everything, it’s a superior machine,” he said. An additional superior aspect of the (continued on page 6)
Owner of former GDX site fined more than $900,000 for ordinance violations
Index
Vol. 34, No. 23
operating systems like Windows,” said Justin Vail, a seventhgrade social studies teacher at Wabash Middle School. “These things allow students to express
THE FORMER GDX SITE on Stitt Street lays in rubble after GDX Holdings left town years ago. Lately City Court Judge Tim Roberts fined the company over $900,000 for leaving the site contaminated and in violation of many city ordinances. (photo by Craig Brosman)
the city has had an environmental study performed around the site, since they were not permitted on the property. Wabash City Mayor Bob Vanlandingham was surprised when he found out the results of the tests. “We feared that it had environmental i s s u e s , ” Vanlandingham said. “When we got the results, the contamination was not as severe as we thought it could be. At this point IDEM (Indiana Department of Environmental Management) is contacting previous owners to pony up money to decontaminate the site.” One General LLC may not be at fault for contaminating the site, but they certainly have done nothing
to fix the situation and make the 34-acre site developable. Instead, they have left the site untouchable by the city and county and will not allow anyone on the property. “This company bought the facility, came in, tore the major building down and took all the metal out of it and sold it leaving a pile of rubble,” Vanlandingham said. “The city is not interested in the property if it is contaminated.” At this point, Judge Roberts has agreed to allow the city on the property to maintain it. “We have been given the right to cut the bolts and go on the property,” Vanlandingham said. “It is a blight to the community and I
would like to see it fixed as soon as possible. It is strategically important to the community and Wabash economic development.” City Attorney Doug Lehman expects very little out of the company during the legal battle. “They have been fined for a demolition permit violation, the grass ordinance and failure to maintain a site free of trash and safety concerns.” Lehman said. “I do not foresee them paying the fine. They contacted me to inform me they would not be at the hearing and that one of their entities was going through bankruptcy and they had no assets at this time.” Just because they do not have assets at (continued on page 6)