Southwestern Bartholomew Water Corp. has issued a boil water advisory for some customers after a water main break last night in the Stoney Lonesome area.
According to the company, customers may experience air in their water lines or dirty water today. You should boil any water you will be using for food preparation or consumption for five minutes.
The advisory is in effect until 4 p.m. Friday.
Customers affected include:
State Road 46 west of the Stoney Lonesome area into Brown County
Nelson Ridge Road, Dobbs Cemetery Road
Georgetown Road, Lost Lake
Baker Hollow Road
Four Mile Ridge Road
All of Henderson Ridge and Henderson Heights
Hoover Road
Lucas Hollow Road
Harrison Ridge Road
Mt. Liberty Road
Bethany Road
Youth Camp Road Bethany area
Whitehorse Road
850 West Bethany area, all other roads in the Bethany area
A group of eigth grade students from Hauser Junior-Senior High School have been named a Best in State winner in the fourth annual Verizon Innovative App Challenge for their mobile app concept called “Speak Bot Pro.”
Verizon officials say that students focused on creating an app to help others speak through it. Those who cannot speak for medical reasons or due to language barriers would be able to use icons to communicate verbally. The team was selected from more than 1,200 submissions nationwide and will receive a $5,000 grant from the Verizon Foundation and tablets for each of the students on the team.
The Hauser team, and a team from Zionsville, have a chance to become a national winner. Both Indiana teams are competing for the Best in Nation award and for a Fan Favorite award.
From now until Jan. 31, anyone can vote to help the Bartholomew County team win the Fan Favorite award by texting SPEAKBOT2 to 22333. The Fan Favorite award winner will receive an additional $15,000 and the chance to work with experts from the MIT Media Lab to turn their concept into a working app.
Columbus is being considered for the honor of being the Greatest Town in the Midwest in a reader poll organized by Midwest Living Magazine.
Columbus is one of 12 towns up for the award and the link to vote on the poll is spreading on Social Media. As of this morning, Columbus had 487 votes compared to the leading town, Decorah, Iowa with 2,414 votes. Other cities on the list include Duluth, Minn., Lawrence, Kansas and Traverse City, Mich.
The Bartholomew County Council took steps during its meeting Tuesday night to insure the county’s health insurance trust is on solid ground.
The council voted to approve a $5.9 million appropriation that essentially moves county funds in a way to better keep track of health care expenses and the money that has been earmarked for these expenses. County Auditor Barb Hackman explained to council members that $1.2 million had already been transferred from the county’s “Rainy Day Fund” to the Employee Trust Account (ETA). In addition, $3.3 million will be transferred from the County Adjusted Gross Income Tax (CAGIT) Fund, while another approximately $1.4 million in department contributions will go towards shoring up the trust.
Hackman explained that her office, in conjunction with Dunn & Associates will be able to keep a better tab on available funds and healthcare claims with this change. Dunn & Associates are the third-party benefit administrators hired by the county to help get county employees the most for their healthcare dollar. Hackman says that each month, a report will be generated that shows account balances and pending claims. Council members expressed hope that this would alert them to any potential issues before they become overwhelming.
The council took these steps, and others, after the 2016 budget hearings were nearly brought to a standstill by ballooning healthcare costs. A lifeline from County Commissioners, in the form of over one-million dollars that was earmarked for county roads, was gifted to the council to make up the shortfall. Commissioners made the transfer on the condition that the council would take steps to make sure the county wouldn’t find itself in a similar spot when the 2017 budget process comes around.
Police in Madison arrested two area residents over the weekend on drug charges.
Madison Police Chief Dan Thurston says that on Saturday, Madison Police were dispatched to the 700 block of Jefferson Court on a call that people were using drugs in a parking lot. When officers approached the vehicle, 29-year-old Jordan L. Laswell, of North Vernon, and 20-year-old Sheanna R. Bowling, 20, of Seymour, reportedly got out of the vehicle.
Officers reported seeing an orange colored syringe, containing a brown liquid, lying on the ground near the passenger side door. Thurston says that when his officers asked both suspects to empty their pockets, Laswell allegedly produced another, similar, syringe from his pants pocket. Laswell also reportedly had a folded piece of foil that contained a brown, granular substance that field tested positive as heroin.
While officers were talking with the pair, they learned there was an active arrest warrant out of Ripley County for Laswell’s arrest. During an interview, Laswell allegedly told investigators that the syringe that was found lying on the ground was his. He added that it contained heroin that he was about to inject.
Thurston says that K-9 “Eros” conducted an open-air sniff around the vehicle. Eros reportedly alerted officers to the presence of narcotics in the vehicle. During the search, officers allegedly found a homemade filtering device and a brown leather belt. Thurston says that Laswell told officers that both items were his and that he used them while ingesting heroin. Police also found allegedly found paraphernalia in Bowling’s possession. Officers reportedly found a bag of marijuana near where Bowling had been standing. After, she allegedly admitted that the marijuana was hers. During the booking process, jail officers also reportedly found additional paraphernalia, as well as heroin on Bowling.
Laswell and Bowling were arrested and booked in the Jefferson County Jail. Laswell is facing preliminary charges of Possession of Narcotic Drug, Possession of Syringe and Possession of Paraphernalia. Bowling is facing preliminary charges of Possession of Narcotic Drug, Possession of Syringe, Possession of Paraphernalia and Possession of Marijuana.
Two Hope women were involved in a single-vehicle crash Monday afternoon on I-65 in Bartholomew County.
Sheriff’s Department Spokesperson Judy Jackson says that at 2:39 p.m., Deputy Andrew Dougan responded to County Road 1000 North, just east of I-65. When he arrived, Deputy Dougan found an SUN sitting upside-down in a nearby field.
The driver, 31-year-old Victoria Hagan, and her passenger, 32-year-old Samantha Thompson, were out of the vehicle when first-responders arrived, said Jackson. Thompson told Deputy Dougan that they were traveling westbound on County Road 1000 North when Hagan lost control of the SUV due to icy road conditions. The vehicle then ran off the roadway and slid down an embankment before coming to rest in the field.
Both Hagan and Thompson were wearing seat belts, which first-responders say likely saved the pair from severe injuries. Both women were transported to Columbus Regional Hospital to be checked out.
Columbus police report that there have already been 12 reports of counterfeit bills being passed at gas stations and fast food restaurants in Columbus this month.
Columbus police are searching for whoever it is passing fake money in the city.
Lt. Matt Harris, spokesman for the department, says that there have been 12 incidents of counterfeit money circulating in the city so far this month, inluding 10s, 20s and 100 dollar bills. They have mostly been passed at gas stations and fast food restaurants, Harris said.
Harris said many of the fakes have been of especially poor quality and lacked security features you can find on real currency.
Police are issuing some tips from the Secret Service on how to identify fake money. Those include:
• Hold a bill up to a light and look for a holograph of the face image on the bill. Both images should match. If the $100 bill has been bleached, the hologram will display an image of Abraham Lincoln, who appears on the $5 bills, instead of Benjamin Franklin.
• Looking at the bill through a light will also reveal a thin vertical strip containing text that spells out the bill’s denomination.
• Color-shifting ink: If you hold the new series bill (except the $5 note) and tilt it back and forth, please observe the numeral in the lower right hand corner as its color shifts from green to black and back.
• Watermark: Hold the bill up to a light to view the watermark in an unprinted space to the right of the portrait. The watermark can be seen from both sides of the bill since it is not printed on the bill but is imbedded in the paper.
• Security Thread: Hold the bill to light to view the security thread. You will see a thin imbedded strip running from top to bottom on the face of a banknote. In the $10 and $50 the security strip is located to the right of the portrait, and in the $5, $20 and $100, it is located just to the left of the portrait.
• Ultraviolet Glow: If the bill is held up to an ultraviolet light, the $5 bill glows blue; the $10 bill glows orange, the $20 bill glows green, the $50 bill glows yellow, and the $100 bill glows red – if they are authentic.
• Microprinting: There are minute microprinting on the security threads: the $5 bill has “USA FIVE” written on the thread; the $10 bill has “USA TEN” written on the thread; the $20 bill has “USA TWENTY” written on the thread; the $50 bill has “USA 50” written on the thread; and the $100 bill has the words “USA 100” written on the security thread. Microprinting can be found around the portrait as well as on the security threads.
• Fine Line Printing Patterns: Very fine lines have been added behind the portrait and on the reverse side scene to make it harder to reproduce.
• Comparison: Compare the feel and texture of the paper with other bills you know are authentic.
If you have any information on the fake bills, you can contact Detective Bill Ziegler at 812-376-2627. Tips and information can be left anonymously.
The city of Columbus will be changing the engineering firm it contracts with for a road improvement project on Rocky Ford Road.
Dave Hayward, the city engineer, told the Board of Public Works and Safety this morning that the previous city administration had agreed to a contract with United Consulting for the project, which will be sent out for bids soon. However, the new city engineer rescored the engineering bids for the project and instead decided to go with Janssen and Spaans Engineering.
Hayward said that the $694,000 contract would save the government about $42,000 but that was not considered during the scoring process and was not allowed to be a criteria for the decision.
The Board voted to approve the new contract.
The federal government will pick up 80 percent of the cost of the improvement project, which will improve Rocky Ford Road between Talley and Taylor roads.
The library at Columbus East High School is now named after the school’s first principal. In a ceremony last night, the Bartholomew Consolidated School board agreed to name the library after the school’s first principal LeRoy Nelson.
Mark Newell, the school’s current principal, praised those who blazed the trail for the new school and laid a strong foundation.
Former principal Bill Jensen pointed out that all five of the school’s principals were on hand for the ceremony and all of the principals still live in the area.
BCSC also appointed its new school board officers including Dr. Jill Shedd who will serve as board president this year, Rich Stenner as vice president and Polly Verbanic as secretary.
Honda Manufacturing of Indiana announced Monday that production of the Honda CR-V will begin at the Greensburg plant in 2017. In addition to the CR-V, the top-selling SUV, the Greensburg facility will continue to produce the Civic Sedan as well.
According to the report, the CR-V production is being moved from Honda’s Guadalajara, Mexico plant, as that facility prepares to transition to produce Honda’s newest cross-over vehicle, the HR-V.
