Council OK’d bridge $$

Twenty-five years ago this week, Jay County Council was building bridges.

The March 14, 1996, edition of The Commercial Review featured coverage of a council meeting held at the county’s highway department garage during which an additional $65,000 was appropriated for local bridge projects.

Jay County engineer Dan Watson had requested $45,000 in additional appropriations for the county’s cumulative bridge fund. The money was to be used to pay for engineering costs on a federal aid bridge project.

The work that was planned called for replacing two concrete bridges and rehabilitating three others on county road 300 North.

Jay County Council approved an additional $20,000 from the county’s cumulative capital development fund for work on bridges on county road 1025 West and county road 200 East. The fixes on those structures had already been completed.

The meeting was a busy one for county council as Jay Superior Court Judge Joel Roberts also presented a request that his two court reporters receive a pay raise of $1,075. Roberts explained that court reporters previously prepared court transcripts on their own time and were paid on a per-page basis, but he had recently made a change to have that work completed during regular hours.

“That has met with some resistance,” said Roberts, adding that he did not want to take the income away from those employees.

Council members expressed some reservations about the change and chose to table the issue.