ANDERSON, Ind. —
The demolition and reseeding of three parcels of land in the Hoppes Valley subdivision was completed last month, according to the Madison County Board of Commissioners.
Board attorney Jerry Shine reported during Tuesday’s meeting that the project was complete — three houses had been demolished and the land had been reseeded.
Commissioner Paul Wilson, D-South District, had asked the County Council to appropriate $50,000 to tear down five houses — four in the Hoppes Valley addition that were vacant and the site of at least one arson and a fifth in the Summer Lake subdivision that was gutted by fire. The council approved the appropriation.
Wilson said Tuesday that they’d spent about $22,000 of the appropriated funds from the county option income tax, or COIT. The COIT money was put into the unsafe building fund to pay for such demolitions. But Wilson said the county should recoup that money as the cost of each demolition would be attached to the property.
When any of those properties are sold, the money spent by the county to demolish that particular piece of dilapidated property and clean up what had become an illegal dumping site in many cases will be reimbursed to the county from the profits of the land sale, Wilson explained. The money will be put back into the unsafe building fund — a non-reverting fund.
The fourth piece of land in the Hoppes addition was taken care of by the bank that owned the property, and the Summer Lake property wasn’t addressed in the recent project.
In other commissioners’ business Tuesday, they:
- Approved the low bid of $123,583.60 to Davis Excavating of Anderson for the 2010 concrete work in the county.
- Approved an ordinance amending the county’s policies handbook specifically in regard to their guns in the workplace policy.
The handbook was amended to be in line with a state law that went into effect July 1 that allows workers to keep guns in their vehicles while at work. Employees of any penal facility or child care institution — Madison County Jail, Madison County Correctional Complex and Madison County Juvenile Center — still cannot bring firearms or ammunition onto county property including in their personal vehicles, according to the ordinance.
Contact Abbey Doyle, 640-4805, abbey.doyle@heraldbulletin.com.
