PERU, Ind. – Tuesday evening, November 1st, the City of Peru Board of Public Works and Safety awarded a contract which will allow demolition of the first eight homes in Peru that have been selected to come down under the blight elimination program. There were five bids that were received by the board. City Attorney Pat Roberts advised the Board that the bid should be accepted, subject to a contract and after a discussion, Merritt Trucking’s bid of $70,000, subject to contract, was approved by the Board. Brenda Douglass, secretary for the City Building and Zoning Department told the Board members that she had been working on the project for a number of months and the bids included the tearing down of the homes. The homes would be demolished, including basement, and foundations, and removed. During demolition water will have to be sprayed on the homes in order to keep the dust down. Once all the debris has been removed the contractor will have to bring in top soil and reseed the property. The properties will then be available for purchase be adjoining landowners. “Now that the first eight homes have been approved and the contract has been awarded,” Mrs. Douglass said, “we believe the process of taking down these homes can begin in around two weeks.”
The first home scheduled to be removed by Chad Merritt of Merritt Trucking is located at 14 South Garfield. The remaining of the first eight homes are located at 680 Madison Avenue, 163 West Riverside Drive, 543 East 3rd Street, 274 West 3rd Street, 452 Washington Avenue, 676 West 2nd Street, and 276 East 8th Street.
In other news, the Board of Works accepted the retirement of firefighter Joe Lester of the Peru Fire Department. Peru Police Chief Chris Betzner told the board that he had received a letter of intent to retire from Lester on October 20, 2016. Mr. Lester, who has served with the Peru Fire Department for 20 years, will join Peru Utilities Water Department at Grissom immediately.