By David Fenker
david@nmpaper.com
LAGRO, Ind. – The Town of Lagro will soon be taking possession of a property on Benton Street.
Kristie Bone, Lagro town clerk, asked the Wabash County Board of Commissioners to begin the process to transfer ownership of the property located at 220 Benton St.
“We would like to take possession of that property so that we can legally go on there and clean it up and hopefully turn around and sell it for what we put into it to get it back on the tax rolls,” Bone said.
She added that the property needs cleaned up, and that the town currently has no options to do so.
County Attorney Steve Downs noted that the property has been through two tax sales and a commissioners’ sale and failed to sell.
The commissioners unanimously approved a motion to begin the process to transfer the property to the town.
In other news, Living Well in Wabash County CEO Beverly Ferry reported that Living Well spent 27 percent of their total budget in the first quarter of 2017. Ferry and Commissioner Barry Eppley will meet at a later date to discuss the detailed breakdown of the quarterly report, per a requirement by both the state and federal government for more oversight.
INGUARD Chairman Michael Beauchamp presented information to the commissioners regarding the county’s insurance policies on its buildings.
Beauchamp said that the county currently has $7.7 million in replacement cost coverage on the courthouse alone. He explained that replacement coverage uses modern materials and current methods to replace a structure.
“Reproduction cost, however, of a building is the total cost of construction required to replace the subject building with an exact replica,” he said.
That approach uses like components to replace damaged ones. Beauchamp used the banisters on the staircase, the clock in the tower and the woodworking around the windows as examples of items that may not be fully covered under the county’s current replacement cost coverage.
He said that the reproduction coverage would cost more that the county’s current replacement coverage, for which it pays a premium of $11,000 per year.
The commissioners took Beauchamp’s information under advisement.
The commissioners also heard the weekly sheriff’s report, in which Sheriff Bob Land reported that there are 90 inmates in the Wabash County Jail, with 55 being held in Miami County, five in Elkhart County and eight in Wells County.
Land said that there were 33 new book-ins last week, and 11 transfers.