Hanover approves adding fourth police officer in 2023

Hanover police last had four officers from 2002 to 2016 when Ron Kroger retired as town marshal and the force was reduced to three officers at that time.

“It’s time. We need that position filled again,” she said, adding the town council “looked at our budget for next year and we had the funds” to support a four-person police department.

The other three new positions are a community programs and engagement coordinator for the parks department, a maintenance groundskeeper for the parks department and a wastewater operator for the sewer plant. Each of those three positions will be filled this year.

The community programs and engagement coordinator is a new position that “would help plan events,” said town council member Treva Shelton, including the Hanover Christmas events that were launched last year. The coordinator would also assist Parks Director Scott Davidson with his responsibilities.

Clerk-treasurer Keith Mefford said that position is actually the only new full-time position that increases the town’s employee count. He said the other two positions are a result of restructuring within the town.

Mefford said there’s enough funding to support the community programs and engagement coordinator position through the last four months of this year, and the town council can then include that in its 2023 budget. He noted the park system has undergone a rejuvenation in the last year generating programs and funds that make the new position needed as well as the money to cover that expense.

Mefford said hiring a maintenance groundskeeper for the parks department involves a restructuring of employees that had been working with town’s utilities department. He said as the town began to resurrect the parks department in the last couple of years that an employee was used for park maintenance while also still doing work for the utilities department. Now, there will be an employee fully dedicated to maintaining the park and not shared with the utilities department.

The new wastewater operator at the sewage treatment plant was created on the recommendation of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. In the past, there has been one full-time operator, but IDEM requested that there be two full-time operators. In July, the town council voted to eliminate a part-time position at the sewer plant in order to create the full-time position.

In other business:

• Approved $11,550 to replace fencing around the town’s wastewater treatment plant that is badly in need of repair. The town had previously been awarded a $29,600 FEMA grant, but the cost of the fencing work by Made-Rite Fence Company of Columbus is $41,150. The town had previously planned to purchase materials from a contractor no longer able to do the work, and hire another one. “It was too complicated to make all that happen,” said Mefford. “It didn’t work out” so a new quote was sought and it is time to move forward and get the work done.

• Mefford suggested the town may need to consider increasing its trash rates because “it’s a struggle constantly” in making sure the receipts coming in match what the town pays out. “It’s little closer to the line than it needs to be,” he noted.

• Barb Ford, an organizer of the Hanover Community Garden at the northeast corner of North Madison Avenue and File Street, reported on work set to begin there. The property at 161 North Madison Avenue had previously been a blighted area with deteriorating trailers. “Our plan is that we’ll make it a place that’s pretty year-round,” she said. There will be a work details at the site from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 9.

• Approved the purchase of three additional cameras for the sewage treatment plant to go with seven that are already installed to improve security there.