LAGRANGE — The LaGrange County Commissioners approved a plan Monday morning to allocate $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan monies the county has received to the LaGrange County Regional Utilities District to help it expand its services to residents of North and South Twin Lakes, the Still Lake area as well as Pigeon Lake.

Adam Sams spoke with the commissioners Monday morning at their regular meeting to formally make the request. The push to provide the district’s services to residents of Pigeon Lake is still not guaranteed. The money provided by the county could be the difference to whether that project happens or not.

“We hoping with this money we can expand our services to Pigeon Lake. We won’t really be able to tell until we get the bids back in hand, because we’re going to bid Pigeon Lake as an alternative bid,” Sams said. “This is kind of the last large area of LaGrange County we need to provide services to.”

The proposed expansion of services would also require the regional utility district to upgrade and expand its recently completed wastewater treatment plant located north of Howe on State Road 9. When that project was built, Sams said the state, which helps provide some of the funding as well as the financial tools needed to raise the money required, frowned on building any such facility with future projects in mind.

Sams said this project would provide sanitary sewers to the last large populated area in the county without that kind of service.

That’s good news to many homeowners in the area, who have been denied the ability to update and modernize their homes due to the state health department limitations placed on properties near lakes that rely on septic tanks and leach fields.

Sams said this project appears to have the overwhelming support of the area’s residents. The expansion would add another 350 to 400 customers being serviced by LCRUD’s Howe area wastewater treatment plant. However, to ensure the plant isn’t overwhelmed, Sams said the plant will be expanded.

“When we built that plant, we knew if we took in North and South Twin Lakes, we were going to have to expand that plant,” he said. “Most funding agencies won’t allow you to build to the future, so we had to build to what we needed knowing we would have to expand. We don’t want to push the plant to its limits.”

In other matters, the commissioners approved moving ahead with a plan to seek bids for a renovation project at the LaGrange County Courthouse. The project will repaint the building’s dome, as well as shore up some of its aging brickwork, as well as replace several concrete windowsills.

Because the Courthouse is part of the National Register of Historic Places, the process of securing contractors is more regulated. The work must be done in accordance with the standard set forth by the organization. The work is expected to cost some in the neighborhood of $200,000, said Terry Martin, president of the board of commissioners.

The commissioners will open bids on the project on April 18 at 9 a.m.

The commissioners also approved an amendment to an agreement with Parkview Health that provides ambulance service in LaGrange County. The original agreement failed to include a clause requiring the county to make monthly payments of $10,000 to provide that service.

The commissioners also approved a LaGrange County Highway Department request to accept a bid of $419239.47 by Pavement Solutions of Richmond, Illinois, to use a process called micro paving to repave roads around Dallas, Witmer, and Westler Lakes. Ben Parish, the LaGrange County Highway Department Superintendent said the company has already completed a project repaving roads around Oliver Lake, doing a good job. Parish said the small size of those roads combined with the size of the county’s paving machinery makes it difficult for the county to repave those roads.

The commissioner opted to approve a bid to purchase a small piece of property the county owned at the northwest corner of U.S. 20 and C.R. 500E in Plato. A dilapidated home on the property was declared in violation of the county’s nuisance ordinance and taken down and the lot was cleared of debris. The property is less than a quarter of an acre. Joseph Graber, who lives nearby, offered to purchase the property for $1,450.

The commissioners also authorized the state to reroute traffic onto county roads when it closes SR 5 north of Shipshewana for more than 200 days to rebuild a section of that road. The detour will route traffic off the state road at CR 450N, turn it south on CR 850W, and then on to CR250N. The state has not announced a start date for that project.

The commissioners also approved a LaGrange County Parks and Recreation Department request to purchase 18 new tee-pads for its disc golf course at Delt Church Park. The department is rebuilding that course.