Crown Point paying homage to an ‘icon’
Panel approves plot, marker for late Lake County Historian Bruce Woods
The Crown Point Board of Public Works and Safety approved a request for a dedicated plot and marker for Bruce Woods, who died Tuesday.
Woods was the Lake County Historian and served as the President of the Lake County Historical Society and the Merrillville Education Foundation.
He ran the Lake County Historical Museum for the Lake County Historical Society, and was a teacher at Merrillville High School from 1971 to 1999.
“We lost an icon here this week,” Mayor David Uran said. “(He’s) been with this community for many, many decades, just doing incredible work preserving the history of the city of Crown Point.”
A dedicated plot at the Saint Mary’s Cemetery in Crown Point, along with any dollar amount for a significant marker for the plot in memory of Woods were approved by the board at Wednesday’s meeting.
Also at the meeting, change orders totaling $29,597.70 were approved in relation to the city’s City Hall project.
“As we knew going in, there’s been a multitude of renovations within this building, and it’s historically been a challenge with the electrical and HVAC systems,” Chief of Staff Greg Falkowski said, noting a change order for the zone changes and extending of ductwork through the system was $5,450.
“When we got into the HVAC downstairs and everything was peeled away, we realized these zoning and connections to some of the rooms had quite a few issues.”
Falkowski said when the ceiling was pulled down, there was a “spaghetti work” of a mess of previous extensions and remodels, and work had to be done on areas that they had previously not planned on touching.
“We decided that we might as well replace the ceiling tiles to match, paint the walls and change the floors so the whole downstairs will now be matching,” he said. “That will make the entire downstairs of that building uniform, matching, wiring from the beginning and a fresh HVAC system.”
Uran said they knew of the challenges in the building when the renovation project began and said the updated infrastructure n the building will assist in the heating element in the building during cold weather events.
Clerk-Treasurer Dave Benson, too, said the renovations will help the staff working in the building.
“We welcome the improvements, especially the ones that we couldn’t see that have been exposed once everything was peeled away,” he said.
“We just appreciate everything being taken care of the right way so that we can get it back together in a more useful manner so we can distance and spread out. We’re looking forward to it being completed.”
The board also approved purchases for equipment for the Parks Department, including equipment to drag fields not to exceed $23,037, two trucks not to exceed $65,000 and a scissor lift not to exceed $11,500.
Additionally, Special Events Director Diana Bosse noted the city of Crown Point will collect real trees through Jan. 8 or they can be dropped off in the designated area at the Lake County Fairgrounds to be burned, however due to COVID-19 restrictions, there will be no gathering for the tree burning this year.