Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor,

The October 9th edition of the Plymouth Pilot News presented an article on page 3 concerning an award presented by Accelerate Indiana Municipalities to the Plymouth Street Superintendent. While I congratulate the Superintendent on his accomplishments, I must object to the giving of an award to an individual who appears to not know how to perform one of the basic functions of his job.

One of the functions that the Superintendent of Streets may be charged with is to determine whether a tree is on city or private property. I am unfortunately personally familiar with one case where the Superintendent did not correctly determine where a property line was.

Even though he did not know where the line was, he informed the concerned party that he had determined that the tree was on their property. This caused them to unnecessarily spend a significant amount of money to have that tree topped. At the time of this misinformation being communicated, there was a survey available that would have shown the Superintendent wrong. However, he did not seek that information out.

On September 24 of 2018, I appeared before the Plymouth Public Works and Safety Committee concerning that land. I presented the survey mentioned in the previous paragraph. The committee instead of accepting my survey, ordered a new survey which cost $1500. That survey showed that my survey was 100% correct as anyone should have known and that the Superintendent was off by around 2 feet. His inability to correctly find a property line cost the taxpayers of Plymouth thousands of dollars for an unnecessary survey and I believe the reimbursement of the individuals misinformed about that tree.

The inadequacies described above and other less than intelligent behavior exhibited by other city officials is going to result in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in college scholarships to Marshall County students. I have decided that Plymouth is not a place that exemplifies attributes that I find important. My current will leaves the bulk of my estate to a scholarship fund that I established at the Marshall County Community Foundation. Once the pandemic passes, I will have my lawyer change my will to direct that money to the Indiana University Psychological and Brain Sciences department.

Sincerely, David R. Barkmeier, PH.D. Plymouth