By BOB SHRALUKA
WZBD.com
Barring the unforeseen, the hundreds of people participating in Decatur’s Callithumpian Parade on Oct. 28 will be seeing a little more of the Wendell Macklin Bridge on Monroe St. as they pass over it.
At its latest meeting, the city’s board of works and safety approved an expenditure of $12,800 to have a new light erected at the bridge. Then, in its ensuing meeting, city council gave final approval.
The darkness around the bridge had been brought before council a few weeks back by Councilwoman Jenny Bowers-Shultz.
Operations Manager Jeremy Gilbert told the board at its meeting that he had contacted the Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) and they had no problem with it.
“They just said it would be ours to do,” Gilbert reported.
(Monroe St. is a federal highway, overseen by INDOT.)
Gilbert said he also talked with officials at Michigana Contracting, which had installed lights already at the bridge, “and they agreed that the area was too dark.”
He said the officials gave him a quote of $12,800 to install the light on a 40-foot pole and that they thought it could be done in time for the parade.
Gilbert also noted that one of the lights in the bridge area had been removed a few years back when the city installed decorative lights in poles in the downtown area.
The light will go up on the north side of the bridge’s east end which, Mayor Dan Rickord said, should prove helpful to those using the nearby trail head.
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