What about a stoplight at the north park gate?

Discussions are reopening about placing a stoplight at the intersection of State Road 46 East and Old State Road 46, at the Brown County State Park north gate.

The last time town leaders spoke to the Indiana Department of Transportation about it, about nine months ago, the suggestion was made to put a roundabout on the state road instead of a stoplight, Town Manager Scott Rudd told the town council.

“That’s where it ended,” he said.

However, that person is no longer working with INDOT, Rudd said, so he offered to contact someone else with the state at town council member Arthur Omberg’s request.

Omberg brought up an idea that’s been pitched before: That if a light is placed at that intersection, it would be a “trigger light” that only changes to red if traffic is waiting to cross State Road 46.

When contacted for a story in the fall of 2014, an INDOT representative told The Democrat that adding a light can result in more accidents because of drivers running the light, failing to see the light or not seeing traffic stopped for the light.

At the time, INDOT said that the primary data points it looked at when considering where to put lights were crash history and traffic volume.

INDOT has since conducted a new traffic flow study and found more traffic than it expected in that area, town council President “Buzz” King said.

Town attorney James T. Roberts brought up a guideline he read in a traffic study for a different project, which said that if there are five or more crashes within a 12-month period, the area would be “subject to correction by a multi-way stop.”

Nashville Chief of Police Ben Seastrom said he’d just worked a crash there the day before and he’d have no trouble finding data on four more if that’s what would be needed to get something done.

More riverfront district liquor licenses?

The Nashville Redevelopment Commission is recommending that the town council allow five more Nashville restaurants to be able to serve alcohol.

A riverfront district license allows the owner of a restaurant to serve beer, wine, liquor or all three, with the approval of the local governing body and the state alcoholic beverage commission.

Normally, communities have a set number of liquor licenses available based on population, and those licenses can be bought and sold on the free market for thousands of dollars. When a city or town creates a riverfront district, that allows more alcohol permits to be available and their price is typically much lower. However, riverfront licenses are only good for that owner at that location, and they are to be reviewed annually by the local governing body.

The RDC and the council have granted their OKs to five business owners, using all of the annual riverfront licenses they had previously allowed. But they can set the number of available licenses at any number, so the RDC voted to increase the total number to 10.

“Originally, I believe it was the intent to let the market drive the number,” RDC consultant Ed Curtin told the commission. “What I would suggest is that it’s better to go ahead and be proactive … so that next time somebody comes along … they’re not having to wait for the commission or the town board to take action.”

When the last of the original five licenses was OK’d earlier this fall — for Brozinni’s Pizzeria — another restaurant owner was in the audience and said he was interested in learning about the process of getting a riverfront license.

RDC member Rick Kelley recalled a conversation he’d had with an established restaurant owner downtown who already had a regular alcoholic beverage license. Kelley said when he asked him what he thought about the riverfront district concept, this owner was in favor of it because he believed there should be “a level playing field,” Kelley said.

RDC President Dan Snow said he’d ask one of the other riverfront license holders — Muddy Boots Cafe/The Pine Room — to share data on how having this license has increased its business, to justify the increase in licenses to the state.

The Nashville Town Council hasn’t yet heard or approved the RDC’s request for additional licenses.

Small-business loan money still available in town

Two years ago, Nashville government received $75,000 from the USDA Rural Business Development Grant Program to loan to small businesses in town.

The town still has $60,000 of that grant to loan, in $10,000 increments, Town Manager/Economic Development Director Scott Rudd said Oct. 3.

Low-interest loans are available confidentially to business owners who meet certain qualifications. They must also show that the loan will help create jobs or sustain current ones, Rudd said.

As the recipient pays the loan back to the town, that money can be loaned out again to other business owners who need it, he said. But so far, there haven’t been as many takers as there has been interest.

Rudd told the Nashville Redevelopment Commission that he had recently heard from a person who was looking to sell a business and wondered if the loan money could be utilized by a possible buyer. Rudd said he thought it could be justified if there was evidence that selling the business would keep jobs here that otherwise wouldn’t exist.

Anyone interested in the loan program’s requirements can contact Rudd at Town Hall, 200 Commercial St.

Downtown sidewalk repairs progressing — slowly

The good news is that more downtown businesses are offering to put up match money to get their sidewalks fixed. “The bad news is, it’s a slow process,” Town Manager Scott Rudd told the Nashville Town Council last month.

The town had about $12,000 in match money and was waiting for about $6,000 more to come in, he said. The town had set aside about $20,000 for sidewalk work, but the council had asked for property owners to contribute so that the money would go further.

Some repairs have been made, but other work — including adding new sidewalks to places such as the Brown County History Center and along the side of Hawthorne Drive — is yet to be started, and might not get done before winter.

Council members suggested two other sidewalk projects as well: a new one along Pat Reilly Drive near the Chocolate Moose, and a rework of the sidewalk in front of the Hobnob Corner restaurant to possibly bypass the stairs and make it handicap-accessible. Plans were not complete for either of those, Utility Manager Sean Cassiday said.

For any sidewalk projects yet to be done this year, Rudd said the town would “err on the side of caution” considering the amount of visitors walking around town in the fall.