City officials recently decided to use the Seymour office of a North Vernon-based engineering firm to address civil engineering needs.
Bernard A. Hauersperger, president and professional engineer of FPBH Inc., will serve on an on-call basis for city projects after board of public works members made that decision during a meeting Thursday.
Hauersperger’s firm serves southeastern Indiana and works with local, state and federal governmental units. The company has been involved in several projects in Seymour and Jackson County, according to its website.
Nathan Frey, the city’s engineer since March of 2014, announced in December that he would be leaving for a job in Kentucky. His last day was Monday.
The city has not ruled out trying to contract Frey through the new firm as a more permanent solution to its engineering needs, but those discussions have yet to materialized, Mayor Craig Luedeman said.
City council members discussed the matter during a meeting in December, asking whether they could afford a full-time engineer. They also discussed the difficulty of finding one during an election year when there won’t be guarantees of who or what a new mayor might want. Luedeman announced in November he will not seek a fourth term.
The transition comes as the city continues several projects. Most notably is the $20-million plus Burkart South Bypass. The first phase of that project, which includes an overpass over the Louisville & Indiana Railroad and connects East Tipton Street to O’Brien Street, and third phase which involves improving Airport Road from G and E avenues in Freeman Field to West Tipton Street, are scheduled to begin this year. The second phase connecting the first and third sections of the bypass between O’Brien Street and G Avenues won’t begin until 2022.
FPBH offers full engineering services including planning, surveying, development and construction administration for projects and also provides site planning, structural foundation design, detailed building design, subdivision layout, industrial development, topographic surveying, bridge inspection programs and rehabilitation services for bridges, culverts, roadways, railroads and utilities.