Energy Superintendent John Reutepohler discussed the gas utility for the month of June on this July 22nd, 2025, Huntingburg City Council meeting. The gas utility of the Electric Department will begin mounting antennas for remote utility management for the Ireland area in the coming weeks. A new electric utility was established for the new duplexes located near East 7th and Van Buren Streets. New installations of underground electric lines were also installed near Huntingburg City Park to ensure less outages in the future, according to Superintendent Reutepohler. The Council approved the purchase of 10 ground transformers.
When asked about the power outage that struck the City of Huntingburg for a few moments last week, Superintendent Reutepohler shared,
“I was called about 3 o’clock from CenterPoint. Right now, they are working in the bottoms where you would make a turn at Rural King, and go out East there. They are switching by our substation, and they have a motor operated air brake there. It wasn’t working properly, so they had to manually open the switch.“
“When they opened it too slow, they drew an arc and the system went phase to phase, and knocked the circuit out, knocking the City offline. By the time they reset everything, we were out a couple of minutes, but it was CenterPoint.”
“They are doing quite the upgrade through the bottoms over there. They will be replacing steel poles all the way to our substation.”
Water Superintendent Jerry Austin discussed the OFS Power Plant 1 and how the service has now been completely installed after approximately three months of work.
After the initial installation of the boat dock and connected railing approximately two and a half years ago at the Huntingburg Lake, some unknown individuals vandalized the dock by breaking the railing off the dock, and throwing the railing into the lake. After recovering the railing from the lake, Superintendent Austin praised the City’s Gas Department for their help in re-welding the railing back onto the boat dock, making the platform safe once again.
Superintendent Austin also seeked Council approval to begin the process of advertising bids for contractors on the Water Treatment Plant Project, which was approved.
“We did have a little change at our Filter Plant. As you all know, Jace Merkel has stepped into the Superintendent position at the Huntingburg Parks Department. We wish him well. We’re very excited for him because we know his passion for the park. And, with that, we have put Aaron Bieker in his place out there at the Water Filtration Plant,” shared Superintendent Austin.
“Bieker has worked along Jace probably more than anybody that’s out there. He is overqualified for the position as far as certifications and credentials. And, with me and Jace sitting down, we felt he was the best one for the job. And he’s been out there for, going on a month now, and he’s doing great with it.”
New to the Huntingburg City Council and to the area, Tatorie Marion with the U.S. Small Business Administration introduced herself to the Council, and discussed how the organization is in the area serving Daviess County and all contiguous counties, including Dubois County, after the recent severe storms that took place on June 28th to July 2nd, 2025.
The U.S. Small Business Administration is offering low interest federal loans to the community, these loans are 30-year fixed, with 12 months, no interest, according to Marion.
These low interest loans would apply to homeowners and business owners, who experienced damage from the storms listed between the June 28th to July 2nd, 2025 dates.
Homeowners can expect their interest rates to be as low as 2.8%, and for business owners, as low as 4.0%.
When asked what applicants would need to apply for these loans, Marion stated,
“They can go to our disaster loan outreach center and just apply. It’s a very easy process. They just need a cell phone and an ID.”
“There’s no minimum. If you’re in the disaster areas, you qualify because the Davies County area met the threshold to have us in the area.”
You can find their website here: https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/disaster-assistance
The final topic discussed at this City Council Meeting was the progress of the new Huntingburg Senior Citizens Center, which is reportedly ahead of schedule for completion, and is looking toward a completion date for the first week of October 2025.
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