Commissioners - Regular Meeting

There you go. Y let's stand for the pledgece to the flag of the United States of America and to theublic stands one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Okay. Thank you everyone. Welcome to the Porter County Board of Commissioners meeting Tuesday, April 21st, 2026. Consent agenda, approval of payroll, April 10th, 26th. Approval of claims April 3rd, 9th, 16th, 2026. Aprov March 31st, 2026. I move that we approve. Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. We have an announcement. We have to the board of zoning appeals. I move that we nominate Arvid Markner. We have a nomination. Uh I will make that motion. Second.

A second. All right. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. 911 department update. Scott.

Yes. Effective April 1st, 2026, Porter County Central Communications implemented updated standard operating procedures for emergency 911 dispatch consistent with the county's authority as as the designated primary public safety answering point for Porter County. The county has heard the towns of Chesterton and or Porter may have an interest in formally consolidating their dispatch operations with Porter County Central Communications. The county is open to that conversation. However, consolidation is not required and the decision to pursue consolidation rest entirely with each town. Should the town of Chesterton, the town of Porter, or both wish to move for forward, the governing town council must pass a resolution directed to the Porter County Board of Commissioners formally requesting consolidation and specifying the date upon which the town wishes consolidation to take effect. Upon receipt of such resolution, the commission will review the request and work with the Porter County Council and the appropriate parties to determine how and when best proceed. That's all I have on that announcement.

Thank you. Thank you, Scott.

We have a request money from Porter County Community Foundation Historic Fund.

So, we do this every year and we have two historic funds at Porter County Community Foundation and each year we can withdraw 5%. This is very similar to our foundation. Uh the uh annual withdrawal rate is 5% and one of them it's a little bit more than 5,000. The other is a little bit more than 1,000. The these funds can only be used for three buildings. Um the the old sheriff's residence in old old jail, uh the memorial opera house and the courthouse in Valparezo. I'm we have been using that for the uh sheriff's residence and we may want to use that uh for renovating the old old jail because market 102 would like to expand into theirs. So I move that we um we do request the money and have it put into the funds that we've designated for that for that purpose.

Need a vote on it? Yes. I'll make a motion. I'll second it. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. We have a request for the county to evaluate Cardinal Lane. Is there anyone here from Cardinal Lane?

We invited him over to speak on a on an issue that they had. Let's hear from them. Let's just table that. Mike, do you want to speak on that? I know the resident sent a request to the commissioners that was for my way and others and our reputation. We will reach out to resable solution. Our hands are kind of tight limited because we can't spend public money on private road that helps everybody.

Okay. Okay. So, you're going to be reaching out to them and we will. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Clerk. I'll take that. Okay. Okay. Next, we have High Street Property and Calgary Insurance Renewal. Is there anybody here from that? We did. Yes. Like, come up. There you are. Good morning. Rob Shel, High Street Insurance. Can you turn on your microphone?

There we go. Good morning again. Rob Shaveville, High Street Insurance and Financial Services 47 East Lincolnway Balo. Our team manages the property and casualty insurance program for the county. I'm here today to present the 2026 renewal terms. Our team met with Mr. Morales, Mr. Bixs, and Mr. McCclure on April 13th to review the details of this year's renewal. And we're pleased that we were able to secure favorable terms for the 2026 27th term. Total renewal premium for the 2026 term across all lines of business, $1,739,611. That is just over 7% increase from the 2526 term. As I mentioned, overall we're very pleased with the favorable terms offered for 2026 2027. Thank you.

Yeah, the report was good and that the the raising the premium was was less than I expected. So, it was very very favorable. Um, any questions, Mark? I move that we approve. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I motion carries. Thank you. Thank you.

Next we have uh SBA Towers LLC an agreement to lease the cell tower at 2055 Hin Road Belare Razo from the Porter County Commissioners in the amount of 21,600 a year. Scott, can you give us a little overview on that? Yes, we have been in negotiations with SP Towers for quite a bit of time and um I know that Barb and I worked on it for a period of time. Commissioner Morales and I worked on it for a period of time. Um we were able to go through that negotiation uh with with SP Towers and come back and I do have this as a recommendation uh in its current format. Ultimately, we're able to negotiate from their original offer. This is a legacy tower, meaning that we've had it since the 90s. We've been under lease since the 90s. Uh this was our first go back at resetting the contract from their original um offer to where we landed. Ended up doubling that original offer over the life of the lease. Um and we also did a few more dollars upon uh signing it. I believe we started off at 20 and I think we're now at $50,000 upon uh signing of this. So, I believe this brings us more into line with a long-term self tower lease with two major collicators on it. They're not our issue, but the the leasers is too. I think that's added some value here. Ultimately, um I'm happy to be able to get that negotiated and completed. And I think we took around $450,000 total contract and took it to about 875,000 total contract with the county. So,

good job. I would amend it. I move that we accept. We have a motion. I'll second that. We have a motion in a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Soil and water conservation district. Shell Benson, director. That's a pretty fancy title. Good morning.

Good morning. Well, I'm here to request funding for a new vehicle. Uh we have a truck that was purchased in November of of 2010 and it's at the point now that it's unsafe to drive. It stops in the middle of the road. We've had to have it towed a couple of times. Uh Butch at the sheriff's garage really doesn't want to mess with it anymore. So, it's gotten to that point. As you know, we serve the farmers of Porter County. I travel a lot. We have a part-time educator that travels a lot. So, we're using our personal vehicles to do that at this time. And if you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. Um, I answered to a board of farmers. So, as you can imagine, it had to get to a desperate point uh prior to their approval for this request.

Well, you've stretched that last field off in 2020, so I think it's done its job. Thank you. I hope this new one lasts as long. I hope so, too. But we're pretty um confident that this is a privilege and so we take extra care of things that we're provided with by the county. We I'm a taxpayer. You're all taxpayers. So, we think it's important to take good care of what we're given.

Yeah. Um, my recommendation since we're only in April is that we look at doing the lease instead of doing the purchase because we have no idea what's going to come at us through the rest of the year. That's wonderful. We're happy to have a vehicle. Dave, did you have any opinion on that? Nothing. Okay. That'll fit the budget. And then you your lowest one uh here was weir Chevrolet. Yes. So then the motion would be to accept the we lease for 36 months and $481 for the 2026 Chevy.

That that is my motion. Okay. We have a motion. I will second that. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Thank you so much. Yes. I'll be happy to report that to the board tonight at the meeting. Thank you. It Lee Children's director. Morning Lee. And you have for a service agreement with Nikico for Hstatic IP address cost of $50 per month be paid out of commissioner's budget. Also note in that lease. Is your is your microphone

now? It is. There's also a addition to that 795 a month for NT which is a translates the fiber signal into a network signal. So the total is 575 a month not $50. Okay. So that's $57.99$95 I think. Yes. I move that we approve. I will second that. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Thank you very much. Carries. Thank you. Wait, facilities department. Mr. Phil,

good morning. Good morning. Okay, you have 157 Franklin uh Corellis annex canopy re- roof with a base bid of $16,325 to be paid out of the 157 annexation bond or annex bond. Yes, bond, sorry. It's uh literally rotten away. Okay, we just had the 157 annex bond. I don't even know. It just they put it in that way. It's the bond itself. Okay. Maybe that was a special. No. So that's replace the one that's falling apart.

Yeah. It's right in the entryway. Right now we don't have any leaking into the building from there, but the wood holding it up is completely You can put your hand through it. Okay. Do we have a motion? And that we approve the canopy re- roof with a base bit of 16,325. Will that be made out of the same materials? No, they're doing the Goodyear or the Firestone rubber and everything. Okay. Right now it's like a All right, we have a motion to approve. I'll second that. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I.

Motion carries. Okay. The next item you have, you have a nickel fiber relocation for the Porter County Highway State Road 2. Total $9,7596 cents be paid out of the Velaso Highway bond. That should be out of the uh bond fund. Bond fund. Yes. That's pretty self-explanatory, right? Yeah. Place for the new building. Do we have a motion? I move that we approve. And so let me just make sure which this is for out of the um the highway garage portion of the bond or is this out of the facilities?

This will uh be out of the bond. The facility bond the the what? The facility bond. The facilities. Okay. I move that we approve. I will second that. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Yes. Have a good department. Mr. Polaric.

Well, Jim's making his way up here. If if I could indulge you. Um, we had another request to pull money out of the Porter County Community Foundation for the animal shelter. And that was not on the agenda. It was in an email from the director. I thought she would be here. I asked her to get on the edg. Uh I'm wondering if we could go ahead and read that again.

Okay. So she wanted to pull out her allowable amount out of the animal shelter fund at the Porter County Community Foundation. And I would like to motion that we that we allow that we request that amount for her this year for 2026. Okay. I will second that. We have a motion on a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Back to you, Mr. Polair.

Well, good morning, Commissioner. Uh, a couple weeks ago, we opened up our annual by two minutes bids and as common practice, we just like to accept all the bids. So, it just depends on what what contractors a or you know, we use the lowest one obviously, but if one's backed up and can't get the job done, we like to be a price. So, you can see it go. I move that we approve to accept all bids. I will second that. We have a motion, a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Yep. And I'll let Martin uh speak to the the next item.

Uh this is a pavement and drainage reconstruction project in Hidden Hollow subdivision. We're requesting permission to advertise uh to receive bids next commissioner's meeting. This is full depth reconstruction of pavement FDR uh portions of full depth pavement with aggregate binder and surface HMA mixes and then drainage improvements within easements that we have within the subdivision as well. I move that we approve the request to advertise. I will second that. We have a motion in a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Storm water development. Mr. Jabbo,

we're going to go easy on you today. I I was wondering I mean I thought maybe you were on vacation or something. Mike, I am Martin. Always always. Um this is a maybe you explained the complexity of this one did because we did extend the limits did we not Mark? Correct. Can can I just understand the terminology when you're saying reroute because I didn't realize that we were doing a reroute.

Absolutely. So, uh part of the funding for this project was from the NOA application that we submitted and that was actually to reroute the current alignment of the Calmed Trail from the Nipkco Corridor to National Park Land. So, that that was a condition that we had in the alignment of our original application and it's a moniker we picked up before Martin and Mai's time. So, we have to run with it because it's on the Grand Appate. Yeah, that rerout will take care of that area. That's one of the areas that flood real bad through that trail. Yes. So, if you're riding through that, I've ridden through that many times right now in the spring where we get every range that's under it's underwater. So, it's going to reroute that area.

Yes. It's going to higher portions of of land within the park. The maintenance won't be with that because like I said, this time of the year, you know, you got a foot of water. So, well, plus this is paved, too, as opposed to some of the rock out there. I move that we approve the request to advertise. I will second that. We have a motion and a second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. Motion carries. And just a note on that one, I did receive the request to advance 9:00 a.m. uh bid receivable through the auditor's office. The advertisement for this was already out, but I will do that on future ones, just so you know.

Sounds like a plan. Thank you. Thank you. Next, u we'd like you to consider resolution allowing the director of the department to sign smaller scale quotes, proposal, task orders. Um it helps expedite things, especially in the area of bridge, code enforcement, etc. where we need people to go mow lawns because code enforcement's out there or pick up junk. in the case of bridge when emergencies happen. Um and even some smaller things when we need a surveyor or a land appraiser or an engineer or surveyor do small tasks for us. I think it would expedite the process. Uh it also would be in the case of we come to you annually just like storm water comes to the board with annual contracts. We want to get into that with certain vendors of those types and that instead of coming to you to approve the task order, you've approved the base contract with all the standard terms, there's a cap on the contract, say 100,000, but we would be allowed to sign task orders based on the cost the consultant gives us etc like that. This is all very similar to what the storm water board has allowed the director to do with storm water funds. In this case, it's a much broader pot of funds that we have to our availability. It could be plan commission, it could be bridge, it could be the highway engineering, um the uh the unsafe building funds etc. So all the other balance of funds that funds our department or funds that maybe been assigned to us by the council for instance we have the one where they gave us foundation money and lit funding to do these things for preservation projects and capital projects. Um, Attorney Mcclair started it off. I kind of polished it a little more. He had the other chance to review. If he's got

comment, I'd welcome that. But there are limitations. You know, it's uh for anything that's already got a contract executed by the commissioners, the limitation would be $75,000. And then anything else such as quotes, proposals, small contracts that we could get ourselves, the limit would be $50,000. This is all predicated that we have the funding.

I I think it would be good because we run into these cases where we need to get a guard not a guardrail and that would be a bad example. But for instance, I said code enforcement. We get someone to do an asbestos inspection because we need to clean up the property and take care of it. I mean that could be a series of various vendors going out there and doing things. Um this would help expedite those and keep them moving. Same on highway with the task orders. Now that we've got the funding for the preservation program and the capital program, we can be a little more swift in getting those done because it is the construction season. So with your blessings, we would hope you could entertain such a resolution given us that authority.

I it sounds good to me. I just would like our legal to weigh in on this. Mike talking. Okay. I move that we approved. I will second that. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Motion carries. I have two other items. I'd like just more in the announcement. No action taken. Uh we talked about the Calat Trail. I did send the email out, but publicly we have not made the notice that we were awarded $4 million flap grant, which stands for federal land access program. We have our last gap of the trail. Congratulations. That is huge

and with a little luck, not much money of ours, if at all go into that construction, but Martin's looking into that. How long have we been working on this? Longer than you've been here, but I know we've been working on this for quite a while. I would say at least six years or more, wouldn't you? Final phase. No, all of it since they started. I mean, we have a 2014 DEZ number for phases one and two. That's 12 years. Yeah. Yeah. So longer than that. And what is the projected completion year?

Uh the flap grant is definitely in federal fiscal 29 which starts July 1st to 26, but I would talk to one of the gentlemen in Washington from the DOT. He keeps carryover balances we queue up with that. For instance, this year he's got a carry over balance of 3.3 million in fiscal 27 which starts this summer. Yep.

So, if we continue to work with them, I would expect we could do the trail as early as next summer, but more likely the summer after. And that will complete Porter County's uh segment. Burns Harbor, I believe, is working on their last segment. And then Portage is doing a lot of planning with their uh economic development on the north side of the city. I would say Porter County might be in a position in the next few years that Porter County is complete calm met trail from countyw. Right. That's really great.

Um second and maybe I need comm uh attorney mccller's. Uh thank you for putting a a a board member. Um I would be remiss to say that we're going to miss uh Mar

Brickner. Thank you. I keep getting confused with his son, Marner. I mean, he has served the county for decades either in the planning commission or the BCA. And it's with sadness we had to see him go. Uh I told him he's always welcome to the meetings and sit with me and the others over on the side. But um thank you for putting another person in there because we were struggling. Uh we have one member who's off for a few months. So that left us with three. That means no one can miss a meeting and all three of them have to vote to the affirmative.

Um I talked to Scott earlier. I don't know what the effective date of Mark um Arbit's appointment is Ar Mner, but if it could be after tomorrow because we do have a planning commission meeting tomorrow. I believe they're attempting to leave, but we already have the two appointments from Yeah, that's what I was asking you that question. Yeah, for the plan commission. See, that's what I was asking. That's what he's So then possibly at we have a meeting say the 23rd. Yeah. So then we need to put that on our next agenda

and we need to make the announcement today that we're accepting applications for the plan commission, right? Yes. Yes. I was looking to the attorney to confirm because because I know the plan commission already made their appointments. Yeah. Right. This has to be a citizen. Yeah. Right. So that uh we need to advertise uh taking applications for a board appointment for the plan commission to fill out the remainder term. Now move to the BCA

and I'll let you know whether or not that one does have uh political affiliation. One can't be more than the other. This may be he's Republican or it could be either or. I'll have to check that. I'll let staff know. All righty. Okay. We can get that posted on the We'll put that on a We'll put that on the next. Yeah. Very good. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Next. United Steel Workers 12775. Mr. Pierce Kelly. How are you, sir?

Pretty good. Thank you, too. You have a request to use the northeast corner, northwest corner, and west triangle of the courthouse grounds April 25th, 2026 from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. to inform the public the illegal lockout by NIPCO against the United Steel Workers 12775 and 13796. Yes, good morning. Uh we are looking to have a rally on the courthouse grounds um to really show what Nipkco is doing to my members I represent. I'm a steward for the locals for Valer on Crown Point. So we have families and people in the in Porter County that are affected by this.

I have examples of the signs that we would have um on site. Uh nothing much bigger than that. And you anticipate about 150 people. So I I believe I put down 150 of us as union representatives and and members and then anticipating about 150 extra maybe a public I was trying to guesstimate that the best I could. Okay. All right. I move that we approve the request. I will second that. We have a motion in a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. Thank you. Motion carries. You're welcome.

Can you get with Phil still here? Phil's not here. Phil's there you are. the shirts. I couldn't distinguish you. Can you get with Phil and he can, you know, kind of direct you on where you had a position at? Thank you. Thank you.

Okay. Any other matters which may come before the board of commissioners? Anybody like to speak? Anyone? Larry, you're good. Okay. Okay. Okay, our next meeting will be, let's see here, May 12th, 2026 at 1000 p.m. or 10:00 a.m., I'm sorry. Uh, what happened at night? 10:00 a.m. Um, that concludes this meeting. Everyone enjoy your gays and uh thank you for attending