Needs assessment for aging Highway Garage given green light
The Porter County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday morning to fund a $37,950 needs assessment for the 63-year-old Porter County Highway Garage at 1955 S. State Road 2 in Valparaiso. The garage, Porter County Jail and Memorial Opera House, are considered the last sites on a list of county building construction and renovation needs that has tallied $30 million in capital improvements to date.
A & Z Engineering of Valparaiso will start the assessment immediately, according to Client Manager Russell Barone. Board President Jim Biggs, R-North, told the audience the county originally expected it would need 12 to 14 acres to accommodate a modern garage, based on the opinion of Highway Department Director Jim Polarek, but A & Z told the commissioners they think the current site may work.
“It was my fear that we would have to move that property because it’s only seven acres,” Biggs said. The garage was designed in 1958-’59 and built in 1960 and no longer appropriately functions for modern highway department vehicles.
The ceilings, for example, are too low for dump trucks to dump their loads indoors. County employees are spending hours hooking up and unhooking plows from trucks, which have to be parked outside.
“Those trucks are $200,000 a piece,” Barone said.
The salt dome is deteriorating and workers must move vehicles multiple times when changing oil because the pits were designed for vehicles over half a century ago.
“It is, from what I can see, far and away the worst property we have in need of some attention,” Biggs said. Whether the garage
would need to relocate during a renovation or new build remains to be seen.
“We’ll have to figure all that out. That’s all part of the study,” Barone said.
What also remains to be figured is a price tag and funding source. The bond that funded construction of the Porter County Jail will reach maturity in January, and there has been talk at both Porter County Council and Board of Commissioners meetings about possibly reissuing it to finance other projects such as the garage.
“We have to be locked and loaded with a new project or we lose that tax rate,” Biggs said.
In other business, eight Porter County E-911 dispatchers were honored for handling bomb threats at Portage, Valparaiso, and Wheeler High Schools simultaneously on the morning of Jan. 26th. Dispatchers Sandra Gallegos, Cari Postma, Amber Bradford, Jessica Sandifer, Samantha Jostes, Lori Maddack, Training Coordinator Christina Valpatic, and Executive Director Debby Gunn dispatched 45 police officers and 10 fire departments over the course of two hours, all while also fielding 113 calls.
Gunn took a moment to point out the role of Gallegos fielding two calls from the suspect in the crisis. “Ironically, she was the call taker for both of those calls and handled them phenomenally well,” Gunn said.
“I want you to know that only professionals could have pulled that off,” said Biggs after each woman was presented with a certificate. “And thank you for being the professionals that you are.”
Porter County Fair Manager David Bagnall also gave the board an update on upgrades the not-for-profit Porter County Agricultural Society has planned for the Porter County Fairgrounds. The 35-year-old chain link fence along State Road 49 and Division Road will be replaced in the coming weeks with a black vinyl fence in keeping with the aesthetic upgrades already done at the Porter County Expo Center.
There are also plans to revamp the sewer line, upgrade wash racks in the Swine Barn, begin a seven-year-plan to install LED lights in the parking lot, upgrade water line valves, paint the interior of the 4-H Building, address a foundation problem in the Swine Barn, install a new generator, and upgrade the electrical system.
And after two previous tries, Commissioner Laura Blaney, D-South, succeeded in having her nominee as a citizen appointment to the plan commission, Pam Fish, voted in. Statute required the nomination be a person of Democratic affiliation residing in unincorporated Porter County. Regnitz seconded the motion and Fish was unanimously approved.
Andy Vasquez was also approved as a citizen appointment to the stormwater advisory board. Statute required his position be filled by a resident of unincorporated Porter County, but political affiliation was not designated.