New leadership ready to take helm
Portage Mayor-elect Austin Bonta has his leadership team ready to go when he takes office Jan. 1.
Among his changes is the appointment of Lee Ann Van Curen as his chief of staff. Van Curen acted as emcee for Thursday night’s swearing-in ceremony for newly elected Portage officials.
“I think that we’re going to be a great team. I’m excited with the energy she’s bringing in,” Bonta said.
Van Curen will help with crafting the city’s budget and other financial issues as well as communicating with the various departments.
Bonta’s predecessor, Sue Lynch, had an administrative assistant but no chief of staff, something many cities Portage’s size have. Portage is Northwest Indiana’s third-largest city.
The new city attorney is Ed Graham, a Portage resident who has spent most of his career in Chicago and Naperville, Illinois, Bonta said. Steve Scott, who will be assistant city attorney, is currently Fire Merit Board attorney. They replace Dan Whitten, who also served as City Council attorney.
Park Board President Paul Ciesielski will serve as interim parks superintendent while the board searches for a new superintendent. He replaces Park Superintendent Dyan Leto, who hasn’t been in that position long.
“We are going to be making a change with fire,” Bonta said. “Randy Wilkening is just a fantastic man, and he’s going to be retiring this May.”
Chris Crail, currently battalion chief at the fire department, will become the new fire chief, replacing Wilkening. Jeremy Himan will serve as assistant chief.
“There’s going to be a big focus on our communication and transparency,” Crail said. That will begin with internal communications, and then using social media to better communicate with the community. “That’s going to take a little bit of time,” he said.
With a department staffed 24/7, firefighters work different schedules and often don’t see each other. “If we don’t have information, we start to create our own narratives,” Crail said.
“We always think we’re good communicators until we’re not,” he said.
“There’s going to be a focus on our training,” Crail said. That shouldn’t come as a surprise for the department. “I’ve been in a training role for quite a while,” he said, even before he served as lead instructor for fire academies. Crail was lead instructor at the Multi-Agency Academic Cooperative in Valparaiso.
Crail also wants a public safety training facility within the city for firefighters and police. “We get so busy in our call volumes that we can’t always make time to go elsewhere to do our training,” he said.
Firefighters had been using the former Garyton School for training but abandoned that practice because of structural issues, and raccoons and other wildlife starting to get in the building. “They’re to starting to make it their habitat in there,” Crail said.
Among the challenges the department faces is finding a way to fund scheduled replacements of vehicles and other equipment. A new fire engine could cost $1.5 million and have a three-year delivery time, he said.
“We really need to sit down and talk about the bonding power that the city has,” Crail said.
Grant possibilities exist, but they can be hard to get. “While we feel we’re in dire straits with our apparatus, the feds look at it differently,” he said. “The feds are only willing to come up with a certain amount of money for the apparatus.”
Crail hopes to lower the city’s ISO rating to 2, from 3, to make it easier to attract businesses to the city as well as lowering homeowners’ insurance premiums. Valparaiso is currently rated 2 and is pushing to become level 1, the highest rating possible.
Michael Candiano will remain police chief. Ted Uzelac will be assistant chief. “We’ve got a very great administration in the police department,” Bonta said.
The Fraternal Order of Police endorsed Lynch, while the firefighters union strongly backed Bonta.
Randy Reeder will remain streets and sanitation superintendent.
Barb Lusco will remain harbor master at the city’s marina.
Tom Cherry will become the city’s new director of community development, replacing AJ Monroe. Cherry is a general contractor with 15 to 20 years of experience, Bonta said. Cherry has been on the city’s Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals.
“He’s bringing in managerial experience, and we’re going to be really setting up that office to be business-friendly,” Bonta said.
Rich Jones is staying as building commissioner. Field Forces Superintendent Dan Komenda will remain in that position, and Tracie Marshall will remain superintendent of the wastewater treatment plant.
Bonta said he wants the field forces, building and planning departments to be more in sync. “When you’re approving a neighborhood or development, you want building and drainage issues addressed right from the start,” Bonta said.
Field forces workers maintain the drainage infrastructure up to the point the wastewater hits the treatment plant.
“We’ve got a lot of old infrastructure in the city,” Komenda said. “I’ve been gradually trying to upgrade that and update that.”
Corrugated metal pipe from the 1960s and 1970s is starting to rot away, so Komenda wants to get it fixed, replaced or relined.
“We’ve got lift stations that were built in the ‘60s and ‘70s,” not to modern standards. Some only allow one person to get down there at a time, so the worker has to be secured with cables to a tripod to protect them in the confined space. “It’s an old design that needs to be updated.”
The city has more than 50 lift stations.
Marshall has been working to modernize technology at the treatment plant. The city will soon close on a state loan to replace four clarifiers at the plant.
A solar field is being added to cut utility costs at the plant by 30%, too.
“Our plant right now is running really good, and it’s really steady,” she said, with industrial usage is kicking back up after declining during the pandemic.