By KEVIN NEVERS

As the officials and employees of the Town of Burns Harbor waited today for news of an emergency loan which the General Assembly may or may not have enacted to bail out Porter County taxing units affected by the bankruptcy of Bethlehem Steel Corporation, one Chesterton Town Council member is floating an idea which he believes could forestall Burns Harbor’s own possible liquidation and dis-incorporation, as it faces the next 18 months without a property tax payment from the steel giant.

Merger.

Bob Crone, R-3rd, told the Chesterton Tribune Monday that a merger of the towns of Chesterton and Burns Harbor would enable the latter to survive as a municipality with the same level of services which its residents now enjoy. “We have the same schools,” he said. “We have the same library. We speak the same language. I think it would be a positive for both towns.”

Crone had not formally broached the idea to Burns Harbor officials when he spoke to the Tribune on Monday, but today Burns Harbor Clerk-Treasurer Esther Nickell made it clear that her Town Council was not considering merger as an option. “That’s actually (Crone’s) idea,” she said. “As far as I know none of our council is inclined for that. They’re not inclined for that.”

And Nickell added that she has “absolutely not” heard talk of it in other quarters of her town.

Although Crone also serves currently as the President of the Duneland Chamber of Commerce, he appeared to be speaking only in his capacity as a member of the Chesterton Town Council. Laurie Franke-Polz, executive director of the Chamber, was not available this morning to comment on the Chamber’s official position on a possible merger.

Crone’s colleague on the council, however, Sharon Darnell, D-4th, urged caution in the matter. “I realize that it looks good on paper,” she said. “And we could justify it from our point of view. But I just can’t see jumping into this. There are too many options now. Maybe it should have happened years ago. But right now people are just too darned scared to make rational decisions.”

Under Indiana Code 36-4-2-(1-17) a merger is possible—the two towns abut at C.R. 1100N between Ind. 149 and C.R. 200W—and could be implemented in one of two ways: if the council of each town agrees by resolution to hold an election to consider a merger, or if at least 10 percent of the qualified voters of each town sign a petition requesting such an election.

Feasibility is different from legality, however, and in Crone’s view Chesterton’s existing departments could provide the extra level of services without particular economic hardship. “It seems like a minimum of new employees would be needed by Chesterton because there’s so much duplication of services,” he said. Crone suggested, for instance, that the new corporate entity—voters would have to approve its name in the same election in which they approved the merger itself—would probably require one additional employee for the Street Department, one for the Parks and Recreation Department, and maybe one or two for the Police Department.

“When you spread out services over more people,” Crone said, “it comes out to less cost per person.” In any event, he projected, the property tax revenues of a new corporate entity would likely support a couple of extra employees.

Chesterton Clerk-Treasurer Gayle Polakowski was not available today for comment, but two department heads were and they indicated that their resources are already strained. Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg noted that, with new subdivisions being added to Chesterton all the time, “whatever equipment (Burns Harbor has) would have to carry over because we’re at our limits now.” Bottom line: his Street Department would indeed need at least one more employee. “To take on square miles,” he said, “we would need to take on one more individual, given that we’re at our limits now.”

Police Chief George Nelson, on the other hand, observed that in a new corporate entity his officers would be tasked with the patrol not only of Burns Harbor’s municipal roadways but with stretches of Ind. 149, U.S. Highway 20, U.S. Highway 12, two mobile home parks, the Williams Travel Center, and various industrial facilities. He projected a need for a minimum of six new officers: or two per crew. “We could use one or two extra officers right now with what we have,” Nelson said. “Sometimes we need to pull a detective to cover a shift.”

One question to which Crone did not know the answer is what exactly would happen to the agreement reached by Burns Harbor and Bethlehem under which the former is to purchase the latter’s wastewater treatment plant. A new corporate entity would have no need of that plant, said Chesterton Utility Service Board President Larry Brandt, who noted that “from a capacity point of view, there is no question that (Chesterton’s expanded plant) could process whatever comes out of Burns Harbor.”

Is it possible that Burns Harbor residents might take a dim view of a merger, might be inclined to see it as Chesterton’s taking advantage of a fire sale?