By PAULENE POPARAD

The Porter Town Council will convene a closed executive session Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the town hall to discuss pending litigation.

It could be to discuss a recently filed lawsuit by former Porter public works director Karl Bauer, who’s seeking what he alleges to be $5,328 in accumulated, unpaid compensatory time considered wages, according to Bauer’s local attorney Charles Parkinson of Harris Welsh & Lukmann.

Parkinson and four Porter Town Council members all declined comment on the lawsuit.

The complaint states that Bauer made a demand for the unpaid wages but the town of Porter refused payment. Bauer said he had 148 hours of unpaid comp time accrued at the time of his Aug. 10, 2007 resignation. He was hired by the town March 1, 2005.

In his Aug. 10 resignation letter it states, “I am also requesting receiving all of my unused vacation time.” The lawsuit said Bauer’s was a salaried position and not eligible for overtime wages; based on his final wage rate the unpaid comp time is equal to $5,328 and should have been paid within ten days of his payment request.

The action says Bauer processed a claim with the Indiana Department of Labor prior to bringing the lawsuit. He is asking Porter Superior Court Judge William Alexa to order the town to pay him for the outstanding comp time along with liquidated damages not exceeding double the unpaid wages and his attorney fees.

Parkinson will be on the other side of the courtroom defending the town of Burns Harbor over a lawsuit filed Feb. 21 against its Advisory Plan Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals. He represents both boards.

Job Steel Corp. and LISCO, Inc. represented by Chesterton attorney Terry Hiestand are asking that Porter Circuit and Superior Court Judge Mary Harper order the BZA to grant Job Steel approval to operate a truck terminal with warehousing and outside storage in a Commercial-2 zone at 277 Melton Rd. (U.S. 20).

Jan. 8, 2008 the Plan Commission recommended to the BZA that Job Steel’s special exception did not comply with the master plan, and following a public hearing over two meetings the BZA voted Jan. 22, 2008 to deny all zoning requests.

Harper has ordered the Plan Commission and BZA to show cause why it shouldn’t be ordered to produce all records related to the Job Steel petition for judicial review. The plaintiffs also are seeking general and punitive monetary damages and other costs by alleging that their protected property rights have been interfered with resulting in economic damages. Parkinson had no comment on the allegations.

According to Hiestand, 277 Melton Rd. was operated as the Verplank Garage, a towing and vehicle repair business, prior to the town’s incorporation in 1967. In February, 1980 John Zehner received a special exception from the BZA for a truck service and repair center for the site, which Hiestand said continued to run with the real estate and a truck terminal and dispatching business were operated there through the years.

In approximately 1988 Brownco, Inc. , later merged into LISCO Inc., bought the site from Zehner and operated eight trucks which were parked and maintained there, according to Hiestand. In 1991 Brownco Inc. sold its trucks and the real estate was transfered to LISCO, which operated a commercial truck repair center as did later an employee until the fall of 2007.

Hiestand maintains the property was used by numerous independent truckers as well since 1993 as a base of operations to secure their trucks and loads, that Job Steel’s proposed uses are compatible with adjacent land uses and the master plan, that there is safe and convenient access on U.S. 20, and that the actions of the Plan Commission and BZA are not based on any evidence that would support the findings adopted denying the zoning requests.

The Burns Harbor Plan Commission meets Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. at the town hall in special session to discuss whether and how to review its 1995 master plan. Also discussed has been if a moratorium on development along U.S. 20 should be enacted while the master plan is reworked.

Some town officials and residents have called for a pedestrian-friendly town center to be developed generally near U.S. 20 and Indiana 149, under one potential scenario including the LISCO parcel and the long-abandoned adjacent former Standard Plaza truck stop.

According to Hiestand, it is a “completely improbable vision that the (LISCO) real estate could be developed into a community ‘downtown’ consisting of commercial and office spaces, ignoring the fact that much larger communities in the area with traditional ‘downtown’ areas are not able to attract and hold such uses.”

For many years Hiestand was the legal counsel for the Burns Harbor Plan Commission and BZA.

Posted 3/14/2008