By VICKI URBANIK

Two Porter County Park Board members announced their departure from the board at the end of this year.

Board President Harold Erwin has decided not to seek reappointment after nearly 20 years on the board. Richard Maxey said his term expires at the end of the year and that his appointing body, the Purdue Extension Service, will appoint a replacement. Both men are from Liberty Township.

Erwin, who is an appointee of the Porter County Council, has served on the park board for all but just a few years in the last 20 years. He said leaving the board was a difficult decision for him.

“I really hate to leave but feel that I must,” Erwin said, citing his desire to visit his Indianapolis-area grandchildren more often and to travel more.

Erwin noted that he was the park board president in 1994, when the county’s first county park, Sunset Hill Farm County Park, officially opened.

He said it’s been a “rough” 20 years, but that much has been accomplished at the park department and that he feels the park system now has the staff to get things done. “I’ll still be around to help make this one of the best park systems in Indiana,” he said.

Maxey has been on the park board for about five years. Like Erwin, he said his last park board meeting will be in December.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with the parks,” he said.

The departure of Erwin and Maxey comes at a time when the park department is about to double its full-time staff. The department won approval from the county council during budget hearings this year for three new park employees, two of whom are expected to work primarily at the new Furnessville arboretum park.

In another matter Thursday, audience member Charlotte Read strongly urged the park board to appoint a liaison to the Save the Dunes Conservation Fund’s Salt Creek Watershed project.

She noted that if, as planned, the park board assumes responsibility for the former County Home property, it could benefit from the efforts to restore and protect Salt Creek, which runs through the parcel.

Read also said the Save the Dunes Conservation Fund is working on park projects in partnership with Valparaiso and Portage.

Also Thursday, County Park Board Attorney Dave Hollenbeck, who is involved in Valparaiso University’s athletics, passed along a highly complimentary message from the Horizon League, an athletic program involving 10 Midwestern universities, including VU.

Hollenbeck said Loyola University had planned to host a league cross-country meet but had to cancel at the last minute. VU just recently joined the league and offered to host the event at Sunset Hill Farm.

Hollenbeck said despite the very short notice, the parks staff helped put on a well-organized event that won praise from the Horizon League and bolstered Sunset Hill Farm’s reputation as a premiere cross country venue.

“We certainly made a great impression on 10 Midwestern universities and the Horizon League,” Hollenbeck said.

Also Thursday, Parks Superintendent Ed Melendez said the parks department may join a Kankakee River conservation group that includes park representatives. The effort could help the parks department if it one day acquires more land along the Kankakee, he said.

Also, Hollenbeck presented a proposed lease with the Parks Foundation and the Northern Indiana Historical Power Association. The leases were taken under advisement.

Posted 11/2/2007