By VICKI URBANIK

The Porter County Park Board moved forward Thursday with the purchase of property directly across from Sunset Hill Farm County Park on Meridian Road.

The park board authorized attorney Dave Hollenbeck to offer $245,000 for the property, which consists of two houses. The parks department will pay $236,000, which Hollenbeck said was the average of two appraisals. The Porter County Parks Foundation will chip in another $9,000.

At previous board meetings, park board members have said they might possibly use the property for expanded parking and as a residence for a park staffer. That is still the tentative plan, said County Park Superintendent Ed Melendez.

The property is one of several that the park board has been eyeing. Hollenbeck said earlier talks to acquire the property didn’t work out, but that now there is a renewed interest in the acquisition.

Speaking from the audience, former park board member Charlotte Read urged the park board to continue acquiring potential park sites and to consider applying for a grant through the Indiana Heritage Trust if additional funds are needed. Read is a member of the Heritage Trust board.

Read suggested that the board consider the 160 acres off Brummit Road that had been the site of the proposed development known as Dunes Country at Furnessville. She informed the board that the property is now on the market.

The Indiana Legislature this year approved a $4 million two-year appropriation for Heritage Trust.

To be awarded a Heritage Trust grant, Read said the parks department would need to put up matching funds, with the more local funds contributed, the better.

She also said the parks department would need to convince the Indiana Department of Natural Resources that the property to be acquired with Heritage Trust money is an ecologically important site.

In a separate but related matter, Melendez emphasized that the park department is willing to accept donations of land through estates and planned giving programs.

“We do like free land. We do not always have to buy land,” he said.

Melendez made his comments in response to some criticism that he said was voiced recently after the state received a land contribution through an estate.

Partnerships

As a special guest at the park board meeting, Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission Executive Director Lorelei Weimer commended the coordination between tourism and the county parks.

“There’s a nice partnership between the two agencies,” she said.

She cited several endeavors by the PCCRVC that can involve the county parks. One is the PCCRVC’s Destination Audit, which includes plans for an ecology trail that will link the natural assets of the county. She noted that a consultant who worked on the audit was extremely impressed with how “green” Porter County is, but found that there needs to be better coordination and better interpretive signage linking the natural assets.

Another park board guest was Christine Livingston, the watershed coordinator for the Save the Dunes Conservation Fund. She outlined the innovative storm water features at the PCCRVC’s Visitor Center. Through the use of swales, a rain garden and a specially designed ditch, the storm water is slowed down and naturally cleaned before entering Dunes Creek.

Livingston offered to partner with the parks in developing similar storm water systems at county park sites.

Park Projects

Also Thursday, the park board gave approval for Chesterton resident Joshua Kellogg of Scout Troop 929 to build a shed as his Eagle Scout project. The shed will be installed at Sunset Hill Farm after the demolition of the Murray house this summer.

The board also agreed to enter in-to a one-year commitment to allow most of the 65-acre West Farm to be farmed this summer. The parks department recently acquired the Pine Township property from the Indiana Department of Corrections. The farmer, coincidentally, was the second bidder in line to buy the property when it was auctioned last fall.

Also, the park board approved the plan for a new gravel road at Sunset Hill Farm that will be used primarily by tractors and trucks at the annual Northern Indiana Historical Power Association show. The road, which will be accessed from Meridian Road, will cost $3,591, with the county highway department doing the work at no cost. NIHPA will reimburse the county $1,759.

Also, the board agreed with a request from Board President Harold Erwin to move up the July meeting to June 28, due to the Fourth of July holiday and the need for the board to finalize its proposed 2008 budget.

Posted 6/8/2007