By KEVIN NEVERSÂ
The Recycling and Waste Reduction District of Porter County (RWRD)
wants to place a recycling center—complete with seven boxes and a six-foot
high buffering fence—on municipal property immediately east of the water
tower next to the Chesterton Fire Department.
But the Town Council thinks the RWRD can find a better
location, possibly at the North County Highway Garage. In any event, at
their meeting Monday night, members urged RWRD Field Operations Coordinator
Steven Dolak to find a site which might better serve the residents of
unincorporated Duneland, since the residents of Chesterton already enjoy
curbside recycling collection once a week.Â
Why not locate your site more centrally at Sunset Hill Farm
Park? asked Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th.Â
Dolak replied that the results of a survey conducted at the
former site, across the street from the town hall on property owned by
Chesterton, showed that 75 percent of the users identified themselves as
town residents.Â
Yes, Clerk-Treasurer Gayle Polakowski noted, but residents of
unincorporated Westchester, Jackson, or Liberty townships frequently
identify themselves, unwittingly or otherwise, as residents of Chesterton.Â
In a memo to the council, department heads recommended that
RWRD investigate alternate sites for several reasons:Â
•The bins do not fill a “significant need” for residents or
businesses, while several local schools have recycling collections at
frequent intervals. “There is no reason residents cannot support our local
schools and participate in their programs,” the department heads stated.Â
•Town employees “seasonally park” in the area being eyed by
the RWRD.Â
•An effort is being made to landscape and grass-seed that
area.Â
•Finally, the department heads stated, “we are concerned that
recycling bins and all that goes with this enterprise will have an adverse
effect on the locally owned businesses next to the area proposed for
relocating these bins,” the department heads stated.Â
Re: FriskingÂ
In other business, Bill Rensberger urged the council from the
floor to enact an ordinance which would require police officers patting down
or frisking female detainees to be female themselves. Citing the recent
arrest of an unnamed woman of his acquaintance in another
municipality—although not explicitly claiming that any impropriety had
occurred—Rensberger said that he
was surprised to discover that there is no uniform standard operating
procedure for area law enforcement agencies on the subject of frisking
female detainees.Â
“Half the population is female,” Rensberger said, and the
town would be well advised to enact an ordinance which makes this
accommodation for female detainees.Â
Member Jim Ton, R-1st, advised Rensberger to broach the issue
before the Police Commission, where any such SOP or ordinance would
originate.Â
Neighbor DisputeÂ
Also from the floor, Valparaiso resident Cathy Laughery asked
the council to intervene in a dispute with the neighbor of her father, both
of whom reside in the 200 block of South 14th Street. Laughery said that on
Christmas the neighbor, Robert Karp, at least twice called the CPD to
complain that she and other of her father’s guests were parking on his lawn.Â
It may be his lawn, Laughery said, but its town right-of-way
and she has a right to park on it.Â
Without denying that Laughery may have a legal right to park
there, members ventured that perhaps something like common courtesy would
suggest that parking on someone’s lawn—and sometimes leaving ruts on it—is
not altogether a neighborly thing to do.Â
 In
any case, members took the matter under advisement and told Laughery that
they would revisit it, possibly at their next meeting on Jan. 26.
Â
Posted 1/13/2009
Â
Â