The Chesterton Town Council took the first step at its meeting Monday to sell a piece of park property to residents interested in building a home on it.

Members voted 5-0 to approve on first reading an ordinance which would authorize the sale of Lot 5 at 1192 Woodland Drive in the Dunewood Estates subdivision to Adam Rick and Nicole Negowetti, for a price of $25,000, the average of the two appraisals required under Indiana Code for the sale of municipal property.

Member Jim Ton, R-1st, expressed a desire, however, to mull over the sale before finalizing it, so no vote was taken to approve the ordinance on final reading.

The developer of Dunewood Estates—located off 1100N, just west of 11th Street—had originally donated the lot to the Parks Department for development as a community park but the Park Board subsequently determined that it has no use for it and will put no money into it.

At a public hearing prior to the vote, Rick told members that he currently resides on Dickinson Road but wishes to build a home on Lot 5. “We want to live here,” Rick said. “We want to raise a family here.” Rick also called the proposed sale a “win-win,” inasmuch as “the Town of Chesterton can get some money to invest in other parts of the town.”

No one spoke in opposition to the sale during the public hearing, but earlier in the evening a Dunewood Estates resident, Arlene Fekete, did object, on the grounds that it was her understanding that—if not actually developed as a community park—Lot 5 nevertheless “was going to be left as green space.”

Park Superintendent Bruce Mathias said in response that Lot 5 “doesn’t simply belong to your subdivision” and in any case the “Park Department determined not to put money into it with Dogwood Park just down the street.”

“If you tell a developer he has to leave a lot open for a park and you later sell the lot, it takes away from what the developer could have done with it,” Fekete replied.

Town Attorney Chuck Lukmann has told the Chesterton Tribune that, under the language of the contract, the town is not representing the platted lot as buildable. That contract also specifically precludes the proposed buyers from acquiring the lot on speculation or to re-sell it.

In other business, members voted 5-0 to approve an expenditure of $1,629 in CEDIT funds to obtain a maintenance agreement with Frontier Communications for the telephone system serving the Police and Fire departments and the Clerk-Treasurer’s Office at the town hall.

Police Chief Dave Cincoski requested the expenditure after reporting that, over the past week, the CPD has been experiencing problems with call-transferring and voice mail. Frontier, for its part, said that the cost of addressing the problems would exceed the cost of the maintenance agreement.

Fire Chief Mike Orlich took a moment to thank everyone who made Saturday’s Open House so successful. “It was the best attended Open House ever,” he said, with 350 visitors dropping by after the first annual Lights and Sirens Parade.

The parade and Open House kicked off National Fire Prevention Safety Week, which officially began on Sunday.

Orlich also noted that, in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, firefighters will be wearing pink tee-shirts in October on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays in October.

Posted 10/9/2012