Chesterton Tribune

Council names Thanos Road in memory of John and Mark

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By KEVIN NEVERS

On Sept. 14, 2008, John Thanos, 74, and Mark Thanos, 48, father and son, jumped into a raging drainage ditch in the Westchester South subdivision to save the life of a boy who had been swept away in its rain-swollen waters.

The boy survived. The Thanoses drowned.

At its meeting Monday night, the Chesterton Town Council honored the Thanos family and paid tribute to the heroism and selflessness of John and Mark, by voting unanimously to give the name of Thanos Road to the connector street being built to link South Calumet Road and 100E as part of the South Calumet District project.

Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th, said that the family has been contacted and approved the name of Thanos Road, and that at its meeting earlier in the evening the Redevelopment Commission--which is administering the South Calumet District project--unanimously endorsed the name.

Re: 1050N

In other business, Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg, in response to a Voice of the People published in Friday’s edition of the Chesterton Tribune, told the council that it’s uncertain at this point what exactly the Street Department is going to do this season about the crumbling 1050N between 100E and the entrance to the Tamarack subdivision. The problem is that the Duneland Trails subdivision is currently under construction at the northwest corner of 1050N and South Fifth Street, and that the heavy vehicle traffic there is bound to play havoc with any work done to the road. “I’d hate to repair the road and then have to go back again after the subdivision is done,” Schnadenberg said.

Complicating matters, he added, is a jurisdictional issue, namely, that 1050N from the Tamarack entrance to Fifth Street is a county road.

“We’re obviously going to have to do something from 100E to the Tamarack entrance,” Schnadenberg said. “But right now I don’t know the answer.”

More from the Street

Schnadenberg had two other points to make, just for the record. To date Chesterton has received 72 inches of snow this season, roughly double the 37 to 39 inches it normally gets. “The good news,” he said, “is March is just around the corner.”

And, Schnadenberg told the council, the decision to re-new the town’s asphalt prices with Walsh & Kelly Inc. at last year’s price was probably a good one. The bids are in for a major project in the City of Valparaiso, he remarked, and the low bid for asphalt was $58 per ton. The Town of Chesterton will pay $54 per ton this season, and is located further from the asphalt plant than Valparaiso is.

Pope O’Conner

Meanwhile, Town Engineer Mark O’Dell told the council that the owners of property abutting the Pope O’Conner Ditch should beÊ receiving notification letters any day, to the effect that the contractor awarded the bid by the Porter County Drainage Board to clean the ditch will be starting the work immediately.

The specs of the contract call for trees and brush to be removed from the Pope O’Conner from South Calumet Road west, through the Venturi Business Center, to the far edge of Westchester South. The low bid was $18,300, O’Dell said, and the completion date is May 31.

Building Commissioner

O’Dell also told the council that he is working with Interim Fire Chief Mike Orlich and LeAnn McCrum of the Northwest Indiana Small Business Development Center to develop a set of competencies for the position of building commissioner. Orlich, named interim fire chief by the council after the resignation on Dec. 31 of the late Warren “Skip” Highwood, presently remains on duty as building commissioner. “It’s not an issue now, as slow as we are,” Orlich told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting. But when the weather breaks in the spring, he said, the position will have to be filled.

From the CPD

The Chesterton Police Department has responded to 661 calls so far in February and to 1,496 in the year-to-date, Police Chief George Nelson said.

From the CFD

The Chesterton Fire Department has responded to 88 calls so far in February and to 171 in the year-to-date, Orlich said. He added that Engine 512 is back in service but that the aerial is out of service, “hopefully just briefly.”

 

Posted 2/24/2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

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