By VICKI URBANIK

Liberty Township resident J.F. Schrader, who often speaks out about drainage and planning matters, questioned the county’s drainage assessment process before the Porter County Commissioners Tuesday.

Schrader questioned why he is being charged a drainage assessment for the Swanson-Lamporte Ditch, while others in the nearby Damon Run water basin do not pay a drainage fee. He also maintained that he never asked to be part of a regulated drain and that technically and legally, he is not.

Further, he questioned why the county commissioners are using county income tax funds for a new ditch project in the Grenville Acres community in Westchester Township and not drainage assessments. The Grenville Acres ditch feeds into the Little Calumet River, which Schrader noted is known as Kemper Ditch, a county-regulated drain.

Schrader said the issue of who gets a drainage assessment and who doesn’t appears to be unfair and, in his view, illegal.

He presented Chesterton Tribune news stories dating back to the early 1990s describing horrible septic problems in Grenville Acres and noted the commissioners’ more recent effort to improve the drainage in that community by opening a new ditch. “You’re expecting us to pay for their ditch,” he said, referring to use of the income tax funds instead of a drainage assessment.

Schrader has sued the county over the Swanson-Lamporte ditch assessments. Schrader said an appellate court recently ruled in his case that counties cannot assess property owners if they are not on a regulated drain. Schrader said the county drainage board appears to be of the opinion that assessments can be charged if water from one’s property drains into a regulated drain, which he said applies to his property.

For their part, the commissioners did not answer Schrader’s concerns. But, County Commissioner President Bob Harper, during an earlier exchange with critics over the County Animal Shelter, noted that Schrader got to air his concerns because he went through the proper process of asking to get on their agenda.

Evans Defended

Harper publicly took to task a comment made in a recent Chesterton Tribune Voice of the People written by Alan Hewitt, who was responding to Chesterton town officials’ comments related to the Liberty Landowners Association.

In his Voice, Hewitt noted that the landowners have sued the county commissioners over their rezoning for the new Porter hospital at U.S. 6 and Ind. 49. One component of their lawsuit charges North County Commissioner John Evans with a conflict of interest for voting for the rezoning; Evans’ wife works for Porter hospital.

Harper said there are legitimate disagreements over where the new Porter hospital should be located. But he also said that it’s wrong to suggest that Evans should not have voted on the rezoning. He said just because Evans’ wife works for one of the largest employers in the county doesn’t mean Evans has a conflict of interest. South County Commissioner Carole Knoblock concurred. County Attorney Gwenn Rinkenberger also said that because the issue deals with pending litigation, the Voice of the People was inappropriate.

Posted 8/6/2008