By ALEXANDRA NEWMAN

Tuesday afternoon, Christine Livingston, of the Save the Dunes Conservation Fund, thanked the Porter County Convention, Recreation and Visitor Commission for “stepping outside the box” to allow her to implement rains gardens for natural drainage at the Porter County welcome center.

“The project at the visitor center is a showcase of practices used for watersheds and educates folks about what it looks like and how plants filter pollution,” Livingston said at the board’s regular monthly meeting.

“You are at the forefront in the state of Indiana,” she said.

Signage at the Dorothy Buell Memorial Visitor Center, at 1420 Munson Rd., in Porter, shows how the rain garden slows water down and increases the filtering with plants that uptake pollution, keeping it from Dunes Creek, which ultimately deposits into Lake Michigan.

“This helps protect water quality. Thank you for your partnership,” Livingston said.

Livingston said since PCCRVC implemented the watershed project, private and public entities also are joining in the natural filtering system. Salt Creek in Portage, Forest Park and Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, developers and companies like Trailer Transit are participants.

“This has just snowballed,” she said adding another thank you.

PCCRVC Executive Director Lorelei Weimer added that the landscaping at the Visitor Center was done via seed. “It takes three-to five years to establish, which makes it difficult,” she added.

Weimer explained that where the rain garden is planted, the land flooded prior to the planting. “Now, during a recent heavy rain, it flooded, but the water was gone the next day,” she said.

However, the swail in the back of the property needs to be planted differently, Weimer said, in order to accept LEL runoff from their property.

In other business Tuesday, PCCRVC Attorney David Hollenbeck reviewed the structure of PCCRVC, explaining how three separate authorities govern PCCRVC and how it differs from some other Tourism Bureaus in the State of Indiana.

PCCRVC was adopted by state statute under the uniform innkeepers statute, Hollenbeck explained. “Half of the counties operate under the uniform innkeepers statute and the other half have a separate innkeepers tax - Lake County, which is incredibly different,” he said.

Relating the history of PCCRVC, he recalled the County Commissioners created PCCRVC. Originally the innkeepers tax was sent downstate, then, returned to Porter County. Later, PCCRVC made the request that the tax be collected locally, which finally was accepted by the state, and now the County Council has the responsibility for collecting the tax and for funding the PCCRVC.

How much tax can be collected from innkeepers is regulated. Originally the County Council allowed three percent and now allows five percent. It cannot exceed the five percent, which is the highest allowed under the uniform state act.

The nine member tourism board is appointed by several local governmental entitities. Each board member serves a two year term.

“Counties east and west of us operated differently, which confuses people,” Weimer added. “When we were created, we had to go with the uniform act.”

Weimer also showed members an electric kiosk which will collect tourism information and send the information to Temple University for a study about the impact of the traveler.

Weimer said she will provide members with notes from a workshop conducted by Roger Brooks of Destination Development, who advised PCCRVC to prioritize, strategize and restructure to improve operations.

Ruth Keister, public relations director, showed members a small section of a “One Tank Trip” broadcast on Fox 59 in Indianapolis which featured the Indiana Dunes. She said the broadcast was the equivalent of $15,000 worth of advertising. She also said Porter County was named as number 24 in a list of top reasons to live in the USA, which was published in Treasure magazine.

Also Tuesday, the PCCRVC voted to approve a proposal regarding external partnerships in offerings. The vote came, however, with a heated disagreement prior to the final vote.

The proposal reads to allow, but do not solicit, a select category/type of external partnerships that compete least with Porter county product offerings. These would be handled on an individual basis and would require the review of the Marketing director prior to partnership commitment. The qualifications may include:

• Businesses that are part of an owner/management group that have a Porter County location.

• Visitor oriented businesses (attractions, restaurants, services, retail, etc.) that are common for Porter county guests to frequent.

• Partnerships that would not be considered include adult entertainment including casinos, businesses further than 50 miles away, and non-Porter County lodging.

• Only certain components of partnership programs may be offered and/or those offered may be at a premium.

PCCRVC President Michael Scott suggested PCCRVC allow advertising from casino boats, saying it would help bring more visitors to Porter County.

Member David Canright adamantly disagreed. He said Porter County markets differently from Lake County.

“We have a family friendly environment and it would be a mistake to the program to advertise adult entertainment,” he said.

Canright added that it would be okay to allow advertising from the RailCats or Michigan City Zoo because they are family friendly.

It would have taken five votes to pass a motion. Becasue some members were absent the first vote deadlocked. Board member Sylvia Graham agreed with Canright, saying the county strongly opposed having a casino locate here.

Canright encouraged the board to vote for the proposal as written so partnerships can be made, and then, when the entire board is in attendance, if so desired, revisit the question for another vote.

The six members agreed to vote in favor at his suggestion.

Posted 7/16/2008