The Indiana Dunes without doubt takes the cake when it comes to attracting visitors to Porter County. The county Convention, Recreation and Visitors Commission is now turning the tide and shining some light on the smaller attractions that the Dunes tower over.

The PCCRVC earlier this year launched the Beyond the Beach Discovery Trail to bring some identity to sites throughout the county that Dunes visitors can experience during their stay.

PCCRVC Executive Director Lorelei Weimer told the PCCRVC Board of Directors on Tuesday the idea of the trail is to get visitors to extend their stay and get those people into the local communities. The average Dunes tourist stays approximately 2.8 days, which could be seen as enough time for them to do a second activity. The commission has partnered with the Fermata group in developing the trail, which began nearly 6 years ago.

The discovery trail currently features 54 sites with some located on the dunes themselves like Mount Baldy and the Portage Lakefront and Riverwalk. Weimer said the idea is not to draw people away from the dunes, but to be a guide in further exploring what the regional lakeshore has to offer.

Other destinations on the Dunes Region trail include the Chesterton Bandstand and Historic Business District, Porter Beach Area, Westchester Township History Museum, Deer Trail Park, and the Coffee Creek Watershed Preserve.

The Dunes is one of the three regions included on the tour, the other two being the central Moraine Region which touts 17 sites like the Taltree Arboretum and the southern Kankakee Region whose eight locations include Dunn’s Bridge County Park.

Those wanting more information can visit the trail’s website, www.beyondthebeachdiscoverytrail.com

 Descriptions of all 54 sites are given on the site as well as maps and contact information. A matrix will be available for each user to search destinations relating to a particular interest, said Niche Marketing Director Christine Livingston.

Another site will allow partners such as the Indiana Dunes Lakeshore and the Valparaiso Park to blog about their different trail sites through type, pictures and video. The site can be accessed through the trail’s main webpage. Residents can also send their pictures and stories from their experiences to the tourism commission that may end up on the site, Livingston said.

The blog site will be able to upload pictures quickly and easily. It will also include a spring and fall “Doppler” that can pick up bird migrations in the area.

Weimer said the project has been funded with $75,000 in grant money from the Lake Michigan Coastal Program which expires at the end of this year. The rest of the money will be used for promotional materials including a 45-page full color guide which is to be published in a matter of weeks.

The PCCRVC will also use “trailblazing” signs to signify which sites are on the trail. Also planned are “smart trails” where trail users can listen to podcasts recorded by the tourism commission and utilize phone applications with site descriptions that can be instantly threaded right from their cell phones.

“We want to make these sites more engaging to the public,” said Weimer to the board. “You get a real feel for the area.”

The trail will also extend its outreach via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

PCCRVC attorney David Hollenbeck reported of the three properties the commission sued for not forwarding innkeepers tax collections to the Porter County Treasurer, one has responded and is going over their records with him.

Hollenbeck said the commission may need to take action against the two noncompliant properties and have the records from the two locations seized. He said it is now the county’s responsibility to enforce the innkeepers tax to be collected since they decided they would do that and not the state.

The trend, although small, is not unique to Porter County, Hollenbeck said. He said that these delinquencies in payments have been happening throughout the state more frequently in a tougher economy.

PCCRVC Board President Jeff Good said these types of payments are usually the first to be neglected when a property is facing hard times.

Board members said that although they felt sensitive to the hardships delinquent properties have been facing, they felt they should be firm in penalizing properties who remain late in turning over their monthly tax levies.

The motel or lodging properties are to submit their levies to the county treasurer by the twentieth day after each monthly term finishes. Weimer and Hollenbeck said there are a handful of about 30 properties that have been late with payments but usually are able to make up the taxes later.

Good and fellow board member Mitch Peters said it may be that the county treasurer who is not processing the payments on time. Good gave the suggestion that it would be wise to have the treasurer timestamp the collections.

Peters said money processing may be difficult since the county council has not given the county auditor’s office any pay for overtime.

Hollenbeck said the board could amend the innkeepers tax ordinance to place tighter restrictions on the tax in order to solve what has been a problematic issue. The change would need to be approved by the county council.

“We could toughen it up a bit,” said Good. “It may be too lax.”

Hollenbeck said the properties being sued are smaller properties and the tourism commission is not in an emergency state where it would depend highly on collecting the money.

“The wall is not falling down,” said Hollenbeck.

The bigger issue, he said, is to be fair to other properties that have successfully made the effort to properly send their levies in.

The board will discuss what it plans to do about the ordinance at its next meeting.

The PCCRVC grant committee has decided to limit grants to new festivals and other events.

Local festivals will only be eligible for grants up to three years.

Weimer said the committee needed to decide the appropriate time to cut off funds to organizations and when they should be able to support themselves.

Organizations can apply for the maximum amount of $3,000 in their first year. The second year, applicants can ask for up to $2,500 and in the third year, only $1,500 will be awarded.

Also, a $500 late fee will now be tacked on for any grant recipient which fails to give the commission proper documents and receipts within 60 days of their events.

The new provisions will take effect for the 2011 grants.

The deadline to apply for next year’s grants from the PCCRVC is Friday, September 24.

The board passed a motion to accept the changes with a 4-1 vote. Opposing was Peters who said he had questions regarding the change and therefore was not ready to approve it.

Also on Tuesday, the board awarded plaques to outgoing board members David Canright and Carolyn Birky for their years of service on the board.

Birky was at the meeting along with her husband to accept the honor and said it had been a hard decision for her to leave the board but felt she “wouldn’t be doing justice to her constituents” had she stayed on longer.

Birky, a Kouts resident, served the PCCRVC board for ten years. Canright, managing editor of the Chesterton Tribune, also served the board for ten years and was actively involved on the grant committee.

Posted 6/16/2010