It’s all well and good to apply for grants, said Burns Harbor Redevelopment Commission member Mike Perrine at Tuesday’s meeting.

But the town most likely would need to provide a local cash match as well as future upkeep and/or maintenance costs related to the purchase or project. “We have to be able to afford what we do,” cautioned Perrine. “I’m not anti-growth, I’m not anti-grant. I feel we need to identify sources of revenue before we go wandering off.”

His statements were in response to a suggestion by member Cliff Fleming that the town engage a not-for-profit grant service to be on the look-out for grants available to the town. “We had a lot of windows shut we never knew were open,” he said, because the deadline for applications had closed by the time the town found out about them.

Fleming also noted that some grants are 100 percent free money. Typically grants provide 80 percent with the town responsible for 20 percent although some 90/10 grants are awarded.

Perrine used the proposed Burns Harbor link of the Marquette Greenway hike/bike trail as an example. Once it’s built the town would have to maintain and patrol it but neither the Park Department nor the Police Department has any extra money, he said.

Last year the town leveraged its own $50,000 to win $150,000 in grants to draft and adopt a new comprehensive plan and zoning ordinance with companion Marquette Greenway and downtown district studies. Town Plan Commission president Jeff Freeze said Tuesday a $50,000 planning grant might be available now to take the next step and draft facade standards for new commercial construction.

It was agreed to find out what specific hourly rates the grant consultant would charge, and Hesham Khalil of town engineer Global Engineers and Land Surveying suggested the town accelerate its preparation of a capital projects list for all departments to get a better idea what grants would be needed.

To that end the commission set a special meeting Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the town hall for town department heads and members of the Stormwater Board, Sanitary Board, Town Council and Park Board to discuss capital needs. While the meeting is open to the public, future meetings will be scheduled specifically to obtain public comment.

Speaking as a local business owner, Freeze said a group wants to assemble a leadership committee to help recruit more businesses and market the town. Said Fleming, “To the extent the business community can muster themselves, we’d have an open ear to hear what they need and want. It helps all of us.”

Commission attorney Chuck Parkinson, as past president and an executive board member of the Chesterton/Duneland Chamber of Commerce, proposed using a chamber subcommittee to facilitate forming strategic Burns Harbor partnerships. Redevelopment Commission member John Marshall, a member of the Duneland School Board, said the chamber has the framework and is motivated to see Burns Harbor prosper.

Chamber executive director Heather Ennis and Burns Harbor Redevelopment Commission member Toni Biancardi have been working for several months with the town business community to foster cooperation.

Also Tuesday, the commission directed Khalil to review the information he receives from the Indiana Department of Transportation and notify the town when a project affecting the town is planned. “We were doing that and will continue to do that,” said Khalil.

Commission and audience members including Jeff Fleming of Trans-United, a specialized truck transportation service in Burns Harbor, said INDOT hasn’t provided timely information or allowed meaningful input regarding its ongoing reconstruction of Indiana 149 and U.S. 20, temporarily stalled due to a labor strike. The current timetable is for Indiana 149 south of U.S. 20 to be closed for two months beginning July 12.

Cliff Fleming said if the town is to grow in an urbanized design it needs to have a better relationship with INDOT so pedestrian-friendly access is provided. The current reconstruction doesn’t include sidewalks. Jeff Fleming said he doesn’t ever see U.S. 20 not being designated as a heavy-haul truck route and the town has to adapt around that.

In an earlier statement an INDOT spokesperson said they discourage pedestrians from attempting to cross U.S. 20 near the 149 intersection because of the number of travel lanes and the concentration of trucks.

Meeting earlier in the evening, the Burns Harbor Stormwater Board voted 3-0 to enter into a $3,600 contract with GRW Engineers of Indianapolis. GRW will map a 6.9 square-mile area for Burns Harbor detailing the location and number of impervious surfaces in town; the maps will be delivered by the end of January, 2011. GRW’s was the lowest of two proposals submitted.

When the 2010 census is certified it’s anticipated Burns Harbor’s population, now estimated to be about 1,100 residents, will push it into the category mandating participation in the unfunded, federal MS4 stormwater-protection program in place in Chesterton, Porter and other larger communities.

Most towns finance their MS4 compliance by assessing property owners a stormwater fee. Burns Harbor would use its impervious-surface maps to determine what fees to assess there. Typically sites with more impervious surfaces, like those with large buildings and/or parking lots, pay more in stormwater fees than a residence.

Perrine said a key factor in Burns Harbor’s MS4 program will be how closely the town is expected to regulate and monitor compliance in the large ArcelorMittal steel plant. “Acting as an oversight group may be beyond what we’re capable of doing. How do we go to Mittal and say, ‘Hi, we’re in charge’ ?”

Parkinson and Khalil said Mittal currently is required to meet certain federal stormwater guidelines under a separate rule but would come under the town’s jurisdiction when it activates its own MS4 program.

Posted 6/17/2010