You know who you are.

More to the point, the Chesterton Stormwater Utility and Street Department know who you are, and they’re coming after you.

You’re the deadbeats who are paying your sanitary sewer bill—because if you don’t, the Sanitary Sewer Utility will have your water shut off—but not your stormwater or refuse and recycling fees included on the same bimonthly statement.

As Stormwater Utility Superintendent Mark O’Dell told the Stormwater Management Board at its meeting Monday night, one resident hasn’t paid his stormwater fee in three years and at this point he’s better than $200 in arrears.

O’Dell admitted that it’s taken longer perhaps than it should have for the emerging problem to hit the Stormwater Utility’s radar screen. Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg told the Town Council the same thing earlier this fall, when he announced that he’s discovered some $6,000 owed to the town by residents who’ve decided not to pay their refuse and recycling fee.

All this is about to change, as the Street Department and Stormwater Utility begin compiling names, addresses, and delinquent amounts.

To expedite the process, the board voted 3-0 to instruct Associate Town Attorney Chuck Parkinson to lend a legal hand.

In other business, MS4 Operator Jennifer Gadzala told the board that the Stormwater Utility is currently compiling a different set of addresses: of those residences overlooked by census takers last year in their local update.

Most of those addresses—105 of them so far—are in the Abercrombie Woods subdivision, Gadzala said. “We have the feeling that the surveyor just didn’t go out there.”

The Stormwater Utility is compiling those addresses as part of the appeal which it will file with the U.S. Census Bureau. The appeal is important, Gadzala noted, since the more residents counted in the 2010 census the more per capita funding for grants and other state and federal disbursements the town will be eligible for.

One grant the Stormwater Utility will not be receiving, Gadzala informed members with regret, is one from the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative (GLRI). She and Town Manager Bernie Doyle spent considerable time earlier this year preparing a “green infrastructure” plan for a rain-garden stormwater management project at the municipal parking lot across the street from the town hall.

But it turns out that in this GLRI funding cycle, moneys are not being released for that sort of project. The popular work appears to be instead that involving invasive species and fisheries studies, Gadzala said.

After the meeting, though, Gadzala told the Chesterton Tribune that the green infrastructure plan might be found more appealing to the bureaucrats in later GLRI funding cycles.

Meanwhile, Gadzala said that a three-day seminar Dec. 1-3 at Westchester Intermediate School on water quality and conservation, conducted in conjunction with the Town of Porter and the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission (NIRPC), went extremely well, with a total of 270 fifth-graders going through the event.

“It was fun,” Gadzala said. “The kids learned a lot.”

Gadzala also reported that the watershed area signage—“Yours To Protect”—has been installed at strategic locations along Pearson Road, East Porter Ave., 1100N, and 1050N. The design for the signage is Chesterton High School student Jannon Jeffries’, chosen by vote last summer.

Members voted 3-0 to endorse a five-year contract with NIRPC, at an annual cost of $5,122, under which NIRPC will provide for the town the public education and outreach components of the MS4 program. That contract will now go to the Town Council for action.

At any time in the fourth quarter of any year of that contract the town has the option of canceling that contract, Gadzala said.

The Stormwater Utility ran a deficit in November of $10,669 and in the year-to-date is running a surplus of $2,386.

President Thomas Kopko took a moment at the end of the meeting to thank the Stormwater Utility staff for its hard work over the past year. “We set up an ambitious project schedule at the beginning of the year and had a great year meeting and surpassing our goals,” he said. “Let’s continue it in 2010.”

“I especially want to commend (Gadzala) for all her outstanding work for the MS4 Utility in 2010,” Kopko added. “From her work with the community and school outreach programs to her daily permit and construction oversight, and especially her work with all our town’s departments for our outstanding IDEM permit audit evaluation, she continues to surpass all of our expectations.”

“A big thank-you also to our Town Council, Town Manger Bernie Doyle, department heads, and employees for their cooperation through the year and especially the cooperation you showed in working with us to prepare for our MS4 IDEM permit audit,” Kopko said. “Audit preparation is never easy or fun, but you were all instrumental in our receiving an outstanding audit evaluation.”

Kopko also thanked the Town Council for re-appointing him to the board. “It has been a great experience and I look forward to the opportunity to continue my work for the Stormwater board and the town,” he said.