By KEVIN NEVERS

When, late last year, the outgoing Chesterton Town Council unanimously authorized Fire Chief Warren “Skip” Highwood to go out for bid on a new aerial, members seemed to be in agreement that advertising for bids in no way obligated them actually to award a bid and buy the vehicle.

The new council, on the other hand, appears persuaded of the necessity of acquiring a new aerial and doing so now. But members at the moment are unclear how exactly to pay for it, a suddenly much more pressing issue than it was three months ago, when Clerk-Treasurer Gayle Polakowski believed that sufficient funds would be available in Cumulative Capital Development (CCD) both to make a yearly lease-purchase payment on the vehicle and to buy an annual minimum of three new squads for the Chesterton Police Department.

CCD is a fund with a dedicated tax rate used exclusively for the purchase of police and fire vehicles, but as Polakowski advised the council at its meeting Monday night, she has re-calculated her numbers and discovered that CCD is simply not flush enough to allow for the acquisition of an aerial as well as squads.

The question remains, then: where will the council find the funds to pay for the aerial? Even under a 10-year lease-purchase agreement, the annual payment on the vehicle is likely to amount to more than $70,000. But according to Polakowski’s projections, the dedicated tax rate for CCD will yield in 2008 no more than $101,400. Put that figure in context: in February the council voted 4-0 to approve an expenditure of $83,289.75 for the acquisition of three new squads for the CPD.

In short, something’s got to give.

Last month the council received four bids for an aerial, the lowest that of Central States Fire Apparatus LLC for $759,950. There is cash available for a down payment of $200,000: $100,000 previously committed by Westchester Township and a temporary surplus of $100,000 in CCD moneys. But after that, funding for the vehicle is up in the air.

Polakowski did suggest a couple of possibilities: the use of CEDIT funds or—pending a review of the legality—of the Rainy Day Fund, created by state statute for the express purpose of depositing surplus CEDIT funds to which the town was entitled in the past but through various oversights did not receive. At the moment, Polakowski said, the Rainy Day Fund totals in excess of $500,000.

Member Emerson DeLaney wondered about the possibility of bonding for the aerial. Member Jeff Trout wasn’t crazy about that idea, though, as he maintained that the town’s bonding capacity should probably be reserved for the remodeling of the former United Tractor facility at 116 N. 15th St. and for a proposed expansion of the Street Department facilities at 609 Grant Ave.

“I don’t want to rob Police,” said President Jim Ton, R-1st.

“I’m not comfortable with that,” DeLaney agreed.

“Neither am I,” added Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th.

Ton proposed that the council simply award the bid to Central States and—because it will take the better part of a year to build the aerial—use the interim to determine the funding source.

“I’m not willing to pull the trigger on something if I don’t know how we’re going to pay for it,” Trout responded.

In the end the council opted to buy some more time, or at least attempt to do so, by instructing Highwood to ask Central States whether it will keep its bid open another 30 days, following the expiration of the bid on April 11, prior to the council’s next meeting, April 14. If Central States is not willing to do so, members agreed to call a special meeting to make a decision.

Posted 3/25/2008