By KEVIN NEVERS

A third tort claim notice has been filed against the Town of Chesterton by a South Calumet Triangle business troubled by the Town Council’s decision, endorsed by the Redevelopment Commission, to permanently close the intersection of South Calumet Road and C.R. 1100N.

Thomas Doler, owner of the Doler Heating & Plumbing property at 1575 S. Calumet, filed that notice on May 10. For all practical purposes it’s a carbon copy of the two previous notices, filed earlier this spring by the owners of Round the Clock at 1607 S. Calumet and Reliable Transportation at 1595 S. Calumet.

All three notices claim damages—Doler of $100,000—and assert “a permanent loss in the value of said real estate and improvements as well as a diminishment of ongoing revenues” as a consequence of the decision to close the intersection.

Council Fights Back,

Eyes Scrapping Connector Road

For Redevelopment Commission Member Mike Bannon—who also sits on the Town Council, R-5th—the tort claim notices are proof that the “efforts” made by the commission, the council, staff, and engineering consultant DLZ to make South Calumet Triangle stakeholders comfortable with the package of proposed improvements “have not done the job.”

In particular Bannon took note of the east-west connector road linking South Calumet with C.R. 100E, which the Redevelopment Commission specifically wanted aligned with the entrance to Round the Clock.

Irked by litigiousness in the Triangle, Bannon asked Mike Jabo of DLZ whether he could produce a new drawing with the connector road removed and an estimate of the “taxpayers’ money” which could be saved by eliminating the connector road from the project.

“What kind of cost would that (new drawing) incur?” Member Sharon Darnell asked.

“Just erase some lines,” Jabo replied. “We won’t charge you for that.”

If the connector road isn’t enough to satisfy stakeholders in the Triangle, Bannon said, “then I say we should take out that part we don’t have to do and save some money.”

“That’s not an endorsement of changing the plan?” President Dave Cincoski asked.

“Not at this point,” Bannon responded. For the moment, he said, an investigation of the cost savings would be enough. But, Bannon added for emphasis—and citing the connector road, the monument sign, the landscaping, the lighting—“we went over and above. . . . We went overboard, quite frankly.”

Members then voted 5-0 to instruct DLZ to produce a new drawing with the connector road removed and an estimate of the savings which could be accrued by eliminating it from the project.

Paving

In other business, members voted 5-0 to earmark $112,700 in tax increment financing funds to pave Broadway from Sixth Street to Eighth Street (estimated cost, $48,500) and Roberts Road from Indian Boundary Road to Michael Drive (estimated cost, $64,200).

Members did so at the request of the Town Council, which faced by asphalt prices which have roughly doubled over the last year and a long list of roadways in need of paving, opted at its last meeting to supplement Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg’s 2007 paving budget of $125,000 with a mix of CEDIT and TIF funds, roughly $200,000 of the former and $100,000 of the latter.

Prior to the vote Town Attorney Chuck Lukmann told the Redevelopment Commission that, in his opinion, there’s “no problem at all” in using TIF funds for paving Broadway and Roberts Road, since both are in the TIF district.

Special Meeting

Members also voted 5-0 to schedule a special meeting for 6:30 p.m. June 11 to discuss a draft of the contract between the Redevelopment Commission and DLZ for the final engineering of the South Calumet Triangle. DLZ was the only firm to reply to a request for proposals for the final engineering.

Posted 5/30/2007