Ground is scheduled to be broken in October on the $20 million 24-hour free-standing emergency department on the site of the old Jewel/Osco on Indian Boundary Road.

So announced Chesterton Town Manager Bernie Doyle at Monday’s meeting of the Town Council.

The Sisters of Saint Francis Health Services Inc.—owner of Saint Anthony Memorial Health Center in Michigan City—“have a number of large projects going right now, hospital projects,” Doyle said, but groundbreaking remains scheduled for the fall.

Projected completion date: November 2011.

When completed, the facility will be staffed by emergency medicine physicians around the clock, seven days a week, and will include offices for primary care and specialty medicine as well.

In other business, Police Chief Dave Cincoski thanked the Porter County Drug Task Force, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Cook County Sheriff’s Department, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives for its raid on July 28 of a home in the Villages of Sand Creek.

“It was a $1 million (marijuana growing) operation, basically shut down,” Cincoski said.

More than 700 plants and around 90 pounds of loose marijuana were seized as well as numerous firearms, Cincoski added.

Charged with dealing marijuana in an amount greater than 10 pounds was Alan Lee Zimmerman, 42.

For Cincoski the message of the bust—and of an apparent fatal overdose in town over the weekend—is simple. “Things do happen in our backyard,” he said. “It is here. It is in our backyard.”

In related business, members voted 4-0 to approve on first reading an ordinance which increases the authorized appropriation of moneys from the CPD Gift Fund from $15,000 to $45,000, 4-0 to suspend the rules, then 4-0 to approve the ordinance on final reading.

Cincoski had requested the ordinance to make it possible to appropriate funds for the proposed K-9 program. No one spoke in favor of the ordinance or in opposition to it at a public hearing prior to the vote. President Jeff Trout, R-2nd, was not in attendance.

Members also voted 4-0 to authorize a total expenditure of $9,165 previously earmarked CEDIT funds for improvements to the CPD Patrol Division.

Meanwhile, Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg reported that the six-month review of the town’s contract with Able Disposal has saved nearly $10,000, after his administrative assistant, Mary Henry, determined that fully 177 residences in town are currently vacant.

Under the Able Disposal contract, the town pays per occupied residential unit, with the number of units occupied reviewed every six months.

“There are a lot of vacant homes,” Schnadenberg told the Chesterton Tribune after the meeting. “Foreclosures, folks selling. We won’t be paying Able for homes where there’s no garbage being left out.”

Schnadenberg added that Henry has been doing a great job keeping the list updated. “It’s very tedious work.”

Member Jim Ton, R-1st, took a moment at the end of the meeting to “thank all the department heads for keeping their eyes on the budget and saving us money.”

Posted 8/11/2010