By KEVIN NEVERS

Todd Rozycki, Republican candidate for the 4th District seat on the Chesterton Town Council, got a distinctly chilly reception from a fellow Republican at the council’s meeting Monday night, after asking from the floor for a status report on the park bond and making a suggestion for a safety upgrade of the newly paved parking lot at Dogwood West.

Rozycki asked first whether improvements at three community parks–in Dunewood Estates, Golfview Estates, and Westwood Manor–will still be funded by the proceeds of the $1.9 million bond issue.

He then noted that some “speed reduction mechanism” might be a good idea in the parking lot at Dogwood West, since it’s “almost like a race track” now. A fast-traveling motorist would find it impossible to avoid hitting a child who might dart from between parked vehicles, Rozycki observed, and speed bumps might be an appropriately “proactive” solution.

Member Mike Bannon, R-5th, decided to handle Rozycki’s questions, oddly prefacing his remarks by making note of Rozycki’s candidacy. “I know you’re running for council,” Bannon began.

Then Bannon said that, for various reasons, including weather, the Parks and Recreation Department may not “get as much done with the money as first thought.”

As to the parking lot at Dogwood West, Bannon simply denied that the new parking lot is materially different from the old one.

At this point Town Attorney Chuck Lukmann clarified matters a little bit. The addition of equipment and landscaping to the three community parks would be done, according to the formal project description, “as funding permits,” he said, and Town Engineer Mark O’Dell is right now working on the specs of projects which might be implemented with any remaining funds.

Park Superintendent Bruce Mathis later said that the work at Dogwood Park is 90 percent completed, with around 75 percent of the bond proceeds expended. Any further projects will be postponed until the Park Board has a better idea of how much money is left.

For her part Member Sharon Darnell, D-4th–Rozycki’s opponent in the fall–was polite and proper to her opponent but did not herself respond to his queries.

Cleanup Continues

In other business, Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg told the council that the cleanup from last week’s storms is continuing. “We’ll stay on brush collection for the rest of the week,” he said, “then get back to other things, like sidewalks.”

From the CFD

Fire Chief Warren “Skip” Highwood informed members that the aerial is back in service but that Engine 512 is now out of service.

So far in August the CFD has responded to 89 calls, Highwood added, and in the year-to-date to 751 calls.

On Behalf of McCord

Meanwhile, Utility Superintendent Steve Yagelski took a few moments to clarify comments made by Utility Service Board Member Scot McCord at the conclusion of the Service Board’s August meeting, when McCord said that sanitary sewer utilities, in order to upgrade infrastructure to the point where bypassing is no longer necessary, will need state and federal assistance. He accordingly urged residents to contact state and federal legislators and press them to make grant moneys and low-interest loans available.

Apparently, Yagelski said, McCord’s non-controversial and commonsensical suggestion has met with criticism–in of all places a submission to “Quickly” in the Post-Tribune, which did not even cover that Service Board meeting–from an anonymous person who objected to the idea of residents’ doing their representatives’ jobs.

McCord was “not asking the public to do the work of the Utility Service Board,” Yagelski said, but rather to create a “groundswelling” which legislators would be unable to ignore.

“We search all the time for grants,” Yagelski noted. “There aren’t that many.”

“It’s not out of line to ask people to contact congressman,” Bannon said. “The public has more leverage than five Utility Service Board members.”

On a different subject, Yagelski told the council that despite heavy rains last week no bypasses were recorded at the wastewater treatment plant.

“Excellent,” Darnell said.

Posted 8/28/2007