Igor may yet be
healthy enough to hit the bricks.
At the Chesterton
Town Council’s meeting Monday night, Police Chief Dave Cincoski reported
that Igor, Sgt. Dan Rocha’s K-9 partner since the fall of 2010, continues to
recover at home following surgery for the broken leg which he sustained in a
training accident in November.
“The doctors are
very hopeful for a least a limited return to duty,” Cincoski said.
Igor, a 6-year-old
German shepherd, was rushing a trainer in a padded bite-suit on Nov. 13 when
he landed wrong and fractured his left foreleg.
The Town of
Chesterton is paying for Igor’s medical bills.
Igor comes from
Holland and take his commands in Dutch. He is trained both to detect
narcotics and to conduct tracks and has been involved in scores of traffic
stops, searches, and apprehensions over the last four years.
Re: Signage
Replacement
In other business,
Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg updated the council on the ongoing
signage replacement program, mandated by the Federal Highway Administration.
That mandate
requires municipalities to replace old traffic and street signage with more
highly reflective signs, easier to see by motorists at night.
Schnadenberg said
that the Street Department is doing the work in phases and has already
swapped out traffic signage: stop and yield signs, for instance.
This year the
Street Department purchased street-name signs for 47 intersections and
replaced 94 actual street-name signs, dumping the old four-inch lettered
signs with new six-inch lettered ones.
The council has
approved the use of CEDIT funds to pay for the replacement program.
Westchester Fire
Protection Contract
Meanwhile, Fire
Chief John Jarka reported that he and Porter Fire Chief Lewis Craig are
right now working on the numbers which they’ll submit to the Westchester
Township Trustee, in advance of the new fire-protection service contracts
which both towns will enter into with the township in 2015.
Jarka noted that
the CFD’s calls in unincorporated Westchester Township increased by 29
percent: to 121 from 94 in 2013.
Health Insurance
Members did vote
unanimously to renew the employee health insurance plan for 2015, with a few
changes.
The first change,
which is predicted to result in a hard saving of $58,000, is a move to the
Cigna network. A representative of Anton Insurance Agency of Chesterton
assured members that “employees will still be able to stay with their
providers and won’t have to do any shopping around.”
The second change,
required under the Affordable Healthcare Act: an increase in the qualified
nursing stay to a minimum of 90 days.
The third change,
also to stay in compliance with the Affordable Healthcare Act: an increase
in the deductible of $100.
Jim Ton Recognized
President Sharon
Darnell, D-4th, took a moment at the end of the meeting to note that her
colleague, Member Jim Ton, R-1st--Treasurer of the Northwestern Indiana
Regional Planning Commission’s Executive Board--has been recognized for his
perfect attendance this year: 36 meetings.
Ton plans to run in
2015 for the position of Vice-Chair on the Executive Board.
Redevelopment
Commission
Earlier in the
evening, the Redevelopment Commission held its regular monthly meeting,
where they agreed to hold--as required by a “quirky state statute,” as Town
Attorney Chuck Lukmann put it-- an organizational meeting as early as
possible in the New Year.
That meeting, which
should last all of five minutes, is scheduled for 12 p.m. Friday, Jan. 2, at
the town hall.
The Redevelopment
Commission also agreed unanimously to award a contract to Butler, Fairman &
Seufert, to design a streetscape plan for the so-called Calumet Connection,
that stretch of South Calumet Road between Porter Ave. and the South Calumet
Business District just north of 1100N.
The contract is
being funded with an 80/20 grant from NIRPC of $24,000. The commission’s
portion: $6,000.