The Chesterton
Street Department’s annual five-week leaf program will begin in earnest on
Monday, Oct. 26, Street Commissioner John Schnadenberg reported to the Town
Council at its meeting Monday night.
Call the Street
Department at 926-2222 to determine what day of the week collection is
scheduled in your neighborhood; or visit the municipal website at
www.chestertonin.orgÂ
Crews will conduct
an unscheduled leaf operation one week earlier, Monday through Friday, Oct.
19-23, in some of the tree-rich neighborhoods, like Morgan Park and Western
Acres, more to test the equipment, however, than to get a jump on the
leaves, which haven’t yet begun to fall in volume, Schnadenberg noted.
In related
business, Schnadenberg asked the council to consider raising the hourly wage
for part-time leaf labor from $12 to $15. The Street Department historically
has had difficulty recruiting extra hands for the five-week program, and
Schnadenberg is hoping a bump of $3 may make the job more appealing.
“We try to get
three part-timers every fall,” Schnadenberg said. “We usually get one or
two.”
Members took
Schnadenberg’s request under advisement.
Waiver Petition
In other business,
members voted unanimously to refer Brian Lewandowski’s petition for a waiver
from Town Standards to staff for review. Lewandowski is building a home at
2302 Dakota St., at the northwest corner of Dakota and 23rd streets in the
Western Acres subdivision, and is asking the council to waive the Town
Standard requiring a sidewalk in front of all new construction.
Lewandowski told
members that there are no sidewalks in Western Acres, that the Town of
Porter has no intention of pouring a sidewalk on its own municipal property
immediately north of the house under construction, and that indeed a
sidewalk in front of that house could impede drainage.
Lewandowski added
that directly opposite the house, on the east side of 23rd Street, is a
sidewalk connecting the Prairie Duneland Trail to Dogwood Park.
Vacation Petition
Meanwhile, members
voted unanimously to hold a public hearing at its next meeting, Oct. 26, on
Kurt and Diane Schmiegel’s petition for the vacation of two easements on
their property at 1685 Sand Creek Drive: one a utility easement, the other a
drainage easement.
The Schmiegels’
attorney, Todd Leeth, told the council that in fact both easements were
“hard to discover,” as the title company had no records of either one on the
lot. But the plats themselves do show two easements, serving NIPSCO, GTE,
and the Town of Chesterton.
An 811 locate
request identified no utilities or infrastructure under either one, Leeth
noted.
Vacation Petition
Removed from Agenda
Members also voted
unanimously to remove from the agenda Kelly Foster’s petition for a vacation
of a portion of Lincoln Ave., north of her residence at 401 S. 10th St.
Foster built a fence on the established public right-of-way there and was
asking the council to vacate that portion of Lincoln Ave. to accommodate the
fence.
Members urged
Foster at their last meeting to remove the fence and suggested that, should
she wish to go ahead with a public hearing on the vacation, they were
unlikely to grant it as doing so would set a bad precedent.
Foster was not in
attendance at Monday’s meeting, and at Town Attorney Chuck Lukmann’s
suggestion the petition was removed from the agenda for lack of prosecution.