Porter County will begin rationing road salt after taking delivery of nearly half the salt for the season with three months of winter remaining.
The Porter County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday morning on the recommendation of Highway Superintendent Jim Polarek to implement the ration that will start with subdivisions. “Keep doing what we’re doing and we’re going to run out of salt,” Polarek reported to the board Tuesday.
The highway department will strategically apply salt to intersections, hills, bridges and curbs in subdivisions, but aim for conserving on other stretches of subdivision roads. Straight-line county roads would be next in line for the same approach, while busy and notoriously dangerous roads such as 100 S, Smoke Road, Division and Meridian Road will continue to receive salt all the time.
“All it takes is one icy event and you’ll go through 1,500 tons of salt in one morning,” Polarek said.
He said the county had agreed to buy 7,000 tons and had already taken delivery of 3,300 tons, with predictions of February and March weather calling for below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation.
“Right now, we don’t have the money to buy on the open market additional salt,” Polarek said.
Commissioner Barb Regnitz, R-Center, asked what that might cost if it became necessary and Polarek recalled that one year before he was in charge, the county had to pay an additional $25 per ton to buy more salt at the end of the season, which would be an extra $37,500 for a 1,500-ton morning.
In other business, the board rearranged officers, with Commissioner Ed Morales, R-South, taking over the gavel as president. Regnitz will now serve as vice president and Commissioner Jim Biggs, R-North, will serve as secretary.
The three unanimously retained County Attorney Scott McClure for another year and asked him to put together guidelines for the creation of a South County Fire Feasibility Committee that will study the West Porter Township Fire Protection District and come up with some possible solutions to funding constraints.
McClure suggested the committee be modeled after the Opioid Committee the county formed for the distribution of opioid settlement funds. The committee will be made up of roughly nine members and Biggs said Mike Jabo, the county’s executive director of Development & Storm Water Management, will serve as chair.
“Organization and direction is going to be really important with this and I spoke with Mike Jabo, who is a south county resident,” Biggs said. “Mike was a volunteer firefighter for years.”
The board voted unanimously on his chairmanship.
The board also took on their assignments to various other county boards. Biggs will serve on Community Corrections, Child Protection, NIRPC and E–911; Morales will serve on Juvenile Justice, Redevelopment, Plan Commission and EMA; and Regnitz will serve on Storm Water, Center for Workforce Innovations, and Opioid.
The board also made a variety of citizen appointments. Alcohol Beverage – Bob Filipek; Board of Health – Amanda Pirowski-Alaniz and Linda Nowzaradan Boxum, DO; Board of Zoning Appeals– Pamela Mishler-Fish; Convention, Recreation, and Visitors Commission – Richard Connor Riley and George H.Topoll; Opioid Committee – Chuck Harris and Megan Wichlinski; Parks and Recreation Board – Bryan Waisanen; Plan Commission – Robert Gilliana and Arvid Merkner; PTABOA – Nancy Kolasa and Linda Zyla; Recycling and Waste Management – Jim Ton; Redevelopment Commission – Jason Gilliana and Bill Herring; Stormwater Advisory Board – Edward Spanopoulos; West Porter Fire Protection District Board – Nicholas Bickers and Greg Falkowski.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
