The candidates for the Porter County Board of Commissioners North District, incumbent Republican Jim Biggs and Democrat Dane Lafata, diverge in their views of two big issues simmering in the county these days: whether a public safety tax should be implemented and whether a West Porter Township Fire Protection Territory should be formed immediately.
Biggs, a fifth-generation Porter County resident, is currently serving his second year as board president and has said this will be his last term if reelected. He has served on the board of commissioners from 1992 to 1999 and from 2016 to the present, as well as on the Porter County Council from 2011 to 2015.
For him, the biggest concern is maintaining the ability to provide county services at the same rate residents expect them to be provided, particularly maintenance of the roads. “On a good year we might be able to address one-third of what we need to address,” he said of road work.
He said some roads need to be rebuilt, not just blacktopped, because they weren’t built for the volume of traffic they see now or the types of heavy equipment such as dump trucks and flatbed haulers going into all the new developments.
Porter County Commissioner Jim Biggs– Original Credit: Porter County
“The heaviest thing our roads were seeing was farming equipment and that was just a couple times a year,” Biggs said of traffic patterns 25 years ago.
This is Lafata’s first candidacy for county government. The lifelong Chesterton resident is in his third term as District 3 Chesterton Town Councilman. He runs a small tax preparation office in Lake Station and says public safety is his biggest priority.
“I think we have a real issue with public safety going on,” Lafata said, citing the county’s ambulance contract as a prime example. “The contract we have with Northwest Health is wholly inadequate,” he said. “It’s supposed to be five (available ambulances). Usually, it’s four. Sometimes it’s down to three.”
He feels for municipalities like the city of Portage he says are vocal that they don’t have enough money for fire and ambulance yet continue to send their first responders out to help their neighbors honoring mutual aid agreements. He’d like to see at least three more ambulances made available in the county’s contract.
Lafata said Chesterton’s inability to increase monies coming in is not unique and is being felt all over Porter County.
“The only solution is the public safety tax,” he said, acknowledging that implementing one is not up to the board of commissioners. “I think the role of the commissioners is to explain where the money on the county level will be spent. If we just talk about the public safety tax without explaining it, nobody’s going to be in favor of it.”
While Biggs has a long list of needed public safety expenditures, from the jail and E911 to the Juvenile Services Center and the ambulance, he said, “I don’t think a public safety tax in Porter County’s case is the answer. I think an increase in LIT (local income tax) that also addresses public safety is the answer.”
Biggs launched a public safety commission nearly two years ago, but after some initial meetings, it fizzled.
For the residents of West Porter Township, the issue of whether to form a fire protection territory remains unresolved. Biggs said the unique nature of the current district and proposed territory straddling Lake and Porter counties poses a real challenge in deciding “whether it’s the smartest thing for us to do. I think if everyone would just calm down and let those in charge of gathering that information” do that, “we’ll get there.”
“When you consider the majority of the calls are in Lake County, they’re in Winfield and Winfield Township,” Biggs said. “How do you broker that deal to make sure that our residents are not being taken advantage of?”
Biggs added that projections on residential tax increases have shown the average household share would increase from $165 to $800 per year. “Many of ‘em don’t have it to give,” he said “So what do you do? That’s why there were changes on that board.”
Lafata, who said he’s endorsed by the Chesterton, Portage, and Valparaiso fire unions, favors the territory, and said, “I cannot believe it hasn’t happened.
“If you believe what Brent and Rob said happened,” he added of public accusations current and former members of the West Porter Township Fire Protection District Board have leveled against Biggs, that he gave orders last winter to kill the vote that would have formed the territory then, “that’s the type of stuff you expect to happen in Illinois and Washington, D.C. It’s absolutely wrong. It shouldn’t be allowed. It makes me sick. Ninety percent of the people I talk to are in favor of it.”
Another difference between the two is their views of whether it would be acceptable to withdraw any of the $197 million in principal from the Porter County Foundation’s holdings from the sale of the county hospital. However, such a move is considered unlikely as all 10 members of the Foundation Board, comprised of the Board of Commissioners and County Council, would have to approve it unanimously.
Biggs, while admitting it’s a big ask, is fine with spending the principal balance down to $100 million and then building it back up.
“What good is it doing the people of Porter County if we’re not using it in some of the most difficult times we have had since the closing of Bethlehem Steel?” he asked.
Lafata is “completely against drawing on the principal.”
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
