The race for the Porter County Council District 3 seat held by Democrat Greg Simms is full on both sides of the aisle, with fellow Democrat, newcomer Jack Tipold, challenging Simms, and Republicans Dawn Miller and Kyle Reynolds vying to represent their party in November.
Currently in his second term, Simms also served in the statehouse in 2007 and ‘08, and said he just needs one more term as councilman to complete his goals for the county. He’s concerned with raising awareness around recycling.
“I am not one of those people who’s going to say, ‘We should bar plastic bags.’ However, we should encourage people to use more reusable bags. You have to do it in a way that doesn’t insult people.”
Simms’ reelection run has been marred by an online petition calling on him to bring clarity to allegations of inappropriate behavior toward students during his time as a teacher at Washington Township High School in 2019. He retired in 2023 and has denied any wrongdoing, and no charges were ever filed, nor was the Porter County Sheriff’s Office called upon to investigate.
Now a first responder, Simms understands firsthand and is proud of the Heart Safe program the county has undertaken to install many AEDs across the county’s properties over the last four years.
He’s skeptical of the Bears actually moving to Indiana. “I think the Bears are playing us to try to get more offers from Illinois, or to get Chicago to buck up,” he said, adding that the conversation took place before “gas was at $4 a gallon and NIPSCO was way up.” That said, if they truly committed to moving here, he thinks town hall meetings would be in order to discuss the terms.
He’s heard there would be a $1.6 million cap on collected food and beverage tax returning to the Bears, with the rest coming to the counties. “I’ve never voted for any tax increase at all in all my years, and I don’t really want to start now. We need to have buy-in from a lot of people, and I’m not sure if we have it.”
Simms has never found a wheel tax to be fair and says justification would have to be convincing to get his support for a public safety tax. He said the Porter County Foundation voting last October to withdraw $14 million over two years avoided the need to raise the local income tax.
He’s unsure if the principal from the sale of the old Porter Memorial Hospital will ever be drawn on again. “I’m extremely conservative with money. Extremely. So if we’re ever going to touch that again, it would have to be for extreme reasons.”
Tipold, a rapid response coordinator for the United Steelworkers, is about to celebrate his 33rd year as an international union organizer. That job involves forming unions from the ground up, as well as contract talks that have taken him to Canada, Mexico, Brazil and Europe.
He said the experience he’s gained working with families as a steel representative would be an asset to the role of councilman. “I’ve been down on the picket lines many, many times,” he said. “You’re not going to get that from my opponent.”
The Valparaiso resident said he’s running for council because “I was going to meetings and I didn’t like the way District 3 was represented.”
The Air Force veteran has never run for public office before. He would need convincing to get behind any new taxes. “This county, in particular, is very well off,” he said. “It would be very hard-pressed for me to vote on any increases.”
That goes for the Bears tax, too. “I’m not for that by any means,” Tipold said. “I would have to really sit down and see the nuts and bolts on it.”
Tipold has sat on the Board of Directors of Allegius Credit Union for 20 years. He serves as treasurer and was recently accepted into the two-year leadership program at Harvard University. He’s also been an officer with Steelworkers Local 6787 for 15 years and heads both Veterans of Steel and Steelworkers for Kids.
Miller, who has consistently attended council meetings for years, is making her second attempt at a seat. She ran at-large in 2024. She’s never held public office but already makes it a habit to conduct hours of research to be well-informed on issues facing the county.
“My commitment is to the county,” said the Valparaiso resident, who works as a caregiver for the elderly and disabled veterans. “It’s to the people. I’ve been listening. I would always be the one that’s going to dig into stuff. I like to see what’s going to be best for our communities.”
Miller recently sat down with the auditor’s office. “I have a newfound respect for our councilmen and women,” she said, adding that it’s difficult to know what they have to wade through “unless you take the time.”
Regarding the Bears tax, Miller is reserving judgment without further information, but says Porter County would need to stand to gain. On other possible taxes, Miller said, “If they can’t find revenue without having to do a tax, that’s where I think I’m going to be the better candidate.”
For years, she has sat in on the county’s many long budget hearings every fall. She’s also opposed to a wheel tax. “If you live in any of the municipalities – Valpo or Portage – we already have a wheel tax. Let’s not burden people that are already being taxed.”
Miller would like to steer clear of touching the foundation principal. “I think they’ve done a really good job with making sure that is not depleted,” she said.
That said, she doesn’t understand “how we got into trouble with the ambulance contract. I don’t understand how we got into trouble with the road funding.” She said those are things she can only delve into once elected.
She’s “very, very pleased” the county didn’t raise taxes and feels leadership is doing a good job. “Walking into there new, I do not know everything. I do have my own ideas, but working together is a benefit.”
Reynolds is running for office for the first time, though he has experience developing policy for think tanks in and around Washington, D.C. in college. After graduating, he worked for Governor Mike Braun’s campaign and then worked for the Indiana State Republican Party for six months.
“I’ve been interested in local and state policy for a while,” he said. He worked on former Mayor Matt Murphy’s first campaign.
At the end of 2024, he returned to Valparaiso, where he was born and raised, to start a retail and entertainment company with his brother.
Regarding the Bears tax, Reynolds feels there are infrastructure issues that make it unrealistic for them to relocate here. “Without looking at what they would bring to the area and those numbers, I think it would be premature to say if I would support that,” he said.
On the possibility of raising the LIT, Reynolds said he would rather look to make cuts than raise the tax. “The council has done a phenomenal job keeping our LIT extremely low,” he said.
He said further withdrawals from the foundation principal “should be an absolute last resort. I understand why the council made that decision, but if you keep drawing from that,” the well will run dry. He would be in favor of budget cuts over further draws.
Reynolds feels law enforcement spending in the county should be studied to see if it should be brought up, as he said it’s relatively low compared to similar-sized counties. “We want to make sure we’re still diverting adequate funding toward our sheriff and public safety departments.”
He also thinks the county should strive for better transparency and accessibility. “We have a county website that has a lot of broken hyperlinks,” he said.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
