Clerk-Treasurer Nick Loving attended his last Burns Harbor Town Council meeting Wednesday as town officials don’t know yet who will succeed him after his resignation takes effect Friday.
Town Council President Toni Biancardi, at the meeting’s close, encouraged anyone interested in the job to contact her or Don Craft, the Porter County Democratic Party chairman.
Craft told The Post-Tribune that no one has contacted him yet to express interest in the job.
Biancardi said that applicants for the job could emerge after Loving leaves on Friday.
Craft has the power to appoint Loving’s successor.
If after 30 days no one comes forward, Biancardi said that the council could make the appointment.
Meanwhile, Madeline Parker, who is the assistant clerk-treasurer, will handle the duties with help from Flex Government Consultants, Biancardi said.
Whoever is appointed will become the fourth person to hold the clerk-treasurer’s job since 2024. The position is up for re-election in November 2027.
The last three people who held the job resigned in the month of May for three consecutive years.
Jane Jordan, who was clerk-treasurer for 20 years, was re-elected in November 2023 but resigned in 2024 because she believed the Town Council didn’t support her in situations with the town department heads.
Nicole Migliorini left in 2025, citing a toxic work environment and the council’s failure to consider hiring more help for her.
Loving, who was on the council, treated the clerk-treasurer’s job as part-time, though it is a full-time paid position. He offered to forgo half his salary until he found that the state code doesn’t permit it. He decided to resign because he will be out of the area for weeks this summer.
In other business, Kris Krouse of the Shirley Heinze Land Trust asked the town if it would agree to a set of stairs being built at a kayak takeout spot on the Little Calumet River, east of Indiana 149 in Burns Harbor.
Krouse said the Shirley Heinze Land Trust received a grant from the Chi-Cal River Fund to finance the further development of a water trail on the Little Calumet River. The Northwest Indiana Paddling Association is also involved in the project.
There are launch points at the Shirley Heinze nature preserve at Indian Boundary and Brummitt Roads, and by St. Patrick Catholic Church in Chesterton, along with a kayak takeout station by Howe Road.
Krouse will present to the town a proposed agreement next month. Burns Harbor would be responsible for the maintenance of the stairs after they are built. He said he is also working on agreements with the Indiana Department of Transportation and the National Park Service, which own portions of the land around the proposed kayak takeout point.
Before the council meeting, the town’s Redevelopment Commission gave permission to Tina Rongers, the town’s economic development consultant, to explore options to cover a funding gap
for the town’s match to build the last one-mile stretch of the Marquette Greenway within the town.
It is a complex project because it is being built on wetlands and a portion of the structure is in the right-of-way underneath an existing Norfolk Southern Railroad bridge over the Little Calumet River.
The town has received a $5 million grant from the state’s Next Level Trails program, but has to cover the remaining $3.4 million cost. Rongers said the town has $1.9 million set aside from its tax increment financing district collections.
Rongers said she will try to apply for grants. The other possibilities are a short-term loan or a general obligation bond to finance the gap.
Jim Woods is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
