Westchester Township Public Library received the Porter County Council’s blessing for a $6.2 million project to refurbish the Brown Mansion in Chesterton and recreate the barn that once stood there for extra space. The money will come from the library’s cash reserves.
Library Director Heather Chaddock said the project is so extensive that the Westchester Township History Museum will be renamed the Westchester Township History Center. It will no longer be just a museum but a research center as well.
The mansion, built in 1885 for George and Charity Brown, originally had a wraparound porch and adjacent barn. The construction project, to begin in June and be completed next June, includes restoring the wraparound porch and building a replica barn that will house the museum’s archives and offices.
The museum has archives from the Duneland Prairie Club and Chesterton Tribune, among others.
The museum’s entry will be through the double front doors. That plus a ramp for the wraparound porch will make the first floor of the mansion ADA-compliant for the first time in the structure’s 141-year history, Curator Serena Ard said.
The library acquired Brown Mansion from Duneland School Corp. in 2005, first by leasing it, then by purchasing it in 2024.
“We are now the stewards of this piece of local architectural history,” Chaddock said.
“That allows our mansion to become our largest artifact,” she said.
The Westchester Township History Center is on the same block as the Duneland YMCA Healthy Living Campus, a benefit for history buffs.
“I’m so excited for when that whole campus gets filled out,” said County Council Vice President Red Stone, R-1st.
“It’s going to be really awesome to see,” he said.
Councilman Andy Bozak, R-At-large, questioned why the library asked to pull $6.6 million from its reserves when the “guaranteed maximum price” is $6,216,759.
The guarantee doesn’t include things like removal of lead paint that might pop up, said Council President Andy Vasquez, R-4th.
“Things always come up,” Stone said, like moving water lines, fiber optics and other costs that nobody could anticipate.
“It also allows them to do other things within their budget,” if they see something else they wanted to do, he said.
Bozak understands the need to plan for contingencies, but the wording of “guaranteed maximum price” seemed like a misnomer.
“It sounds good when you’re in front of clients,” Stone said.
The board unanimously approved allowing the library to use its own money, $5.5 million for the new history center and $1.1 million for the Brown Mansion restoration. The library board has to seek the council’s permission because the board’s members aren’t elected.
In other business, the council approved Sheriff Jeff Balon’s plan to turn the county drug unit into a separate division.
“We’ve got a lot of moving parts on this one,” Balon said.
The pending retirement of the drug unit’s captain allows Balon to reassign his chief deputy to head the drug unit and be reclassified as a division commander.
The drug unit will change direction and culture to go from solely focusing on narcotics to include stolen vehicles and guns, Balon said.
When that happens depends on when the captain retires, which could be anywhere from now to February, Balon said, depending on when the captain can land another job in another state.
“We have a lot of big plans for it,” Balon said.
“The funds are available for us. I’m not saying we’re going to spend them now,” but they need to be in place so the shift can happen quickly, he said.
Other personnel issues include changing the number of first-class patrol officers from 29 to 32 and the number of second-class patrol officers from six to two.
“Right now, we’ve got five openings,” Balon said.
The last round of hiring included two lateral transfers from another department, brought in at the same level as at their previous department.
Police officers are in demand, breaking a previous unwritten rule that departments won’t recruit officers from each other.
The sheriff’s department has a mix of seasoned officers and very new officers, Balon said.
“They can retire at a pretty young age and start a whole second career somewhere,” he said. “We don’t have a bunch of out-to-pasture officers that nobody wants.”
By becoming eligible for retirement benefits with 20 years of experience, officers don’t have to wait until they’re 52 and finding a second career becomes difficult.
“What can we do as a county to keep those people here?” Stone asked. “I think we have to do something to keep those guys if they want to keep working.”
That’s a tough question. Railroad police, for example, make substantially more money and get railroad retirement benefits, profit sharing and other benefits.
“We’re not just losing to the railroad. We had an officer who retired, and she was able to go to a school as a school safety officer,” and didn’t have to work weekends, either, Balon said.
Balon, president of the Indiana Sheriff’s Association, keeps up on what other departments are doing across Indiana. He hears lots of conversations about audit issues elsewhere, something that isn’t an issue in Porter County.
In Porter County, the longstanding relationship between the sheriff, council and commissioners is “a dream compared to the nightmares I have heard and seen around the state.”
However, the sheriff’s association is becoming proactive and urges departments to have agreements with county councils regarding the use of commissary funds.
It’s important to have a clear understanding of the funds, and Balon wants Porter County to continue to lead by example.
The agreement approved by the council Tuesday sets how commissary funds – not provided by inmates and their families – can be used for a variety of expenses not directly related to operating the jail.
Examples include retirement parties, water and coffee for officer training or flowers for an employee with a death in the family. When officers are on a police call for hours on end, like a SWAT team at a standoff, “we’re going to buy them some pizza, some water, things like that,” Balon said.
“We’re not buying alcohol for anything, nothing like that,” he said.
The department will report to the council at least twice a year to show how the money is spent.
“We’re a pretty transparent bunch here,” Stone said.
“Not to throw anybody under the bus, but we could look next door and see what the problems can be,” he said.
Lake County Sheriff Oscar Martinez Jr.’s use of commissary funds prompted heavy scrutiny by the State Board of Accounts which, in a special audit, reported the use of almost $300,000 in commissary funds for charity or church donations, golf outings, hotel upgrades and alcohol.
Stone reminded the council of tragic news. Over the weekend, an off-duty LaPorte County sheriff’s officer was shot at Franciscan Health’s Michigan City hospital. And Tuesday morning, he read the news about an Indiana State Police officer shot in the chest on the Borman Expressway.
“This is the job where you might not get home,” or get paralyzed, Stone said.
“This is why I’m so adamant about making sure we give those guys everything within reason,” he said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
