After a brutal series of storms this summer that resulted in lengthy power outages, the Portage City Council is being asked to adopt an ordinance requiring portable generators to be at least 20 feet away from a home while in use.
In the wake of the June 11 storm, Salvatore and Deborah Fogu, of Palos Hills, Illinois, died of carbon monoxide poisoning at Lakeshore Camp Resort in Portage while their generator was running outside their camper’s window.
Resident Chantal Sedlacek appreciated the Portage Fire Department posting a warning to keep generators away from windows and doors, but she wants enforcement powers, not just advice. “Soft education fails when lives are on the line,” she said.
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“Severe weather is no longer just a coastal problem,” Sedlacek said, noting the severity of storms is increasing because of climate change. A few residents were still without power Tuesday in the wake of the Aug. 11 derecho that clobbered Portage, Gary and other areas of Northwest Indiana.
“It only takes 20 feet to save a life,” Sedlacek said.
Mayor Austin Bonta promised to refer her concern to City Attorney Dan Bortnicki to study the feasibility and enforceability. Without enforceability, the ordinance wouldn’t work, Bonta said.
“This is a very serious issue,” he said.
The council’s Ordinance Committee, which hammers out kinks in proposed ordinances, meets at 5:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month before the City Council meeting.
At its Tuesday meeting, the council passed a series of ordinances and resolutions.
The council gave its blessing to a $15 million bond issue by the Redevelopment Commission for a series of major projects.
“There’s no issue of us being able to pay off this bond,” Bonta said. The sale of land owned by the RDC could mean paying off the bond early, although Bonta is concerned about preserving cash flow so the RDC can help out the civil city in the next few years if necessary.
Among the projects the bond would cover are extending Veterans Parkway to make the retail area south of U.S. 6 more accessible, improving the Samuelson Road intersection with Central Avenue, a bridge over Burns Waterway and a new road for the Portage Mall area.
The mall road and bridge are especially important to the city’s plans.
The bridge would extend Burns Parkway over Burns Waterway. “It opens up nearly 300 acres of land for development,” Bonta said, potentially tripling the value of that land by adding connectivity that makes it more ripe for development.
“There are interested parties right now,” Bonta said.
The Portage Mall road would be “the first street of our new downtown,” creating a streetscape that would turn the existing parking lot into something more attractive, more useful and more likely to bring future development across from the existing buildings. “It is a transformative infrastructure project,” Bonta said.
The council also approved an ironically timed ordinance regarding dead, diseased or dangerous trees.
The ordinance defines those three categories of trees and tells whose responsibility it is to deal with them.
“I sure wish we had gotten this one two or three years ago,” Bortnicki said.
Under the new ordinance, code enforcement would send a notice to the property owner of trees that need to be dealt with.
“This is an example of something where the city can waive compliance because of the emergency declaration,” Councilman Collin Czilli said.
It also doesn’t apply to fallen trees, Bortnicki said. Once a tree falls, it’s considered debris, not a tree for purposes of the ordinance.
Another ordinance approved Tuesday deals with neglected premises. “This is a language change that makes an existing ordinance enforceable,” Bonta said.
Doug Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
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