City and town councils wield the power of the purse and have final say on important questions of land use and municipal policy.
In 2025, council members in Northwest Indiana occasionally clashed with mayors, residents and each other over decisions that will shape the future of their communities.
Here is a look at some of the most significant votes taken by these bodies in 2025.
Merrillville Town Council
In March, the Merrillville Town Council voted to preserve the Merrillville Town Court, repealing a 2019 ordinance that directed the court to wind down operations. The move concluded a half decade of political wrangling and civil litigation around the future of the institution, which some members of the council had characterized as an unnecessary expense.
The council faced pressure from a group of Merrillville residents keen to see the court keep operating, and in the end, each of the body's members either voted to leave the court open or abstained.
Crown Point City Council
In March, the Crown Point City Council voted to significantly raise its water and sewer rates. The move was driven in large part by an increase in rates charged by Indiana American Water, from which Crown Point buys water in bulk, along with steep anticipated costs for water and sewer infrastructure improvements. In December, the council approved a new stormwater rates structure that will see large commercial properties pay significantly more per month.
Through a zoning change approved in August, the council paved the way for the city's disused Trinity Lutheran Church property to be redeveloped as apartments and office space. The nearly 150-year-old church, badly damaged by fire, was previously eyed for demolition by the city.
Gary Common Council
In May, Gary's City Council overrode a mayoral veto of a zoning change meant to facilitate a multi-use light industrial development on the site of the derelict Beckman Middle School property.
The debate over the decision, which divided the council and faced pushback from many of the school property's neighbors, highlighted the ongoing challenge posed by Gary's disused school buildings. Many of the properties are attractive to commercial developers, but with most surrounded by neighborhoods, the question of how to use the land is a sensitive one.
Last year, the city council also passed ordinances to ban the discharge of firearms within city limits and to add a bevy of new anti-graffiti provisions to the city code.
Hammond Common Council
In June, Hammond's city council approved a tax abatement deal with the developers of a planned $7 billion, 450,000 square-foot data center project on the city's Lake Michigan shoreline.
The deal would see cloud computing giant CoreWeave pay Hammond $4 million per year for 20 years in exchange for waiving personal property taxes on the new center's equipment. The Chicago-based Decennial Group, which will build the facility and lease it to CoreWeave, is currently in talks over a proposed $25 million contribution to projects in Hammond.
The whole arrangement, however, is contingent on the developers' ability to reach a power provision deal with NIPSCO and its new data center-focused spinoff, GenCo. In December, the council voted to extend a contingency deadline built into the tax abatement contract, giving the parties until March to finalize a deal.
Hobart City Council
In February, Hobart's City Council granted a zoning change to developers who had proposed a new data center complex on 61st Avenue. The council approved the item unanimously over a handful of resident objections.
Since then, a growing group of Hobart residents has kept up one of the most persistent anti-data center campaigns that Northwest Indiana has seen so far, swelling in numbers and becoming a regular presence at council meetings.
After the approval of Hammond's tax abatement deal, Mayor Josh Huddlestun cited the agreement as an example of the type of financial boon that a data center could bring to his own city, but the project's opponents were largely unswayed.
In September, when the council granted a second rezone to a separate developer eyeing an adjacent 61st Avenue property for its own data center ambitions, the move faced far more significant public pushback. A November plan commission vote on a fill permit sought by the first group of developers garnered so much public interest — almost all of it negative — that the city moved the meeting to a larger venue.
Later that month, Amazon's cloud computing arm announced plans to invest $15 billion in a new data center complex in the area of 61st Avenue already rezoned for that purpose. On Jan. 7, the city council will hold a public hearing on a resolution that would declare an "economic revitalization area" on 61st Avenue as the first step towards a tax abatement agreement.
Portage City Council
In March, the Portage City Council approved a planned unit development that will allow a new 225-unit subdivision at the northwest corner of Swanson Road and Porter County Road 700 North. After some city residents objected to the developers' initial plans, the company agreed to include fewer residential lots and preserve a larger portion of the land's wooded area.
In August, the city council narrowly approved a zoning change sought by Habitat for Humanity of Porter County after Mayor Austin Bonta cast a tie-breaking vote in favor of the proposal.
The nonprofit's local branch plans to build a small-scale subdivision at the intersection of Crisman Road and Portage Avenue. Some area residents objected on the grounds that the new homes would burden the area with car traffic, but others embraced the idea.
Valparaiso City Council
This year saw Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas, a Republican and a four-term veteran of the office, deliver the first two mayoral vetoes of his career.
In April, Costas vetoed a last-minute resolution that the council passed in opposition to the then-pending Senate Enrolled Act 1, a far-reaching overhaul of local taxation in the Hoosier State. He later declined to sign an ordinance championed by council Democrats that would remake the city's Advisory Human Rights Council by adding city council appointees to the body. The latter veto was overridden in August.
In October, the city council passed an ordinance creating an advisory redistricting committee that will guide future efforts to redraw city council districts. Councilwoman Barbara Domer, D-3rd, authored the legislation but withdrew her support after it was amended to provide that board appointees serve in a partisan capacity.
Michigan City Common Council
A divided Michigan City Common Council voted in September to approve a tax abatement deal with Milwaukee-based Phoenix Investors, the developers of Project Maize, a $832 million data center complex, on the site of the vacant former Anco plant at 402 Royal Road.
The agreement will bring in millions in new city revenue, but the move faced significant pushback from a group of Michigan City residents, many of whom voiced concerns over the project's potential environmental impact and noise output.
St. John Town Council
In October, St. John's town council voted down a proposed annexation that would have paved the way for a nearly 1,000-unit subdivision and four new town-owned wells in what is now unincorporated Hanover Township.
A group of town and township residents objected to the plans of the developers, a group that included President Donald Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., citing concerns over traffic and worries that the new municipal wells would negatively impact the area's groundwater resources.
The noncontiguous nature of the prospective site also already drew objections from Lake County leaders, who argued that St. John had not met the narrow statutory conditions that would allow the town to incorporate the land.