La Porte Mayor Tom Dermody delivers his 2022 State of the City Address at the La Porte Civic Auditorium on Thursday evening, Dec. 1, 2022. Photo by Amanda Haverstick
La PORTE — La Porte continued its trend of growth in 2022 with improvements to infrastructure, public safety, economic development and quality of life.
“Every day our department heads go to work, our employees, our staff go to work, it’s one thing – to make our community better,” Mayor Tom Dermody said during his State of the City Address on Thursday.
This year’s address at the La Porte Civic Auditorium had around 200 people in attendance after Dermody’s past two talks were impacted by COVID-19 – 2020’s address was virtual and 2021’s had limited attendance.
The city, he said, focuses on five priorities: infrastructure, public safety housing, economic development and quality of life.
Regarding infrastructure, Dermody said in 2022 they paved six miles of roads and spent close to $2 million improving road system. Road projects included Washington Street, Boyd Boulevard and the roundabout near the post office.
“While we have more work to do, we’re making progress every day,” Dermody said. With a goal of being “Pothole Free La Porte” they also filled 3,800 potholes this year.
La Porte is in the final stages of infrastructure improvements that will enable the city to have a “quiet zone” along the Norfolk Southern tracks.
Additionally, plans for the Tipton Street overpass will continue to move forward in 2023.
“How do we want to connect the north side of our community to the south side without being stopped by train traffic? Most importantly, when seconds matter, how do we get our police and fire departments across?” the mayor said.
Infrastructure, he said, is also fiber. In 2021 La Porte announced it would be one of the first gig cities in the state thanks to a partnership with Surf Broadband.
“Now we have high speed internet throughout our city for all businesses and homes,” Dermody said. “But we want to be cutting edge. We’re not satisfied. You’ll see very soon we’re committed to be the first multi-gig community in the state.”
The city is still fighting the battle on its old infrastructure. In the past year it has worked on storm sewer separation projects, he said.
“We began in Monroe Manor which was more than overdue. We’re pretty proud of that, but we’re not done,” Dermody said.
Infrastructure improvements are also underway in the lettered and numbered streets.
The city is also pursuing the North-South Corridor project, which would route truck traffic to the east side of the city.
“If you want to be a young family that wants to come to downtown La Porte, have your kids get out of the car and safely go to a restaurant for dinner, the truck traffic has to be removed,” Dermody said.
“These are not easy decisions, but they’re the decisions that need to be made for the future of our community.”
They city, Dermody said, is also looking to fix the infrastructure on 39 North in exchange for annexation. “Can you imagine at 39 North, at one of the factories, if there was a fire right now that needed 5 million gallons of water? It’s not going to happen.”
The past year was not without challenges for the city. These included the American Rubber fire, Infinite Self Storage fire and the Lows Point building collapse.
“Our fire department had a challenging year this year dealing with the largest fire in the history of La Porte that took them 67 hours to finally put out,” Dermody said. “Throughout all these challenges I’m proud to say not one life was lost and no one was injured. That’s what means the most.”
Dermody shared how Lows Point developer Thomas Viere plans to move forward with having close to 10 apartments with a courtyard.
“Everybody’s happy when things go well, but you learn a lot about individuals when things don’t go your way ... Yes, we had a collapse. Yes, we had a problem.
“He could have easily walked away. We’re still moving forward, and you will see something happening here downtown,” he said.
Regarding public safety, Dermody said the city must consider what the police and fire departments need to look like in the future.
Goals include the fire department providing ambulance service and a paramedicine program.
“Our firefighters can check on residents ... to make sure those seniors are taking the appropriate medicine at the appropriate time,” he said.
A partnership with HealthLinc will fund the first social worker in the police department. “We have much more drug addiction, suicide attempts and other mental health related issues,” Dermody said.
The department is also investing in new technology, including drones and license plate recognition cameras.
A focus has also been put on drug trafficking.
“I’m proud to say we’ve had 114 drug or felony arrests that were completed by either our street crimes team, our department or the county drug taskforce,” Dermody said. “We will continue every day to fight the battle of drugs in La Porte.”
In 2022, the city’s Code Enforcement team has written 3,400 violations, and continued its Dumpster program.
“Homeowners can dump off product they want to get rid of but have no place to take it. Our Dumpster program has been unloaded and refilled 110 times so far this year,” Dermody said.
Code Enforcement is also working on bringing the landlord registry before the City Council next year.
“When we get a bomb threat on State Street ... and we have to wait 45 minutes to go in because we don’t know who owns the house and how to contact that individual, that is unacceptable,” Dermody said.
The city is continuing its 30 by 30 initiative of growing its population to 30,000 by 2030.
Successes in 2022 included Whispering Meadows, a Habitat for Humanity project at McCollum and Woodward, The Banks and Maple Commons. Future projects include housing along 18th Street and Beechwood Lakes.
Dermody said the Healthcare Foundation of La Porte has also funded a housing study. “We can look at all types of opportunities in our community. Number one on the list for me is the triangle – Jefferson, Maple, Harrison, which is the largest area of poverty in La Porte County.”
Growth occurred in NewPorte Landing, but also on the city’s west side with new additions including Planet Fitness, Biggby Coffee and Kabelin Ace Hardware expanding with contractor storage units.
“I’ve had people say the west side is becoming a ghost town. There’s nothing there. I strongly disagree,” Dermody said.
Quality of life growth has included the expansion of the Chessie II and Chessie III trail system, improvements to city parks and the Civic Auditorium, as well as events such as Friday Night Live and LakeFest.
“I think it’s going to be hard for people to say today, there’s nothing to do in our community,” Dermody said.
City Council President Pro Tem Tim Franke said he was happy with the city’s progress. “I think the city is moving in the right direction for sure. Every year has its own challenges. The economy might play into it, but it hasn’t slowed us down.
“A lot of new business at NewPorte, which is going back three administrations at least, has been in the works. It’s nice to finally see some fruition come there,” he said.
Dermody said the community will continue to move forward.
“We’ve done a lot. We’ve got a lot more to do. La Porte is a special place that is going to be the place to be if we continue to grow.”
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