The September 14th 2026 Valparaiso City Council meeting went for just under four and a half hours. The meeting began by swearing in the new councilmember following the resignation of Peter Anderson. There was one resolution and three ordinances on the agenda. Council liaison reports and discussion items included a proposal by Councilman Cotton for a dynamic impact study of the Valparaiso Redevelopment Commission followed by several public comments.
As always the Valpo Council meeting began with the Pledge of Allegiance, this time followed by a moment of silence requested by Mayor Jon Costas to honor the victims of the terrorist attacks on 9/11. Mayor Costas then called Valpo’s newest Council member to the front of the dais to be sworn in.
Councilman Ryan Moore was appointed to Council by a caucus held by the Republican precinct committeemen after Councilman Anderson resigned. Anderson was a Republican that represented Valpo’s 5th District so Moore is a Republican from the 5th District appointed by a Republican caucus. He will be up for reelection next year with the rest of the Council. Councilman Moore then briefly introduced himself. Moore is a lifelong Hoosier from central Indiana who has lived with his family in Valparaiso for 20 years. He has a bachelor’s degree in environmental science and has spent 25 years working in the environment field helping to investigate and remediate soil and groundwater contamination to protect human health. Moore is vice president of his firm and president of his homeowners association. Councilman Moore looks forward to serving his district.
Baker Tilly then gave their commissioned analysis of Indiana Senate Bill 1 and presentation on the Municipal Unit Strategic Taskforce (MUST). Senate Bill 1 was passed and signed into law in 2025. It delivers property tax relief for homeowners, but for Valparaiso its impact is more complicated. Baker Tilly’s analysis suggests SB 1 will not create an immediate budget crisis for Valpo, but it will change the city’s long term financial picture and plans. Property tax revenue is still projected to increase, but at a slower pace than the city has seen in recent years. That slower growth could make it harder for Valpo to keep up with rising costs for wages, public safety, roads, and capital projects. The law also shifts some of the tax burden from homeowners and small businesses onto commercial and industrial property owners.
In steps the Municipal Unit Strategic Taskforce (MUST). Under the state’s new framework Porter County may convene a MUST where county and municipal officials negotiate how future Local Income Tax (LIT) dollars should be distributed. Baker Tilly’s analysis shows that Valpo will face slower property tax growth under SB 1 so that makes Local Income Tax a major part of the city’s long term budget discussion. The question facing the “MUST” will be whether higher or restructured income tax revenue will be used to offset slower growth and maintain city services as costs continue to rise. Porter County will form a “MUST” committee but has not announced a meeting date or taskforce roster yet.
Resolution No. 9, 2026 along with Ordinance No. 20 & 21, 2026 all deal with annexation of land into the city of Valparaiso by Pratt Industries. Pratt, the city’s largest private employer and tax payer, with over 500 employees is looking to expand their operation westward onto two adjacent lots they currently own, an additional 92 acres. Resolution 9 deals with adoption of a fiscal plan for the annexation. The fiscal plan, required by Indiana law, shows that the costs to the city for maintenance of the annexed land will be covered and exceeded by property taxes brought in over time by the development. Resolution 9 passed with a 7-0 vote.
Ordinance No. 20 on the agenda for first reading and public hearing is the annexation of the land into Valparaiso. Pratt is looking to invest about 70 million into their expansion in Valpo. The proposed expansion would bring an additional 50 plus jobs in the first year of operation with an average wage of 28.50$ an hour. Their new plant would take the corrugated cardboard from their existing plant that uses 100% recycled paper from their paper mill and manufacture the final product of boxes and cardboard aisle ends you would see at the store displaying Gillette razors or batteries. The public hearing for this annexation saw both approval from adjacent land owners and disapproval from residents kitty corner to the development. The residents who live south of Division road brought up already existing issues of foul smells, noise, and heavy truck traffic, expressing concerns that these issues will only get worse. Ordinance No. 20 was carried over to the next council meeting for a final vote.
Ordinance No. 21 deals with the rezoning of the proposed annexation from the light industrial zoning it has in the county, to heavy industrial that it will require within city limits. The only reason it is seeking a heavy industrial zoning is the size of the building, which is restricted under light industrial zoning within the city. Pratt Industries could build their new plant under the county’s light industrial zoning with just a construction permit because the county’s light industrial zoning is different from the city’s but they are choosing to annex into Valparaiso and asking for the zoning change. This ordinance was carried over to the next city council meeting for a final vote and I believe a public hearing.
Mayor Costas called for a ten minute recess before the final ordinance of the evening. Ordinance No. 19, 2026 had been before council previously but was tabled and redrafted. This ordinance drafted by Councilman Robert Cotton, the Council attorney, and Councilwoman Barb Domer amends the municipal code concerning prevention of certain contractor fraud. This sounds like a good thing but upon investigation it is looking to expand the council’s investigative powers beyond public works city projects to all private development projects over $250,000.
There are some legal concerns over this move expressed by the Valparaiso city attorney Joseph Svetanoff. He said, “The authority to direct the city building commissioner is strictly an executive function. This ordinance as written violates Indiana statutory law and constitutional law by trying to grant the legislative branch executive power. The way the ordinance is written now, and let’s say it’s passed and adopted, I could see there coming a legal challenge from the state Attorney General because you are in violation of constitutional law and statutory law. The AG would file suit against the city.”
Councilman Cotton and the council attorney argued that a building permit is a contract with the city and thus gives investigative power to the council over private building projects but this is not true under Indiana law. Some other issues with Cotton’s ordinance are that it lets Council trigger the investigative process based on undefined “sufficient cause.” It says the Council will not interfere with the building commissioner while simultaneously allowing Council to direct the building commissioner. It calls for certified payroll to be available for “city and public review” raising disclosure and privacy questions. Cotton spent 3,400$ on having the Council attorney, a different person than the city attorney, help draft this ordinance and there were still incorrect internal subsection references. That $3,400 also doesn’t include the 4 ½ hours the Council attorney spent at the meeting and the cost of the city attorney’s review he will be doing of Ordinance No. 19 to point out its legal flaws. This ordinance seems more like an illegitimate power grab than a prevention of fraud because the municipal code already has mechanisms in place to deal with fraud. Council president Ellen Kapitan motioned that this ordinance be carried to the next meeting for final vote and public hearing.
Councilman Cotton was up again with a discussion for a professional services engagement concerning an Evaluation Proposal: A Dynamic Impact Study of the Valparaiso Redevelopment Commission (RDC). The Valparaiso RDC gets most of its funding through tax incremental financing districts Tax Increment Financing (TIF). TIFs are a designated area where increases in property tax revenue from rising property values are set aside to fund city improvements rather than being distributed in the usual ways to taxing bodies. It seems, after reading the evaluation proposal, its main focus is on the “but-for” question. But for TIF, would the development have happened anyway? Cotton said of the study. “We benefit as a city from being able to tell a more coherent and a more effective story about our redevelopment efforts as opposed to some of the ways that a large swath of our population looks at it with such mystery and contempt.” The two individuals who would conduct the nearly 100,000$ study are University of Illinois academics who appeared at council through video feeds to discuss and field questions.
Mayor Costas said our Tax Increment Financing (TIF) has been in existence for about 25 to 30 years and is our most powerful tool for economic development. We have used TIF not just for economic growth but to improve quality of life. For instance the big box stores were put into TIF to remake our downtown which is the envy of a lot of cities in our area. We have used TIF to build roads and pathways, to fund school challenge grants, neighborhood grants and to buy police and fire equipment. He then asked “Are you going to look at all of these projects? And then how are you going to quantify the impact on our community when we have used it in so many unique ways rather than just as an incentive for a specific project to happen?” The academics response was “The fifth task in our proposal includes a social element, we’re going to be doing field interviews to talk about social and community impacts. And so that will produce a sense of what those impacts have been, quantifying those and putting those into dollar terms I think is another matter, but there are methodologies for trying to get that.”
Councilwoman Diana Reed spoke on how the RDC with TIF funds has funded housing initiatives and asked, “How do you value that?” She talked about neighborhood improvement grants and the RDC funding grants for her neighborhood picnic that brought people together and fed them and asked, “And again, how do you place a value on that.” She continued, “I think back to the money we had spent for the housing study, and where that landed us. Then I look at the almost 100,000 dollar price tag on this and think where is that going to land us. I wonder if that’s the best use of those tax payer’s dollars.” 100,000 dollars is a lot to spend on a study to look at what has made Valparaiso what it is today, unless there are ulterior motives by someone who sees fraud in everything they are not involved in.
There were several public comments. The first echoed the city attorney’s comments about Cotton’s ordinance 19 saying it misrepresents Indiana code that covers city contracts, not private business. He then said how we just heard in the analysis of SB 1 how important business and industry are going to be to our tax base going forward and that this ordinance is just going to scare away business if council is allowed to go on fishing expeditions if they don’t like someone’s business development. Another gentleman spoke against spending $100,000 on the RDC impact study. He said in his 50+ years of working with economic development organizations in seven communities he has never seen a community that is so successful and productive with their redevelopment and TIF as Valpo. We have people coming from around the state to see how we have done it. The final comment of the evening was also speaking against the $100,000 study talking about how the academics in their presentation downplayed the social and communal benefits of our RDC and that you can not quantify community into a dollar amount.
The next Valparaiso City Council meeting is September 28th 2026, 6:00pm at City Hall.
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