The city council chambers were full again at Monday night’s Valparaiso city council meeting, February 23rd, 2026. Although this meeting had some empty seats and there was no march to city hall and no protesters chanting on the entrance stairs like the last council meeting. There were only three items on the agenda which took just under an hour to cover. Public comment after the city’s business went almost just as long.
Most of the citizens there came to show opposition or support for Resolution No 4, 2026 with an even split between those opposed and those for. Resolution 4 was the rewritten version of Resolution 3 from the last council meeting. Resolution 4, instead of focusing on the deaths of Pretti and Good like Resolution 3, more broadly condemned the behavior of ICE agents active in Minneapolis. The title read, “regarding recent immigration enforcement actions and reaffirming the city’s commitment to civil rights, due process, and community trust.”
The resolution goes so far as to list federal immigration practices such as “concealing an official’s identity, operating in plain clothes, using unmarked vehicles” and that “engaging in confrontational tactics without clear legal justification create an unreasonable risk of violent escalation.” Followed by “operations aimed at schools, medical facilities, courthouses, voting locations, and houses of worship should not be tolerated.” The language “should not be tolerated” is another way of condoning violent protests, physically interfering with federal law enforcement agents, blocking officers’ vehicles, surrounding agents and attempting to prevent arrests in Minnesota.
Resolution 4 which passed 5 to 2, the 5 democrats on council voting in favor of and the 2 republican members voting against, was authored by Valpo’s two at-large council members: Ellen Kapitan, council president, and Emilia Hunt council vice president. The resolution was written to appease the “Valpo Resistance” protesters who are in Valpo’s downtown every Saturday who spoke at the council meeting last month (See below) urging the council to do something about ICE were they to come to Valpo. The resolution talks a lot about building community trust, but one needs to question if you can build community trust with resolutions that cater to a minority of protesters and that does not address the needs of a majority of citizens who live here. The only concrete thing the resolution does is require a copy to be sent to the Indiana Congressional Delegation, the Indiana Governor and “appropriate Federal oversight bodies.”
Resolution 4 does however highlight the importance of local elections. Valparaiso has roughly 23,000 registered voters, Ellen Kapitan won her at-large seat with 5,176 votes and Emilie Hunt won hers with 4,942. At-large council members should work towards unifying our city, not dividing it with national politics which the city has no authority over. We are all neighbors, we can hold different political opinions and still get along as a city. Resolution 4 acknowledges “that immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility and that the city has no authority or responsibility to regulate, direct, or control the operations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) or other federal agencies.” This resolution brings national partisan into the local community, when there should be more items that concern the community as a whole.
Ordinance No. 6, 2026’s second reading and final vote dealing with appropriating city funds for 2026 paving projects was tabled and carried over to the next council meeting due to our city engineer Max Rehlander being at a conference in Wisconsin. Ordinance N0. 7, 2026 was up for first reading and public hearing which vacates platted alleyways for the Banta Center development project. The Banta center which is now owned and run by the Parks Department and used to be a school is being sold to a developer to be turned into residential units. The senior center and other programs run by the Valpo Parks out of the Banta center will remain there until Valpo’s new REC facility is finished at the old McGill Factory and the programs move into there. The alley Vacation is mainly a land ownership formality seeing how the Banta Center is actually built on top of one of the alleyways.
Council liaison reports ended the city’s business for the evening. One report which deserves highlighting was from the Redevelopment Commission. The RDC awarded a grant to Paradise Community Homes of $564,500 for the purchase of land from Valparaiso University which will be the Linwood Park Project. The project will include 23 single family homes under 300,000 and was awarded from the RDC’s Affordable Housing Grant Program.
Public comment went for about 45 minutes with the time evenly split between opinions on Resolution 4. Those speaking in favor of the resolution echoed its emotional rhetoric saying it was “nice” and “good.” While those speaking in opposition to it said it was needlessly dividing our city and completely ignoring and condoning the violent nature of protesters impeding law enforcement. One individual speaking against the resolution asked Mayor Costas to veto the resolution saying it exposes taxpayers to state litigation by “Valparaiso signaling noncooperation or chilling lawful coordination with federal agencies.”
The next city council meeting is March 9th, 6:00 at city hall.
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