City vacates right of way for airport expansion

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Ronier Scott (center) is sworn in as Gary Common Council member 6th District by Gary Clerk Suzette Raggs (right) during a swearing in ceremony for Gary elected officials at the Genesis Center in Gary, Ind. Saturday December 31, 2011. | Stephanie Dowell~Sun-Times Media

Updated: March 23, 2012 8:26AM

GARY — Work will start this week on Gary/Chicago International Airport’s grade separation over Chicago and Industrial Avenues after the Common Council voted unanimously to approve vacating the right of way to Chicago Avenue.

Traffic will be diverted off Industrial down Chicago Avenue both directions while the work is being done, runway expansion project director Scott Wheeler told the council Tuesday night. He, airport director Steve Landry and airport attorney Pat Lyp had presented the plan to the Planning Committee last week.

Once the separation is finished and a vehicle bridge is built over Industrial Avenue, the CSX and the rerouted Canadian National tracks, two lanes of the bridge will be opened to traffic and Chicago Avenue will be closed for good, Wheeler said.

The targeted date for the expansion’s completion is December 2013, with trains to be running on the tracks by no later than spring of that year, Landry said.

Resident Jim Nowacki, of the city’s Miller section, chided Landry for not telling the council that the airport doesn’t have a firm commitment from Canadian National that it will in fact relocate it tracks at all and implored the council to not give away what he feels is the city’s last bargaining chip. Councilman Ronier Scott, D-6th, however, reminded the council that the vacating had nothing to do with negotiations.

“The Planning Committee meeting was televised, so anyone could see this isn’t about negotiations,” Scott said. “This is a street closing, and traffic flow will not be interfered.”

In other business, the Public Safety Committee set a meeting to consider the hiring of Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s choice for the fire chief at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 1, in City Hall’s Cleo Wesson Lounge. Freeman-Wilson’s choice, Teresa Everett, comes from College Park, Ga.

State statute says candidates being considered for the top spots on a municipality’s police or fire department must have at least five consecutive years on that municipality’s department before a mayor can appoint them, Councilman Roy Pratt, D-At-Large, said. A mayor can choose someone from outside the department, the statute says, but the council must vote to waive the in-city rule before the appointment can be made.

The outside candidate still must have at least five continuous years on his or her respective department, however, Pratt said.