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By Alicia Ebaugh
Staff Writer
Published: Wednesday, May 19, 2010 4:14 AM CDT
LA PORTE — Before the county proceeds with a plan to move the Purdue extension office into the La Porte County Conservation Council building at La Porte County Fairgrounds, county commissioners have many questions that still need to be answered.

“Even if we wanted to take this to bid, we don’t have all of the information we need,” Commission President Barb Huston said at their Tuesday meeting. “We don’t have the money to do it anyway if the bid comes in too high. But we don’t even know how much it should cost to do the remodeling, or what they need to do.”

A committee formed to contemplate a new location for Purdue University’s Cooperative Extension Service thought the best and cheapest option would be to renovate the council building, Fair Manager Gene Shurte said. The fair board unanimously voted to allow commissioners to proceed with planning the renovation, he said, but that’s as far as plans have gone.

The Conservation Council has occupied the building basically rent-free since 1963. The council stocks the building’s fish pond with goldfish during the fair each year, and kids can use a rod and hook to catch one. The fairgrounds uses the building for storage the rest of the year.

Several Conservation Council members came to Tuesday’s meeting to air their concerns, saying the county should build on top of the footings already poured for a building at the fairgrounds that would have housed extension offices. Work on that building stopped abruptly a few years ago.

“I don’t understand why you’d want to take down our building when you have other options available,” council member Frank Buss, Rolling Prairie, said. “This will put us out of business.”

The pond brings in up to $5,000 a year as the council’s only income, which it splits between its five local clubs for scholarships and other activities. Shurte said there are other buildings in which the council could run a fish pond so they could still make money, but Buss said none of the current fairground structures would be big enough to house a pond the size of the one they already have.

Commissioner Ken Layton said another plan could have placed the extension office in a new building at Purdue University-North Central, but the county still would have to pay rent because it is the county’s responsibility by law to house the extension office.

“For the past 15 to 20 years, it’s been a dream to have it at the fairgrounds. Ninety-nine percent of its business with 4-H youth is done there, and quite frankly, I favor it being there, too,” Layton said. “The amount of money we have paid to lease a space could probably have easily paid for a new building by now.”

Commissioner Mike Bohacek said he was recently informed the owners of the extension’s office space at 2358 N. U.S. 35 in La Porte now are willing to extend the lease further than the end of the year, which may relieve some pressure to find an immediate solution. Regardless, its rent will increase in July from $3,300 to $3,800 a month.

“I still think it’s more cost-effective to rent at this time,” Bohacek said. “We don’t have to pay any utilities, water, snow removal or anything. That price isn’t that bad to have everything included.”

Commissioners soon will schedule a workshop where all parties involved can sit down and talk about moving the extension office into the council building, Layton said.