HAMMOND

Fire chief's pay hike, bonds on the agenda

The City Council will conduct three committee meetings prior to tonight's regular council meeting.

The council's Building and Zoning Committee will meet at 6:30 in the council's caucus room, followed by a meeting of the Council As a Whole at 6:45 and the Finance Committee at 7.

The Finance Committee will consider a proposed salary increase for the Hammond fire chief and revenue bonds for Jupiter Aluminum.

Committee meetings will be followed by a public caucus at 7:30, prior to the regular council meeting at 8.

HAMMOND

BP officials to discuss IDEM draft air permit

The BP Whiting Refinery will conduct a Citizen's Advisory Committee meeting on the proposed draft air permit currently in the public comment period with the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

The meeting will be at 6 p.m. Thursday in Room 200 at Calumet College, 2400 New York Ave.

The program will provide an overview of the permit application and an update on BP's announced Canadian crude project.

More information can be obtained by calling Thomas Keilman at (219) 473-5465.

GARY

Civil rights official set to speak at IUN

Author, educator and historian Mary Frances Berry will give a special lecture in honor of Black History Month on Thursday at Indiana University Northwest.

The program will begin at 6 p.m. Her speech on women and politics and the 2008 elections will start at 7 in the Savannah Auditorium on the Gary campus.

Berry was appointed by President Carter as a commissioner on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. After President Reagan fired her for criticizing his civil rights policies, she sued him in federal district court and won reinstatement. In 1983, President Clinton designated her chairwoman of the Civil Rights Commission.

She is also one of the founders of the Free South Africa Movement, which initiated protests at the South African Embassy in the successful struggle for democracy in South Africa.

Berry is vice president of the American Historical Association and president of the Organization of American Historians.

She was educated at Howard University and earned a doctorate in history from the University of Michigan and the University of Michigan Law School.

DYER

Federal cash slated for pathway, curb cuts

The Town Council approved bids for two Community Development Block Grant-funded projects at this month's meeting.

J.J. Newell was the low bidder for both projects, which will be undertaken by the Parks and Public Works departments.

The block grants are from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and are dispensed annually by the county. All block grant projects must be related in some way by requirements specified by the Americans with Disabilities Act.

The parks project is not to exceed a cost of $18,460, or $26 a foot, and will involve building a wheelchair-accessible pathway in Sandy Ridge Park.

The Public Works project will install numerous curb cuts throughout town, at a cost not to exceed $18,000.

DYER

Grants will be given out every other year

The town has learned that the Community Development Block Grant money it has been accustomed to getting annually now will arrive every other year.

The county made the switch because some communities complained that the yearly amounts are too small to fund any substantial projects. Block grants must be spent the same year they are received.

The funds are from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and are dispensed by the county.

Dyer customarily gets about $36,000 in block grant money. The change means that it will get roughly $72,000 every other year, Town Manager Joe Neeb said at the this month's meeting.

Block grant projects must relate in some way to the Americans with Disabilities Act.