New Chicago gets replacement wood chipper three years after theft
After more than two years of workers picking up residents’ branches by hand and tossing them into a dump truck, the small cash-strapped town of New Chicago finally has a new — to it — wood chipper.
Town officials and employees waited outside Town Hall Tuesday afternoon as Lake County Highway Department employees delivered the chipper, donated by the Lake County Commissioners, to the community. A few residents, curious about the gathering of close to 20 people outside town hall, joined the group.
Sue Pelfrey, town manager, said the town’s wood chipper was stolen from the locked outdoor public works garage in 2020, just after the pandemic began. The thief, who was never identified, used bolt cutters to cut a large chain securing the chipper. The wood chipper was never recovered.
The town went door to door in the neighborhood seeking surveillance tapes and witnesses to no avail. Getting a replacement wood chipper was not possible due to the cost, Pelfrey said.
“The chain was thick. They knew what they were doing,” Sharon Szwedo, town council president, said of the thieves.
“This one is going in the new public works garage,” she said.
Szwedo said the new chipper will mean a lot to the workers who have been tasked with picking up the branches and bringing them back to public works for compost. Without the county’s assistance, she said it would have taken the town a long time to be able to purchase the equipment on its own.
“There’s just no money,” Pelfrey said.
Any revenues generated by the town’s sewer, water or stormwater fees cannot be used on unrelated equipment, such as the wood chipper, she said.
Pelfrey said purchasing a new wood chipper, or even a used one, was out of the question for the community. The town has 1,999 residents and an annual budget of $400,000, A new chipper costs about $115,000 while a used unit is around $60,000. She said she has been pestering Commissioner Kyle Allen, D-Gary, for the assistance with a spare wood chipper since the theft.
“I’ve been bugging him for almost two years now,” she said.
Allen said the highway department routinely phases out equipment. Sometimes they will trade in old equipment when purchasing new or sell it at auction. This time, he said, they were able to help New Chicago out.
The donation was approved by commissioners in May. Ron Gregory, assistant superintendent with the Lake County Highway Department, said the Vermeer chipper is one of the county’s older units that was slated for replacement.
“We painted it, spruced it up and had a mechanic work on it,” Gregory said, adding since a chipper is not a piece of equipment used every day, it tends to last a long time.
