The City of Portage is home to an interlocking web of neighborhoods that is well-known for its hospitality and welcoming atmosphere. It is no surprise that the city fosters a strong community within city hall as well. Community, teamwork, and progress are terms stressed by many of the representatives of Portage city officials.
In an ongoing effort to highlight all of the great work done throughout Portage, multiple women from city hall have stepped up to the plate to offer their perspective of all the positive things happening in the city. Read below to hear all about the amazing departments coming together to push Portage toward progression year after year.
Mayor Sue Lynch has only been the mayor of Portage since 2020, but the past two years have been a whirlwind since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. What would be a challenge for the most experienced mayors came to Lynch at the beginning of her first term, but she did not let the pandemic keep her from serving her people’s needs. Her experience on the city council for 12 years and many years as an environmentalist advocate prior has prepped Lynch for the journey that her four-year term would bring.
Being mayor of the city is a great responsibility and with that responsibility comes being at the head of a great list of city employees. Portage has about 400 full and part-time employees throughout nine departments. The departments each have supervisors who report directly to Lynch. While the department supervisors themselves staff their departments, Lynch presides over them and ensures that they are serving the city as they should.
Lynch also serves on several boards, such as the Board of Works, the redevelopment commission, the stormwater board, the sanitary board, and the senior advisory board just to name a few. She also represents the city of Portage on the Porter County Recycling and Waste Reduction District, of which she is the current chairperson. While Lynch has a great deal of responsibility, she does point out jobs that she is not in charge of.
“I'm not the Chief Financial Officer of the city; that's the clerk treasurer. Sometimes people get our roles confused. The mayor is quite a different job than the clerk treasurer, but I am intimately involved in the finances of the city,” said Lynch.
As the mayor, Lynch is responsible for presenting the yearly budget and the salary ordinance to the city council, but her position is as a team member of a greater system rather than sole proprietor of city finances. Lynch believes, though, that one of the most important parts of her job is being the spokesperson or ambassador for the city, which involves meeting with many local organizations like the Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, local Economic Development Corporation, local faith and religious groups, local businesses and more. Connecting with and informing the community is very important to Lynch; it is a 24/7 job.
“A lot of people come up and ask me questions. I might be in a grocery store and people have questions, and I stop and try to explain things to them. It might make my grocery trip two hours long, but I think that's part of the job!” said Lynch.
After over a decade of being on the council, Lynch was compelled to run for city mayor.
“There were certain things that I was really concerned about. I wasn't really comfortable with some of our financial decisions. I knew that our city was really in debt. We were spending money out of funds that I felt was not appropriate. I felt that if you don't like what's going on, then you step up and you try to make it better,” said Lynch.
Beyond just the finances, though, Mayor Lynch is all about the community. She looks forward to hopefully propelling the downtown toward greater heights for the enjoyment of city residents. She wants to continue to develop nature trails and parks throughout the city. Lynch wants to honor the arts and bring sculptures and murals into the city to show what a rich culture Portage has. She wants to create a safer city for residents.
Portage residents can see her efforts already taking place in Founder’s Square, for example, where the green space is being enlarged and made safer for park-goers. She has also helped with the Robbins Road expansion to ensure the turn into the YMCA is less hazardous for families using that service. She has revitalized City Hall to put to use neglected space that could better serve the city.
Mayor Lynch looks forward to continuing to develop Portage to its greatest potential, and she couldn’t do it without her great team behind her, and this article kicks off a series of highlighting women throughout Portage who have assisted in making the city as great as it is today.
Tracie Marshall has been the Plant Superintendent for only about a month, but Marshall worked for the city for two and a half years prior to this position as a pretreatment coordinator. As pretreatment coordinator, Marshall was in charge of making sure industries in Portage follow regulations, especially through the Indiana Department of Environmental Monitoring, through check-ins and audits to ensure the safety of our community. She would also educate local industries on the regulations in the city.
Originally, Marshall graduated with a degree in nursing. The field was very emotional for her, so she started doing chemistry instead and worked for the industries that she’d later monitor. The best part of this new job for Marshall is the educational aspect. Marshall is certainly a life-long learner.
“Every single day there's something new-- a new experience or something else that has never happened before or we've never noticed before. Then, we have to educate ourselves on whatever happens. I'm continually learning new things every day,” said Marshall.
One of her favorite memories is working with the previous Utilities Field Department Superintendent, Don Slawnikowski, and learning from his 35 years of experience by visiting different parts of Portage.
“A lot of employees here have 20, 25, 30 years experience, and I'm learning through their eyes. It makes my job easier because everyone who works here just works as a team and they're all about helping each other and learning from each other,” said Marshall.
Gina Giese-Hurst is Portage’s 1st District Councilperson. She is in her third year as a councilperson for the city, and she notes that her greatest responsibility on the job is listening to, speaking for, and representing her district.
Giese-Hurst was born and raised in Portage, and while she has only been a councilperson for three years, she has served the community in other great capacities. She has worked at the local hospital for more than twenty years, worked with youth groups and children’s ministries, and continues to do projects within the community or at her local church. Moreover, she also has been a Portage parent for twenty-one years, which comes with its own responsibilities of school and community involvement. Serving her community, in whatever capacity, comes naturally to Giese-Hurst.
“I've lived in this district most of my life. My work is here in Portage. My district is my family. I live in a house I grew up in. Prior to that, I lived in my great grandfather's house. My girls are the fifth generation to live in this district. We grew up in this district and it's just our family,” said Giese-Hurst.
Her favorite moments are those that connect her with Portage residents. Giese-Hurst fondly remembered her campaign for councilperson and all of the people she met along the way.
“I was going door to door, sitting on the front porch with residents, and listening to their history. I realized how many residents in my district have family members who live in town. It's neat to see a large number of families that live near each other in my area. I've met people that I grew up with in my district here as adults, and they moved back to the neighborhood,” said Giese-Hurst.
Not only does Giese-Hurst make great effort to connect with her neighbors, she wants residents of Portage at large to see the rich history of the city. If residents could see Portage through Giese-Hurst’s eyes, they’d be bound to fall in love with it. Because of her strong view of the city, Giese-Hurst hopes to build up the community for her neighbors and all residents and to continue to support and seek out programs to invest in the city and its youth.
One project she looks forward to is restoring the Garyton building on the west side of the city.
“We did a community cleanup there at the building. It was amazing to see the people that showed up and listened to the history behind your stories a bit and to see the younger kids who have never even entered that building before that showed up to help clean it up. There's so much history in that building. I would love to see it restored to make it into a community building or something used for events. It's a beautiful building and one of the few historic buildings left in Portage,” said Giese-Hurst.
Giese-Hurst sees the beauty in Portage, and wants to work hard so fellow residents and her children see everything that the city has to offer.