Former Westville Town Council President Dave Decker is seeking the Democratic nomination for LaPorte County Commission. Decker, who retired from NIPSCO after serving 35 years as a union lineman, said in a press release that he’s running “to bring back energy and focus to a county commission that is lacking in both.” He’s seeking the district seat currently held by Barbara Huston.
“The challenges for our county are too important to have a commissioner sitting there on ‘cruise control,’ Decker said in the press release. “We have one of the highest unemployment rates in the region and yet projects are stalled like the Kingsbury Industrial Park refrigeration plant and new development near I-94. It’s hard to believe the commissioners don’t have a team working full time on these projects, but again, they haven’t had a Redevelopment Commission meeting in nine months. We can’t act like this is Mayberry and somehow developers will just stumble upon us. You have to work at promoting our county, putting these deals together and making them stick.”
Decker now lives in Union Township, where he was elected to the Union Township Board. He and his wife Dot Decker are Steelworkers retirees and both are active in Democratic Party politics, with Dot serving as secretary of the LaPorte County Democratic Party.
In retirement, Dave Decker has served on the boards of the LaPorte County Convention and Visitors Bureau, Swanson Center, and Harmony House/CASA. A veteran of the U.S. Navy, he is a member of the Westville American Legion Post.
Decker has two daughters and three grandchildren. “I’m on full retirement from NIPSCO but I have the time, energy and good health to devote to the county commission to try to have a positive impact,” he said. “I’m proud of helping turn our convention and visitors bureau into one of the best bureaus in northern Indiana at promoting tourism, and I want to have the same kind of positive impact on the LaPorte County Commission pushing job creation and delivering quality county services.”
