Starke County Councilman, Chuck Estok, Attends his Last Council Meeting

Chuck Estok

Four County Councilmen are being replaced in January. Chuck Estok, Bruce Fingerhut, and Bill Dulin attended their final meeting last week. Dan Awald, who is the fourth Councilman being replaced, was not in attendance at his last meeting.

Following the meeting, Ted Hayes talked with the three who were in attendance, starting with Chuck Estok, who has served the longest at 16 years. Ted asked the veteran Democrat Councilman what he is most proud of during his long service to the citizens of the County.

“I think a highlight that I pride myself on is that the County has no debt,” replied Chuck Estok. “We used to have debt when we had the hospital, we leased that in 1996, cleaned up the debt, put some money in the bank and there’s money in the bank right now in the “save the hospital fund” and money goes in there every year. I think there’s something to be said for the people that were involved, which were the Commissioners back then, Councilmen and Bruce Fingerhut was part of that. To me, that’s an achievement in that we didn’t strap anybody with any debt. There’s a lot of talk that we need a Jail. I think there are other ways to do that going forward, not that I’m involved, but I hope they don’t take that route.”

Tomorrow we’ll hear from Bruce Fingerhut, who has served 12 years.