Northwest Indiana Comical Politics

Lake Dems are barrier to economic growth in area

July 28, 2005

By Maurice M. Eisenstein
Post-Tribune guest columnist

Frequently, I am challenged for being too negative about Northwest Indiana. I beg to differ. I view myself as one of the few people who, soberly, has an optimistic belief in NWI’s inherent possibilities for greatness.

Why NWI cannot live up to its possibilities lies in the culture of tribalism that is centered on the charlatans making up the Lake County Democratic Party. They are charlatans because they pretend not to steal, they pretend to be ethical and, finally, they pretend to know what they are doing.

In their world of tribal politics, performance and policy don’t count — only blind tribal loyalty matters.

Since the 1930s, the Democrats have been running Lake County.

The only serious exception has been the town of Munster, and it shows. Munster is to Lake County what the United States is to the world — a place people want to be or want to emulate. It is the only municipality in Lake County, if not NWI, with an individual who has any economic development vision: Don Powers.

The proposed budget for Hammond was just released. In the middle of the so-called property tax crisis, its expenditures are increasing by 6.7 percent after pawning the health department on other Lake County taxpayers. This is criminal for its incompetence. This is thumbing your nose at the rest of Lake County and only being concerned about your tribe’s benefits.

Other officials walk around like bankers handing out other people’s money and saying sweet words that achieve nothing. In fact, that is a perfect description of the Northwest Indiana Forum while under Tom McDermott Sr. Smooth talk, no results. Just ask its current head; NWI residents do not know what the Forum is.

The reality is that people do not want to come to NWI if they have a choice.

Only two factors mitigate the complete downfall of NWI and neither has anything to do with the Lake County Democrats. Although the national building boom resulting from low interest rates is of benefit everywhere, it is of particular value in Lake County because it is the only positive economic event that allows for the hiring of unskilled labor. The second factor is the worldwide demand for steel that is unlikely to last.

The plan for which NWI politicians are cheering is the Regional Development Authority, an economic plan based on 1950 economic development ideas of rejuvenating transportation and dead-end warehouse jobs.

The RDA board is, so far, made up of those who are inexperienced or lack a successful track record in economic development. Gary named Bill Joiner, a former banker who spent time working on the city’s economic development. East Chicago named Ned Ruff, its general counsel, who possibly is a good lawyer, but has no knowledge of economic development.With past performance as a predictor of future performance, the RDA is a new way to take money from taxpayers and give it to public officials’ tribal “families.”

The only economic development part of the RDA is the $10 million NWI will receive from the state. In the same bill, Fort Wayne also got $10 million and Indianapolis hundreds of millions more. How dumb and tribal can we really be? And people call me pessimistic.

You have to be a complete nonbeliever in NWI’s future to support a program that is meant to fail economically while continuing to fund those who are loyal to you.

Maurice M. Eisenstein is a professor at Purdue University Calumet. Contact him at [email protected]. His opinions do not represent Purdue University.

If education remains weak, region won’t be able to grow

July 14, 2005

By Maurice M. Eisenstein
Post-Tribune guest columnist

Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. and Purdue University Calumet Chancellor Howard Cohen are to be commended for reaching an agreement for PUC to manage and develop Hammond’s technology incubator. This is an economic benefit to PUC and Hammond.

PUC is also developing the new Water Institute, which is to study the primary natural resource of Northwest Indiana — Lake Michigan. Fresh water is becoming as valuable, and scarcer, than oil. To get ahead on this economic resource could provide great possibilities for NWI, as could the Hammond incubator.

Over the past decade, these are the only two serious economic development projects that have been presented. What is ironic is that because NWI is dragging itself down educationally, it could jeopardize the chance that these two projects will have any positive effect in the long run.

The major problem with NWI’s culture is that it neither respects education nor understands of what education should consist.

More than half of Lake County’s population lives north of the Borman Expressway — the area that consistently graduates some functional illiterates from its schools. Although this has been going on for decades, the same incompetent individuals remain in charge, with astronomical salaries that can only be characterized as thievery.

How can one explain John Flores still being in charge of education in East Chicago, except that incompetence rules? How can one justify all the principals in Gary keeping their jobs, when they cannot graduate more than 1 in 6 who can read and do math at the ninth-grade level? The Hammond schools have been supporting the Carpenters union with plenty of new buildings, while most graduates have less-than-adequate reading and math skills.

There is a complete lack of response on the part of the elected officials. And where are the citizens who are allowing this to happen? This is the core of our tax crisis.

Property in Hammond, Gary and East Chicago is devalued because no one wants to come into a community knowing their children won’t receive proper educations. Until the K-12 system changes, the property tax problems will continue.

If the people north of the Borman don’t care, those south of the Borman shouldn’t give them any more money. There is no evidence that NWI would be any worse off if we canceled school in Hammond, Gary and East Chicago and left the kids home to watch TV.

Finally, evidence of how little our so-called leadership understands education was provided by the last meeting of the NWI Quality of Life Council. The council is comprised of business, political and educational leaders in NWI. Their last speaker was an economic development expert from Cleveland. The speaker told them what they wanted to hear, “NWI has world-class universities to build economic development on.” Everyone there nodded in agreement.

Who is fooling whom? The rest of the world knows we don’t even have a state-class level of higher education. Every other part of the state has more universities, spends more tax dollars per student and has more students per capita. Even our leaders don’t know what we don’t have. So how can they correct it?

The absolute, unequivocal truth is, as long as you have lower than mediocre primary, secondary and higher education, no economic development program can get NWI out of being a major loser economically.

State takeover recommended for some local governments

July 18, 2005

By Maurice Eisenstein
Post-Tribune columnist

In a recent discussion with a Lake County politician, I was presented with the argument that there was no way out of our current property tax quagmire without the property tax cut being reinstated on businesses, because the property tax problem cannot be addressed by various governmental units cutting expenditures.

The usual argument is that even if the expenditures of Lake County government were cut in half, irrespective of the loss of service, each property owner would save about 3 percent of his or her tax bill. Therefore, the argument goes, although there is waste in local government that should be removed, that, in itself, won’t make a dent in the property tax problem.

I beg to differ. The singular problem in Lake County lies north of the Borman and includes county government. There is no significant property tax problem south of the Borman or in Porter County.

For decades, politicians in Hammond, Gary, East Chicago and Whiting have been misusing public money indiscriminately because they could leverage it away from industry and, except for a few conscientious exceptions, generally, the taxpayers did not care. They continuously re-elected the bums. The bums were led by the Pastrick family and included Tom “The Midnight Mayor” Cappas, Mike “Democratic Party Chairman” Pannos and Bobby “The Fixer” Cantrell.

To remind us of the bad shape these cities are in, most of these people — Cappas, Pannos and Cantrell — still have political control. Even as these northern cities are screaming for help from the south, they cannot get rid of the basic cancer that is represented by these people.

Having worked directly for and as a consultant to the federal government on government service delivery cost saving issues for more than 10 years, I can expertly tell all the citizens of south county that until the north cuts its budget by 30 percent, no help should be given to them. This can be done with both eyes closed, with no reduction in service to the citizens.

If the government efficiency study initiated by U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky does not recommend at least that level of savings, it is a scam to justify further thievery from industry and the citizens of Lake County.

Truthfully, no one really believes that the northern cities and county government can achieve meaningful expenditure reduction. This is especially true when one includes school and township governments.

The reality is, there is only one honest response that is currently available to save Lake County — besides dividing it into a north and south county — state receivership.

The state of Indiana should declare East Chicago municipal and school governments insolvent, which they are. It should further include Gary city and school government and Calumet Township government in the state receivership. Included in this mix should be North Township, with its generally incompetent trustee.

Hammond should be left out for the time being because, with the other entities under state control, there is a slight chance Hammond’s municipal and school governments can get their acts together and move forward — at least they are less likely to slip further back.

This would reduce the overwhelming burden on the citizens imposed by runaway government entities north of the Borman Expressway, which is the cause of the property tax problem.

Maurice Eisenstein is a professor at Purdue University Calumet. Contact him at [email protected]. His opinions do not reflect those of Purdue University.