Northwest Indiana Comical Politics

Positive Economic Developments

For the first time in a long time, I have real optimism because of two significant events that bode well for the future of Northwest Indiana.

The first is Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott’s College Bound program. McDermott’s proposal would provide up to $7,500 annually to children of Hammond property owners for higher education within Indiana. Any Hammond student above a certain grade-point average would qualify.

At its most basic, College Bound will give to deserving Hammond students the opportunity to pursue higher education without having to be concerned about finding sufficient funds. This plan can change the very culture of failure that has permeated the former industrial cities of NWI by making higher education a premier value.

But most importantly, this plan will rejuvenate the home-owning middle class that has been deserting Hammond. This would not be just any middle class, but a middle class that believes in the value of higher education and, therefore, would demand competency on the part of the public school administrators.

The second great event is the announcement by John Aguilera that he will not run for re-election as an area representative in the Legislature. This man simply forgot that he represented NWI and thought he was representing Muncie, Lafayette and Bloomington.

In case you missed it, in my last column, I argued that it is wrong for students attending one state-funded university to get double the monetary support from our state government than do students attending other state-funded universities. I identified Aguilera as one of three officials who were in a position to make a difference, but can’t or won’t.

Well, I hit a nerve. Aguilera sent me a nice letter — well, maybe not so nice — threatening to sue me for defamation of character. I didn’t know you could defame a politician; they usually are pretty good at doing that themselves.

Aguilera is upset. He is not to blame for Purdue University Calumet losing $500,000 per year for higher education.After all, he was only going along with what the administration requested on behalf of PUC. Purdue accepted a budget cut for PUC, PUC administrators didn’t overly object and, according to Aguilera, his only course of action was to comply.

Note to John: that’s the problem. You’re the elected official. Purdue administrators don’t answer to the taxpaying public, but you do. Purdue should not tell you — our elected official — how to spend taxpayers’ money.

PUC administrators won’t ask for more money than what West Lafayette will allow. But you don’t have to play by their rules.Why should you allow more state dollars to go to the education of citizens in other parts of the state and not fight to get equality in higher education funding for citizens in your part of the state?

Aguilera wants a retraction and an apology because he’s no fraud. His legal residence is in East Chicago and, in 2004, the Indiana Election Board said so.

Aguilera is right. That was the ruling of the Indiana Election Board. So what? A “summer” home in Munster? Who lives in East Chicago and “summers” in Munster? Sounds like perpetrating a fraud to me.

What could make me more optimistic? Mayors George Pabey and Scott King following McDermott in making higher education the No. 1 value in NWI by actually putting money where it matters. King could start by helping fund IUN’s clinical research center that Indiana University has offered to build in Gary.

Aguilera's Lessons for public Administrators

John C. Aguilera, Jr. should be learning a couple of lessons, least of which is that he represents Lake County not Lafayette, Indianapolis or Bloomington, Indiana.  It is because he was confused about what he represented that he could improve the economy of those areas at the expense of Lake County.

That is the heat he decided this week that he could not take and dropped out of the race for State Representative.  It did not hurt that he may loose his life-time health insurance as a legislature (another part of him that is a complete fraud; his truthfulness). 

His fear of continuous outing by this writer and others is what prevented him from running and if I where him I would think long and hard about running for anything in NWI, unless he thinks Lafayette is going to come up here and vote for him as Mayor of East Chicago.

His fraudulent statement that he wants to spend more time with his daughters is nonsense when one considers that being a State Representative is a part-time job in Indiana.  Further, if you want to run for another political job it does not hurt to run from a current political job you are doing well at, which he is not.

Aguilera's failure should be fair warning to all those representative and public employees and administrators who would sell NWI down the drain for down State interests.  Us writers have long memories.

Aguilera Disgraced from Running for State Legislature

Incumbent State Representative John C. Aguilera, Jr. (the "fraud" -- see previous blog) has decided that he cannot take the heat any longer so he is leaving the kitchen.  This bloger and Post-Tribune Columnist takes full credit for driving this useless so called Representative out of office.

This is a great day for NWI.  Number one in a list of nitwits that ought to get out of public life and give us citizens a chance to establish a good community in NWI.

During his term of service, over six years, Aguilera accomplished nothing, either in the majority or the minority, and he sold out to the interests of downstate universities at the expense of getting real funds for NWI minority students and overall citizens.

May he always be remembered for what is rotten in NWI and for a man who does not know where his summer home is.  He also needed to remember that he represents Lake County not Tippecanoe County or Marion County or Bloomington.  As often as I reminded him of this fact, he kept on being impressed by the fat cats with the titles from elsewhere.  That is the trouble with a politician with little brain but a big ego (most NWI politicians) because they are easily distracted by flattery.

This is a good day for NWI.

The Grandfather, the Fraud, and The One Who Does Not Know

According to the Indiana Commission on Higher Education, in 2004, the state appropriation per full-time equivalent student for Purdue University Calumet was $4,797; for Purdue University in West Lafayette it was $7,981.

That is a difference of $3,184 per student per year, or about $20 million less for PUC each year.

This is your tax money that is going to Indianapolis and not coming back. And it is money that can only be spent on educating students, not on parking, dorms or athletics.

This is bad enough and in need of some immediate correction. But instead of a correction, at the last Indiana legislative session, PUC was cut $500,000 per year (not temporarily, but forever).

I have tried to understand why this could be happening and to make some sense of why Northwest Indiana is being financially shortchanged and its students are being abused in this manner.

The blame cannot be put on West Lafayette;leaders there are focused only on that campus — as they should.

Who is in a position to shine a light upon the subject and help higher education in NWI?

When all the “bull” is peeled away, there are really only three people responsible who represent the interests of PUC and the citizens of the district: state Sen. Frank Mrvan, state Rep. John Aguilera, and Hammond Mayor Tom McDermott, Jr. They are the central political figures we elect to take care of these concerns, to return tax dollars to the district.

It is not happening because they represent the three types of politicians we elect to our detriment: the nice grandfather, the fraud and he who does not know.

Mrvan represents the grandfather. Everyone loves him, Democrats and Republicans. He is a very nice person, likeable and completely aboveboard and truthful.

But likability is not the same as effectiveness. Thus, he is in no position to take on West Lafayette or develop a coalition to solidify funding for NWI.

Aguilera represents the fraud; he allowed the Legislature to pass the $500,000 cut for PUC. I always wondered, why? Then I remembered.

Aguilera is a fraud who pretended his “summer home” in Munster, in state Rep. Linda Lawson’s district, was an oversight. Is it also an oversight that has John C. Aguilera Jr. working for Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis?

No wonder he doesn’t care about NWI or PUC.

Mayor McDermott represents the politician who doesn’t know. McDermott’s opposition, in a recent column to the Toll Road lease, is an embarrassment of self-serving untruths and an anachronistic perception of economic development.

While asking for state support for Cabela’s, a project that financially benefits his father and brother, he will deny the rest of the state money for economic development.

While distorting the facts about the 33 percent of the tolls that are paid by Hoosiers, he cries that receiving 34 percent of the lease revenue is not fair.

While crying about economic development, he is incapable of understanding what Gov. Mitch Daniels does, that getting $3.85 billion for Hoosiers from outside the state is economic development.

Taxing the gas that Hoosiers use takes money out of their pockets and is economic un-development.

Until at least the frauds and the know-nothings are removed permanently from NWI politics, our economic development and future will continue to slip out of our hands.

College Trusttees Shortchange NWI

State’s college trustees short NWI on funds for students

Last Friday, I went to West Lafayette to attend the monthly meeting of the Board of Trustees of Purdue University. I wanted to address issues concerning higher education and Northwest Indiana. Although I had been informed there was a public comment period, it turned out not to be true. One had to make a reservation in advance and be approved to speak, even though it is a state institution and the Board of Trustees has a fiduciary duty to the taxpaying public of the state of Indiana.

I wanted to talk to the board about the benign neglect of higher education in NWI — not only by Purdue, but also by Indiana University. Everything I would say to Purdue’s board I would also say to Indiana’s Board of Trustees. This benign neglect of higher education in NWI is not only affecting the citizens of this part of the state, but the way the boards of trustees are acting — or not acting — is denying a real future for the state as a whole.

It is not that the trustees of both universities, and the state Legislature, don’t know what the problem is. The Department of Education’s National Center for Educational Statistics ranks Indiana 15th among the 50 states in the amount of money per-capita it spends on higher education — about where it should be. But it ranks Indiana 50th of 50 states in the mal- distribution of those funds. That is to say, Indiana spends enough money, but the money spent for doctoral institutions is way out of line for the little money spent on bachelor’s- and master’s-awarding institutions.

Ironically, at the Friday meeting, the trustees were presented with the consequences of this misallocation of funds on the state as a whole. The gap between Indiana and the rest of the states of college-age residents increased from 2.4 percent in 1970 to 5.5 percent in 2005. And, for more than 75 counties in Indiana, it would take more than 20 years to catch up with the national average. Nothing, absolutely nothing, that the West Lafayette or Bloomington campus can try will solve that problem. The problem is what the Department of Education indicated, which is the unequal distribution of higher education dollars.

West Lafayette has not increased its undergraduate student body enrollment, but is completing hiring 300 new faculty members. That is more than the current faculty of Purdue University Calumet and Purdue University North Central combined. PUC has had minimal increase in full-time faculty.

At the trustees’ meeting, I met the student body president of Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, an articulate, intelligent young black man with great hopes for his future. How could I tell him that Indiana taxpayers are willing to only spend half the amount of tax dollars on him and other minorities who are educated at PUC, Indiana University Northwest and IPFW, as they are on their white compatriots on the main campuses? How could I tell him the federal courts in Texas had ruled this was unconstitutional as a vestige of Jim Crow segregation?

The question of development in NWI always brings out the “incubator” in Merrillville. Purdue President Martin C. Jischke said at the meeting that what is important about an incubator is that it is a “catwalk” away from campus. Funny, it is a long catwalk from Hammond to Merrillville.

But for the trustees of Purdue, like many inside groups, information is all very controlled.

Well, let’s see if IU’s trustees are as controlled.