Northwest Indiana Comical Politics

RDA and Airport Incompetence

Last week I had the pleasure of being a guest speaker at the Merrillville Rotary Club Monthly Meeting.  They are a very nice and well informed group of people as I have always found the various Rotary Club Members to be around NWI.

One of the central points that I made during my talk is that the people responsible, or claim responsibility, for economic development in NWI do not the slightest idea of how to go about it or even what it truly means and entails.  That is they have no conception of what the problem is as to why NWI lags in economic development nor do they have an idea of how to move NWI into self sustaining economic development.

The first poster-child of this state of affairs is Paul Karras, the executive director of the Gary/Chicago International Airport.  The title itself is an oxymoronic statement giving over importance to Gary and its airport.  The sole value economically of the airport is to provide wealth to a group of people associated with Paul Karras.  Competency is not an issue; it is an empirical proof that he has none.  The airport is a failure, who is in charge?  But, Karras does get over $150,000 per year as a consultant; not employee, from the airport.  This is a collusion on the part of the City of Gary and the Airport Board at unadulterated tax evasion.  This is not only unethical but criminal.  When you act as an employee you are an employee according to the IRS.

So kiss off the airport.  It will be nothing more than a method for Mayor Daley to keep pumping money into O'hare, as he should and the area should.  O'hare is the big transportation draw in this part of the Country and nothing is going to change that.  Just because NWI is not attractive to any business period; don't blame it on the airport but on the economic and political leadership that is failing all of us.  The fact is there is no down side to not having an airport; no serious business or any other institution will ever reject NWI if the Gary/Chicago International Airport was turned into a huge shuffle board with Karras as the shuffle board pro.

The moronic "tribe" called NWI citizens cannot learn that competence and performance is what counts in the 21st Century not smoke and mirrors.  In the end, smoke and mirrors, like gambling taxes and know-nothing school boards will be shown for what they are none performing entities when it comes to economic development for the citizenry.  Then it is always too late and everyone wonders how did we get fooled and why did not anyone tell us?  Well I have been telling you for fifteen years -- now listen.

The worse development showing the total lack of competence and performance criteria is the creation of the Regional Development Authority to "permit" NWI to spend its own funds.  On top of that insult is the appointment of the true collection of tribal individuals who were appointed because of their loyalty and ability to perform the necessary tribal dance rather than for any demonstrable capability in the arena of economic development.

The RDA Board is made up of a lawyer, a philosopher, two former bank gophers, a charity fund raiser, and a small business man (no women by the way).  Not a single one of these individuals can make any claim for developing anything, especially in the private sector.  The sole businessman is a small business owner with no knowledge of the workings of economics.  The bankers are lobbyists and back slappers.  Not a single individual has any unique knowledge or experience, scholarly or practically, about economic development.

The result is that the RDA will be allowed to spend NWI's own funds on useless projects, which they are.  The scary part is that they have the authority to bond, i.e. get us into debt for generations to come with no discernible economic value.  In the same way that at bottom line the airport has no demonstrable economic value, except for the Gary Tribalism, none of the other projects that the RDA is involved with has either. 

Well, except for getting Congressman Visckloskey a position at Notre Dame when he retires -- the tribal dance continues.

There is no demand for the buses or the trains -- only in the minds of tree hugging Democrats and the unions doing the work.  But the members of the RDA cannot even form the proper questions to ask as to where they are going, because none have any experience and they are only listening to the "tribes" with a vested interest in the money being spent -- effectively or otherwise on their pet project.

These pet projects have been shown consistently not to bear fruit for the population of NWI.  Yet, all of you seem to keep on listening to the same leadership or now their children as though these people know something.  According to the standard definition of insanity -- guess, in this case, who is insane by even giving lip service to these tribal chieftains.

NWI's Public Leadership is Clueless

Public officials in Northwest Indiana talk a lot about new directions and developments to enhance our future after the end of “King Steel.” Yet, over the last 20 years, nothing has worked and the future does not look any better. NWI’s problem is public officials lacking the leadership for creative ideas and vision.

NWI’s early solution was to place everyone on the public payroll. This was the East Chicago solution and the only one the city ever attempted.

It is still the city with the highest public employment ratio in the country. This is the simplistic and most unsupportable solution.

Then came the “gambling panacea” spearheaded by former mayors Thomas McDermott in Hammond and Thomas Barnes in Gary. This was the golden goose to be used by local officials for infrastructure and economic development.

Gambling in and of itself cannot be economic development; it is the tax that is extracted for the right of having a share of a limited license that is the economic development component. The local public leaders must creatively utilize that tax for it to have any economic development value.

The result from the gambling money over the last 10 years is marginal. To put things in perspective, NWI governments have received more than $1.5 billion in gambling tax revenues since it started. Besides some new wealthy individuals and new concrete and asphalt, there is nothing that is actually going to get NWI citizens into the 21st- century economy.

The sole exception is Hammond’s College Bound program.Its uniqueness in the desert that is NWI proves the point.

The next new savior was the Gary/Chicago International Airport, with its executive director, Paul Karas. He is being paid $150,000/year as a consultant — versus as an employee, like the rest of us, who are not allowed to deduct driving to and from work from our income taxes. This is a combination of Gary ego and individual greed.

Gary's ego is exemplified by former mayor Hatcher.  People really believe that Gary has something that someone outside of Gary is really interested in.  Individual greed is exemplified by the many public officials and their friends who continue to get wealth off the public dole.  This has become a tradition in Gary without the consummate requirement of performance that the white leadership use to require when they stole the money.

The newly announced plan for the airport underscores the lack of understanding of economic development by our public officials. This plan is to attract Delta Airlines to the airport and have Delta fly passengers from Gary to Atlanta to connect to the rest of the world.

Am I the only one who has heard of taking Interstate 294 to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, then connecting to the rest of the world?

The underlying assumption of public officials is that they can do this because they received $600,000 of public money to pretend they know what they are doing.

The latest manifestation of incompetent leadership is the Regional Development Authority. The number of incompetent officials involved in its inception is too numerous to mention.

Three things about the RDA: First, its major purpose is to permit NWI to spend its own money.

Second, in terms of economic development, it is focused on introducing NWI to 1950s technology: trains, roads and planes.

Finally, not a single person appointed to the RDA has the slightest knowledge about economic development, nor have they achieved anything in their careers that would indicate they can create a substantial ongoing enterprise. If none of these appointees knows about economic development in the positions for which they are being paid, what makes anyone think they can do any better in a job where they are not being paid?

IU Trustees join Purdue's Trustees Promoting Institutional Racism

Indiana University's Board of Trustees last week officially adopted a position of openly promoting institutional racism.  In this they have joined Purdue's Board of Trustees when they adopted a similar posture in their last meeting two months ago.

I have not laid out the details of this egregious action because I wanted to wait to see what IU would do.  It has been very disappointing.

This attitude also effects all of Indiana because the actions of the major universities in Indiana and the Commission for Higher Education under the liberal Democrat Stan Jones is the major cause for the Indiana "brain drain" over the past two decades.  The "brain-drain" and lack of economic development and population growth can be laid squarely at the feed of Stan Jones and the research one universities, IU and Purdue.

The full story of this is being written to be out on the blog on Thursday of this week.

Loosers and Winners in the NWI Primaries

The primary is over in NWI and the votes are counted.  We all know the voters made dumb choices in NWI but how bad?  What can be said about Tuesday’s primary in Northwest Indiana?  One’s emotions run from, “Whew, we just dodged a bullet,” to, “I cannot believe the voters are so stupid.”  On one side, things could have been worse; on the other, most of the well-connected insiders were nominated.

How could it have been worse?  John Buncich could have won the sheriff’s race and, for a while, it seriously looked like he might. That would have been the worst disaster for Lake County — and indirectly for NWI — because it would place the most unethical candidate, the Bull Connors of Lake County, into the position of chief law enforcement official in the county. That was the biggest bullet we dodged.

Now, Buncich must ride into the sunset and never show his face again in Lake County. But he is welcome to take along with him his unethical lackey, Scott King, when he leaves town.  This should be a lesson to the RDA and to the "Major Moves" program not to use Scott "the kick-back" King as a consultant of any kind.  For once show some ethical backbone.  Try it you may like it; it may even become a habit.

The other bullet dodged was the return of Jim Hornak to the Hammond School Board. His rejection says two things: One, there will be no more building through bonding power, so as to give his union more employment. His focus was on more new building, and the kids be damned. Two, since he was president of the board when he was given the boot, the voters and parents of Hammond have said the board is doing a poor job managing its administrative structure. They are spending too much money on non-teaching activities.

Although we dodged those major bullets, when one looks at what the voters did, all you can do is shake your head in amazement. Most incumbents were renominated, except those who retired or died. Just about every buffoon found sufficient support in the electorate to be renominated. The major change that could have come about was in the state legislators representing NWI, but that was not to be. Even state Rep. Charlie Brown, D-Gary, was renominated, although there is nothing the man has done in his 28 years in the Legislature, except strut like a peacock and yell "racism" every time he got caught jay-walking.

And no one can explain Linda Lawson’s primary success, when her only accomplishment is to increase property taxes for NWI citizens. As a matter of fact, all the legislators are being returned who created the property tax mess for NWI. We know all these people — Chester Dobis, Earl Harris, Vernon Smith, Frank Mrvan, Sue Landske, Dan Stevenson and Ralph Ayres — have done very little to return tax money to NWI because they don’t know how. The Regional Development Authority and the Toll Road lease are not bringing tax money back to NWI; the RDA is a sellout of NWI to Indianapolis by Dobis and his local Democratic company.  All it did was give the Governor, and a few mayoral lackeys power to spend our own money, money we were already getting from the casinos. 

How does one explain the voters and the citizens of NWI allowing this to happen? Can they be that naive or that dumb? It’s clear they don’t understand and don’t care.

There are some small areas of hope. One could guess there always is, even in the worst of times. One of the bright spots is North Township; the trustee and board candidates who were nominated have radically changed their functions and responsiveness to the citizens of NWI, including, it is hoped, holding the line on property tax increases through the township’s share.

The new 12th District representative is going to be a true test of whether someone can get elected from NWI and retain a commitment to bringing tax dollars back to the area.  It certainly would be something new for NWI.  A State Representative who actually knows what they are suppose to be doing.  This has never, and I repeat never happened, before from an elected official down State.  Our representative are an interesting combination of low self esteem and hiding it by pretending to be full of themselves that they can only listen to what "outsiders" tell them to do and that is what they follow.

They never ask people who truly know and care about NWI.  They only ask the peacocks.  The suits who look good and talk well but substantively know nothing of which they speak and if you look at their accomplishments in positions they have heald, it does not show any worthwhile achievements outside of their public relations fluff.

As a citizen of NWI, I am hoping for the best; as a political scientist, I am wondering if things can get worse.