By Gitte Laasby, Post-Tribune staff writer
The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority does not intend to stop giving taxpayer money to promote projects like the South Shore expansion, despite complaints from Porter County commissioners.
Commissioner Bob Harper complained at Tuesday's meeting that the RDA granted $130,000 on Oct. 16 to the private Northwest Indiana Forum. The money was to be used for "educational" purposes, but Harper said multiple versions of fliers were mailed throughout the region to promote the South Shore expansion to Valparaiso and Lowell -- and to lobby the public for money.
"I feel to use taxpayer money to promote contested public issues is improper," Harper wrote in a letter to the RDA. "If you stop to think about it, those taxpayers that are against this have to watch their own tax dollars being used to promote something that they are against."
Tim Sanders, executive director of the RDA, said the money was appropriated in accordance with one of the designated purposes of the RDA.
The RDA's enabling statute says the organization is responsible for "funding and developing the Gary/Chicago International Airport expansion and other airport authority projects, commuter transportation district and other rail projects and services. ... "
"The $130,000 from the RDA was publicly discussed and publicly voted on, and is to this public education program designed to build support for this very important investment in Northwest Indiana," Sanders said. "We've explained what the South Shore will do. We've talked about the number of jobs, the investments, the kinds of income jobs in Chicago will bring relative to jobs in Indiana. The higher wages than in Indiana. It's all educational."
Substantial private support
Northwest Indiana Forum President and CEO Vince Galbiati agreed that the mailings should be considered public education, not advertising, because they promote a project that serves the public good.
"As long as we're supplying the public factual information -- why it's being done, where it's being done, how it's being done -- that's public education," he said.
Sanders said the RDA expects to support similar campaigns in the future. "We'll probably do something like this for the Gary Airport and some of the shoreline projects," Sanders said. "It's not illegal or unethical or anything else."
Harper said the public has a right to know how the public money was spent and who else contributed to the joint campaign, but Galbiati declined to disclose any names. He would only say the budget is "substantial" and that a "very, very long list of people contributed."
"Since we are a private organization, I don't think it's fair for me to disclose that freely. We're under no obligation to disclose anything other than public money," Galbiati said.
Sanders said the money was designated to the South Shore campaign, but that details are pending. "Exactly what the money is for, whether to buy coffee or something else, we don't know yet. When we do, it'll be part of public record," he said.
Julia Vaughn, policy director for Common Cause/Indiana, a not-for-profit citizens lobby that works for open and accountable government, said the key in public-private partnerships is to be transparent so the public can be assured public dollars are being spent appropriately.
"We say it's generally not advisable for a public entity to transfer large amounts of dollars to private entities or whatever," Vaughn said. "A lot of times, there's legitimate reasons. A lot of times not."