INDIANAPOLIS | State lawmakers gave their blessing Monday to the $4 billion strategic plan developed by the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority.
The affirmative vote by the State Budget Committee opens the door to $20 million in state dollars this year, and it bodes well for another $80 million on the table between now and 2015.
Legislators on the joint House-Senate panel concluded that RDA officials, with the help of consultants, have crafted a fine blueprint for investing those funds in lakeshore redevelopment, public bus and rail service and expansion of
Gary/Chicago International Airport.
At the same time, lawmakers were leery of RDA assertions that a food-and-beverage or local-income tax would be needed to complete a coveted but costly $900 million expansion of South Shore rail lines to Lowell and Valparaiso.
"Lake County's got what, four (casino) riverboats?" asked state Sen. Robert Meeks, the LaGrange Republican who leads the Budget Committee. "Why do we need an extra tax to generate money from the citizens up there when we've got four boats? If I had four boats in LaGrange County, I'd be lowering (taxes)."
RDA Executive Director Tim Sanders reminded Meeks that Lake County and the cities of East Chicago, Gary and Hammond each commit $3.5 million a year in casino cash to fund the development authority.
State Sen. Frank Mrvan, a Hammond Democrat who serves on the Budget Committee, said his home city has put its riverboat revenue to good use, primarily for infrastructure projects but also for the new College Bound scholarship program.
Mrvan said RDA brass, including board Chairman John Clark, need to make regional bus service in Lake and Porter counties a top priority so the public can see immediate results from the economic development initiative.
Meeks and other committee members wanted assurances that the Gary airport is maintaining a competitive edge over Illinois in the competition to establish a third Chicago airport.
"Peotone has been the gun on the table from the beginning," Clark said. "We are currently ahead of Peotone."