The working people of the Region get it. We all have tight schedules.
But most of us also understand stopping to give face time to the concerns of our friends, neighbors and family goes a long way in the sharing of common humanity.
So it was good to see Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg, a southern Indiana resident, visit the site of a Northwest Indiana crisis Wednesday.
Gregg visited East Chicago’s West Calumet low-income housing complex to hear the concerns of residents affected by an alarming lead-contamination crisis.
His Region visit followed The Times’ Sunday editorial criticizing current and prospective leaders of some of the state’s highest elected offices for not showing face in the lead debacle.
Upwards of 1,200 people must be relocated from the complex, where lead levels in the soil have been deemed dangerously high by the EPA.
Gregg’s visit was a nice gesture.
But we’ve yet to see many other elected and prospective leaders make time for the concerns of West Calumet residents.
It’s unfortunately not surprising.
A letter sent Nov. 21, 1985 — more than three decades ago — from U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky to the Environmental Protection Agency sounded an alarm about fears of contamination left behind by a lead smelting operation there.
The letter refers to the “immediate danger which this site poses.”
But it seems we’re just now hailing this problem as the emergency it truly is, and we still don’t know why it took so long to conclude residents should be relocated and that an elementary school was dangerously close to the contamination.
We need to know why. Our current and prospective leaders, including U.S. Senate hopefuls Evan Bayh and Todd Young, Gov. Mike Pence, Lt. Gov. and gubernatorial hopeful Eric Holcomb, Visclosky and others should be feverishly joining in this quest for truth.
For now, we thank Gregg and U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly, who’s scheduled to visit the West Calumet site Friday, for offering face time to this problem and the people it affects.
We’ve also learned Visclosky held an extensive meeting with East Chicago officials in recent weeks, and Pence has pledged a staff member to help.
But now it’s time for all of our current and prospective leaders to roll up their sleeves.
The Region demands help in determining how we got to this point — and how it will never happen again.