BY KEITH BENMAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
kbenman@nwitimes.com
Three years after the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority first met to tackle the region's transportation problems, the seven-member panel finds itself at a crossroads.
Some of its major projects continue to spark controversy, and its funding may be at risk as cash-strapped cities look for ways to keep cops on the street and vital city services operating.
Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. said his city has contributed $10 million to the RDA and argues it's time the agency deliver on its promise of a regional bus system. That's why the city is threatening to "zero out" its own bus service, McDermott said.
"We will force the issue," McDermott said. "In Hammond, I'm not waiting another year."
The mayor of Lake County's second largest city is not the only one carping about the slow pace of RDA projects. Even one of its legislative founders, state Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, is expressing frustration.
The veteran legislator said he does not want to see any more RDA appropriations for the Gary/Chicago International Airport or Regional Bus Authority until he sees a "game plan" for both.
He said he doesn't blame the RDA. He blames the bus authority board and the people in charge of the airport.
"It seems everyone is dragging their feet and spending money on nothing but salaries," Dobis said.
The RDA is funding as many projects as it can while taking time to perform due diligence on each, according to Executive Director Tim Sanders.
The RDA recognizes some people, particularly mayors with bus systems, are frustrated by what they see as a lack of progress, Sanders said. But political and local divisions within the region also remain an obstacle to progress.
"We have to determine if we are a region that wants to move forward in a progressive, thoughtful way or not," he said.
By the end of this year, the RDA will be able to point to a completed Portage lakefront and riverwalk site at the National Lakeshore as a concrete example of its work, Sanders said. The project was funded with $10 million from the RDA.
Later this year, the South Shore will begin taking delivery of 14 new double-decker railcars for which the RDA put up $17.5 million. Also, express buses will start running from Valparaiso to Chicago, a project funded with $1.86 million in RDA money.
The RDA is a young organization and essentially the only one of its kind in the state, RDA Chairman Leigh Morris said.
"We are working on how best to communicate what the RDA is, and how it's going," Morris said.
State Sen. Earline Rogers, D-Gary, a key figure in winning state funding for the RDA, said the organization did not help itself by backing last year's publicity campaign for the South Shore extension.
The RDA funded the campaign with $130,000. The campaign was run by the Northwest Indiana Forum, which would not name other donors.
It had a target fundraising goal of $870,000.
"It was kind of overkill," Rogers said. "People became suspicious."
Legislation for funding the South Shore extension failed in the Indiana Senate, and a key summer legislative committee has yet to hold a promised meeting on the issue.
Opposition to any new taxes to support the South Shore extension among elected county leaders in Porter County and the lack of any ongoing funding source for the RBA beyond 2009 mean the RDA has its work cut out for it.
Gary Airport Director Chris Curry attributed the delay in the airport expansion project to difficulties in negotiating with three railroads regarding the moving of railroad tracks that sit at the end of its main runway.
He said it took a regional effort, including the Northwest Indiana Forum and the region's entire congressional delegation, to negotiate the memorandum of understanding recently signed by the railroads.
The RBA also has made progress on regional busing in the last year, said RBA chairman Dennis Rittenmeyer. The soon-to-launch Valparaiso express buses are one example. The RBA also has taken on fiscal responsibility for three regional routes currently run by Gary Public Transportation Corp. A new regional call center is up and running.