BY ROBYN MONAGHAN, Times of Northwest Indiana
rmonaghan@nwitimes.com
VALPARAISO | Porter County Council President Dan Whitten dubs it the "Daniels Illiana Speedway 500."
"They can't leave us alone," County Commission Bob Harper said. "All it's going to bring to Porter County is traffic jams, crime and high taxes."
The pair were reacting to Gov. Mitch Daniels' plan to develop the Illiana Expressway through southern Porter County. The new route announced Tuesday as part of the Illiana corridor planning study appears to track the highway on a southern jog running near Hebron, Boone Grove and Malden.
"I'm against it," Harper said. "There are some people who won't be satisfied until they tear right through southern Porter County without asking us or the people who live down there."
No one from any state agency tipped off Porter County officials about the new route, Harper said. Highway Engineer Dave Schelling didn't know anything about it until he saw the map in The Times on Tuesday, he said. If the road becomes a reality, Harper said, the state most likely will take land to build it through eminent domain.
"I know Mitch Daniels is looking for opportunities to mend his horrible approval rating here," Whitten said. "But Mitch Daniels doesn't live here, work here, or win here."
Easy access to arteries leading to Chicago and its suburbs may be a boon to southern Porter County, said Nick Brown, superintendent of Porter Township Schools. The kind of commerce that comes with a major highway may add some tax cash to school coffers, he said, but probably not as fast as it adds students to classrooms.
In the final analysis, the pitfalls may outweigh the positives, Brown said.
"I don't think the people of Porter Township and Boone Grove want to see an influx of gas stations and strip malls," he said. "The highway may be the kind of growth I'm not sure the community is interested in or ready for."
Not everybody sees a superhighway as a one-way street to urban sprawl.
To Porter Township Trustee Bob Wichlinski, it looks like the new route will send the Illiana Expressway right through his hay and cattle pasture. If he has to sell the acreage he bought in 1997 for a handy profit, he said, he can move his family and his cattle somewhere else.
Wichlinski said he's not afraid of change.
"Every time I see change, I see opportunity," he said.