Daniels: Toll Road lease NWI's best hope

Gov. Mitch Daniels spent much of Thursday pushing his Indiana Toll Road privatization plan in a swing through Northwest Indiana, which has become one of the plan's biggest speed bumps.

"I still hope to see the day, when folks here will relax a little of their understandable cynicism," Daniels told Times editors near the end of a one-hour question-and-answer session at the newspaper.

The $3.8 billion bid from an Australian-Spanish Consortium to run the Toll Road for 75 years has divided the state's northern tier. Community groups and political bodies have passed resolutions against the lease. Republican legislators have lined up for it and Democrats against. Some business leaders are starting to speak out in favor.

Daniels reaffirmed his view that the Toll Road lease represents an unmatched opportunity for Northwest Indiana and the state, and that the plan has nothing to do with partisan politics.

"Most of the money will rain down on places where not too many people voted for me," he said in comments clearly directed at Lake County and other urban centers in northern Indiana.

Daniels appeared relaxed and ready for the open-ended chat, despite having made at least three previous stops since the morning, including one hour on a local radio show.

He wore a light blue tie and a small U.S. flag pin in the left lapel of his suit coat. He often spread his hands wide to show just how much the plan could mean for Northwest Indiana and then brought them together to show how little other alternatives offer.

His talk was not all conciliatory, as he jabbed at powerful House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, who has criticized the plan in part because foreign-based companies will end up in control of the road.

"It's the world we live in," Daniels said. "What I'm concerned about is Hoosiers having good jobs."

One week ago, the governor appeared to throw one more bone to the northern tier when he backed a House measure to create a Northeast Indiana Regional Development Authority. That has opened up further divisions.

The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority, established last year, is funded with $17.5 million per year from local casino funds and a Porter County income tax. An estimated $10 million more per year will come from Toll Road revenues.

The Northeast Indiana Regional Development Authority would be 100 percent funded with Toll Road lease money.

Daniels said he believes those participating in any regional development authority "ought to have skin in the game."

"The way the one in Lake and Porter is set up, I think that's a fundamental, that the communities and the counties do make a commitment and investment and aren't just scrapping over what they see as free dollars," he said.

The Northeast Indiana Regional Development Authority made it through the Indiana House as an amendment to Daniels' Toll Road privatization legislation. But its fate in the Senate remains uncertain. One key senator there has said he'll move to rescind another key amendment giving Toll Road commuters a break on tolls.

The governor said in the end, he wants the seven Toll Road counties to decide what to do with any money left over once road projects here are funded out of lease money. He estimated that could be $300 million to $400 million.

But he stuck firm to his original plan to assign just 34 percent of the lease money, about $1.35 billion to the northern tier. The rest will go to fund road projects across the state.

The type of public-private partnerships authorized by the Toll Road legislation also could be the best hope for getting the long-talked about Illiana Expressway off the ground, Daniels said.

The noncompete clause in the Toll Road lease, which bars the state from building four-lane, controlled access highways within 10 miles of the Toll Road, would in no way impede the building of the Illiana, Daniels said.

There have been concerns that it could, particularly in LaPorte County, where the Illiana might impinge on the Toll Road's 10-mile buffer zone.

"I'm not here to give anything away, or take anything away from anyone," Daniels said.