Officials in St. Joseph County want to join a group of counties, including Elkhart, that could get money in excess of what the state initially promised from the proposed $3.85 billion lease of the Indiana Toll Road.
In a Friday meeting, the St. Joseph County Commissioners adopted a resolution indicating the county's preference to join a regional development authority that would send $100 million for economic development projects in Elkhart, LaGrange and Steuben counties over the next 10 years.
Those counties, St. Joe County and the four other counties that the toll road crosses already were promised $1.3 billion from the lease deal, before the RDA provision was added to the legislation that would let private investors run the interstate.
State Rep. Jackie Walorski introduced the provision just before the House passed the toll road proposal and sent it along for consideration by the Senate.
St. Joe County officials criticized Walorski for overlooking her home county. But the Republican from Lakeville has said that neither the local officials nor the Democrat state lawmakers from St. Joe County expressed a clear desire to be part of an RDA.
"The interest has to come from the local level," Walorski said after a town hall meeting Thursday, where she invited Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman to answer voters' questions about the toll road venture.
"I couldn't just choose categorically to include St. Joe County," said Walorski, who added that she had talked with local government officials in both St. Joe and Elkhart counties about her RDA idea.
Elkhart County voters, she said, comprise about two-thirds of her district and St. Joe County one-third.
Friday's move by the St. Joseph County Commissioners asks state legislators to include the county in the Elkhart-LaGrange-Steuben bloc. If that's not possible, then St. Joe County wants to form a separate RDA with LaPorte County.
"My only concern is that while I think we have an economic connection with Elkhart County, I'm just not sure that our ties are as strong with LaGrange or Steuben" counties, one of the commissioners, Democrat Cindy Bodle, told The Truth Friday.
"I think that our state senators have expressed an interest in getting us into (the RDA), and I think we've got a shot if (the toll road proposal) goes anywhere" in the Senate. "If it doesn't, that'll kill everyone's chances of being in (the RDA), which I think is only right."
The toll road proposal narrowly passed the House on a 52-47 party-line vote. It now awaits review in the Senate, where the RDA provision could be nixed, according to Sen. Robert Meeks, R-LaGrange, the legislation's sponsor in the Senate.
Meeks said the proposal came to the Senate full of "pork-barrel provisions" that demonstrated "an insatiable appetite for greed," The Associate Press reported.
"I just think there's a better way of doing it," he told The Truth's newsgathering partner, WNDU-TV. "Why don't we just give each county a dollar value, and they decide what they want to do with it themselves. Why do I have to create an RDA, when I can give every one of them a certain dollar value, whether it's 10, 20, 25 (million); just dump it in their coffers and let them decide how to spend it."
Meeks said he did not know how any changes would affect another House vote, the AP reported, but he was talking with House Republicans to determine what it would take to clear that chamber a second time.
If the Senate committee amends the legislation late this month and then it wins approval in the full Senate, it would have to be reconsidered by the House and need at least 51 votes to pass, according to the AP.
Walorski said Thursday that St. Joe County appears to have the option of joining the proposed RDA with counties to its east or with an established RDA in northwestern Indiana.
"I think it's good that St. Joe County has options," Walorski said Thursday.