Changes afoot with proposed Illiana Expressway in Indiana House

INDIANAPOLIS | House Speaker Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, is willing to alter a House proposal on the Illiana Expressway provided that several specific components remain unchanged.

Bauer's plan, presented exclusively to The Times, includes requiring public access to project information, holding public hearings in affected communities, conducting economic and environmental impact studies and setting clear terms regarding due process, eminent domain and reimbursement for local services.

"It's a statewide plan that would enable the Illiana, and other private projects, to be done in a uniform manner, ad infinitum," Bauer said.

In exchange, Bauer said he would drop a requirement that every local government sign a memorandum of understanding before work on the Illiana could begin.

Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and state Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, said requiring explicit local government approval was a deal-killer because of the possibility a single community could hold the bistate project hostage.

State Rep. Terri Austin, D-Anderson, said Tuesday she will work those changes into a proposed amendment following public testimony on the Illiana proposal. Austin is chairwoman of the House Roads and Transportation Committee.

Austin said she wants to hear from Northwest Indiana residents before finalizing her amendment to the one-page Illiana plan approved 48-0 last month by the Republican-controlled Senate. To that end, Austin will hold a public hearing in the region Feb. 18. She has not set a time or location for the hearing.

"After that Thursday, we'll have a pretty clear sense of what are some things that need to happen as a result," Austin said.

The Illiana Expressway is a proposed toll road connecting Interstate 65 in Lake County with Interstate 55 near Joliet, Ill. The current plan calls for the road to be built as a public-private partnership in which the state would own the land under the road, but a private company would build the road and collect tolls for its use.

In January, Austin's proposal was voted down when Dobis, then the No. 2 Democrat in the narrowly Democratic-controlled House, sided with Republicans on a key vote. Dobis said Austin's requirements would make it impossible for the road -- and jobs and development expected to accompany it -- to ever happen.

Bauer then stripped Dobis of his leadership post for defying Democratic leadership.

On Tuesday, Bauer said he wasn't trying to kill the Illiana, as Dobis claimed. Instead, he wants to make sure that all future public-private partnership deals take into account public input and protect local governments, he said.

"Once you do one project, this will be the first, many will follow," Bauer said. "That's the way Indiana is."