By PAULENE POPARAD

Northwest Indiana leaders voiced opposing views Thursday on whether the South Shore’s proposed commuter rail expansion to Lowell and Valparaiso is worth risking a last-minute local tax here imposed by legislators downstate.

Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission members heard executive director John Swanson report on the status of H.B. 1220, a funding mechanism for a $350 million local share of the $1 billion rail project. As initially proposed under H.B. 1220, $30 million per year in state sales tax generated in Lake and Porter counties would be earmarked to retire bonds for the South Shore’s West Lake expansion.

A Senate committee recommended the controversial matter be referred to a summer study commission. The House version of the bill authorized the Lake/Porter diversion but also included sales-tax captures in LaPorte and St. Joseph counties for South Shore capital improvements there.

With the General Assembly headed into its final days, Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper urged NIRPC to remain wary of what could happen in Indianapolis regarding the South Shore, even allowing its public owner the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District to levy a new tax. “Absolutely, totally I’d not support that. That’s why we have to be vigilant. I think anything could happen.”

Porter County Councilman Dan Whitten agreed. He said it would be outrageous to give NICTD taxing authority. “There’s taxation all over the place. It’s a shell game.”

But Valparaiso Mayor Jon Costas said, “The perception (in Indianapolis) is we don’t have much skin in the game.” Rail extensions elsewhere invariably create growth around them, he said, and only a small percentage of local money is being asked to leverage a larger amount elsewhere. Chicago offers world-class jobs that never would be available here, he noted, defending West Lake’s more-direct link to them.

Harper pointed to a scenario developed for the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority that contemplates a food and beverage tax in Lake and Porter counties to help fund West Lake. Swanson said that was drawn up before the sales-tax diversion was proposed.

In December the NIRPC Executive Board passed a motion supporting West Lake. At Harper’s urging the Full Commission voting Jan. 17 qualified its support making it contingent on the sales-tax diversion method of financing. No action was taken Thursday to reverse that stand.

Harper continued to question whether the RDA is capable of paying a $150 million share of the West Lake construction costs without finding new income. Porter County currently pays $3.5 million a year through an income tax to help fund the RDA. Harper also asked whether population statistics justify a rail expansion now, especially when he said only 10 to 15 percent of South Shore ridership is from Porter County. Most of West Lake’s new ridership will board between Munster and Hammond, he predicted.

Swanson said he is advised the RDA can fund its current obligations and West Lake. He also said growth is taking place in central and southern Lake and Porter counties, and South Shore ridership has risen from 10,000 per day to 14,500.

Lake County Surveyor George Van Til said he hopes the South Shore extension isn’t dead. “(NIRPC’s name) says regional planning. It doesn’t say regional naysaying. On the other hand, we shouldn’t give carte blanche approval. How can we continue to support this and hopefully move it forward, understanding the end project may not totally look like the beginning project?”

Van Til did ask why NICTD hasn’t formally applied to the RDA for $150 million for West Lake. Swanson said it’s a timing issue tied to a request for $500 million in federal construction funds for new-starts rail lines. The sale-tax diversion would finance the remaining $350 million construction cost although no funding plan has addressed the approximately $13 million a year needed for West Lake’s annual operational costs.

Van Til said there’s still time to put the brakes on West Lake down the road. “We should continue to support it; we should continue to question it. We cannot let this go away.”

Lake County Commissioner Roosevelt Allen Jr. asked what NIRPC’s focus should be: helping surburbanites get into Chicago with long commutes or reinvesting in this region so jobs are closer and employees can spend more quality time with their families? Swanson said both; the region needs to rebuild its economic base, however, one in four Lake County workers are employed in Illinois already and more people are moving here from Illinois daily.

Allen said investors considering regional projects are concerned that focusing on West Lake will impede redevelopment here.

Hammond would get a gateway station on the new West Lake line. Its mayor, Thomas McDermott Jr., said, “I don’t understand why we don’t get behind it. I wish we’d all get on the same page.” He and Van Til called it a weakness that West Lake doesn’t include a spur into the Gary/Chicago Airport.

NIRPC chairman Whiting Mayor Joseph Stahura uged its committees to keep a watchful eye on H.B. 1220. “It may be dead. It may not be dead.”

During public comment, Sandy O’Brien of the Sierra Club asked how the RDA will fund both West Lake and a regional bus system. She, too, questioned where West Lake’s annual operating costs would come and suggested building only a portion of the West Lake route at this time. “We just can’t keep sprawling and think everything will be OK."

Posted 2/29/2008