By VICKI URBANIK

The Porter County Commissioners on Tuesday condemned the use of taxpayer funds in the current marketing campaign supporting the South Shore commuter expansion to Lowell and Valparaiso.

The commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution criticizing the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority’s decision to grant $130,000 toward the Northwest Indiana Forum’s South Shore promotional effort, known as South Shore Connections.

The commissioners’ resolution notes that the RDA is an appointed, not elected body, and calls on the RDA to develop procedures against similar uses of tax funds in the future and to obtain from the Forum a disclosure of all contributors to the South promotional campaign.

The RDA, a public agency in Lake and Porter counties, gets its funding in part from the Porter County income tax. The Forum is a private, non-profit economic development organization that requested the RDA funding in October. Minutes from the RDA’s October meeting says the request represented an exception to the RDA’s normal protocol but that it was approved because of the timing involved and because the RDA has previously given marketing funds to the Regional Bus Authority, a separate public agency.

The Forum’s marketing campaign for the South Shore includes a series of glossy fliers that have been mass mailed to Northwest Indiana residents.

“It’s really not right,” said North Porter County Commissioner John Evans, who compared the mailings to the franking privileges at the state and federal level. “They shouldn’t spend (tax funds) on advertising.”

Evans, a member of the Gary/Chicago airport board, said the RDA had a problem with a request from the airport to use RDA funds for a promotional effort.

South County Commissioner Carole Knoblock said she thinks the South Shore expansion should be put to a referendum. Both Evans and Commissioner President Robert Harper have previously endorsed the same.

The resolution against using tax funds for the South Shore campaign was introduced by Harper, who has given general support for the expansion as long as it isn’t funded by a new tax but who has also raised questions about the expansion, such as long-term operating costs.

The commissioners’ resolution notes that at the time of the RDA’s October meeting, the only funding options that had been publicly discussed for the South Shore extension had been the possibility of a wheel tax or an income tax. At the time the $130,000 was approved, the RDA should have understood that there would be opposition to the South Shore proposal, the resolution says, adding: “If they were not expecting opposition, it would not be necessary to spend taxpayer money to promote it.”

The resolution goes on to say that the commissioners “feel it is not a proper use of taxpayer money to promote projects known to be controversial and which will be supported by some of the taxpayers and opposed by others,” especially when done by a board that’s not elected.

The resolution calls on the RDA to obtain a disclosure of everyone who has donated money to promote the expansion and the percentage of the money used “so that the taxpayers know not only how their money was spent, but who else donated money in the same promotion.”

Harper took the resolution a step further by reading into the record a letter that he’s sending the RDA as an individual.

His letter echoes the same points as the resolution but goes into more detail. “If you stop to think about it, those taxpayers that are against this have to watch their own tax dollars being used to promote something that they are against,” Harper’s letter says.

Harper also questioned who makes up the Chicago South Shore Connections while citing a webpage for the Citizens for the Extension of the South Shore line. The webpage describes the CESSL as a grassroots organization, but Harper said its webpage does not identify who is in the group. “It would be important for the public to know that if this public taxpayer money was commingled with other monies from special interest groups to send out this mailing. For example, was any of this mail paid for by people that own land around places that the South Shore station is expected to go in or land around the South Shore?” Harper wrote.

Posted 1/23/2008