The public debate over the proposed Northern Indiana Regional Transportation District may have kicked off in earnest on Tuesday, with a scorching rejection of the new agency from County Commissioner President Robert Harper.

In a statement read at Tuesday’s commissioner meeting, Harper urged citizens to get involved in the debate and make sure to vote on Nov. 3, saying that the decision is one of the most important that they will make in a long time.

“I believe that if this (referendum) is approved, it will simply be the start of one tax after another, none of which the taxpayers of this county will ever be able to rid themselves of,” Harper said. “We read day after day about suburban counties around Chicago having to pay more and more taxes each year to support this type of scheme. I think that’s where we’re headed if we don’t stand up right now and defeat this referendum.”

Porter County, along with Lake, LaPorte and St. Joseph counties, are now required to hold a Nov. 3 referendum asking voters if they support creating the NIRTD, which could impose an income tax of up to 0.25 percent in each county that joins in order to fund regional bus and commuter rail services.

The referendum and the NIRTD language were included in the state’s budget bill on the last day of the special session last week.

According to Sundae Kubacki, Republican director of the Porter County Voter Registration Office, the cost to Porter County to hold the election -- during this non-election year -- will be $226,500. If the NIRTD public question were added to the ballot next year, the added expense would have been negligible.

Kubacki said the Voter Registration Office will go before the Porter County Council seeking additional funding. Since there wasn’t supposed to be a countywide election this year, the county has no budget for one, she said.

Harper said the costs could be shaved by $100,000 or more by using paper ballots or other alternatives. He said the county election board is expected to discuss ways to cut the referendum’s costs at an upcoming meeting.

In his statement, Harper was particularly critical of one component of the NIRTD language dealing with the creation of a bus service board, which would involve only Lake and Porter counties.

Questioning why Porter County should be involved in the bus board, Harper linked the issue to Valparaiso’s V-Line bus system. He said the city service generates only about $25,000 in farebox revenue excluding a payment from Valparaiso University, and that city officials have said that the cost to run the city buses could be as high as $600,000 once federal funding runs out.

He called the potential costs for the V-Line “one of the most underreported stories, if it’s ever been reported at all.”

Harper also took exception to the potential that additional taxes in Porter County will be needed to bail out the financially troubled bus systems in Hammond, Gary and East Chicago. Those cities and Lake County have received about $1 billion in casino gambling revenues since 1996, he said. Further, their property tax rates are considerably higher than in Porter County.

“And we have to help them shore that up?” he said of the citiesâ bus systems.

He also expressed doubts that the new income tax would raise enough funding for everything the NIRTD is expected to do, including an extension of the South Shore to Lowell and Valparaiso. He noted that when the Regional Development Authority was first proposed, media reports and supporters made it sound as if the RDA would have enough money for all its projects, which hasn’t been the case.

Harper’s colleagues, John Evans and Carole Knoblock, made no statements of their own about the issue.

Posted 7/8/2009