Northwest Indiana Discussion

It was late one afternoon in February 2006, when Gary Mayor Scott King finally delivered his last State of City address to a capacity crowd in one of the Genesis Center's banquet rooms. Unlike his previous annual reports, Mayor King's message that day went to great lengths, using easel supported charts, to diagram how the progressive elimination of federal funds, by the Bush administration, undermined a substantial amount of the city's day-to-day infrastructure. Everything from the number of policeman available each shift, the number usable squad cars, to keeping adequate personnel for the operation of municipally administered federal outreach and civic improvement programs - had been defunded.

Compounding this was the city's already poor tax base and its abysmal collection rate on property taxes, which was barely holding at 90 percent. Combined, it all torpedoed not only his administration but seriously impaired the ability of Gary to continue as an ongoing municipal corporation and political subdivision of Indiana government.

Fast-forward to Hammond's Y2011 & Y2012 budgetary woes. For Y2011 the city faced an estimated $14 million gap that blocked pay raises for most municipal employees and elected officials. In the following year, public discussion of Hammond's budget problems disclosed that collection of property taxes could fall to 96 percent. Simultaneously, Mayor McDermott revealed he had about a $16 million budget deficit to reconcile or erase against an initial estimate of $55 million needed to administer the city.

Meanwhile, the city's sanitary district announced it must incur another $77 million in bond debt for USEPA mandated upgrades to its sanitary sewer system. This was added to a $70 million bond debt still outstanding. This additional $77 million was coming straight out of property taxes, presumably leaving the funding of the sanitary district to a new fee schedule that its attorney, along with the mayoral administration, refused to disclose or even to ball-park. The eerie feeling of carte blanche now permeates the anticipated fee schedule change.

Recall that back in 2006 the resignation of Mayor King began with rumors. He too publicly dismissed them all as insignificant, if not idle speculation. Then, after spending a few weeks rearranging the positions of his staff, as reported by the Times, "Ending days of speculation, Mayor Scott King announced this morning he is resigning from his post for what he called family and financial reasons."

As King explained it, "This job was just an incredible experience. It's a great job -- except for the pay," he said, while noting he now wanted to pursue more lucrative work in the private sector through a law practice and consulting work. "I have a great love for this city, but I have a greater love for my family. It's that time for me."

By contrast, McDermott 's current drama began similarly but without extensive speculation. Here the probability is stronger. Consider the Kiesling column that broke to more fully expose the development potential: "Sources close to the McDermott administration say the mayor has contacted at least two high-ranking officials at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission about its executive director position."

It had been McDermott who initiated the query. It was McDermott actively seeking an out. He wasn't being recruited. In a subsequent Times report, the conduct is softened to state, "Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. confirmed Monday that he spoke with NIRPC officials about the agency's expected executive director opening. But he also said people shouldn't read too much into his expression of interest in the job with the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission." Shouldn't we? Here a retrospective massage of the language is employed to tamp down and/or neutralize the revelation's impact, restating it as mere confirmation of a largely benign contact.

The difficulty with all this is it lacks credibility. McDermott lacks credibility. Last Friday on WJOB radio, host Jim Dedelow sounded him out and instantly recognized the mayoral hedging that hinted he'd like out if he could parachute into the NIRPC post - or something comparable. His commitment to his position as mayor be damned. Now, less than three months into his third term, and finally, perhaps, secured against ever having to practice law again for a living; now, as a seasoned politician with the executive and managerial experience to solidify his curriculum vitae, the mayor made it sound as though after eight years at the city's helm he had done enough for the people of Hammond. That it is time for the city and its inhabitants to be subordinated to his interests.

The implication was the City of Hammond had gone out and pursued him, in a manner, say, that an NFL franchise goes about recruiting a star quarterback. Like other politicians, he just doesn't get it. We, the People, are the principal, and he is our public servant. He represents agency. We are the ones supporting him. It was the voters that made Tom McDermott, Jr., and not Tom McDermott, Jr. that made Hammond.

To hold or believe otherwise is a gross, very distortive inversion of the facts structuring, as well as framing, the current state of affairs pertaining to Mayor McDermott's tenure. For it was McDermott who stormed the electoral field to challenge then two-term mayor Duane Dedelow. Indeed, then a Republican, McDermott went so far as to switch parties rather than risk challenging Dedelow in a primary showdown. Ultimately, due to the Hammond GOP's reliance on general election crossover votes, the very coalition relied upon by his father to win three elections, and relied upon later by Dedelow, having lost it to the McDermott legacy, Hammond Republicans were simply outnumbered and Dedelow lost.

Then after nearly losing to George Janiek four years later, he not only won a second term, but then again last year, he once more faced Janiek. This time he championed himself as the fighter/protector of Hammond's Democratic Party values, a political warrior whose forte was single-combat on behalf of the local citizenry. This time around he was out to prove that Janiek's strong showing in 2007 had been a windfall, one that had resulted from a bout of political insolence, a contempt for not only Janiek, but that particular election contest itself.

Psychologically chastened by the near loss, this time around he was more aggressive, out to dispel any and all possibility his re-election would have been, and could now be, anything but an indisputable landslide. Today though, three months into his third term, McDermott appears listless, bored, existentially frustrated as well as politically stuck, unable as yet to contend for the real prize: the 1st Congressional seat held by Pete Visclosky. Still, Visclosky is well into his sixties and even if he refuses to step down, a three to four-year tenure at NIRPC could very well provide the expanded electorate and, hopefully, position him to develop the financial base from which to challenge him - if needed.

But I contend that if the rumors are true and he abandons his mayoralty in the first year of this term, if he quits the mayoralty and betrays the people and town he claims to cherish and appreciate, he will have become nothing more than a politician, for he will have also jettisoned any right to the claim of political leadership. He will never again wear the crown of leadership. Not authentically. True Leaders don't quit, and certainly not in the middle of Hammond's ongoing financial tribulations; indeed, in the very midst of its prolonged struggle to survive and remain viable.

In running for a third-term, McDermott implicitly promised, explicitly swore, as well as induced the moral expectation accompanying the understanding that he had freely, willingly, and voluntarily, decided to subordinate and sacrifice, for another four years, his prospects for professional and personal gain, and to limit his employment and opportunity to the position of mayor of Hammond, upon winning re-election. As it now stands, IF...if the rumors are true and he would prefer to move on to greener pastures, ASAP, then perhaps he's really been what his political enemies have constantly averred: a political opportunist.

Right now, one thing is certain, politically speaking Hammond is now an open town. His having initiated the NIRPC query rendered all loyalties to him undone. Of necessity it is now everyone for himself. Let new coalitions arise, for McDermott is now nothing more than mayor. No longer can he lay claim to a position of authentic leadership, it is just a job now. For he is looking to bailout and parachute land someplace, anyplace that will advance his career. Now he is just another self-serving politician. It is his legal right. And he still has legal authority and legal power, but he no longer has anyone's trust. He is now officially out for himself, after a mere three months into the term. And it is our right to seek new Party leadership.

So be it.

Neometric wrote:

It was late one afternoon in February 2006, when Gary Mayor Scott King finally delivered his last State of City address to a capacity crowd in one of the Genesis Center's banquet rooms. Unlike his previous annual reports, Mayor King's message that day went to great lengths, using easel supported charts, to diagram how the progressive elimination of federal funds, by the Bush administration, undermined a substantial amount of the city's day-to-day infrastructure. Everything from the number of policeman available each shift, the number usable squad cars, to keeping adequate personnel for the operation of municipally administered federal outreach and civic improvement programs - had been defunded.

Compounding this was the city's already poor tax base and its abysmal collection rate on property taxes, which was barely holding at 90 percent. Combined, it all torpedoed not only his administration but seriously impaired the ability of Gary to continue as an ongoing municipal corporation and political subdivision of Indiana government.

Fast-forward to Hammond's Y2011 & Y2012 budgetary woes. For Y2011 the city faced an estimated $14 million gap that blocked pay raises for most municipal employees and elected officials. In the following year, public discussion of Hammond's budget problems disclosed that collection of property taxes could fall to 96 percent. Simultaneously, Mayor McDermott revealed he had about a $16 million budget deficit to reconcile or erase against an initial estimate of $55 million needed to administer the city.

Meanwhile, the city's sanitary district announced it must incur another $77 million in bond debt for USEPA mandated upgrades to its sanitary sewer system. This was added to a $70 million bond debt still outstanding. This additional $77 million was coming straight out of property taxes, presumably leaving the funding of the sanitary district to a new fee schedule that its attorney, along with the mayoral administration, refused to disclose or even to ball park. The eerie feeling of carte blanche now permeates the anticipated fee schedule change.

Recall that back in 2006 the resignation of Mayor King began with rumors. He too publicly dismissed them all as insignificant, if not idle speculation. Then, after spending a few weeks rearranging the positions of his staff, as reported by the Times, "Ending days of speculation, Mayor Scott King announced this morning he is resigning from his post for what he called family and financial reasons."

As King explained it, "This job was just an incredible experience. It's a great job -- except for the pay," he said, while noting he now wanted to pursue more lucrative work in the private sector through a law practice and consulting work. "I have a great love for this city, but I have a greater love for my family. It's that time for me."

By contrast, McDermott 's current drama began similarly but without extensive speculation. Here the probability is stronger. Consider the Kiesling column that broke to more fully exposed the development potential: "Sources close to the McDermott administration say the mayor has contacted at least two high-ranking officials at the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission about its executive director position."

It had been McDermott who initiated the query. It was McDermott actively seeking an out. He wasn't being recruited. In a subsequent Times report, the conduct is softened to state, "Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. confirmed Monday that he spoke with NIRPC officials about the agency's expected executive director opening. But he also said people shouldn't read too much into his expression of interest in the job with the Northwestern Indiana Regional Planning Commission." Shouldn't we? Here a retrospective massage of the language is employed to tamp down and/or neutralize the revelation's impact, restating it as mere confirmation of a largely benign contact.

The difficulty with all this is it lacks credibility. McDermott lacks credibility. Last Friday on WJOB radio, host Jim Dedelow sounded him out and instantly recognized the mayoral hedging that hinted he 'd like out if he could parachute into the NIRPC post - or something comparable. His commitment to his position as mayor be damned. Now, less than three months into his third term, and finally, perhaps, secured against ever having to practice law again for a living; now, as a seasoned politician with the executive and managerial experience to solidify his curriculum vitae, the mayor made it sound as though after eight years at the city's helm he had done enough for the people of Hammond. That it is time for the city and its inhabitants to be subordinated to his interests.

The implication was the City of Hammond had gone out and pursued him, in manner, say, that an NFL franchise goes about in recruiting a star quarterback. Like other politicians, he just doesn't get it. We, the People, are the principal, and he is our public servant. He represents agency. We are the ones supporting him. It was the voters that made Tom McDermott, Jr., and not Tom McDermott, Jr. that made Hammond.

To hold or believe otherwise is a gross, very distortive inversion of the facts structuring, as well as framing, the current state of affairs pertaining to Mayor McDermott's tenure. For it was McDermott who stormed the electoral field to challenge then two-term mayor Duane Dedelow. Indeed, then a Republican, McDermott went so far as to switch parties rather than risk challenging Dedelow in a primary showdown. Ultimately, due to the Hammond GOP's reliance on general election crossover votes, the very coalition relied upon by his father to win three elections, and relied upon later by Dedelow, having lost it to the McDermott legacy, Hammond Republicans were simply outnumbered and Dedelow lost.

Then after nearly losing to George Janiek four years later, he not only won a second term, but then again last year, he once more faced Janiek. This time he championed himself as the fighter/protector of Hammond's Democratic Party values, a political warrior whose forte was single-combat on behalf of the local citizenry. This time around he was out to prove that Janiek's strong showing in 2007 had been a windfall, one that had resulted from a bout of political insolence, a contempt for not only Janiek, but that particular election contest itself.

Psychologically chastened by the near loss, this time around he was more aggressive, out to dispel any and all possibility his re-election would have been, and could now be, anything but an indisputable landslide. Today though, three months into his third term, McDermott appears listless, bored, existentially frustrated as well as politically stuck, unable as yet to contend for the real prize: the 1st Congressional seat held by Pete Visclosky. Still, Visclosky is well into his sixties and even if he refuses to step down, a three to four-year tenure at NIRPC could very provide the expanded electoral and, hopefully, position him to develop the financial base from which to challenge him - if needed.

But I contend that if the rumors are true and he abandons his mayoralty in the first year of this term, if he quits the mayoralty and betrays the people and town he claims to cherish and appreciate, he will have become nothing more than a politician, for he will have also jettisoned any right to the claim of political leadership. He will never again wear crown of leadership. Leaders don't quit, and certainly not in the middle of Hammond's ongoing financial tribulations; indeed, in the very midst of its prolonged struggle to survive and remain viable.

In running for a third-term, McDermott implicitly promised, explicitly swore, as well as induced the moral expectation accompanying the understanding that he had freely, willingly, and voluntarily, decided to subordinate and sacrifice, for another four years, his prospects for professional and personal prospects gain, and to limit his employment and opportunity to the position of mayor of Hammond, upon winning re-election. As it now stands, IF...if the rumors are true and he would prefer to move on to greener pastures, ASAP, then perhaps he's really been what his political enemies have constantly averred: a political opportunist.

Right now, one thing is certain, politically speaking Hammond is now an open town. His having initiated the NIRPC query rendered all loyalties to him undone. Of necessity it is now everyone for himself. Let new coalitions arise, for McDermott is now nothing more than mayor. No longer can he lay claim to a position of authentic leadership, it is just a job now. For he is looking to bailout and parachute land someplace, anyplace that will advance his career. Now he is just another self-serving politician. It is his legal right. And he still has legal authority and legal power, but he no longer has anyone's trust. He is now officially out for himself, after a mere three months into the term. And it is our right to seek new Party leadership.

So be it.

Wow, that was really long. Ever notice how long winded people don't have much to say? They just babble on and on, like an escapee from the local asylum for the mentally ill.

Poor Sparky, still suffer from ADD, eh? Or is it envy because you're unable to articulate your way out of a paper bag?

Poor Sparky, to hard for you grasp it was written for adults.
bye bye sparky

Personally, that seems to be more true of fat union guys who for whatever reason are trying to stay on the Mayor's radar screen.

At least The Man With The Golden Word Program offers some occasional insight.

In the long run, does it really matter? Mayor McDermott may land another job with a high-pollutant title but with few to no concrete requirements and responsibilities (and a decent paycheck) but his place will be taken by another equally inept, small-minded hack with the right contacts and family members and Hammond will continue to, at best, spin its wheels. Eiither way, the same cycle of knuckleheaded leadership will continue to perpetuate itself.

I'll bet the Oracle's pucker factor is at about +9 today.

if he quits the mayoralty and betrays the people and town he claims to cherish and appreciate, he will have become nothing more than a politician, for he will have also jettisoned any right to the claim of political leadership


What exactly has he done in his 2 terms not to be considered a political opportunist? I ask this question with 100% sincerety, other that spend other peoples money and put 3 out of 4 members of one family on various payrolls and keep revenue flowing into Kelly Consulting, what can one point to that Tom has done out of political leadership and not out of utter necessity or for future political gain?


He is now officially out for himself


I think that was the case the day he got out of law school. And re-enforced when he realized that practicing law required hard work and a lot of it.

The Orifice is busy trying to determine how many job openings in the private sector exist for "cardboard picker upper". He is a multi-faceted individual however, he can pick up sticks and cardboard.

Part of Tommie Two Tans resume follows, but it is interesting, Mr. Shut your trap has advanced on a business building trip to China. Fresh paint on the walls of a person who negotiates by tossing code enforcement or having a stacked election board take action in getting a candidate off the ballot.

Fact, Two Tan's re election was not a resounding endorsement, Just over 10% of the eligible voters turned out.

1. As widely reported elsewhere, got his daddy a Cush deal reportedly making nearly $1,000,000 on the Cabela's deal. Taking credit for A project that Dedelow started. Also by making all that asphalt run off, some would say McDermott helped the last two major floods to occur and then put an obstacle in front of the CARP plan

If you remember how Tommie Two Tans reportedly transferred the administration of the city Health Insurance plan to a company that was reportedly owned by Sr? This new company, some say because of ineptitude, some say because it was too difficult to make a proffit, returned the Health Administration back to the city, costing taxpayers a coooool $2,000,000.

I wonder if Senior still ows back taxes on his property. Has the house ever been placed on the tax sale? If not, I wonder why?

2. Understaffed the Hammond Fire Department. The national standard for fire fighters per fire rig are four, Hammond has sometimes two guys responding. That understaffing may have cost a number of people, their property, homes, or apartments and maybe even more, their lives.

If you think these guys are overworked, at the next fire, I challenge you to put on a fire suit and SCBA gear and spend just 10 minutes on the nozzle.

3. Spent nearly $33,000,000 on a charter school. Some say loaded up the cost of that project (no one has ever seen a published construction budget and/or cost over runs) for his family and friends and political contributors to his re election campaign.

4. One bright part of the Charter School, it was designed without a kitchen or gym, built on a contaminated site requiring mediation. Just don't eat the tomatoes grown their. Is it true the daughter, the school designer got the food catering contract? If that is true, I wonder where those meals are being made?

5. Let's not forget Lost Marsh. A costly building boondoggle, since construction its not only opearting at a loss, milking a cool $500,000 a year supporting the course and bullsht programs associated with the course.

Is it true that someone paid $30,000 to get a catering contract at that site?

6. Some will say Tommie Two Tans illegally released Woodmar Tif funds, Tommie Two Tans when asked about accountability, how the spent buckeroos met Tiff guidelines (by the State Board of Accounts), Tommie two tans ignored them. Never answered.

7. Established College Bound. Now this nationally recognized program, is Illegally funded by dollars redirected away from infrastructure, costing, to date, nearly $5,000,000 which out of 460 participants, only 60 have graduated. Again we have to take Tommie Two Tans word about this program. No audit, no review and no accounting has ever occured, to assure who received those educational benefits (assuring it is not a family and friends plan) or disclosing administrative cost (who is getting paid) to run the program.

8. Back to the Charter School, a $33,000,000 adventure, which has not performed as expected. Isn't it on the state academic watch list for poor performance?

9. On the bright side, some say he has placed most of the Whipple family in city jobs , donating to them approximately $6,000 in their time of need thru campaign funds to their cause. Now they're another 80,000 Hammond residents, some who could use jobs. Also lets not forget Mr fuller.

10. Some attribute to Tommie Two Tans, lug nuts shot thru Preacher, Chico's and almost thru Freetime's front window. Two Tan's guys were instrumental harassing freetime.

11. Now is it $2,000,000 or $2,250,000 Tommie Two Tans has spent on the legal clinic? Who really draws a salary at the clinic? And what has this clinic really accomplished?

12. One true benefactor is his most recent, past chief of staff, who landed on his feet. And Thanks must be given to Mr. Dabertin his new chief of staff. Tom gave Tom a $80,000+ part time job or is it a $160,000 part time job?

13. Now another benefactor, is Mr. Illiana ATM, it is not often a City Controller can put ATM machines in city hall and in business thru out Hammond and NWI. Didn't Tommie Two Tans say that he didn't know about it? Now the SBoA said nothing illegal about it.

14. Then let's talk about ignoring a federally mandated sewage project for the last 8 years. One bit of light on this is labor and material cost should be dramatically reduced. Fuel Cost will make up the difference.

15. Hammond has lots and lots of over priced baseball fields. Did anyone make a buck on that?

16. Those candidates that ran against Tommie Two Tans in the last election, got bonuses. Code Enforcement called out, harassment citations to city court. Democracy at it's best.

17. Tommie Two Tans claims a serious reduction in city staff! Tommie Two Tans transferred a whole host of employees to the water department, hiding their salaries and employment, failing to publish a fiscal accounting.

18. Tommie Two Tans claims to have reduced your taxes. Tommie Two Tans increased your taxes by making you pay for your trash bill.

19. Tommie Two Tans increased the debt load in Hammond to the point of ... well

Hell, I could write more, but I ran out of time.

hey sparkie?




are you ever going to get around to telling us which of those ''plenty of local charities'' you ''donate your time and money to''?

just one that's all

or will you man up and tell us the truth?

Well, he's expanded the marina, built the golf course, reconstructed the baseball fields, become the county chairman for Dems, has finally addressed the sanitary sewer upgrades, charter school, maintained law enforcement morale not only amid the PD members but among citizens and neighborhoods. He has kept the city viable by way of creatively exploiting various sources for revenue; and most of all - he started something of a movement beyond mere politics and ideologies, something closer to home, something that reaffirmed the history of Hammond and the quality and grit of its citizenry: A BELIEF IN PROGRESS IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY.

Yeah there are risks, risks his civic ambitions induced us to share and undertake with him. But it was/is much better than just shrinking back into our shell. But all this was borne on the expectation and promise that since it was largely, if not completely, his administration's gambit, his administration's adoption of an expansive urban plan, to now, less than three months into his third term, to think it would be sufficient to serve one year of this third term, and then parachute out in the middle of it all - is morally, socially, economically, and politically reprehensible.

Equally egregious is should he leave it again alienates and disenfranchises Hammond's voters for it throws control of his successor into the hands of a few committeemen instead of the citizens at large. That's what fatcat elitists like Evan Bayh and his ilk like to do.

Did I/we drink the tea? Oh yeah, but so did Mac.

Sure, he's expanded the marina and built baseball fields, and a golf course but he did so not by wisely deploying revenues from a growing tax base attracted to Hammond by its supposed potential but by raiding a piggy bank that was dropped into his lap. Let's just say I won a couple million in the lottery and decide to buy two Ferraris and a Porsche (for more pedestrian purposes) to lend a bit of pizzaz to my decrepit mobile home. I didn't earn the money through initiative or being industrious, but I played Tom McDermott on a small scale. Its pretty easy to accomplish grand things when you are spending other people's money and aren't really concerned about replacing it. Mayor Daley did wonders for the downtown Chicago skyline, or so they tell me. Of course when the bill comes due in the form of some of the highest taxes in America, it becomes apparent that all those bright lights are little more than eye candy.

How anyone can mistake Hammond for a viable city is beyond me. The city has to put its best foot forward to attract smokestack enterprises and retail employment most municipalities would rather do without. Parents do backflips when high school graduation rates approach 60%. Hammond has the dubious honor of becoming larger than Gary because Hammond is bleeding residents at a slightly lower rate that one of the most historically blighted cities in the nation.



Hah! That is priceless stuff. That drivel could've come from one of the newspaper editors, college chancellors, or minimally-skilled but connected individuals that feed off of those meaningless One Region-One Vision movements. If Hammond's citizenry exhibits any grit, it is because of laziness or poor hygiene. As heavy industry was losing its premier place in the American economy, Da' Region did little but whine about unfair foreign competition. There was no great movement towards high-tech or any emphasis placed on education beyond addition, subtraction, and voting Democratic. If a job didn't involve a hard hat, safety glasses, and reinforced metatarsal shoes, it really wasn't a job, was it? Forty years ago, the myth of the Regionite as a combination of Dick Butkus, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan may have had a bit of grounding in the truth. These days however, even your alpha males stand in line for four hours for a crack at seasonal work at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. You are a bunch of Willie Lomans, not Rocky Balboas. You have to laugh at the old timers who still see themselves as characters in a Steinbeck or a Sinclair novel. When adversity strikes, your representatives run for the state line and your mayors and their patronage employees cry for endlessly higher taxes.

I'm sure this stuff plays well at dingy East Chicago bars where the old timers congregate.

So cool, so sophisticated, so svelt an assessment. All this to mask an ill-willed cynicism about Hammond, and for Hammond; a cynicism that, like all cynics and those unable to constructively look beyond their solipsistic bile, you know the price of everything, the value of nothing.

Yes, Hammond might fail, but it won't because it quit contending for the good life, for a decent quality of life, and it won't have succumbed due to a lack of spirited will, because its history and the people who forged it don't know the word "quit"; don't know the concept of "can't". Yup, for a Hammondite the glass isn't half empty, it is always half full; and while dark nights of our individual and collective soul may threaten the equilibrium, Hammond believes, because it has good reason, that daybreak will come and with it the morning of a new day.

That is the promise of its history.

Contending for a good life, and for a decent quality of life requires more individual effort than calling each other on WJOB and complaining that Lake County got the shaft from tax cap legislation. It takes creativity devoted to ventures other than dreaming up ways around those tax caps. If you consider "spirited will" to be a bunch of "atta-boys" for a mayor who runs down to Indianapolis screeching that "people will die" if every resident of Indiana isn't enthusiastic about sending his or her last dime to his dying city--well, you have that in spades.

Where in Hammond's history are these examples of not knowing the word "quit" or the concept of "can't"? As a whole, the city enjoyed maybe 30-40 years of "prosperity" (region-style) thanks to a little known historical blip called World War II. Once European and Asian industrial centers rebuilt and retooled, did Rust Belt cities like Hammond buckle down and learn to work harder and smarter? No. They dug in their unionized heels and cried about unfair foreign competition. By the late 1970's, if the word "quit" and the concept of "can't" weren't woven into Hammond's city motto, they should have been.

But I certainly don't want to ruin your little fantasy camp. Residents of Hammond should not be discouraged from deriving their sense of self-worth by how close they are to Robert Pastrick, Tom Philpot, Robert Cantrell, or Tom McDermott. If getting an invitation to a fund-raiser hand-delivered by Dave Woerpel fools you into thinking your glass is half-full, enjoy. And, by all means, never ever stop viewing yourselves through the magical prism that transforms your high school dropouts and Krazy Kaplan clerks into John Waynes and Margaret Thatchers.