Northwest Indiana Discussion

and this has nothing to do with hammond...but everything to do with what the fire chief predicted!

http://nwi.com/articles/2008/07/20/news ... 7a755c.txt

CROWN POINT | The Lake County Sheriff's Marine Unit, which has assisted hundreds of mariners stranded in Lake Michigan over the years, now is sending out its own distress signal.

Lake County officials are recommending scuttling the sheriff's service to save an estimated $350,000.

so if this is cut...the tax caps will indeed be putting peoples lives at greater risk

Oracle,

Notice how they are only pointing out the public service cuts that could occur

How come there are no elected people saying how many secretary's, janitor's, maintenance personnel, or landscapers that may be laid off and how much they would save the taxpayers?

Its always only the Police, Fire stuff being mentioned. I bet if they cut back on the people I listed, the sheriff could easily afford to keep the LCSMU

Typical fear tactics from government officials anytime someone mentions cutting budgets. The sheriff doesn't want to lose one single dollar from his budget so he will not even discuss consolidating expensive, overlapping jurisdictions. He could care less about the destructive effects of the high tax burden in Lake county as long as he maintains power. I think the state should move to abolish the position of elected county sheriffs and appoint professional law enforcement officers.

I didn't read the article but this is sounding like a wonderful idea! Eliminate the county police and let the unincorporated areas contract with nearby cities for police protection or hire private contract services. I suppose we'd have to keep the figurehead office of sheriff for constitutional purposes, but we can bring the annual cost down to about $100,000 and give him a small broom closet somewhere for office space and take away his take home car and helicopter. Finally a Domingas proposal I can fully support!

It's quite apparent from your post that you didn't read the article. The story is talking about the possibility of eliminating the Lake county sheriff's maritime unit because the Coast Guard provides similar services.

the problem with the coast guard is their nearest boat is stationed in greys lake and their nearest copter is 20 minutes away from northwest indiana.

fortunately in hammond..we have a couple of boats with our fd and can do some emergency water rescues. the smaller towns along the lake however...are going to be screwed when people run into trouble on the lake.

Wrong again "Oracle"
There is a Coast Guard station at Calumet Park, which is just west of the Hammond marina. Read all about it here:

http://nwi.com/articles/2003/02/16/news ... 83c757.txt

From the story:

Janetka is one of the 37 men and three women stationed at the U.S. Coast Guard's Calumet Harbor station. The white house on the far eastern edge of Calumet Park on the city's Southeast Side serves as home to the Guardsmen while they are on their 13 member, 48-hour shifts.

The station is responsible for the Lake Michigan shores from Burns Harbor to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago. Part of their jurisdiction overlaps with the station in Michigan City, which is responsible for patrols from Miller Beach in Gary to the Warren Dunes State Park in Sawyer, Mich.

updated: 7/22/2008 12:32:40 PM

South Bend Looks to Eliminate 200 Jobs
InsideINdianaBusiness.com Report

The City of South Bend is planning to cut 200 jobs over the next two years, including firefighters and police officers. Mayor Stephen Luecke says a projected loss of more than $18 million in property tax revenue is prompting the reductions. The 200 positions represent 15 percent of the city's staff. The proposed cuts are in addition to a seven percent citywide reduction of 95 staff, which has already occurred through efficiencies and greater reliance on technology.

Pay your mother you freeloader before you end up being a hobo riding the rails and eating out of tin cans.

two big differences in our favor between here and south bend.

1 our tax base has been growing (ours is going up nearly 10% next year), while theres has been shrinking

2. we have the biggest river boat on earth set to open up in the next couple of weeks.

2. we have the biggest river boat on earth set to open up in the next couple of weeks.

Well the biggest barge anyway, since the boat will never sail again. I'm not real happy about that.

Actually it wasn't the money alone that persuaded me to vote yes the 2nd time. I voted against the boats the 1st time. It was the boat trip and the thought that one day it would dock in downtown Chicago which as you could imagine brought up all kinds of possibilities in my mind. Obviously that was never gonna happen, nor was it ever promised. Still my feeling was that the boats would be like the ones in Pinellas County Florida where you at least get a nice little mini cruse and a pretty night view to see. So that plus the promise that the money would go to infrastructure, and not general spending like what happened when the mills were footing the bills, won me over. This was one of my biggest reasons to oppose Team Slumlord along with an anticipated lax code enforcement of rental units.

Honestly, if the vote were held today and I knew it would be what it is today (or will be in a few weeks) and they eliminated the infrastructure requirements I'm not so sure that I wouldn't vote to oppose. But to it's credit Hammond has at least tried to use the money for infrastructure even when it didn't have to. Not like EC, for example, that is known to have handed out a casino related contract to about anybody who would go down to the library and fill out a form regardless of business viability.