Northwest Indiana Discussion

http://nwi.com/articles/2009/03/29/news ... 7fb92c.txt

Lake County Council President Larry Blanchard said he is so upset regarding the continued push by some mayors for a local income tax that he is prepared to think of the unthinkable -- merging all 19 of its cities and towns into one governmental unit.

Could you imagine the possibility of one city under Clay?

At the heart of this matter I think there are a number of duties that our cities do which might be better done by the county, such as murder investigations and other serious felonies to cite one possibility, and let the local departments merely service the city courts. OTOH I think the governor wants to eliminate city courts if possible.

But could you just picture Lake County becoming a unified city? Bring in a couple of TV stations and it could be a real world class city at least in terms of resources and population. But the big downside is the Gary/ East Chicago problem. Despite industry revenues they will continue to be a major drain on government services. And I'm sure people in rural Lake County have little inclination towards yet another big government entity to support. They would enjoy the least benefit at the greatest expense, especially in the tiny remaining unincorporated areas.

I could almost support a big city solution that excludes Gary & EC with some arbitrary southern border just past US 30, I suppose. But then with the problems of Gary/ EC remaining unaddressed you're still stuck with a major thorn in the side. But if they were included it might address some of the political corruption. Or the whole thing could just become a huge cesspool of corruption. Not really sure which way the axe would fall in that regard.

But I come to one conclusion on this question. We cannot have a unigovernment without an independent Human Resources department. And there is no valid reason why the county doesn't implement one today. Short of that I don't see things really improving.