Northwest Indiana Discussion

wasnt that long ago, when team hammond and their lone successfull candidate puppet were claiming that all casino revenue should be given back to the tax payers and that none of it should ever go towards the budget.

well two years later kim poland now according to the times says this....City Councilwoman Kim Poland, who was the only current Hammond council member to attend the meeting, said she supported the idea of using casino dollars to keep the transit system in place permanently.

there ya go. she now wants to permanantly fund a budget item with casino dollars. it took less than two years for her to flip from the main principle she ran on in the first place. and the funny thing is george and the rest of team hammond are proud of her for doing it.

for free and others that have trouble recognizing it, the next paragraph below is sarcasm aimed at wes, george, and kims old campaign tactics aimed at the mayor)

but what if the casino flops or struggles? we certainly cant depend on it to fund even a part of the budget! besides, its tax payer money and belongs to them...we shouldnt spend it at all unless its on basic infrastructure like georges, 2 billion dollar sewer proposal!

(sarcasm over) now, how can they argue credibly against anything the mayor and the council decide is in the best intrest of the citizens with casino money? they cant!

you see, the team schammond folks are the ones who have been hypocrytical all along. and as time goes by they proove it more and more.

mind you, im not oppossed to funding the buses with casino money. im opposed to funding them at all with any money since they clearly are under utilized and a waste of time for city government to continue to be involved with in anyway. if only 40 people showed up at was heralded as the last ditch effort to save the system in a city of 80,000 (thats .0005% of the populas free)...and according to the story at least 4 of them (george and kim kieth matesovski and ernie dillon) were politicians that dont use the system...then it obviously isnt a system worth saving.

mind you, im not oppossed to funding the buses with casino money. im opposed to funding them at all with any money since they clearly are under utilized and a waste of time for city government to continue to be involved with in anyway. if only 40 people showed up at was heralded as the last ditch effort to save the system in a city of 80,000 (thats .0005% of the populas free)...and according to the story at least 4 of them (george and kim kieth matesovski and ernie dillon) were politicians that dont use the system...then it obviously isnt a system worth saving.

Simple solution - run the buses for free on casino money. Double the number of buses, add more bus shelters and say screw the fares. Run them buses until at least 9 PM so folks using the South Shore can use them. Oh and BTW demand the RDA return our $10 mil, that's not done a damned thing for Hammond, first and we'll just use that money instead to pay for it all for a while.

But the casino money should benefit the entire city, not 0.001% of the population


So far the buses have been a waste of money and they need to go away


Yesterday I saw a grand total of 1 person get on at Walmart, and that brought the grand total of riders on the bus to 1. I even followed the bus until it dropped off the person, and then it went back to Walmart and not one person got back on. Yep tax dollars at work, funding riders dressed as seats

I was talking just yesterday about the bus situation to someone who works in a government social services department who wished the service was better and more reliable, as then it might actually serve a real purpose. Even though my previous comment was a bit on the sarcastic side those really are valid contributing factors to poor ridership. You see the bus service is crappy at best but nobody is willing to make the service on par with the CTA so it's usefulness and cost effectiveness is highly suspect. And that improvement would be way expensive!

So truly the better option is for the RDA to take over, except it also will not make the needed upgrades to at least vastly increase ridership.

You know even before McDermott was elected I suggested a short overhead monorail type system, as at that time I believe the Feds would kick in most of the cost of a few miles as an experiment. But since then between the RDA wanting to run buses and the West Shore any slight glimmer that prospect might have had is pretty much gone. But I think instead of the West Shore if money were not a factor (which of course it is) there should be both an inner city and a north south monorail connecting points of interest like the the South Shore, the casinos, the airport, government complexes, universities, shopping centers, whatever. Then have van sized ground vehicles to run routes to the stops. Or something on this order. Call it a 22nd century version of the L-trains for NWI. But it would be every bit the white elephant as the current operations and plans. The only difference is it would be more progressive.

That said, I truly felt that is you only had say 3 miles of Federal funding a monorail from the South Shore to Wolf Lake to the casino (which also has the Amtrak station nearby of course) would be the best bang. Problem is that most of our shopping district is on 165th. Otherwise it could have been a start to something big and grand. But that plan might have had a bit better chance had the Gary airport "taken off" and the South Shore flag stop at the airport not been such a secret all this time. Then the Horseshoe could have easily ran promotional packages connecting the airport, to the South Shore, to the Casino. Plus that same connection also works for Wolf Lake festivals. But again, more dream than practical.

So in all even were money unlimited would any transportation scheme be supported by ridership? Nope. You could never charge enough in fares to even pay the workers. So whether it's the "modest" expenditure to keep the empty city transit buses running empty, an improved plan that would cost way more but probably only increase ridership a little, or some grand scheme that would cost a fortune all said and done we just don't have this kind of money to piss out the window anymore.

first off, the fishtanks are at least appreciated by some people. the buses arent and they cost about 10000 times the amount to run on an annual basis.

but more to the point kim has opposed using casino money in the past to build parks for the city which virtually every family with a child can utilize (maybe 50%). she has opposed it to buy and rid the city of the river park complex nightmare which has been appreciated by about 1/3 of the citizens of the city. she has opposed using casino funds for the state line curb which is appreciated by a couple of thousand residents in that neighborhood. she has opposed using the casino cash to build a magnet/charter school which will benefit about 600 families a year.

even more specifically she has opposed using the money to fund employee insurance benefits on the grounds that that should be a budgetary item!

but to run a bus system that only a handfull of citizens ride? why she wants to just pour casino money into that...

as for the rda. that isnt a voluntary expenditure. the city is ordered to contribute to the rda by the state government, and failure to comply would forfit all of the casino revenue.

i have various reasons for opposing the city bus system through any financial mechanism (poor utilizationm low demand) but to claim it deserves casino funding while the above issues do not is utterly prepostorous and hypocritical

most people can understand that position. sure people can disagree...but if people like free claim they dont understand that(as she just did), then they are either morons or they are clearly playing politics with the issue.

Were you complaining about your $1 a month insurance plan when you worked for the city Freetime?

And when you worked for the city, there were complaints about insurance costs back then as well. Insurance costs have been an issue for almost 10 years now

from Oracle

even more specifically she has opposed using the money to fund employee insurance benefits on the grounds that that should be a budgetary item!


It should be a budgetary item. Then the true cost of city government could be measured. This administration surely doesn't want Hammond residents to have to pay the actual cost to keep this city afloat, he'd never get re-elected. As I have posted before, if that boat sank tommorrow this city would be screwed, blued and tattooed. That boat funds so many programs it was never intended to fund it an't funny.

You are absolutely right. There should be no more union contracts for city workers at all because it shafts the other city workers and needlessly raises the cost of labor to the taxpayers. You're right! The mayor should just say no to the Teamsters and not renew their contracts.

Unfortunately, its still the area's best performing boat.

But it will be interesting to see how much longer it is profitable if the economy does indeed stay sour for as long as they suspect it may last

Probably about the time the Ford workers get their pink slips. We already know President Obama has promised to kill off the BP expansion.