The Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority on Thursday resolved to use any 1 percent food and beverage tax adopted by the Lake County Council exclusively for public transportation.
"We are moving forward to make sure we can have a more efficient and more connected system of public transit in Northwest Indiana," said RDA member Harley Snyder.
The unanimous adoption of the resolution at the RDA's meeting at the Purdue Technology Center drew an alarmed rebuke from Speros Batistatos, CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority.
"I'm here today to urge you, before you take a step over this cliff, take a step back," Batistatos told the board at the public comment portion of the meeting.
Any food and beverage tax proceeds properly belong to the hospitality industry, Batistatos said. He has proposed using the tax to build a convention center.
Batistatos said he plans to argue against the tax at Tuesday's County Council meeting, when the council is expected to vote on implementing the tax.
Under legislation passed in 2005, if the County Council adopts the tax, it then goes to the RDA for distribution.
RDA Chairman Leigh Morris has said the tax could fund regional bus service or commuter rail or both.
Thursday's meeting also saw the release of a report, first by Batistatos and then the RDA, which reviewed an earlier study on bus transportation done for the Northwest Indiana Regional Bus Authority.
Batistatos said the new report, by engineering firm Parsons Brinckerhoff, blows a hole in the earlier report, which found that regional bus ridership would double or even quintuple if service were expanded.
RDA members said Batistatos was being selective in picking out only parts of the report that backed up his contentions.
"You chose to look at one specific sentence in one paragraph out of a 30-page report," Morris said.
The Parsons Brinckerhoff report states that ridership in Hammond, East Chicago and Gary could increase up to 10 percent if no-transfer service was started between them.
New transit services to communities not currently served could increase overall ridership up to 25 percent, according to the report.
The earlier report was called into question by state Rep. Chet Dobis, D-Merrillville, and commissioned by the RDA. Dobis also called for an audit of the RBA.
That audit gave RBA finances a clean bill of health, RBA President Dennis Rittenmeyer said after Thursday's meeting. It has not been yet released to the public.
The Parsons Brinckerhoff report also found that local bus companies were on the verge of collapse due to tax caps mandated by the Indiana General Assembly and were in need of new funding sources.
"Let me say the only condition that has changed is it's far more important for us to have public transportation today," Snyder said.
