EDITORIAL: RDA must battle misinformation

Tuesday's Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority symposium shed plenty of light on both the need for regional unity and for educating the public on its benefits.

As the six panelists discussed the issues Tuesday, it was clear who "gets it" and who doesn't.

Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. summed it up well: "We need to think bigger."

That means looking at what's best for the region and not focusing exclusively at parochial interests.

Gary/Chicago International Airport has long been identified as one of Northwest Indiana's biggest economic engines. The RDA is pumping millions into expanding that airport, but doing so brings far more federal money.

The RDA's role is to leverage local money for a large share of state and federal dollars for projects that a single community couldn't do on its own.

"If this turns out to be the next Midway, Porter County will be affected in a very positive way," McDermott said.

The airport expansion isn't finished yet, but impatience is inadvisable. Projects of this magnitude take time. The RDA exists to fund massive, long-range projects for massive, long-lasting impact on the quality of life.

"The South Shore expansion doesn't help Hammond very much, but we still support it, because it's good for the region," McDermott said.

Mark Reshkin also spoke well about the power of working together as a region:

"Ever hear of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Connecticut?" That's the group that built the World Trade Center, among other major economic development projects.

Porter County Commissioner Bob Harper contends it's a false assumption "that we can spend and tax ourselves into prosperity."

Perhaps he has forgotten what the investment in the interstate highway system and the creation of a deep-water port in Portage did for national and global commerce. Those projects required spending and, yes, taxes, but have paid off handsomely for the public. Each brought prosperity.

The clear victor in Tuesday's discussion was the concept of regionalism. It takes regional cohesion to bring in the dollars from elsewhere for projects that have the power to create permanent, positive legacies like public transportation, access to the Lake Michigan shoreline and other environmental, transportation and economic development.

As U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., said in his recorded message, his grandparents' generation built the steel mills and refineries that made the region great. His parents' generation built the Borman Expressway and Interstate 65 and saved the Dunes.

And now it's time for the current generation to do its part to transform the region. That requires the RDA's involvement.

The RDA is an asset that must be protected, not abandoned. It has some work to do in educating the public about what it does, however.

The lesson the RDA should take away from Tuesday's symposium, sponsored by The Times, and from the anti-RDA sentiment expressed by some is that there is much misinformation about the RDA's mission and how it operates.

This in an area on which the RDA must focus.

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