The Porter County Board of Commissioners and leaders of the Porter County Council made it clear to the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority Tuesday morning that they expect a strong return on their investment and want to ensure the $3.5 million Porter County is investing annually in the consortium don’t fund projects in other counties without RDA membership.
Sherri Ziller, president and CEO of the NWI RDA, came prepared to give a presentation but Porter County Board of Commissioners President Jim Biggs, R-North, told her there wouldn’t be time for that since the board had added some items to its agenda. Instead, he and his fellow Commissioner Barb Regnitz, R-Center, grilled her with questions regarding the nearly $60 million the county has invested since the RDA’s creation by the Indiana General Assembly in 2006.
“We want to know what our ROI is because we get asked that,” Biggs said. “Sure,” Ziller replied. But Biggs countered that Porter County only gets information from her organization if it asks for it.
The RDA receives $17.5 million in annual funding from Lake and Porter Counties and the cities of Hammond, Gary, and East Chicago, as well as project-specific funding from the state to finance transformative regional infrastructure projects. The $643 million, 25-mile South Shore double track is one example.
Transit development districts, or TDDs, are being created to incentivize and promote development around South Shore stations. Ziller said the state has been promised that $2.7 billion in development would be experienced from NWI TDDs.
Two have been approved in Porter County and another is being developed. The Portage/Ogden Dunes and Dune Park TDDs are complete while the Beverly Shores/Pines TDD is in process and is expected to be complete later in the year.
Since airport development is one of the RDA’s four core mandates along with shoreline development and restoration, rail projects, and bus transportation projects, Regnitz wanted to know what could be done to facilitate the Porter County Regional Airport receiving assistance with the $3 to $5 million in expansions it would like to tackle. “They have a huge waiting list for hangars,” Regnitz said. “We would love to have some sort of dialogue.”
Ziller said the RDA is “trying to understand what their needs are” and that “they’re waiting for federal funds. I couldn’t agree with you more, Commissioner. You are a paying member of the RDA.”
She added that there has been a breakdown in communication and that as CEO for the past three years, she takes responsibility and will be happy to update the county at any time and keep the dialogue going.
Biggs, however, expects to hear from someone higher in the RDA chain of command, Board President Donald Fesko. “When the board president can’t make himself available when we ask him for the first time in 17 years, it’s the height of arrogance,” he said.
Biggs also expressed credulity that the RDA would assist non-paying non-member counties, asking Ziller her salary and whether the RDA board was really fine extending her work to non-paying counties. Ziller conceded that LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties are not paying members of the RDA, but said, “They are what’s called paying participants.”
In the hall, after the exchange, Bill Sheldrake, president of Policy Analytics, the RDA’s financial advisor for the past 20 years, offered some clarification. He said LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties each paid $18.5 million upfront to become paying participants.
Biggs asked Sheldrake what compensation his firm receives. He said it’s paid $25,000 per month for its services.
The commissioners were joined by Porter County Council President Andy Vasquez, R-4th, and Vice President Red Stone, R-1st. Vasquez wanted to know if the RDA has invested in any development in LaPorte and St. Joseph Counties. “The development that you’re seeing in LaPorte County and St. Joseph County, that is through their redevelopment commissions,” Ziller said.
Vasquez then asked if the RDA had outlaid any money for LaPorte County for shoreline development. Again, the answer was no. “We do not make investments with RDA dollars outside of Lake or Porter Counties,” Ziller said. She said LaPorte County was asked to be part of the RDA at its inception, but declined. It would take an act of the state legislature to make them part of it now.
Regnitz asked how the train station in Michigan City is funded. Ziller said federal, state, and local monies financed its construction. “RDA dollars did not go to fund Michigan City,” she added.
“The idea that somehow the RDA is controlling the TDD funds is incorrect,” Sheldrake said later. “That is part of the statute.” Incremental dollars go into the TDD Fund to be used in the contributing municipalities, he said.
Ziller offered that Porter County has benefitted from $47 million in direct investment, including $27.7 million in surface transportation, $15.75 million in shoreline redevelopment, and $2.9 million in deal closing, and said, “We’d be happy to calculate the ROI.”
“But we’ve invested $60 million,” Biggs said after the meeting.
Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
