Mayor McCheeze of Hammond blows it big time

BP announced that they are NOT moving forward with their $110M asphalt terminal. I've heard that BP with ship the asphalt in barges to the South Side of Chicago, where another company will have a terminal.

With all the pressure on Hammond's budget, can they afford to lose $110M of taxable property?

Mayor McCheeze said that he was relieved that the plant will not be built in Hammond. He was worried about cancer.

Uh... these people live within a mile of an oil refinery that has been there for 118 years. More than likely, their basements have gasoline fumes, if not raw gasoline, leaking into them (the refinery predates the automobile, and was originally built to supply kerosine. They used to dump all the gasoline into pits and just light them on fire. Not all the gasoline burned, a lot of it soaked into the ground and comes up in basements in Whiting and Robertsdale).

If they're going to get cancer, it isn't from asphalt fumes!

It just... cheeses me (pun intended) that this investment is going to go to Chicago, after all they did to scuttle the refinery expansion.

Mitch is not my man

Mitch did an interview with the Post-Trib yesterday, and he said some things that I really have a hard time accepting:

City controller Celita Green has blamed Gary's budget shortfall on uncollected property taxes and assessment errors.

Green also points to the Lake County Council's failure to pass a local income tax last year. The state froze every tax levy in Lake County as a result.

Daniels defended that decision Tuesday. He pointed to skyrocketing property tax bills in Lake County, the only county in Indiana that doesn't have an income tax.

"I'll be glad when the county officials get their act together," Daniels said.

The governor also said he'd be willing to listen to proposals to put more of the local tax burden on large corporations like U.S. Steel.

State lawmakers gave tax breaks to major Lake County industries in 2003.

Meanwhile, U.S. Steel announced last month its second-quarter net income had doubled this year from last.

However, Daniels said a return to previous taxing levels for major industry wouldn't be acceptable.

"Those facilities were the most highly taxed anywhere in the world of steel," Daniels said.

I read these quotes as saying that he supports the County Option Income Tax in Lake County, and that he will support gutting HB 1858, which gave the big companies on the Lake tax relief.

This guy is a Republican? Why, exactly, should I support a Republican that is going to raise my taxes and give more money to Democrats?

HB 1858 was THE most important piece of tax legislation... ever? Okay, not ever, but it is important. It killed the big cities cash cow, and forced them to downsize significantly. That means less public employees, which means less Democrats.

As for an income tax in Lake County... we've gone over that a lot before. Not gonna happen.

Anyway, this interview makes me even less enthusiastic for Mitch than I was before, which wasn't easy to do!

Obama is working hard for my vote

I do like some things Obama says:

"I'm not one of these fair weather fans,'' the junior senator from Illinois and presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party explained. "You go to Wrigley Field, you have a beer, beautiful people up there. People aren't watching the game. It's not serious. White Sox, that's baseball. Southside."

Truth, brother. Truth.

Gary looking for a bailout, as usual

As usual, instead of fixing its own problems, the City of Gary is looking downstate for a bailout.

And they're still whining about HB 1858! It's been 5 years since 1858 was passed! Get over it!

Does Gary still have a health department? Does it still spend city money on its downtown ballpark? Does it still provide municipal EMS and garbage collection? Does its police force still own a helicopter? Do they still have a marine unit?

Does the City of Gary even need to exist?

No bailouts. Business as usual is unacceptable.

Doldrums

Just not a lot going on since the Sheriff got authorization to buy his foreign helicopter.

Hopefully, electioneering will start soon and generate some good posts.

On that subject, I am not at all confident that any incumbent is in trouble. For all the anger generated by tax bills last year, I wonder if people even remember, or if they do, they enough know to throw the bums out.

Interesting upcoming events

Committee to Elect Duane Dedelow Jr. - Lake County Commissioner 3rd District
invite you to meet Attorney General Steve Carter
Thursday, August 28th, 2008
5:00pm – 7:00pm at Villa Cesare Schererville, IN
Cocktails and hors d'oevres $100 per person.



Cedar Lake 6th annual Chicken Dinner-fund raiser.
Friday September 12, 2008
Great Oaks After Four Supper Club
13109 Wicker Ave. {Rt. 41}.
Cocktails at 5:30 dinner at 6:00 pm.
Dinner includes chicken, pasta, salad, veggies and desert.

Guest speaker will be Attorney General candidate Greg Zoeller.

Silent auction, 50/50 raffles, door prizes, cash bar and music.
Tickets are $15.00 per person. For more tickets or info call 219-374-7684.


Golf Outing Fundraiser for Dr. Andy Koultourides, candidate for Lake County Coroner
Friday, September 19th, 2008
Pheasant Valley Country Club
CrownPoint, IN
Lunch – 12:00pm
Shot Gun – 1:00pm
Donation $100.00/ticket
Sponsor a hole - $250.00, includes one golfer
To reserve tickets call 219-979-2631 or 219-742-4159

Gary public employees battle the Mayor over cuts

For once, I side with Gary Democrat Mayor Rudy Clay.

Gary needs to cut $15million dollars by the end of the year, and instead of mass layoffs, Clay cut everyone's pay 20%.

The public employee unions are all up in arms, suing the city. The police union was successful in getting a judge to butt into an area where it had no business, and stopped the city from imposing the cuts.

You know, the money isn't there. Clay had to either lay people off or cut pay. He chose to cut pay. I'm not going to fault the man for that.

These unions are living in La-La land. Do they really prefer to have mass layoffs rather than pay cuts?

Or are they just jockeying in the courts, trying to get cuts imposed on other unions, rather than their own? Firefighters get laid off, but the police get no cuts?

Gary public employees are just like the autoworkers: fighting over scraps while the company goes bankrupt.

Why does Lake County need a helicopter?

Cook County, with 5 times the population of Lake County, has no helicopters.

Lake County has 2.

Isn't there something wrong with that?

The City of Chicago has 2 helicopters. The City of Gary has one. Don't you think that if the Sheriff really needed one, he could borrow one from either of those cities?

Lake County Comissioner still talking about a county income tax

While Mayor McCheeze of Hammond may have given up on the county income tax, Lake County Comissioner Roosevelt Allen Jr. is still talking about how much it is needed.

Once again, you can see where Democrat allegiances lie. Allen only cares about the jobs of his friends and family in the City of Gary and Lake County. He doesn't give a rats ass about taxpayers.

Nobody cares about the "services" provided by Lake County. We want lower taxes. And for God's sake, no county income tax!

Lake County Sheriff gets his foreign helicopter

Well, the Lake County Council caved, and Sheriff Dominguez is going to get his foreign helicopter.

For what it's worth, he's buying an AMERICAN Eurocopter. That's like buying a Honda Accord and calling it an American car simply because it was bolted together in Ohio.

On the bright side, it appears that he's going from two helicopters to one. I guess that's progress. He also promised to make $2.2M in cuts in his budget in other areas to make up for the cost of the helicopter. Seeing as how that helicopter is going to be paid for over a number of years, I don't think that the actual budget cuts he's talking about are very large.

Lake County Democrats show where their loyalties lie: with the public employee unions

The Lake County Council let its highway workers make political contributions.

This is outrageous on a number of levels.

1) Why are county workers in ANY union? Mitch Daniels had it right when he threw the unions out of state government. Lake County needs to do the same.

2) Why is Councilman Ted Bilski the business manager for the Teamsters, who represent the highway workers in question? Seems like a huge conflict of interest to me.

3) Why should unions be allowed to perform "voter education"? What a bunch of crap that is.

Lake County Sheriff wants to buy a foreign helicopter

It isn't bad enough that Lake County Sheriff Domingiez wants to buy two brand new helicopters, each costing $2.5M dollars, in the midst of a severve fiscal crisis.

He wants to get those helicpoters from a European company, Eurocopter.

What's the matter with this guy? How about a nice Bell helicopter, from beautiful Forth Worth, Texas?

I think the Sheriff needs to do a number of things:

1) Prove that he even NEEDS one helicopter, much less two.

2) If he needs ONE helicopter, he needs to prove that he needs a new one.

3) If he needs a new one, he should buy one made in America by an American company.

Latest Lake County Pissing Match

Does the Lake County Sheriff need a helicopter? How about 2?

If so, should they be older than me? Or should Lake County buy some new ones?

That's what the latest pissing match between Democrat Lake County Sheriff Dominguez and Democrat Lake County Council President Cid is all about.

Dominguez wants new helicopters. The two he has are 37 years old. He wants to use windfall profits from home forclosures to pay a portion of the cost, and float bonds for the rest.

I can't help but think that these helicopters should be added to the list of things the Sheriff no longer does, like that marine patrol and patroling communities that already have police service.

Lake County Republicans are dealing with the devil

My favorite commenter, "g", left an awesome comment in the topic "Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman in Crown Point next month":

Is that "event" being held at the house where there appears to be back taxes due (prop #23-09-0513-0017?)

I love g because he knows the tax IDs for all the politicians' homes.

That tax ID is of course for the Tom McDermott Sr. residence in Crown Point:

Thomas M McDermott
1150 Churchill
Crown Point IN 46307

It's assessed at 1.2 MILLION DOLLARS! His annual property tax is $17,000 PER YEAR!

And as g mentioned, he's in arrears. He missed the January payment, and it looks like he may be a year behind.

This is yet another of a number of disturbing issues about Senior:

1) His son, Tom McDermott Jr. is the Democrat mayor of Hammond.

2) Senior's got a trophy wife that is decades younger than he is.

3) How on earth can he afford a $1.2M house?

4) Why is he behind on his taxes?

Republicans need to steer clear of this guy.

First signs of HB 1001 failure

I think that, long term, the tax reform of 2008 will be no different than the tax reform of 2004, 2002, 1995, 1986, etc. etc. etc.

These reform movemments come along every couple of years to try and fix the problems that the last tax reform caused. Unfortunately, the legislative process is such that is always causes unintended consequences.

Well, I see the unintended consequence of HB 1001 here.

The County Council is supposed to "review and coordinate" the budgets of the various entitites in the county. Because the tax cap applies to all the entities that tax you, there needs to be coordination, or else everyone will be competing for those limited dollars and chaos will ensue.

Unfortunately, the County Council in Lake County is completely incompetant, doesn't have the ability or the time to review these budgets, and their recommendations are non-binding anyway.

So basically it is a waste of time for the Council to review anything. And without a binding review, all the towns, villages, libraries, etc. will just increase their budgets as fast as they can under the law, because if they don't, another entity will and take "their money".

I predict more tax reform in the next few years!

Is it dead around here?

An Anonymous commenter says that this blog is dead.

Google Analytics would seem to disagree:

Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman in Crown Point next month

Just got this:

In honor of Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman's request to visit Lake County, a reception and Steak Fry will be held in her honor on Thursday, August 28, 2008. Preliminary plans are for a reception to be held at the home of Tom McDermott, Sr., followed by a Steak Fry and Buddy & Pal's in Crown Point. We're not sure of the times, but it's tentatively scheduled for the reception to begin at 5:00pm and the Steak Fry to begin at 6:00pm. Prices for both these events are being worked out and will be announced soon. For right now, please mark your calendars and plan to attend and spend some time with Becky.

Respectfully,
LCRCC

You know what's wrong with Lake County. Tom McDermott Senior, father of Mayor McCheeze of Hammond, who is a Democrat biggie, is a hooked up Republican. This, in a county where Republican county chairs used to conspire with the Democrat machine to run sham candidates.

Mitch at the Lake County Fair...

...this Sunday.

The South Shore Extension is deader than a doornail

Now the Feds say so.

Visclosky is a complete and utter failure. He didn't do the legwork to get the Extension going in Indy OR in DC. What a useless blowhard.

Well, at least the 50% of the people who are against the Extension are happy.