Editorial Roundup:

The Munster Times. February 22, 2020

Lawmakers must bridge gap for Griffith secession

The entire state has a vested interest in Griffith's successful exit from the waste and corruption of Calumet Township government.

Now the Legislature should act to install the final length of bridge Griffith needs to find its way to another township or administer its own poor-relief services.

The Indiana Senate is expected to vote in February to give Griffith the option of joining Ross Township following a 2018 referendum in which Griffith voters overwhelmingly voted to exit Calumet Township.

And under the same bill, if Griffith and Ross Township can't come to an accord, Griffith would be allowed to administer its own township services.

It would appear that measure is a final crucial piece for the town to finally break free from Calumet, which has been plagued by wasteful spending, criminally convicted past trustees and other scandals in recent decades.

The Senate should pass the bill without delay, and so should the Indiana House.

Griffith has been courting new township suitors since it voted to secede from Calumet Township in 2018.

The referendum vote followed a law written and successfully pushed through the Legislature in 2012 by former Indiana House Rep. Hal Slager, R-Schererville.

That bill paved the way for the secession referendum.

But since the vote, Griffith has had a hard time landing in a new township.

As written, the secession law allows Griffith to join a township that is contiguous with its borders, leaving North Township and St. John Township as the only other alternatives to Calumet.

Those two townships and their leadership have thus far been shortsighted about the additional tax revenue and benefits Griffith would bring to their layers of government.

But nearby Ross Township showed early interest in Griffith joining its ranks, even if the law forbade it.

The pending bill, sponsored by Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, rightly would allow Griffith to join Ross Township if both sides can come to an agreement.

And if no such agreement can be reached, Griffith would be allowed to break off on its own, free of any township.

Some lawmakers want to stand in the way of this sensible solution.

State Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary, argues the departure of Griffith from Calumet Township would shift the property tax burden in such a way that Calumet Township would lose $727,000 in annual revenue.

But Calumet Township had a number of years to attempt to bring its spending and sky-high poor-relief tax rate in line with the rest of the state. By some estimates, the Calumet Township poor-relief tax rate has hovered some 30 times higher than the state average.

It couldn't do so, and the law opened a window for Griffith to depart.

Town voters have spoken, under the law, and have called for secession via referendum.

Now lawmakers must show they support citizens who clamor for more responsible government.

The upcoming votes in the Legislature continue the referendum on bad government. State lawmakers should ensure they're on the right side of history.

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The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette. February 19, 2020

Doing it Best

Anchor tenant announcement could be win for Electric Works - and New Haven

In traditional malls, 'œanchor tenant'ť generally denoted a department or big box-type chain store that could draw business for smaller retailers: a JCPenney, perhaps, or a Macy's. When Electric Works' developers first began pitching their vision for a work-shop-play-live center on the old General Electric campus, the presumption was that the 'œanchor'ť would be an entity involved with education, or health care, or both.

After all, the inspiration for Electric Works was the American Tobacco Campus in Durham, North Carolina. There, the conversion of a huge tobacco-processing district into a highly successful multiuse center was enabled by Duke University's decision to lease more than a third of the campus' space.

Several of the entities signing on as prospective Electric Works tenants reflected the 'œeds and meds'ť theme set by Electric Works' development consortium, RTM Ventures. But as a Duke-sized education or health entity failed to materialize, and as RTM asked for extensions to meet the city's requirements for square-footage commitments, some of the project's supporters were clearly beginning to worry.

The solution, it turned out, would be provided by a well-thought-of but low-key company now located just a few miles east of the GE campus in New Haven. Do it Best Corp.'s announcement that it will lease nearly 200,000 square feet to move its world headquarters to Electric Works all but ensures the release of $62 million in local public funds when the overall deal closes. The announcement will force the developers to put a residential component on hold, but Do it Best looks like a surprisingly good fit as anchor for the innovative center.

Indiana's largest privately owned business, Do it Best Corp. describes itself as 'œThe World's Largest Hardware Store.'ť But Do it Best's operation here is about keeping a huge network of member-owned hardware and building-material outlets in the United States and 46 other nations running smoothly.

The 440 employees who will move to the Electric Works facility '“ and the 90 new workers the company plans to hire '“ won't be driving trucks or unloading pallets of hardware. They'll be engaged in such 21st-century corporate tasks as supply-chain management, technical support and marketing. The training and collaboration that Electric Works is designed to nurture, as well as the amenities of the center and the downtown area should help Do it Best attract, develop and retain workers with those much-sought-afterskills.

The $2.4 billion corporation's involvement may also give added credibility to the Electric Works venture, encouraging wary investors to buy in. 'œCapital looks at a tenant like Do it Best and says, that's an established, credit-based company,'ť Jeff Kingsbury, one of the RTM partners, said in an interview last week.

Some will argue that Electric Works should be about attracting new businesses from far away, not encouraging a local company to move from New Haven to Fort Wayne. That concern is, in this case at least, misplaced, as New Haven Mayor Steve McMichael recognized.

'œLet's say they moved out of the area,'ť McMichael told The Journal Gazette's Rosa Salter Rodriguez. 'œThen you would have had employees who would have to make a choice between moving for a job and staying and not having a job, and that would not be a good thing.'ť

McMichael is wisely concentrating on finding a new tenant for Do it Best's present location. As he noted, the facility is well-built and its proximity to highways and railroads which once served the hardware giant's needs could be just as attractive to a new tenant. Retaining and adding jobs at a Fort Wayne Do it Best headquarters and bringing a new company to New Haven would be a win for the whole region.

The 'œeds and meds'ť slogan may have to give way to something like 'œtools and schools,'ť but Do it Best's decision is a huge step toward making Electric Works a reality.

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The (Anderson) Herald Bulletin. February 20, 2020

Sheriff's rehab plans should be applauded

With the good news of the number of inmates being low in our county jail, Madison County Sheriff Scott Mellinger is planning to make use of the free space to keep those numbers down.

Mellinger is planning to use two empty cell blocks for an addiction rehabilitation program, which is a practical and beneficial use of the space.

The jail is likely the only county asset that we should be happy is being underused. However, the additional space should be put to effective use for the county.

It is easy to lose sight of the rehabilitation aspect of incarceration, with some programs being decried as 'œperks'ť for prisoners. We must remember that while incarceration is a punishment, we have an interest in seeing that convicted criminals are reformed.

In an ideal world, criminals go to prison and at the end of the sentence productive citizens emerge.

Programs that make former inmates more employable and more functional members of society are key to making that happen.

Such programs will give inmates the tools they need to live life outside of prison and keep recidivism rates low.

'œThere are some jails around the state with a program and there has been a huge change in the recidivism rates,'ť Mellinger said.

If these programs have been producing positive results, then let the results speak for themselves.

As incarceration rates are low in the county, we applaud Mellinger for taking steps to see that trend continue.