text: "Fair" isn't the question. It's more like greed, or despiration, or no jobs in the private sector because of too much corruption. Of course property taxes, and all of the alternative ways to get money, will continue up and up. And the battles between and within political parties will keep it moving. Our towns are divided, and, as the Book of Common Prayer said, "There is no health in us." It's a long way back, one step at a time, and calling people names isn't helpful, no matter how great the provocation.
  March 20, 2013 8:08 am on Gary council formalizes support for county income tax Gary may have a fight with some other communities who have already raised school taxes, Library Taxes, Fire levies - and would still like more. There are still relatives out there without city jobs. Property taxes - and all the rest --will continue up until we kick some of the crooked pols out of office. But the local political parties are split into smithereens from power grabs. To quote one of our younger pols "We took over the party". Doesn't much matter which party or which town or whatever. When there are no independent jobs, political power struggles will wreck any attempt at good government. And the battles with downstate will further make it impossible to elect anyone honest.
  March 20, 2013 7:55 am on Gary council formalizes support for county income tax Hopefully, the County Council will bumble along as usual, and the higher tax won't get passed. Most of the municipalities have already found methods to get what the want, by referedums or bonding or lots of fees. Lake County will continue to get taxed to pieces so the local pols can hire more relatives or friends, (read "voters") unless the citizens adopt an ordered approach to fighting the cost, corruption, etc. Get to the meetings and speak up - comment in the local papers, and talk to the neighbors. Keeping it civil and factual helps. It's taken a long time to get in this mess, and it wll take a lot of work to change it.
  March 15, 2013 9:13 am on Senator: If Lake council wants higher income tax, it should act now Too many folks in the area don't know anything about the Academic Learning Center - the business incubator that was established there is very quiet. No outreach or publicity for the facility seems to have been generated. Lots of high tech in the classrooms, which made it more expensive. We can do better than this.
  March 15, 2013 9:03 am on PUC faces $4 million deficit, will close learning center Putting in an income tax now, without closely defining how it will be used, could put NWI into the same position as IL. Cities and towns have akready found ways around shortage, with referendums and bonding, which has raised property taxes. Adding a property tax on top without some controls will add to the amount spent on lawyers, patronage of all types, and other ways of insuring votes for public officials. There has to be a better way, and Charbonneau is a couple years late on his idea. And Rich James - - - - probably a decade or so.
  March 13, 2013 10:58 am on RICH JAMES: Charbonneau makes income tax more palatable More likely it's a way to hire more jobless people to vote for the mayor. Ot maybe give them extra jobs so their whole family will vote for the mayor.
  March 12, 2013 11:25 pm on Officials: Rental registration fees promote better housing conditions As I understand it, the recent referendum for the Crown Point schools was based on lack of income from the State. Now it appears that the pink slips for teachers and crying kids was just window dressing, and the cash was for "new programs" from the start. Ditto the Bond issue for the new library. If they vote an income tax on top, that makes Center Township people left holding the bag for a lot of money that was possibly gotten under false pretenses. It's likely that this has gone on everywhere in the County. Is it impossible to find some transparency?
  March 12, 2013 11:04 pm on Lake Council appears ready to embark on taxing journey Since Center Township has already gotten saddled with a School levy, and Crown Point (and Center Twp) has gotten hit with a levy for the new library, a sales tax on top seems a bit much. The town fathers appear very inventive when it comes to new funding schemes, and I have no doubt that they'd just add on to the sales tax. I'll be at the Council Meeting.
  February 19, 2013 2:51 pm on Council may get to control funds from Lake County income tax I think Shelli did really well. Didn't know she could write.
  February 14, 2013 10:19 am on Indiana lawmaker from C.P. works to protect police dogs This should not be a news item - it's opinion, pure and simple. All of the legislators mentioned were democrats, no attempt was made to balance the opinion. If it was on the opinion page, fine - but it ws presented as fact. It's hard to find a news source that approaches balance - maybe we'll have to start our own. There should be a little advertising around after our minor-league news papers hit the dust.