04-25-05 Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING APRIL 25,2005 Ms. Kelly Havens, 12032 Timberline Trace, Granger, Indiana, stated that she is not a South Bend resident, but she is asking in the spirit of being a good community partner, not to proceed with this venture that could hurt all county residents as well as your own constituents. Ms. Havens sympathizes with all the neighbors who do not want this and with South Bend residents who would be asked to back the TIF bond for this project, that is as every bit as build it and they will come as was the College Football Hall of Fame. The most direct damage to her and every other taxpayer in this County, would be the enormous cost of an interchange at that location, and the supporting county road realignments. The former of course would eat of my state gas tax dollars, to the tune of ten (10) to twelve (12) million dollars according to INDOT.The latter would eat of my county wheel tax dollars which she is not all that fond of paying in the first place. How critical is this interchange, interesting the developers have given two (2) answers. The first use a lot of words like critical and pivotal, the second was more like it’s really not that important, we will find a way… Not many of you on the Council are shrewd business people confronted with a pair of answers like that which one would you put the money on? Assuming therefore that the interchange is critical, lets ask the key question. How likely are we to get one? To get an answer, she went to INDOT and MDOT, why MDOT you may ask, we are not in Michigan? Two reasons the proposed interchange is within one mile of a failed interchange that is in Michigan, the Bertrand Road exit, and the second is because the South Bend Tribune did not want her to pursue this. This raised her curiosity. She was not surprised when the Tribune editors did not want her to comment on Blackthorns undeveloped areas, even though she had them documented, nor did they want her to talk about how many of the City’s big economic developments move jobs from one part of the County to another, which is also well documented. But what they absolutely refused to let her include in her letter to the Tribune was any mention of the Bertrand Road exit. Ms. Havens stated that it is already dramatic enough to just point out that there are already two (2) Indiana exits within three miles of the proposed interchange. It raises a red flag that an exit got started just one mile north and stopped, leaving barricaded ramps going nowhere. It leaves everyone who drives by to see and ask boy who are the people who dreamed this up? The answer that she got from MDOT is that twenty (20) years ago that was supposed to become a visitor’s center. That makes sense that it is the entrance to the State. It fell through for two reasons, one (1) Projected traffic did not and still does not justify it, nor will it until such time as the by-pass would connect to I-94. Secondly, there is already an interchange, just 8 miles up the road at U.S. 12. MDOT thought it would be foolish to build another interchange just 8 miles of an existing interchange, given the traffic flow in that area, which is the area that we are talking about tonight. Unless INDOT is rolling in money or has much lower standards than MDOT, they would not approve this project tonight. INDOT has not even agreed to even study this interchange. If they agree to do so, it will take two (2) to three (3) years to analyze the situation.Even if they decide to do it, it would still be a ten (10) to twelve (12) year backlog before the could start to address this problem. Based on this information before you tonight would the Council be willing to risk a multi-million dollar venture. One piece of information that has not be published anywhere, Ms. Havens asked INDOT point blank whether or not they have criteria for how many interchanges that they would put into a given stretch of miles, they referred her to their interchange spacing