Little Cal bill to get Senate hearing next week
By Chelsea Schneider Kirk cschneider@post-trib.com February 6, 2012 5:38PM
Updated: February 6, 2012 8:53PM
An Indiana Senate committee will hear a bill establishing funding for the Little Calumet River levee next week, confirmed state Sen. Connie Lawson, R-Danville, on Monday.
Lawson heads the Senate Committee on Local Government, where the bill that the Indiana House approved, 84-10, was assigned.
The bill sets fees per year at $45 for residential parcels up to $360 for industrial parcels to help fund the maintenance and completion of the flood control project. The bill, authored by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso, also expands the board charged with overseeing the project from five to nine members.
“It’s a local issue and has got local support, so I think we need to at least give it a hearing,” Lawson said.
State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, who is an author on the House bill, said lawmakers have worked hard to make sure residents are happy with the funding proposal.
But the plan does have its opponents. The Hobart City Council passed a resolution last week opposing the legislation.
“The bottom line is not everyone is going to be happy,” Candelaria Reardon said. “If we are going to be supportive of each other … and have a regional identity it can’t always be — ‘what’s in it for me.’”
Soliday said he hopes politics don’t play into the bill as it’s heard in the Senate.
“I’m concerned that will start again and the politics of Lake County are now playing with 9,000 people’s homes,” Soliday said. “I hope we don’t go there this time.”
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