In today's Tribune guest column, Gibson begins by somewhat awkwardly touting the building of an Education and Technology Building at Indiana University Southeast, basing his advocacy exclusively on the grounds of short-term construction jobs and their benefit to the local economy, while not commenting at all on the intrinsic long-term benefits of the structure within the context of the university's mission.
Presumably, IUS stands to be strengthened by the classrooms to be housed within the building, and the instruction to be enabled by it, but we read none of this. Obviously, building a new Education and Technology Building at IUS will put people to work – for a while, at least – but how will having the building assist the university’s future educational mission? How will having such a building help us down the road, by adding value to the university, and by creating jobs that are not temporary?
The problem with Gibson arguing the desirability of jobs created by a construction project without consideration of merits of the project itself is that there’ll be people, among them far too many building and construction “leaders” standing to profit mightily from the largesse, making the very same claim about the Ohio River Bridges Project.
(How these “leaders” politically manipulate institutions such as One Southern Indiana in pursuit of future largesse is another topic for another day).
Gibson concludes his column with the first tangible indication that maybe, just maybe, the somnolent local Democratic establishment finally has noticed the low hanging fruit of an emerging campaign issue: No Tolls.
I will reiterate that while tolls stand to be devastating to Southern Indiana small business, "no tolls" as political phraseology means less than nothing if it does not bring the listener into the tent for a broader discussion of the inexcusably massive boondoggle of the ORBP, a chat which must include straight talk about innovative 21st-century mass transportation solutions, not the planned obsolescence of 20th-century initiatives to reinforce automotive-fueled sprawl, ones that possess all the vision and deftness of Stalinist dam-building projects, even if they generate lucrative pork for the members of 1SI’s non-transparent public policy committee.
GIBSON: Time to get to work on a new IUS facility
... Only when people don't get what they want do they say it is “all or nothing.” Why is that the case? In the end, tolls are not good for the majority of citizens or businesses in Floyd County and New Albany.
2 comments:
Look deeply citizens into the pork barrel abyss for the creation of a semi=autonomous "tolling authority". There is so much political patronage to throw around in a giant transportation boondoggle like the 3 bridges project it can make career politicians of soo many unemployed civil servants. In that sense it does address the long-term employment prospects of politicians and their friends.
It's good for construction trades...wait, is road building and it's political "management" the only thing our region can do at this point in history?
Said staring daily at all the rail lines and street car lines snaking through our oil patch.
I'd settle for innovative 19th-century mass transit solutions, from back when those construction "leaders" used to build transit lines themselves because they well understood the development benefits.
But why do that, when under a sham of conservatism and at the expense of less choice for everyone else, the government will subsidize your personal desires?
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