Oh my what to do with $170 million

We've covered this story multiple times here on Porter County Politics, but the Post Tribune brought it up again, so let's delve into a few of the details.

• Porter County sold it's county owned hospital to Community Health
• The new owners committed to building a brand new state of the art hospital, on SR 49 north of Valparaiso. But NIMBY's (those who don't want anything built) are fighting the construction of the new health campus.
  
• In the meantime the county council "agreed" with themselves to keep the money locked up, or at least the principal for five years. They have also decided momentarily to lock up the interest proceeds as well.
  
• During the elections in 2008, county Treasurer Jim Murphy suggested the county use it's interest proceeds to help out cities and towns who were cash starved due to the Auditor and Assessor taking three years to do a year's worth of bills. The county council voted 4-2 against helping the local towns and cities.

Where do you stand, where would you like to see those dollars used or invested or saved?

My opinion, for what it's worth:

• Open a local "bond bank" for local communities needing to borrow due to assessor and auditor delays. Charge 1% for the monies, less than other lending institutions, but still making the county a pittance. Allow up to the entire $7 million in interest to be used for this purpose. "Bond bank" to be managed by incoming Treasurer Mike Bucko (D) and outgoing Treasurer Jim Murphy (R).
  
• Immediately form a blue ribbon panel to look at county government re-organization. Give them six months to come back with their report. Include members from labor, both parties, business, and charities. Since the Democrats control the county, they should choose the chairperson ... although I would highly recommend Laura Blaney (D)
  
• Drop the resistance to the RDA, since the lion's share of that tax is actually a property tax reduction. Re-seat a board member to represent Porter County, seems like Portage should get that seat perhaps Ross Pangere? If I were the mayor of Portage I'd sure want to see Portage better represented.
  
• Drop the contract with First Source Bank, an out of region bank, and have Centier or some other local entity manage the principal. Continue with the agreement to lock up the principal until the new hospital is open, which appears to be about 4 years out. In the meantime form a blue ribbon "Grow Porter County" panel from both parties and labor and charities, to look at the best way over a ten year period to use those funds. I think we all agree that we need job creation, and that the county sitting on 1/4 Billion Dollars isn't creating any jobs ... unless you count out of town consultants.
  
• Clean out the assessor and auditor positions, we need new people in both positions ... leaders willing to look at re-organization and at new paradigms of management concepts.

Go ahead and disagree, or argue the points, we encourage active engagement here.